Introduction

We are now in a series of messages on the Sermon on the Mount. We began with the marks of a new covenant saint that we find by reading the beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12) vertically as well as horizontally (without isolating any one from the others). A new covenant saint is pure in heart, poor in spirit, sorrowful over sin, hungry for righteousness, persecuted, but gentle, merciful, and a peacemaker.

Next, we discussed the blessings of the Christian. There are six blessings contained within two bookends indicated by the repetition of the phrase, "theirs is the kingdom of God" (vs. 3, 10). Therefore, each blessing is a kingdom blessing and each has the same now and not yet essence that characterizes the kingdom. We have covered the first five; today we will cover the last one: childship to God (v. 9, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God). We will consider how childship to God is both something already present and something yet to come (a present reality and a future certainty).

1A. Childship to God is a present reality

We have sonship and daughtership now by faith: as many as received him have that right (Jn. 1:12, But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God). When we read about this right, we should be amazed. Just think about it, we have the right to the title "children of God." Many may claim that title for themselves with presumptuous self-righteousness. However, it is not a natural designation and its use leaps out at us suddenly and unexpectedly. Three things make the use of this language of sonship quite remarkable and cause us to pause and reflect.

1) The John 1:12 context stresses our determined opposition to God. We were in darkness (1:5, the light of Christ shines in darkness). He came into the world bringing life and light but the world "did not know Him" (1:10). His own people "did not receive Him" (1:11). John 3 gives more on our falleness and darkness. Picking up on the theme of the light coming into darkness, we are told that our opposition to God is a matter of love, that is, of love for the darkness because our deeds are evil (3:19). It is also a matter of hatred: "For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed" (3:20).

It is this love for darkness and this hatred of the light that makes John 1:12 a difficult passage to understand. How can it be the case that some receive Him and the right to childship to God? This question is even harder to answer when we recognize that receiving and believing ("to all who did receive him, who believed in his name") is something that fallen man cannot do. The "cannot" passages in John 3 make this point firmly:

ESV John 3:3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

ESV John 3:10 Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Plainly, those who have not been born again are in a state in which they cannot see, understand, receive, or believe the things of God.

So again, we must ask, "how can it be that some people do in fact receive the Lord Jesus and believe in His name?" We must find the answer in John 1:13. The people who receive Christ do so because they have been born of God ("who were born…of God"). Receiving Christ is not something we do in order to be born into God’s family. Receiving Christ is not something that comes by natural descent or by the will of man ("not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man"). It cannot come from man because in our fallen condition we cannot see, understand, receive, or believe the things of God.

Therefore, peacemaking is not the cause of sonship (Matt. 5:9, "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God"). It is not because of something that we do that we become children of God. Christians are peacemakers because of God’s blessing; it is not something we do in order to receive God’s blessing. The qualities of a new covenant saint do not cause his blessedness. His blessedness causes and explains his qualities. Childship to God is a truly amazing fact because it is all of grace. The new birth makes us His children and all the marks of a Christian flow from that beginning that gave life where there was spiritual death. Consequently, we know what it means to experience peace with God without enmity and we therefore have the goal before us of peacemaking.

2) Childship to God is also amazing in light of the fact that in the OT God did not call his people "sons of God" and He did not call Himself their heavenly Father.

3) Childship to God is not natural but amazing because of the special relation between Jesus and the Father in heaven. When Jesus appears, He comes as the Son of God and Son of Man, as God the Son. He relates to the Father in a unique way. He could say distinctively, "God is my Father." How then can we be children of God and call on God as our Father? It is by means of His life work. The words to Mary Magdalene make this point:

Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (Jn. 20:17).

"My Father" we can understand by simply understanding who Jesus is (that no one can know Him fully except the Father and no one can know the Father except those to whom Christ chooses to reveal Him). However, can we understand "your Father"? That is, can we understand what it means to have God as our Father (since He speaks to the new covenant church in His words to Mary)? Can that be true? Yes, it is true. The ground of our approach to God in the intimate relation of child to father is the work of Christ. Childship to God is a gift granted by the preacher of this Sermon through His life and death (and pointedly, through His death and His resurrection life). Childship to God is a present reality despite the fact of our determined opposition to God, despite the fact that this relation is not a theme in the OT, and despite the fact that it seems to run counter to the doctrine of the trinity and the unique relation of God the Son with God the Father.

2A. Childship to God is a future certainty

How can we take childship to God in a future sense as something that is not yet the case? If you have been brought into God’s family, then you are "in the house," you belong, and you are not an outsider but a loved child of God. We know this in earthly terms because when someone is born into our family, he or she is our son or daughter for the rest of life no matter how old they get. Our children are always our children. It is similar in God’s family; once we are born from above, we are sons and daughters of God forever.

Nevertheless, there is a future to our childship to God: peacemakers shall be called the sons of God ("shall" points forward in the here and now and to the there and then). This becomes clear when we think along the lines of adoption. Because of sin, we were aliens and enemies of God (anything but family members in the household of God). Since the fall, we have been wandering as outsiders lost in the wilderness of this world. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). We struggle for survival in a present evil age and the gains are short-lived for the struggle for survival inevitably ends in death (this is the ultimate reductio of hedonism).

Into this estranged state of affairs have come the blessings of the kingdom. These blessings include both the now and the not yet of childship to God. We are back in the family of God. We are no longer aliens but family members. By adoption, we are no longer enemies, outsiders, and strangers to the family of God.

However, our adoption is incomplete due to the reality of death as the wage of sin. Christians are subject to dying and death (Rom. 8:10, because of sin "the body is dead," that is, subject to dying and death). Sin gives death its sting and it is the perfect law and righteousness of God that gives sin its power (1 Cor. 15:56). However, we have victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ; our adoption is a future certainty (1 Cor. 15:20-22, 50-57; Rom. 8:10b-11).

Notably, our adoption is something for which we wait. Paul defines it as the redemption of our bodies. Our adoption is a future certainty.

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23)

We have an adoption yet to come in the very resurrection of the body. Again, Jesus did not come to save souls; He did not come to adopt souls into the family of God. He came to save persons. He saves persons, body and soul. He came to adopt persons into the family of God. Body and soul we belong to Him as members of His family. Now we have the first fruits of the Spirit. Now we groan inwardly and wait eagerly for adoption as sons, for the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23).

Conclusions

1) In the beatitudes (the last one with all the rest), Jesus proclaims the good news of the gospel.

In general, the beatitudes set the tone for the entire Sermon on the Mount. They show us that this famous sermon is not simply an ethical code that makes for civil order and social justice. Social critics have used the sermon to that end drawing out some of the good principles that are here but they have also misinterpreted the whole tenor and thrust of the text. What they have missed is that this passage is an indictment on the human family that calls for repentance toward God and faith in the work of Christ. We must say that the beatitudes are amazing in the way they imply both the necessity of the atonement of Christ and the provision He secured by His life, death, and resurrection. The spiritual poverty of the human family is such that we stand ripe for judgment but we avoid judgment (we receive mercy) by the protection furnished by Jesus Himself (we shall see God because His hand protects us in the cleft of the rock, and the rock is Christ). Therefore, the beatitudes give the gospel, they promise eternal life in a new family (sons of God), in a new earth (they shall inherit the earth), with a new body (as sons we wait for the adoption, that is, the resurrection of the body).

2) Jesus expands on the comfort of the gospel.

The picture of our lost estate is truly one of sin and misery (Every sin…does in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal, WCF, VI, 6). What makes it even worse is the fact that we lived there in a state of profound denial (seeing God but denying that we see Him). We lived outside of paradise, outside of the Garden of Eden. Outside is a wilderness; there we wandered in alienation from God and from our fellowman. We were enemies of God. We had enmity toward God and He was angry with us everyday. We had no right to anything but judgment. However, because of Christ and in Him as the Lord of the new covenant, we are now in the family of God. We are sons and daughters of God. Jesus is our brother and friend and we are joint heirs with Him of all things.

What a comforting thought to ponder family membership. This means that God cares for us like a father, like the greatest and best of fathers on earth. He is better than the greatest and best of fathers on earth. He is our heavenly Father. He loves you and me. I can say that, "He loves me, He is my Father." You can say that too because of Christ, "He is my Heavenly Father." Therefore, I know that whatever befalls me, "Jesus doeth all things well." In my trials, I can rest in the wisdom of the Father’s love. Hence, there is comfort and encouragement.

3) Jesus announces our privilege in the gospel

We can rest in the Father’s embrace. We are in the family of God and Christ is our elder brother. This is a great honor. We have mercy now and forevermore. We inherit the earth as sons and daughters of God. All things are ours as brothers and sisters of Christ. We own all things; treasures fill our houses whatever our outward state may be (cf. Prov. 15:6). The earth is ours "and the fullness thereof" because we are joint-heirs with Christ. We are making headway in righteousness. Our hunger for righteousness is satisfied in stages day by day. Therefore, though insulted because we raise the standard of divine righteousness, ours is the kingdom of God. We have already in part what we shall have in fullness. He invites me into His presence to see Him, to know Him, and to fellowship with Him. I have access to God by prayer and the word. I enter His presence for intimate communion and the fire of His holy wrath does not consume me. Instead of the cold shutters of fear, I have the warm blessings of love. What amazing dignity is ours! We can hold our heads high because we are family members in the household of God. We are children of the king; I am a child of the king!

Now we may be opposed as scum of the earth. Righteousness exposes the sins of others and causes persecutions, hatred, suppression of the truth, deception, willful misinterpretation adding insult to injury. Now we make up a little flock opposed by the masses of the world. In the final day, we will be the world. We will be the redeemed race, and the new humanity.