HOW DO YOU BECOME A CHILD of GOD?

REF: Galatians 3:6-8, John 1:12

Consider Abraham: ”He believed God, and it was credited  to him as righteousness”. Understand, then, that these who believe are children of Abraham. The scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham; “All nations will be blessed through you”. (Gal 3:6-8)

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)

COMMENT:

God created Adam in the image of God Himself. He created only one being and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. (Gen 2:7)   It is out of this one man, that He (God), created a helper for Adam. God did not create another being from dust. The initial man of dust was divided into two and the existence of a woman became real. Out of these two, God has continued to produce other human beings. The world is now home to more than 6 billion souls.

Not all human beings are God’s children, because of Adam’s failure (Adam was created a free moral being with authority to make independent decisions). Due to this failure, a remedy was provided by God, and that is salvation through the death of Jesus, the only son of God, on the cross. Human race must be born-again,  in order to benefit from the new life that is provided on accepting Jesus Christ as ones saviour. At that point, the status of the man or the woman who gets born-again, is changed from God’s creation to God’s child.

It is only the children of God, who will not suffer the second death, because they have the new life provided in the second birth. For this reason, Nicodemus in John 3:3, was told by Jesus Himself, that he must be born again. The second birth is a must if one is to be a child of God and dwell with him forever.

To become a child of God is simple, because, Jesus has done everything required except exercising faith for us. That is believing in the completed job done by the Son of God. Fulfilling the law (ten commandments) is not a requirement here. The grace of God that has made this transformation possible, is able to sustain salvation. The law was introduced to show us that we cannot keep it, and therefore, we need a saviour.

The law can neither save nor sustain salvation. Anyway, Christ came not to abolish it, but to uphold it, because He is the only one who managed to keep it. Therefore, when we are in Christ, we have also no problem with the law. We are the righteousness of God, just like Abraham, who is also our father on earth spiritually.