11 Jun SONS OF GOD
Somehow, I’de missed it. I have thought that Adam was “just a man”, but now a whole new understanding is opening up to me. Adam was a son of God . . . the designation of a race, of a family of beings with a unique relationship to God. Luke tells us what we are, what man is, as he traces Jesus’ genealogy back to its very starting point: “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.. (1) For decades I’ve read about the sons of God described in Job, utterly unable to identify with them–those immortal beings who traverse realms and ages, who are clearly of higher rank and greater power than man. But now I understand that Adam was their younger brother.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.
“Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan.
“From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.” (Job 1:6-8)
I realize how little I know of Adam at his creation: his innate intellect, his ability to commune with God, his powers, the dominion given to him. We began greater than we have become. Technology aside, we are not evolving, but devolving. We have no idea what we are, or what our powers were before the fall. God told us that on the day that we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we would die. And we did. Our very being was traumatically severed from God. The light, the right, the correcting influence of seeing as He sees dissolved, leaving us alienated, at odds with our self and each other. We who had known only light now found ourselves haunted by shadows and tortured by condemnation–fallen sons of God in desperate need of restoration.(2) That is what Jesus accomplished: not just to save us from hell, but to return us to His Father as a redeemed race fully restored as sons of God. We do not remember what we shall be,
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2)
I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. (Romans 8:18,19)
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)
When Jesus appears, Paul tells us that we who are mortal will be clothed with immortality. But until then, like Paul, we will groan in the misery of our flesh, realizing that sin is still with us, causing us to do what we do not want to do, and keeping us from doing what we know we should. We cry out, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) We are sons of God entombed in a body of death. Just agree with God on your sin and be done with it. Repentance is a gift: use it.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:13,14)
My pastor says that joy is the business of heaven. We are commanded to rejoice always. Joy is different than happiness. Joy is rooted in what is lasting. Happiness is transient, lasting only while the sun is out and everything is going well. Joy bubbles up from where we are connected to God. Joy is not dependent on anything else. Defiant Joy gives you strength and balance in the face of hurt, disappointment and betrayal. Joy comes from seeing the big picture. For the joy that was set before him, Jesus endured the cross.
I think joy is flashes of what it means to be a son of God lighting up in us.
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(1) Luke 3:38
(2) John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness
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