Exposition on select Bible verses: Romans 8:14-17
[Romans 8] Verses 14, 15: For as many as are led by [the] Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye received not a spirit of bondage again unto fear;—
Let us look first at the words “sons of God”; and second at what is meant by being “led by the Spirit”; third, let us see that our being thus in the Spirit’s sphere and control is the proof of the reality of our sonship.
1. “Sons” means “adult-sons,” sons come of age (see footnote, verse 15). The term, when referring to saints, is applied in Paul’s epistles both to Christ (Rom. 1:3, 4, 9); and to those associated with Him since His resurrection (Gal. 4:4-7); therefore to His own saints, sealed by the Spirit—those sons whom God is “bringing unto glory.”
2. Being “led by the Spirit” does not refer here to service, nor to “guidance” in particular paths. It refers to that general control by the blessed Spirit of those born of the Spirit, living by the Spirit, in the Spirit. He is the sphere and mode of their being, and is their seal unto the day of redemption.
3. That our being thus in the Spirit’s sphere and control is the proof of the reality of our sonship, is evident from what has been said; but let us avoid the thought that assurance of our sonship is based on our perfect obedience to the Spirit. Nothing is based upon us. If one of God’s true saints disobeys, it is the office of that same Spirit to convict him of his sin, interceding in Him “according to God” (Rom. 8:27), while Christ intercedes for him above (I John 2:1).
Israel received a spirit of bondage when they were placed under the Law. And how sad that perhaps the most of Christians regard themselves as under the Law and so under bondage. In this they are like the world, which fears Christ as (they think) a hard taskmaster. Now the result of a spirit of bondage was fear. When Israel walked in the wilderness with Jehovah dwelling in darkness in the holy of holies in the tabernacle, they were taught to fear. For Jehovah was teaching a sinful people His holiness and separateness from them, and how to draw near Him only by sacrifices.
But when Christ came, all was different. He came not noticing or marking sin. Quickly the common people became glad. Proud religion called Him “a friend of publicans and sinners” and He was. We have no words to express the limitless graciousness of God manifested in the flesh—in Christ.
But how much beyond even those favored to see “the days of the Son of Man” on earth is the position of those in Christ Risen: sin put away forever, released from the old Adam life and responsibilities, and now the Spirit sent witnessing in our hearts—the very Spirit of God’s Son. A spirit of fear and bondage is as out of place now as if one caught up with Christ in the Rapture were afraid to face God, in whose Son he is!
Ye received a spirit of adult-sonship*, whereby we cry Abba, Father!
*We have sought in vain for some simple English expression to set forth the Greek word so poorly rendered “adoption.” This word is huio-thesia: from, huios, “son come of age”; and thesia, a placing, or setting a person or thing in its place. In earthly affairs, “adoption” is the term applied to the selection as child and heir of one not born of us; and the execution of legal papers making such child our own, inheriting legal rights, etc.
But God’s children are begotten and born of God, and are called tekna, “born-ones,” of God. Thus are they directly related to God, “partakers of the Divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4). All God’s children, whether in Old Testament days or today, are thus born. But the word huios means, a child come of age; no longer “as a servant” (Gal. 4:7). And huiothesia means God’s recognizing them in that position! This will be consummated fully at the coming of Christ, when our bodies, redeemed, and fashioned anew, shall be conformed to Christ’s glorious body.
Meanwhile, because we are already adult sons (huioi), God has given us a spirit of adult-sonship! No Jew called God “Father,” or “Abba”; but “Jehovah.” (Indeed) fearfulness, even prevented, generally, the use by the Jews of God’s memorial-name—Jehovah—for that nation: they called Him Adonai—“Lord.” And the English translations of the Old Testament, except the A.R.V., do the same thing,—only printing Jehovah as “LORD”—in capitals! But this is no translation; and is legal fearfulness.)
“Because ye are adult-sons (huioi) God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6, 7).
Even as to the strong Roman law concerning “adoption” of those not born in the family, (and Paul is writing to Romans) the following is instructive:
“The process of legal adoption by which the chosen heir became entitled not only to the reversion of the property but to the civil status) to the burdens as well as the rights of the adopter—made him become, as it were, his other self, one with him. . . We have but a faint conception of the force with which such an illustration would speak to one familiar with the Roman practice; how it would serve to impress upon him the assurance that the adopted son of God becomes, in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father.” (Merivale, quoted by Vincent.)
Verse 16: The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are born-ones of God.
The manner of communication between the Holy Spirit and our spirit is a profound mystery. Indeed all man’s vaunted knowledge is challenged by Jehovah’s word to Job: “Who hath given understanding to the mind?” We do not speak now with the mere purpose of ridiculing man’s vaunted knowledge, but simply to state facts. Human philosophy and science know absolutely nothing about the quality or nature of spirit.
["Every human being knows he ought to give his being over to his Creator’s worship and glory, and ought to be continually thankful for life itself, and for its blessings; but men refused both worship and gratitude: they became godless and thankless."]
["Every human being knows he ought to give his being over to his Creator’s worship and glory, and ought to be continually thankful for life itself, and for its blessings; but men refused both worship and gratitude: they became godless and thankless."]
God, in this passage in Romans, does not address Himself at all to human intellect, but to the consciousness of His saints.*
*Much unnecessary and unfruitful questioning as to what is the witness of the Spirit has arisen. It is plain both in this passage (verses 15, 16) and from the great verse in Galatians 4:6: “Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” that the “witness of the Spirit” is the producing of the consciousness of being born of God, of belonging to His family, in Christ. And for us today who are in Christ, there should be the consciousness, not merely of babes, but of adult-sons. “God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” It is a sense of the very relation to the Father which Christ Himself has as Son! Mark, in this we do not “know” the Son, for He is the second person of the Deity; but we do know the Father, and the Son “willeth to reveal Him” by sending the blessed Spirit for that purpose. (See Matt. 11:27.)
How beautifully sweet is the recognition of its parents by a babe, a child! unconcious, instinctive, yet how real!
Now the witness of the Spirit is to the fact of our relationship. How foolish it would be, and how sad, if a child should fall into the delusion that it must have certain “feelings” if it is to believe itself a child of its parents. The unconscious certainty of the relationship is the beauty of it. There are, indeed, certain tests Divinely given us, by which to assure ourselves. Most of these, perhaps, are in the great Epistle of Fellowship, First John;—“fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”: “I have written unto you, little children, because ye know the Father (2:13). Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is (3:2). Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He gave us” (3:24).
The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit. There is no certainty comparable with this!
“With our spirit”—We are not told that the Spirit bears witness to our spirit, as if the knowledge that we are God’s children were some unheard of, undreamed matter to our own spirits. But He beareth witness with our spirit, showing that the child of God, having had communicated to him God’s own nature (II Pet. 1:4), Christ’s own life (I Cor. 6:17), is fundamentally, necessarily conscious of the glorious fact of filial relationship to God. Along with this consciousness, the Spirit indwelling witnesses, enabling us, moving us, to cry, “Abba, Father.” There is life before this, just as the new-born babe has life and breath before it forms a syllable. It is significant that the Spirit indwelling is the power whereby we cry, Abba, Father,—by His enlightenment. His encouragement, His energy.
The operations of a man’s mind either in philosophy or in science constitute an eternal quest for certainty. The conclusions of philosophy are based upon theories and hypotheses and are always being challenged and perpetually overthrown by succeeding new schemes of philosophy. And even the dearest discoveries of science await new explanations—of the very constitution of the universe they are invented in.
But with the child of God—the born-again family, there is no such uncertainty! A child of God knows. And the blessed Holy Spirit, by whose inscrutable power he was born again, keeps forever witnessing with his consciousness,—and that through no processes of his mind, but directly, that he is a born-one of God.
This is most natural and could not be otherwise. Children in an earthly family grow up together as a family, their parents addressing them as children, their brothers and sisters knowing them to be such. It is the most beautiful thing in the natural world!
How much more certain, yea, how much more wonderful and beautiful, is the constantly witnessed relationship of His children to God: the Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are born-ones* of God.
*This word tekna means “born-ones,” offspring. The several other Greek words for child are used accurately in Scripture: brephos,—an unborn child or a newborn child (Luke 1:44 and 2:12 and 16); nepios, babes or small children,—children not come of age (Matt. 21:16; I Cor. 3:1; 13:11; Gal. 4:1, 3; Eph 4:14), as over against adults or those come of age; pais, paidion and paidarion, children, generally; and with regard to their need of training and teaching. (The verbal for paideo means to train children, or to cause any one to learn; thus arises its use in Hebrews 12:6.) Finally, huios, which is the word of sonship, of adult understanding: Paul contrasts this word, with nepios in both Galatians 4:6, and I Corinthians 13:11, as adulthood over against childhood, or infancy. These distinctions are not absolute, but practically so.
Believers will find themselves calling God Father, in their prayers and communion. This witness will spring up of itself in the heart that has truly rested in Christ and His shed blood.
Conversely, if we find ourselves always in our prayers saying Lord, Lord, and never Father, we should be concerned, and should go back to the beginnings of things,—that is, to the record concerning our guilt, in Romans Three, and our helplessness, and to the fact that God has set forth Christ as a propitiation; and resting there, in His shed blood, we should boldly call God Father, and cultivate that habit.
Nor, in our judgment, should Christians permit themselves habits of address in prayer not authorized and exemplified in Scripture. Our Lord Jesus prayed saying, “Father,” “My Father,” “O righteous Father.” He did not say, “Almighty God,” nor did He use the name “Jehovah,” as Israel did in the Psalms and elsewhere. He said, “Father.” And He said to us, “When ye pray, say, Father.” (Note Luke 11:2 in the Revised Version.) “We have our access,” says Paul, “in one Spirit unto the Father.” “To us there is one God, the Father” (I Cor. 8:6). Today, also, some devoted Christians address God as “Father-God.” But why not say, “Father,” as our Lord directed and the Spirit witnesses? To say “Father-God,” makes the first word an adjective!
Some may say, “It is foolish and unnecessary to make such discriminations.” But if God “sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” we speak to the Father as did our beloved Savior Himself. This is infinite grace, and should be appreciated and cultivated by us. Moreover, if you were going into the presence of the King of England, you would take thought for a proper form of address. How infinitely rather when you address God!
Verse 17: If born-ones, then heirs—We have noted that the word for children here, tekna, is different from the word for adult-sons (huioi) of verse 14. The word indicates the fact that we are really begotten of God through His Word by His Spirit, and are partakers of His nature. Heirship is from relationship. The young ruler who came running to the Lord saying, “What good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” was a perfect example of a legalist. Indeed, Nicodemus, beloved man, “understood not these things”—of being born again. Now, if a man is really a child of God by begetting and birth, he becomes indissolubly God’s heir! This is a fact of such overwhelming magnitude that our poor hearts hardly grasp it. It is said of no angel, cherub, or seraph, that he is an heir of God. Believer, if you will reflect, meditate deeply, on this, I am born of God; I am one of His heirs! earthly things will shrink to nothing. Now, J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., has inherited his father’s wealth: why? Because he was his father’s born son. The young ruler said, “What must I do to inherit?” a contradiction in itself!
Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ—I could not have the presumption to write these words if they were not in God’s holy Book. That a guilty, lost, wretched child of Adam the First should have written of him, a joint-heir with Christ, the Eternal Maker of all things, the Well-beloved of the Father, the Righteous One, the Prince of life—only God the God of all grace could prepare such a destiny for such a creature!
And, we may humbly say, perhaps, that God could only do this by joining us in eternal union with His beloved Son, as the Last Adam, the Second Man; having released us from Adam the First and all his connections, at the cross, and having placed us in Christ Risen, in all the boundless and everlasting rights of His dear Son, whom He has “appointed heir of all things!” Ages after ages of ever-increasing blessing forever and forever and forever, lie in prospect for believers—for the joint-heirs!"
William R. Newell
Chapter 8
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