Inspiration of Love 10
As a continuation of yesterday's point [1] We are Children of God because God Lovingly Bestowed . . .
For those who are children of God but have given up their present right to experience the love of God directly, literally, from having bowed the knee to traditionalism, to empty ritual, to a postponed future relationship, you are still his child.
There is a great truth mostly ignored by those who give the power of sin dominance over the power of the cross. I am referring to those whose meager interpretation of God's Son does not allow for fallible man to err without an absolute rejection by the Father. These do not understand 1 John 1. These neither understand the power of the blood of Jesus (v7) nor the power of confessional agreement, the faithfulness and righteousness of the Son, and his power to absolutely cleanse (v9).
Let's not slip into Universalism, however, but rather realize that once one becomes a child of God by the right of the Father (Jn 1:12-13), he cannot be "Unchilded". God isn't always on Heavenly Facebook waiting to be offended and unfriend his children There is such a thing as an erring child, an estranged child, a lost child, but never an "Unchild". Once begotten, a child cannot become unbegotton. [Even King David (a very bad sinner and abuser of power) who prayed for God's Holy Spirit not be taken from him was never unchilded (Ps 51:11); meaning that God did not take his Holy Spirit from David, though the king suffered the consequences of his sin]. A child can stray, as an example, into traditionalism, heartless religious ritual, and even into the idolatry of greed. Yet that child, though sadly, is a child who has strayed only; that child could return to the Father in repentance, be received, and restored to full rights and privileges of his sonship.
That is the truth from Luke 15 and Parable of the Prodigal Son. I appreciate that designation, the son who went prodigal, not the son who went prodigal and stopped being a son.
In verse 17, the son comes to his senses and said: "How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!" My Father's! The son called the father he mistreated, apparently wished dead, and clearly rejected, my father. Even the disgraced, embarrassed, sinful son knows he is still a son.
In verse 20, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son . . . ." To whom did the father run? He ran to his son. The father also embraced and kissed the prodigal as a son, not some stranger.
In verse 21, there is a powerful truth that clarifies: “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’" How true! How true! The son who rejected the father and wandered far away from home is no longer worthy to be called son. BUT HE IS NONETHELESS CALLED SON! And through confessional agreement of his sins against his earthly and spiritual fathers, this prodigal son is reinstated, not as a son (he's never not been a son) but to the rights and benefits that accompany sonship.
The Bible teaches God's great willingness not only to make children but to restore erring children to the fullness of an heir. Please notice the Father desiring to see the son again and hastening the reunion.
So what was the son, if he was still a son while acting the prodigal? He was erring, estranged, lost, and sinful, by his own willing actions and admission. Only as a child remains in willful, deliberate, unrepentant sin are the rights and privileges on sonship experienced as suspended (cf Hebrews 10:26ff).(1) Yet though the rights were deliberately and willingly rejected, by the prodigal and others, they remain in stasis and are restored to even the most heinous sinner who returns to his senses. Why? Because of God's mercy and love toward us in Christ to make and keep us children!
"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him."
1 John 3:1
Here is a wonderful illustration, found at sermoncentral.com:
A man who was commissioned to paint a picture of the Prodigal Son. He went into his work fervently, laboring to produce a picture worthy of telling the story. Finally, the day came when the picture was complete, and he unveiled the finished painting. The scene was set outside the father’s house, and showed the open arms of each as they were just about to meet and embrace. The man who commissioned the work was well pleased, and was prepared to pay the painter for his work, when he suddenly noticed a detail that he had missed. Standing out in the painting above everything else in the scene, was the starkly apparent fact that the father was wearing one red shoe and one blue shoe. He was incredulous. How could this be, that the painter could make such an error? He asked the painter, and the man simply smiled and nodded, assuring the man, “Yes, this is a beautiful representation of the love of God for His children.” “What do you mean?” he asked, puzzled. “The father in this picture was not interested in being color-coordinated or fashion-conscious when he went out to meet his son. In fact, he was in such a hurry to show his love to his son, he simply reached and grabbed the nearest two shoes that he could find. “He is the God of the Unmatched Shoes.”(2)
(1) See how this suspension is applied in Galatians 5 to traditionalists, the practitioners of empty religious rituals, and seekers of a works-based righteousness who thereby distrust the work of Christ. They are severed from grace. Why? Because we have a cruel and bi-polar spiritual father who cannot seem to remember his own promises? Or is it because they willingly subjected themselves to a lie that distrusted the work of Christ? And if those traditionalists repent and return, confessing and trust Christ, would their rights and privileges as sons be restored? I believe the answers are obvious.
The only reason they would have opportunity to return to the Father, as with the prodigal, is because God never rejected their sonship. Yes, they rejected their rights and privileges, but they were always sons.
And that is exactly what 1 John 1 teaches. That God does not expel for a single sin. Verse 8 states that we must acknowledge our sinfulness in relation to God, that we are not perfect, that our flesh is prone to sin. Acknowledgement of our occasional (cf 1 Jn 2:1-2, it's not "when" we sin, it's "if" we sin) erring is part of walking in truth (v6) and light (v7) and in his word (v10). And that proves the need for confessional agreement (v9), the fact that we occasionally slip from our completeness in Christ (Col 2:10) and need Christ to cleanse in order for us to maintain our relationship with the purest, holy light of God (v5). By acknowledging truth, confessing, and trusting the blood of Christ, our rights and privileges by sonship are maintained without lapse. It is our continuously being God's children in Christ that this relational mending is possible.
