[Note: This sermon expounds Matthew 23:29–39 on the meaning of sonship. Delivered 17 May 1981, Montreal.]
Today we continue our study in the teaching of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 23, reading verses 29 to 39. In this text we find the meaning and nature of sonship. Whose son are you? Are you a son of God? Or are you, perhaps unknowingly and without desiring it, a son of darkness — a son of the devil? The scripture recognizes only two kinds of people: either sons and daughters of God, sons and daughters of the light, or sons and daughters of darkness, sons and daughters of the devil.
We do not at first have a choice about which family we are born into, any more than we chose our surname. And when we are first born into this world, we are all, in some sense, born as sons of darkness — born in sin, into a world where sin is predominant. Every person born into this world is remarkably selfish by nature. Every psychologist knows that the ego is the central element of man's psychology: his self, his me, my, I, is the centre of his life, and every attempt to change that has run into serious difficulty. But here is the good news: though we are born as sons of darkness, though by nature we are corrupted, yet the scriptural teaching is that we do have a choice. We do not have to remain sons of darkness. We can become sons of God. That is why the Bible is called good news.
Before I was a Christian, I wondered whether there was any direction in life other than what the Bible calls futility. You look at your life and wonder: what is the purpose of it all? You go through school, through university, get a job so you can eat, make perhaps a small contribution to your field, and at the end you become old, sick, and die. It seemed so pointless. Many times, as a young person, I sat on my bed and wept because I could not see any purpose in this whole direction of life. I tried to forget by throwing myself into sport and music, but the question always came back in the quiet of the morning or the late hours of the night: what is it all for?
I also loved to read history. I read Chinese history from beginning to end several times, but it always had a deeply depressing effect. Each dynasty begins with a capable emperor of great vision who is going to make the country great. Then the second emperor is not quite as good, the third is worse, and it goes downward until the last emperors are weak, corrupt men who never see the lives of the people. A revolution comes, a new man rises with great idealism — and then the whole story repeats itself, from the beginning. You throw something up and it comes down again. This is history: it runs in a downward spiral, because there is something in human nature that tends to go down. The Bible calls this sin — it is like the force of gravity, a principle that pulls everything downward no matter how high you throw it.
A rocket that overcomes the earth's gravity requires enormous thrust precisely because that gravitational pull is so powerful. Even a satellite in orbit will eventually be drawn back in; only a rocket with sufficient power to leave the earth's sphere of influence entirely will escape. And this is exactly the point about human nature: we do not have the power, in ourselves, to escape the gravity of sin. We make attempts at moral reform, we try to rise, but sooner or later sin pulls us back down. None of history's solutions have worked — not education, which produces more sophisticated people but not better people; not military power, which depends on whoever commands the army. There is no other solution except the power of God.
I am a Christian because I know that the only escape from this principle of corruption is God's power. The world around us knows this too, whether or not it uses biblical language. In England, the bomb-shelter business is booming; people cannot catch up with their orders. In Switzerland, every house by law has a bomb shelter in the basement. In North America, freeze-dried food — which lasts four to six years — has become a thriving business, because people are stocking up supplies for after the disaster comes. This is the world we live in: people sense that sin is the dominant force, that destruction must come at some point, and they are afraid. They sense that some force outside their control is running affairs — that nobody wants war but somehow it keeps happening. This is what the Bible means by the world being under the power of Satan.
I once asked a German friend what it was in the German mentality that could put six million people into the gas chambers. When I later reflected on that question I was disgusted with myself for asking it, because it was deeply unfair: he was as shocked by it as I was, and could not explain it either. And when I thought about it further, I realized that the truth is that you and I might have done the same thing under those circumstances — carried away by false ideas, doing what we thought at the time was right and later realizing with horror it was wrong. The Apostle Paul speaks of sinning and not understanding why: there is a principle of sin that makes a person do the very thing he does not want to do. That is what the Bible means by being sons of the devil — not that we desire it, but that we are under the power of sin, and we do the thing and afterwards regret it and wonder why.
Now, in scripture, we read time and again of sonship and the choice that faces every person. To believe, in the biblical sense — this act of faith — is the choice we make when we say: I don't want to be in sin anymore. I don't want to be in darkness. I choose, by God's invitation, to become a son of God. That is what it means to become a Christian. But notice this carefully: it is possible, and indeed it is the case for many people, to be a son of the devil without knowing it. The Pharisees themselves thought they were sons of God. The Bible does not draw the line by saying all Christians are sons of God and all non-Christians are sons of the devil — there are many so-called Christians who are sons of the devil. This is the vital point to grasp, and we will continue to examine it in John chapter 8.
[Continues in Part B]
# You Did What Your Fathers Did — Matthew 23:29–39 (Part B) — Sonship as Likeness of Character; Matthew 5 and John 8; The Warning Against "Once Saved, Always Saved"
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Matthew 23:29–39, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 17 May 1981, Montreal.]
We were examining John chapter 8, where Jesus confronts the Jews who claim Abraham and God as their father. Verse 41: "We have one father, even God." Jesus denies it. Why? Here is the vital principle of sonship in the Bible: sonship is not a matter of physical relationship or claimed status. The mark of sonship in the Bible is the way you conduct yourself — your attitude, what you do. As Jesus says in verse 39: "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did." That is the key. And why are these people sons of the devil? Because they do what the devil does. The devil lies; the devil murders; the devil is self-centred, always putting himself first. The sons of the devil lie, seek to kill, follow the devil's pattern of conduct. This is the fundamental principle of sonship in scripture: it has to do with likeness in character and conduct, not merely with a claimed relationship.
If I claim to be a son of God but I do not behave like a son of God, I am a hypocrite and a liar. That is precisely why the Lord Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites — they say they are sons of God but they do not behave as sons of God. And this principle runs throughout the whole of scripture. Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." Sonship is connected with a certain type of attitude and conduct: those who bring peace and healing are sons of God, whatever title they use for themselves. Matthew 5:45: those who love their enemies — that is the mark of the sons of God. These things we cannot do in our own strength; only God's power, like that rocket breaking free from gravity, can enable us to love our enemies. But by his power we find ourselves doing what our nature cannot do, and that is the evidence that his power is real.
Romans 8:14 says: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." It is not a status — it is the people who constantly follow the Holy Spirit who are sons of God in the Bible. 1 John 3:8–9 says: "He who commits sin is of the devil... No one born of God habitually commits sin, for God's nature abides in him." The Greek structure is a present continuous tense — it is the person who habitually lives in sin who is of the devil, not one who occasionally slips. A Christian may fall, but the direction and orientation of his life is not toward sin; he does not take pleasure in it, and he returns to God for forgiveness.
There is teaching in the church that says: because you have the status of a son, you can sin as much as you like and you will still be saved. I am sick to hear of it. In China, sons of government officials were literally above the law — I could have walked out of a restaurant without paying and nobody would dare challenge me. As a very young man I already had access to a gun. That is the kind of thing that made that government fall. But you cannot transpose that thinking into the scripture. When I put it directly to someone who held the once-saved-always-saved teaching — if a Christian commits murder, will he be saved? — the answer was yes. I said: I don't know which Bible you are reading, because I cannot find that in mine. He who commits murder is of the devil. The Bible speaks of fallen angels who were sons of God and were condemned; Israel was sons and was sent into exile. Sonship does not guarantee immunity in the scripture.
Therefore, the question to ask yourself is this: do other people see a Christ-likeness in your daily life? Does your mentality and the way you behave show you to be a son of God? Look at the way you think, the way you behave at home, at school, with your roommates — that is where the answer lies. Not in your profession of faith, not in your baptism, but in the fruit of your life. If that fruit is not there, then come to him. Let the Spirit of God come into your life and change you. Becoming a Christian is to be changed; that is how we become new people. This is the choice you have to face today. Let us become quiet before God in prayer.