sons of God (LD 13; Romans 8:12-17)
Introduction
People bring criticism against the Reformed people’s love for doctrine. People claim that if you go to a Reformed church, you will see that we are people concerned with the head, not the heart. That our catechisms and confessions are cold documents. These are documents fueling intellectual exercises that keep doctrine tidy but leave the soul unmoved. That we know about God without actually knowing him.
The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 13, communicates to us that God is very personal. In fact, we are brought into the Lord’s family. We are adopted as sons for the sake of our faithful Savior. We were the estranged children who had been brought near to God through the faithful son. So, is it fair to say that we are people who love doctrine and not the Lord? Is it fair to say that the Reformed faith makes one distant in relation to God?
Children by Adoption
The catechism is careful to distinguish between Christ's sonship and ours. Christ is the Son from eternity who is not created, not adopted, but of the same essence as the Father. When we confess the only begotten Son, we are saying that Christ is of the same nature as the Father. He has not sinned or done anything wrong. He is eternal, having the same attributes and nature as the Father.
We are sons by adoption. And we need to be very encouraged by this. In the ancient world, adoption was not a consolation prize. In Roman law and in the Old Testament background, an adopted son received full inheritance rights. Abram understood this in Genesis 15, when he offered Eliezer of Damascus as an option to be an heir. Eliezer was not merely a faithful servant, but Abraham requested him to be the heir. Abraham is offering God an easy option, and not the challenge to bring a son through two elderly people without children.
And Paul presses this further in verse 14. He declares that all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. This language is important because all in the Spirit are sons possessing full inheritance. Note that firstborn sons are the ones who receive the greatest portion. Whatever your gender, whatever your genealogy, if you have the Spirit, you share in the inheritance of the eternal firstborn Son of God. You have done nothing to earn it. You have done everything to forfeit it. However, Christ, as a faithful son, secured His people to be coheirs with him as firstborn children. This love that the Father has for his children goes clear to the core of our heart.
Why Submit to God?
Our culture does not love submission. Even the word sounds like loss. But Paul reframes the question entirely in verse 15: you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.
Paul has already named the alternative. Living by the flesh is death. We see that in the fall. No, they did not fall dead, but they immediately broke fellowship with God. They were naked and ashamed. They thought they would find freedom in their rebellion, but they discovered that being estranged from God is a problem.
Christ, washing the disciples' feet in John 13, says something remarkable to Peter: “ You are already clean.” Christ makes this declaration even before Christ is raised from the dead. Christ’s work is so certain that he assures his disciples of its benefit before it is officially confirmed. The disciples consciously know who Christ is, but they need to rest in his cleansing. John Murray captured it well: in Christ, we have moved from the courtroom to the family room. The legal question is settled. Yes, affirming with the head, but resting in the heart.
Honoring God without Terror
If submission sounds like an obligation, honoring God can sound like performance. We can think that we better make sure we earn our Lord’s favor. We have to make sure that we are doing the right things to prevent the Lord smiting us or harming us in some way.
Paul does not want people to have this mindset of the Lord’s grace and mercy. He tells us in verse 15 that we have received the spirit of adoption, by which we cry Abba, Father. This is the same word Christ uses in Gethsemane. This is the time of his greatest anguish, of going to the cross. Christ is vulnerable; this is his darkest moment as he is about to face hell, and in this time of need, he cries out, “Abba.” We call on our heavenly Father as Christ calls on His Father. This is more like Dad rather than “master” or “Father.” It is communicating to us that we are brought near in the family in such a way that we have God’s attention.
The reason we want to honor God is not out of dread. Rather, when we consider the inheritance, we see that we are: heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ. Not servants who have earned their way up. Not subordinate sons who receive a smaller portion. Fellow heirs. Co-heirs with the one who never sinned, never failed, and never rebelled. Christ does not gloat over his success, but rather freely shares everything he has merited with those who deserved none of it.
Yes, we do consciously profess this with our minds, but the Spirit works in our hearts to see the joy of the new life. So, we cannot divorce the head from the heart.
Conclusion
The Heidelberg Catechism seeks to bring out the implications of being brought near to God. The Heidelberg Catechism is not a cold document. It is a document written for people who need to know who they are. People who feel the weight of sin and ask whether God is really on their side. People who wonder whether submission to Christ is freedom or just a nicer version of slavery.
The Heidelberg Catechism summarizes Romans 8 with the assurance that you are not a servant who performed well enough to be elevated. You are not an orphan who has been adopted by an abusive or lonely father. You are an adopted child of the living God, a co-heir with his faithful Son, indwelt by the Spirit who prods you toward life and away from death.
We honor God, then, not because we have conceded that a terrible master is preferable to a really abusive one. We honor him because he is ours, and we are his, and the inheritance is already secured in the one who went to the cross knowing exactly what the wrath of God costs. He knows the cost and went anyway. He did so in order to make sure we all share in his inheritance.
Our life lived before the face of God is not an obligation, but a joy.