“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

Romans 8:14

Both of my parents grew up in homes with abusive fathers. That’s not all my grandpas were, of course. That’s not even most of what they were, but it was part. It’s always more complicated than a single descriptor, but physical, verbal, and emotional abuse were part of both my parents’ childhood experiences. I am so thankful that by the grace of God, both my parents resisted their upbringing and the ways that they might have responded. My sister and I did not have perfect parents, but we had loving parents. There was nothing I can recall that would even hint at abuse in our upbringing. My father wrote a moving story about his own father, which I may one day share, but in it he makes clear how committed he was to raising us differently, and how thankful to God he is for his own children. God the father was faithful in guiding my own father in leading me.

               Whatever lessons we learn (or do not learn) from our parents the very notion of fatherhood is a picture of God and Christ. It is an analogy for the things that God wants us to understand. Regretfully, many believers have been raised by unbelieving fathers, have felt the scorn and even the blows of destructive authority. Many have known no father at all, having been raised by a single mother. Whether by abandonment or loss in conflict – whatever the reason, there seem to be too few in the church today who can honestly say that their fathers gave some brilliant example of who God is to His people. As is my wont, however, I wish to invert our understanding. While the father-son relationship is meant as a picture of God and Christ (and God and us), we do not understand that higher relationship in terms of the lesser, rather we ought to see our earthly relationships in the light of the highest expression of God given in His word.

               To that end we must remember that God is not a father like our father – not in our father’s goodness nor his meanness, his presence or his absence. God is the Father. In Him inhere all the perfect qualities of fatherhood which even the best earthly parent can only hope to emulate in shadowed form. And we, by His immense and overwhelming grace, are His sons. As the quoted verse at the beginning states “…all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” This whole passage in Romans is stunning in its promise and beauty and language.

               I must take a moment to lay out a framework recognizing Paul’s analogy of sonship and how it ties with the salvation process. It seems to me there are three major analogies used by the apostle Paul in his letters to the various first century churches. First: We are slaves, once to sin now to righteousness. Second: We are soldiers, impressed into the service of the kingdom and our reward is citizenship in the kingdom. Finally we are sons, that is inheritors and co-heirs with Christ. Slaves coincides with justification (purchased, unable to choose our master on our own), Soldiers is the process of sanctification, serving diligently with the mission in mind, and finally Sons is the image of our glorification, the final destination of our work and walk with the Lord and the promise to rule and reign alongside Him.

               In all three cases, all three of these analogies, there is an initial movement that occurs without the will of the human. A slave is sold not to the master he chooses, but to one who chooses him. The soldier is conscripted into service, not a volunteer as we think of modern military service in the west. The son is born to a mother and father and certainly has no choice in his being born – or in the case of our adoption as sons, has just as little choice in who will adopt him. The initial movement in all three analogies is one external to the person in question. Salvation is of the Lord. He is the master who purchases us as slaves. (1 Cor 6:19-20, Romans 6:18). He is the general who impresses us into his service (2 Corinthians 2:14-17). He is the Father who adopts us as sons (Romans 8:15-17).

               And what immense grace is this, that the glorification is in sonship, inheritance in an eternal kingdom? We have earned none of this, are owed none of this. Our Father is eminently gracious and overwhelming, and, frankly, mysterious, in this. Why would He take us who were once children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3) and make us Sons of God (Romans 8:14)?

               For readers who had a father who loved them deeply, this is a deeper love still. A love born out of the love between God the Father and God the Son from before time even existed. This is real love, sourced in the source of love Himself – God. Words fail to express such a love as this, and a fuller discussion of what love is will have to wait for another time, but know that this is a depth of affection that beggars all semblances we have perceived on earth. His love is perfect.

               For readers who perhaps had an absent father, one who made it seem that they were not worth the time of day like they were unwanted. Look to the savior and see in Him a representation of the lengths to which the Father would go to include you in His kingdom. Not sparing His own son! His true begotten son from before time immemorial He set on a cross to purchase you from your old father, the devil. God desired you, if indeed you are saved, by His grace alone, He longed for you. To ask why here is a common response, to look inward to try to find some cause in us for His great affection, but the Bible is clear that we had nothing worthy in us at all. It is not for some special quality that you possess, but rather by His goodness and grace that He has chosen you for His glory.

               Doesn’t that undermine what I have said then? Doesn’t that mean God is just kind of using us for His glory? Well, if you misdirect your focus on yourself it may seem that way, but let us think on this for a moment. He delights in us. He takes pleasure in His people (Psalm 149:4). He delights in them truly, not merely for some notion of glory. Isn’t that in itself more glorious, that He delights in us in fact, out of the goodness of Himself rather than any sense of what we might offer to Him? See we often think of love transactionally, a kind of tit for tat, but we can offer God nothing, and yet He still not only chooses us, saves us, and elevates us to sons, but truly and actually takes pleasure in us.

               For another class of reader, those who have born the scars of abusive fathers, know that your Heavenly Father is farther from that than can be comprehended. He disciplines His sons, but discipline has less to do with punishment than with our growth. Though the very thought of “father” may fill you with all kinds of negative sensation and raise up difficult memories, know that the Father of Heavenly lights in whom there is no shadow or variation due to change has in mind and heart only your good. He is your protector, provider, priest, and prophet. None can overcome His power, and He has set it out for His glory “that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). I cannot give some specific reason as to “why” certain difficulties have faced you, but I can say with utmost certainty that the good Lord, the Heavenly Father has for you all goodness in mind – because He who is incapable of lying has said it Himself.

               Now, while it can be dangerous to try understand God in our human terms, I want to close with an illustration that I think will serve. A master carpenter wakes one bright morning, rises, and goes to his two-year-old son’s room. He wakes the boy gently saying, “It is time for us to work.” The boy’s eyes go bright, and he smiles and jumps out of bed, gathers his small workman’s gloves and a toy toolbelt and follows his father. The master craftsman guides the boy to the workshop, gathers his own tools, and sets the boy on the table beside the project. For the next few hours they work together, the son following the father’s direction, and the father ecstatic to work alongside the boy.

               I ask you, can the son help the father to improve the work? Will the craftsman move more rapidly than were he working alone? Can the child wholly ruin the project either? What benefit does the father gain from having his son there other than the delight, the teaching, and the joy of their unity toward a collective end? What immense joy in the son for his obedience, in the play of working with his father on something important!

               A final note to fathers. I am not one of you which is why I have refrained from speaking too far out of turn to you, though perhaps by God’s grace I one day will be. Still, there is a real need for Father’s to raise up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Like our Heavenly father, protect and provide. And, like my own father did, whatever difficulties or failures of your earthly father, break the cycle for your children. I have a dear friend who I have known for many years who is blessed with children, and who confessed to me recently that he needed to take his fatherly duties more seriously. He spent some time not leading in his home, acting out and sinfully abdicating his responsibility as father. Yet, by God’s grace, He recommitted himself and his family to the Lord. His prayer and commitment was that of Joshua, “…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). Some few months after that, his twins gave their lives to the Lord, to the praise of His glorious grace.

               Whatever the state of your relationship with your children, fathers, take on your responsibilities with joy and courage. Guide your children in the Word, take them to church, serve alongside them, teach them life skills, instill in them a fear of the Lord and a confidence in Him as well. The Lord is faithful to His people, and will strengthen you unto that end. Our passage in Romans 8 goes so far as to claim that the whole of creation “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21). Have no doubt that there is work to be done, and sons of God are eagerly longed for. Godly fathers are needed today as always and likely more. God fearing fathers are the first line of defense and attack against the darkness of the adversary and this evil world. I spoke much as a son, but now I speak as a fellow soldier. Yours are lines that must be held in the power and grace of God. So, sons and fathers both, take lesson from the Sovereign Father – love your family, protect, provide, fight for them with all your might given over to the Lord for in Him we are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).