To whom does this refer?

I want to address something that I hear quite a bit in many different ways.  It is the statement “You are a child of God.”  It is often used incorrectly, and I want to address it.  So the question is, is everyone a child of God, or not?  If not, whose children are they?

I saw this sign while I was in California last year.  I have heard a lot of people say things similar, but this statement is confusing, and because it was posted outside this church rather than on the inside is even more confusing.  The purpose of this post is to make it clear that this statement does not apply to everyone, only certain people.  My aim is to help Christians discern what the Bible says rather than what popular culture says.  (In other words, it is not intended for non-Christians).  Now, who are these certain people and who are the ones who do not fall in this category? Let’s look a some scripture.  We’ll start in Ephesians:

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ⁵ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
(Ephesians 1:3-6, New King James Version)

Look at verse five.  We have been predestined to adoption as sons.  I’m not going to go into predestination- that is an entirely different topic(!), but I do want to closely examine the thought of adoption as sons.   When my wife gave birth to my children,  we didn’t have to adopt them.  The thought of adoption our own children is just, well, goofy.  Why would we have to adopt them?  They were already ours!  However, if we didn’t have to adopt them because they were already ours, then in order to make someone our child who wasn’t born to us, then we do have to adopt them.  So if we must be adopted by Jesus Christ Himself, then we can not already be His children.

Well, wait, it says “us.”  That’s written to everyone, right?  I mean, everyone reading those words are included in that statement, aren’t they?

No.  Look at the opening to his letter:

¹ Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:

² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:1-2, New King James Version)

Paul is writing to the saints.  All Christians are saints.  You don’t have to be declared a saint by your church, or wait a certain amount of time after you die to obtain it: sainthood is simply part of our Christianity.  (Again, an entirely different post, but take my word on that for now, and when you finish reading this go seek it out for yourself).  There are many passages equating Christians with sons of God.

So this means those who are not Christians, that is those who have not been “adopted as sins by Jesus Christ Himself,”  are not children of God.  What does that mean?  Whose children are they?

In explaining The Parable of the Wheat and Tares, Jesus says this:

³⁸ The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. (Matthew 13:38, New King James Version)

And John describes the relationship between him and man:

⁸ He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.   ¹⁰ In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:8-10, New King James Version)

Now with this passage, I want to make it clear from the context that John is writing of sin in the sense of an ongoing life of sin, not just sin in general.  The key phrase is “practice righteousness”.

However, these two passages show clearly that those who are not children of God are the children of the devil.

I say these things not to be arrogant or cruel or condescending or anything but to point out biblical truths.  As Christians we use this truth to drive us to warn others to escape the coming wrath.  We must remember that we ourselves have been rescued, and we are no better than they are.  We are just better off.  We are never allowed to look down on another because of sin.

If you are not a Christian, take this as a warning in love.  I want all who are not followers of Christ to become His!  I admit that only until recently this was purely for selfish and pragmatic reasons.  I wanted everyone to become His because the world would be better and people would get along better.  Diseases would lessen (think of STDs and deaths related to gluttony alone!)  The selfish part was that I want to believe what I believe and share it with others without fear of retaliation from them.  But now I live with a different purpose.  Life may be better if everyone turned to Christ right now, but the fact of who He is is the reason they should turn to Him.  Turn to God for He is Glorious beyond all of creation-not to make your life better!