Created, Then Called as God's Beloved Children

1 John is an anonymous document—the writer never identifies himself. It is “typically studied with the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation because their similar vocabulary and ideas suggest they all came from a common tradition or community. The ancient church attached the apostle John, ‘the one whom Jesus loved’ (John 20:2), to this tradition because John’s intimate witness of Jesus was thought to supply authoritative materials of the community’s theological understanding.” * That connection comes into vivid focus in today’s reading, as we compare it with John 1:12: “But those who did welcome him, those who believed in his name, he authorized to become God’s children.” But the centrality of our identity of God’s children to Christian faith (not employees, and certainly not, as various writers have noted, “fans”) is supported by the apostle Paul’s use of the same language (cf. Romans 8:15-21).

• Scholar William Barclay wrote about this message’s impact: “We are not merely called the children of God; we are the children of God. There is something here which we may well note. It is by the gift of God that a person becomes a child of God. By nature people are the creatures of God, but it is by grace that they become the children of God. There are two English words which are closely connected but whose meanings are widely different, paternity and fatherhood. Paternity describes a relationship in which a man is responsible for the physical existence of a child; fatherhood describes an intimate, loving, relationship. In the sense of paternity all people are children of God; but in the sense of fatherhood people are children of God only when he makes his gracious approach to them and they respond.” ** Have you fully accepted the privilege of being a child of God? What does that family connection mean for your spiritual security?