In this message we shall cover the matter of sonship for the Body. Ephesians 1:5 says that God has predestinated “us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” God has predestinated us for sonship; His predestination results in sonship. Therefore, sonship is according to God’s predestination. Before the foundation of the world, God marked us out for sonship. We were not saved by accident but according to God’s predestination.
Ephesians 1 does not end with sonship, for the last verse of this chapter (v. 23) speaks of the Body. The Body is the result of the sonship. God has predestinated us for sonship so that the Body may come into existence. If you read Ephesians 1 carefully and thoroughly, you will see that the Body is constituted of the sons of God. The Body is not composed of Americans, Chinese, and various other nationalities. All these nationalities are the sons of men, and sons of men cannot compose the Body of Christ.
Many Christians think that the Body is simply the coming together of groups of believers. Such a gathering may be an organization or a society, but it is not the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not composed of sons of man, for they are not qualified to be the Body of Christ. Only the sons of God are qualified to be constituted into the living organism known as the Body of Christ. From now on, we should no longer consider the Body as simply a group of Christians. We need to ask whether these Christians are meeting as sons of God or merely as sons of man. We all have a dual status. On the one hand, we are still sons of man; on the other hand, we are sons of God. If I were in the status of a son of man, I would not be able to speak for the Lord. When I speak for Him, I speak as a son of God.
After we become sons of God, we need to live like sons of God. How about your living? Do you live like a son of God? When you deal with your wife or husband, are you a son of man or a son of God? If we still live like sons of man, we are not the Body of Christ in reality. Apparently, we are the Body of Christ; actually, all the demons know that we are not the Body of Christ but simply a gathering of sons of man. Moreover, the angels will say that because we still live like sons of man, they do not recognize us as sons of God. In order to claim the standing of the Body of Christ, we must live like the sons of God. Then we have the ground to declare to all the universe, “We are the sons of God. Angels, don’t you see that we are living here as the sons of God? Demons, none of us is living like the sons of man. Hallelujah, we have been chosen and predestinated to be sons of God in order to be constituted into the Body of Christ!”
In the Bible a son has two crucial significances. First, a son denotes life. First John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has the life.” Thus, if you do not have the Son, you do not have life. A son of man denotes the human life, and the Son of God denotes the divine life. Although we were born with the human life, through regeneration we have received the divine life. By this divine life with the divine nature, we are no longer merely sons of man but also sons of God. Fifty years ago, I thought that to have life through having the Son meant only that we were saved. Yes, when we have eternal life by having the Son, we are saved. Life, however, is not mainly for salvation; it is for our living. The divine life we have through receiving the Son of God is for our living. Are you living like a divine person? Even the teenagers among us need to realize that because they have the Son of God, the divine life is in them. This divine life is for living, and they need to live like divine persons. We need to say, “O Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. Although I have the divine life, I’m not living like a divine person.” It is abnormal to have the divine life and not to live like a divine person.
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