GOD’S FAMILY
God is not the Father of all men, and all men are not brothers one of another. This is true in spite of the popular misconceptions of our day. The teaching of the Bible is very plain on these matters.
God is the Creator of all men. He is the Father of men whom He has made, only in the sense that the watchmaker is the father of the watch. He is the Author of our being.
That “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28) is very clear, but He is not the Father of all men in the sense of the family relationship of father and child. Men are born into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When by faith we are born again of God’s Holy Spirit, we become His children. The very life of God becomes ours. We become, as the Word puts it, “Partakers of the Holy Ghost” (Hebrews 6:4). Until that miracle occurs, we have no right to call God our Father.
Those Jewish leaders who hated Jesus Christ were boasting of their claim on God, since they were descendants of Abraham whom God called; but Jesus declared to them: “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me” (John 8:42).
So then in the same fashion, men become brothers. Those who are children of the same father naturally are members of the same family and brothers one of another; and until men come into the proper relationship with God by accepting His Son, they are not brothers of each other.
Naturally, a Christian has an obligation to all men. It is his duty and his desire, if he be a true child of God, to do everything he can to help other men, not because they are all his brothers, but because they are his neighbors and because, if the Spirit of the Lord Jesus is in control of his life, he will, like his Saviour, seek to manifest the proper attitude of kindness and consideration to all men. One of the apostles put it this way: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). A Christian has an obligation to men who are his neighbors; he has an obligation, also, to those who are of like precious faith, his brethren in Christ.
All men have a responsibility to God: He is the Creator. Only those who have accepted the gift of His love and open their hearts for His Son to enter, only those who have been born into His family, have the rights of sons and the privilege of claiming the rights of a child of the Heavenly Father. –Bob Jones, Jr.
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
