• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Are we all automatically considered children of God?

Mediaeval

baptizatus sum
Sep 24, 2012
857
185
✟44,873.00
Faith
Lutheran
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Libertarian
You are correct. I believe that all are redeemed children of God, for "all are His offspring," as the apostle Paul quotes approvingly from the heathen poet (Acts 17). Our Lord speaks of God being the Father even of those who are evil and taught Judas himself to address God as his Father (Matt. 6 & 7).

Maurice did not limit God's Fatherhood to the baptized. He wrote, "By baptism we claim the position which Christ has claimed for all mankind." The universal Fatherhood of God was one of Maurice's emphases:

"It seemed to me that except I could address all kinds of people as children of God and members of Christ, I could not address them at all. Their sin, it seemed to me, must mean a departure from that state; it must be their true state, that which Christ had claimed for them. I thought I had no Gospel for the sufferers in Guy's hospital, if it was not that."

"The bond which unites me to the Dissenter and the Secularist is the conviction that God is their Father as well as mine, in a Son of man, who is their​ ​Lord and mine. I cannot refuse to tell my children this."

Indeed I make "a distinction between people who are followers of Jesus and those who aren't." As Maurice explained, "What, then, do I assert? Is there no difference between the believer and the unbeliever? Yes, the greatest difference. But the difference is not about the fact, but precisely in the belief of the fact."

Where there is no distinction is in the facts of the Gospel. The facts are the same for all in the audience: God is our Father, Christ is our Savior in whom our sins are forgiven. Unless a man can believe this good news outright for himself, he will have no stable basis for assurance. He will always be searching for some grounds outside of the Gospel to give him sufficient warrant to believe the Gospel is true for him. I speak as a former Calvinist and a current sympathizer with those CF members who write of their struggles with assurance.
 
Upvote 0

hedrick

Senior Veteran
Site Supporter
Feb 8, 2009
20,485
10,850
New Jersey
✟1,335,106.00
Faith
Presbyterian
Marital Status
Single
You are correct. I believe that all are redeemed children of God, for "all are His offspring," as the apostle Paul quotes approvingly from the heathen poet (Acts 17). Our Lord speaks of God being the Father even of those who are evil and taught Judas himself to address God as his Father (Matt. 6 & 7).

My apologies. I was trying to read your posting in light of your icon. Given your views as you've presented them, I can see that the idea of all as children of God makes sense.
 
Upvote 0