A Son or a Slave? - Pt 2

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11-14 ESV).

I want to linger a bit on the first statement of yesterday’s devotional. We really do need to begin to stop acting and talking as if we are slaves instead of sons of God. A part of the propensity toward this error is in how we have seen ourselves before being redeemed. We have been taught, correctly, that we are all as an “unclean thing” (cf. Isaiah 64:6). We even sing it in some of our hymns. We’ve also been taught that about every one of our good deeds as a Christian. That’s not what the Scripture says. Isaiah is not describing the good deeds of the genuine believer, good deeds done in the power of the Holy Spirit. Those were the religious acts done by unbelieving hypocrites. When Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works” (Matthew 5:16), he did not mean “that they may see your filthy rags.” He just didn’t. When Paul said that Christians bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the Holy, Holy, Holy Spirit, he did not mean that the Spirit produces filthy rags. When Paul said, “[Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (v. 14), he didn’t mean Christ died to create filthy rags. What has happened in our grassroots theology is that, in our zeal to clarify the pervasiveness of sin and the perfection of justification, we have undercut the Spirit’s work in sanctification. But the Spirit’s work is very real and very precious and should not be called filthy rags. The Spirit “bears witness that we are children of God.” That witness he bears is his power in us to do things that are no longer filthy rags. He also gives us a sweet assurance that we have an all-caring Father, “Abba! Father!” When that cry rises from the heart in childlike need, it is the Spirit in us. Here’s the key to a non-slave, sonship relation with God: Get to know God in his word. You are no longer slaves who do not know what the Father is up to. You are in the big house. Your slavery is over. You may walk into the Father’s study at any time and interrupt him. His book is 1,200 pages long and full of gold and silver and honey for his children. That’s where you know him and meet him, in his word. Realize that because he gave his Son, your sins are forgiven, and his Spirit enables you to please him.