Are We All God’s Children?

“We’re all God’s children!”

Have you heard that before?

But is it true?

In a biological sense, I guess you could say that.

Every person on the planet can trace their genealogical roots back to Adam and Eve. It’s true that all people are God’s creation.

But in the spiritual sense, no.

In the spiritual realm, there are two types of people: the children of Satan and the children of God. This is why Jesus told the Jews who did not believe in Him: “You are of your Father, the devil” (John 8:44).

Therefore, in Scripture, non-believers are never called “God’s children. They are called “sons of disobedience” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:2, 3).

But thanks be to God, believers in Christ become children of God when they first put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God.

“Sonship to God is not, therefore, a universal status upon which everyone enters by natural birth, but a supernatural gift which one receives through receiving Jesus . . . Sonship to God, then, is a gift of grace.” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

Our salvation brings many spiritual blessings – and one of those blessings is that we become children of God because God has adopted us into his family. He is now our heavenly Father, and we are His sons and daughters.

Paul explains this wonderful truth in Galatians 4:4-6 —

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Isn’t this amazing: God sent Jesus to earth to save us from our slavery to sin and make us His children.

He adopted us! And now we belong to Him and can trust Him to take care of us as only He can.

John also writes about the great privilege of sonship:

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are . . . Beloved, we are God’s children now”
1 John 3:1-2.

I love the word “now” in the above verse. This is reason for us to rejoice. If you know God through His Son Jesus, you are a child of God . . . right now.

Think about that for a while, and for the rest of your life.

“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctly Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.”
(J.I. Packer, Knowing God)