Note: Devotion take from last Sunday's sermon on 1 John 3:1-6.
Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the Sons of God (1 John
3:1a).
John begins with an exclamation,
“Behold,” that holds Biblical overtones. “Behold” is what men say in the Bible
when they meet angels and encounter wonders. John utters this word as he thinks
about his own salvation and that of others, with wonder and awe.
Notice three things stressed
here: (1) The Actor, (2) the Action, and (3) the Recipients of
the Action.
The Actor is God the Father. A
former Muslim now a Christian pastor in London, Ibrahim Ag Mohamed, notes that
in Islam “you can know Allah’s law and will, but never his person or his
character or his heart. He is a ruler not a friend” (God’s Love for Muslims,
21). Allah has slaves, but not sons.
For Christians, however, God is
our heavenly Father. Christ taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father which art
in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Paul wrote to believers in Rome reminding them that
they had been adopted by God the Father and so might address him in most
intimate terms, “For ye have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).
The
Action is the bestowal of God’s love (agape), divine affection, upon sinful men. One of the best
known verses in the Bible declares, “For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The apostle John makes a similar point in 1
John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is
love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
The
Recipients are “us” (believers).
John here places himself alongside all the ordinary and nameless individuals to
whom he writes. The bestowal of God’s saving love is not aimless and
directionless. It is not like an airplane that soars overhead and drops
leaflets indiscriminately on all who are below. It is more like a letter that
is purposely directed to a particular recipient, whose name is written down as
the one addressed by the Father. In Ephesians 1:4 Paul says God, “hath chosen
us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world.”
When we
become believers through spiritual adoption our status is changed. God’s love
is bestowed upon us. We are given “power to become Sons of God” through belief
in Christ’s name (John 1:12-13). We become part of the family of God. We become
children of God, and we become citizens of the heavenly kingdom. This change in
status was not given to us by any merit in us, and it will never be revoked.
Like, John,
we too can thus stand in awe, uttering, “Behold, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called Sons of God.”
Grace and
peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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