entrance into our spirits of the Spirit of adoption, we receive a
life derived from, and kindred with, the life of the Giver, and that
we are bound to Him not only by the cords of love, but to obey the
parental authority. Sonship is the deepest thought about the
Christian life.

It was an entirely new thought when Jesus spoke to His disciples of
their Father in heaven. It was a thrilling novelty when Paul bade
servile worshippers realise that they were no longer slaves, but
sons, and as such, heirs of God. It was the rapture of pointing to a
new star flaming out, as it were, that swelled in John's
exclamation: 'Beloved, now are we the sons of God!' For even though
in the Old Testament there are a few occasional references to
Israel's King or to Israel itself as being 'God's son,' as far as I
remember, there is only one reference in all the Old Testament to
parental love towards each of us on the part of God, and that is the
great saying in the 103rd Psalm: 'Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.' For the most part
the idea connected in the Old Testament with the Fatherhood of God
is authority: 'If I be a Father, where is Mine honour?' says the
last of the prophets. But when we pass into the New, on the very
threshold, here we get the germ, in these words, of the blessed
thought that, as His disciples, we, too, may claim sonship to God
through Him, and penetrate beyond the awe of Divine Majesty into the
love of our Father God. Brethren, notwithstanding all that was
unique in the Sonship of Jesus Christ, He welcomes us to a place
beside Himself, and if we are the children of God by faith in Him,
then are we 'heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.'

Now the second thought that I would suggest from these words is--