Romans 8:14, Sons of God

Posted on Thursday, October 27, 2011 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

//The synoptic gospels indicate that in the age to come and in the heavenly realm, we will become sons of God. According to Luke, if you love your enemies, “your reward will be great, and you will become sons of the Most High.” (Luke 6:35) Matthew says of the peacemakers, “they shall be called the sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9) About the coming age Luke promises, “they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36). Becoming God’s son is recognized as an eschatological sign of the final age, a promise speaking of the resurrection.

In contrast, John and Paul treat sonship as a gift already bestowed. Paul says, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” (Gal 4:6) John 1:12-13 makes it clear that God has granted the opportunity to be born again, not of natural descent but of God, and that such believers are already “children of God.”

When we recognize that Paul is our earliest Christian writer, and when we begin to notice all of the instances where John agrees with Paul rather than the Synoptics, we have to ask the question quite seriously whether John, with its insistence that we have already entered the final age, reflects an earlier Christian tradition rather than a later one.

Has the resurrection already occurred?