God's Firstborn Sons
by Arlen L. Chitwood

        Foreword       Chapter 1      Chapter 2

        Chapter 3       Appendix     

 


         Documents in Microsoft Word Format:

        Foreword      Chapter 1      Chapter 2

        Chapter 3      Appendix     

          

God presently has two firstborn Sons — Christ (Hebrews 1:6) and Israel (Exodus 4:22, 23).  Christ is God’s firstborn Son through procreation (John 3:16), and Israel is God’s firstborn son through adoption (Romans 9:4).  And God is about to bring into existence a third firstborn son through adoption — the Church (Romans 8:14, 15, 19, 23).

“Sonship” implies rulership.  Only “sons” hold regal positions in God’s kingdom — past, present, or future.  That’s the way God established matters in the beginning, and that which God has established in this respect never changes.

Angels alone (sons of God because of creation) have ruled throughout God’s kingdom in time past (both over this earth and elsewhere in the universe).  But, with man’s creation — an entirely new order in the universe, an individual created in God’s image, after His likeness — a change in the order of rulers within God’s government was made known.  Man was created for regal purposes (Genesis 1:26-28); and, though sin subsequently entered, resulting in a ruined creation (Genesis 3:1ff), God did not and will not change His mind concerning the reason He brought man into existence (Romans 11:29).

The whole of man’s salvation has this high end in view, whether salvation past (the spiritual birth, presently possessed by all Christians) or salvation present and future (the saving of the soul, not presently possessed by Christians but awaiting realization).  Man has been, is being, and is about to be saved for a revealed regal purpose.

A new order of “sons” is about to be brought forth (Romans 8:19; cf. Hebrews 2:5).  And only then will God’s purpose for man’s creation (in the beginning) and His reason for man’s subsequent salvation (following his ruin) be realized.