Are We God’s Children?
The Bible tells us that Jesus is God’s Only Begotten Son, but it also says that we either are or can become the children of God. So who is a child of God? What gives?
Growing up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one point of doctrine that was drilled into me perhaps more than any other was the idea that I am, quite literally, a child of God, created in His image. Over and over at church and at home, we sang “I Am a Child of God”. I took it as a given that the God of the Bible was my Father and that all Christians believed this. And yet, as I grew older, I came to realize that many Christians actually do not believe it, and that is perplexing to me, as I feel that the Bible is substantially clear on the matter, despite some complexity.
The divine nature of Man as a child of God is actually one of the main points of doctrine differentiating Christianity and Islam, as noted in the following passage from the Qur’an (112.1–4):
Say, “He is God, the One.
God, the Absolute.
He begets not, nor was He begotten.
And there is none comparable to Him.”
This is a hard and clear distinction. Islam teaches that God absolutely does not have children, while Christianity teaches that God does have a child or children. But who would that be? Would that be all humans, just Christians, or just Christ? On the surface, the Bible seems to be a bit inconsistent on this…as it says all three.
There are many instances in both the New and Old Testaments in which the Bible tells us that all people, regardless of belief or affiliation, are the children of God. For example:
- Psalm 82:6 says that we are all gods because we are the children of God.
- Malachi 2:10 says that God is the father of all because He created us.
- Matthew 5:48 shows that Christ, in addressing people who were hearing Him for the first time, told them that God was their father, even before accepting Christ as a savior.
- Matthew 6:9 shows that Christ taught the people to address God as their father, even those who were praying to God for the first time and had not necessarily been fully converted.
- Acts 17:29 tells us that we are the “offspring” of God.
- Hebrews 12:9 describes God as the “father of spirits”.
- Ephesians 4:6 says that God is the “Father of all”.
- Luke 3:38 says that Adam was the son of God, and this is said as part of a genealogy.
These and other passages teach that, having been (spiritually) created in the very image of God, we are literally God’s children. We are distinct from animals in that God did not just create our spirits: God made us as beings of the same spiritual species, looking to Him as a parent. However, there are other verses in the Bible that suggest that the fatherhood of God is more narrow than that, and that it is contingent upon our choices.
- Hosea 1:10 shows how a transition can happen in which God goes from telling the people that they are not His people to accepting them as His children.
- John 1:12 tells us that Christ empowers us to become the children of God.
- Romans 8:15-16 says that we are the children of God, but only after having been adopted through Christ.
Clearly, the Bible tells us both that all people are the children of God and that we become God’s children by accepting Christ. Is that not a contradiction? It seems to be…but that is not the end of it. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God — which, of course, implies that no one else is a child of God. It does so in these verses:
- John 1:14–18
- John 3:16–18
- Hebrews 11:17
- 1 John 4:9
So how does this work? Is the Bible just a contradiction?
No, the Bible is not a contradiction. This is all rational and consistent doctrine. The issue is that the Bible teaches three different concepts of parentage in the passages cited above.
We are all the children of God because God created us in His image. We are not mere creations like the animals are: we are God’s actual offspring. Spiritually, we are the same species of being as He is, though there is of course a difference of degree there, and we are not perfect.
Yet, despite the fact that we are children of God, we fell from grace and therefore lost that divine birthright. When that happened, the First Death began to hold power over us, and it became as if we were not God’s children, having been separated from Him. However, acting as an intercessor, Jesus Christ adopts us back into the family of God. In that way, Jesus Christ becomes our father and helps us to become the children of God again by adoption.
The way in which Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God is in the biological sense. We were all born of God spiritually, and those who accept Christ are reborn of God spiritually, but only Christ was born of God physically. Of course, this does not mean that God fathered Jesus in the normal sense, and it does not detract from the claim that Mary conceived as a virgin. It only means that, as with other mortals, Jesus received twenty-three chromosomes from His mother and twenty-three chromosomes from His father — that is, God the Father. Those chromosomes apparently were not put there in the usual way, but they were put there by the power of God, and while God the Father likely does not have DNA as you and I do, the chromosomes used probably were directly modeled after Him in some way. That is why, while we were all created in the image of God, Jesus Christ was made “in the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3).
Antagonistic atheists often make a great fuss about the supposed contradictions of the Bible, but in most cases, seeming contradictions can be explained with a small amount of analysis and inquiry. The reality here is that the Bible teaches of at least three different senses of fatherhood: the direct spiritual sense, the adoptive spiritual sense, and the biological sense. In the direct spiritual sense, all mortal humans are the children of God, though we are fallen. In the adoptive spiritual sense, those who accept Christ become the children of God. In the biological sense, Jesus Christ was and is the Only Begotten Son of God.
Critics of my faith have at times tried to argue that we are teaching false doctrine when we teach that all humans are the children of God. As evidence of that, they will cite the second set of verses that I noted above, which teach about spiritual adoption through Christ. However, those critics can only make that argument by ignoring the first set of verses above, which teach that all humans are the children of God, and not just those who have accepted Christ. What they fail to realize is that both ideas are true, though in different senses. A logical and conscientious interpretation of the Bible must strive to harmonize all verses rather than focusing on some while ignoring others.
We are all God’s children, having His divine nature imbued in us. Because of that, we must seize the opportunity to unite with His Only Begotten Son and thereby return to the family of God through adoption. Those Christians who deny that God is the spiritual father of all are curiously making what is essentially an Islamic argument, declaring that God does not have children because that would somehow debase Him. This is not a depiction of the God of the Bible. As stated in Romans 8:16–18:
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
May we all do everything in our power to recognize and fulfill the divine nature that defines our existence.
