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To say that the Nazarene, in some way not genetically to be explained, but which is hidden within the recesses of his own personality, shows forth in incomparable fulness that relation of God and man which is the ideal for us all, seems only to be saying over again what Jesus said when he proclaimed: 'I and My Father are one. That Jesus actualised, not absolutely in the sense that he stood out of relation to history, but still perfectly within his relation to history, that which in us and for us is potential, the sonship of God that seems a very simple and intelligible assertion.
The antithesis often drawn between His universal care and His 'special providence' is misleading. Providence is special because it is universal. That which embraces everything must embrace each thing. But the immanent God is 'your Father, and because of that sonship, 'ye are of more value than many sparrows. There is an ascending order, and an increasing closeness and tenderness of relation.
But it is not a stone in the foundation of a church, no not respecting order; it is not, to another, a sign of my sonship with God; it is not the door into fellowship with the saints, it is no church ordinance, as you, yourself, have testified. So then as to church work, it hath no place at all therein.
The Christian man in his regenerated spirit has been born again; the Christian man still waits for the completion of that sonship in a time when the regenerated spirit will no longer dwell in the clay cottage of 'this tabernacle, but will inhabit a congruous dwelling in 'the building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
The highest poetic feeling of which we are now conscious, springs not from the beholding of perfected beauty, but from the mute sympathy which the creation with all its children manifests with us in the groaning and travailing which look for the sonship.
It is much to say that for sonship there must be a divine regeneration. It is much to say that the power of this regeneration is all gathered together in Christ Jesus.
Then I saw that here the claim upon my honesty, and the highest calling of man met. I saw that were I as free to do with my grandfather's money as it was possible for man to be, I could in no other way use it altogether worthily than in aiding to give outcome, shape and operation to the sonship and brotherhood in me.
'Make the important stumble, Of saying that he, the sage and humble, Was likewise one with the Creator'? But now what is the freedom based on sonship which our Lord here claims? I have said that this tax was levied with a double meaning; first, it was an atonement or ransom for the soul; second, it was devoted to the temple and its worship.
He felt like the prodigal, who had planned to suggest as his only possible desert, a place among the hired servants, but was so lifted into realisation of sonship by the father's welcome, that perforce he left that sentence unspoken. So Ronnie looked at her dumbly, reading the utter love for him in her eyes. Back came the words of his hymn, replete with fresh meaning.
And so, in its most perfect work, it carries us to God it bids us claim our sonship it gives us hope of immortality! His voice had the vibrating intensity of prayer. Lucy hardly understood what he said at all, but the tears came into her eyes as she sat hiding them against his knee. 'But what makes you think God is good that He cares anything about us? she said softly.
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