# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1910_S18
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

18 Proceedings of the twenty-third convention

7. We are God's children.
(Rom. 8:16.)

Who has made us children of God? "Have
we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"
Mal. 2:10. Yes, we are "the offspring of God," Acts 17:29. All
people are God's children by creation; but since Adam's
fall all people are God's sinful children.

Therefore, however, God sent his Son, "to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons," that we might be adopted as children, Gal. 4:5. We did not
choose God as our Father, but he made us his children.
It is God's work, without our cooperation. We are
"born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God," John 1:13.

What moved God to make us his children?
"Of his own will begat he us," James 1:18. "According to his
abundant mercy," 1 Pet. 1:3. "Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!"
1 John 3:1. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children to himself
by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will," Eph. 1:5.
"That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels
of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. . . . And it shall
come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my
people, there shall they be called the children of the living God," Rom.
9:23, 26; cf. Hos. 1:10.

How has God made us his children?
"When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of
a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons," Gal. 4:4, 5.
Christ is the Son of God, true God, and also the Son of the
Virgin Mary, true man. He was made under the law
in order to bear the burdens that weighed us down to hell. He fulfilled the
law by his perfectly holy life. He atoned for the penalty
of our transgression by his innocent suffering and his shameful
death. Thus he redeemed us from the curse of the law, so that
we might become God's children.

This is divine truth; this is God's Word; this is the Gospel. And where this Gospel is
brought to the heart dead in sins, it proves itself to be the power of God unto salvation,
the incorruptible seed from which we are born again,
1 Pet. 1:23. From the preaching of this Word of God comes
faith. "For ye are all the children of God by faith in
Christ Jesus," Gal. 3:26. "But as many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,"
John 1:12. "Of his own will begat he us . . . with the word of truth,"