Is Everyone a Child of God?
Dearly beloved of God, how often do you hear people say, “We are all the children of God?” According to the Lord Jesus Christ this is not true. In fact, it is one of the biggest lies ever peddled off on the human race.
Jesus told Nicodemus: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh [this is the natural birth as human beings]; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit [this is a birth of the spirit]. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
All human beings have a natural birth from human parents. That is the birth of the flesh.
Jesus further said that a man must be born again if he was to see, and to enter the kingdom of God. You can read the record in John 3. He spoke of a natural birth and a spiritual birth.
The natural birth consists of a body of flesh and blood, and a soul life existence. Soul life is breath life. It is the birth of the flesh. The natural birth is mortal, and it is corruptible. Everyone born of natural birth will die.
The birth of the spirit is spirit, and Jesus spoke of it as being born again, or begotten from above. This birth provides a person with spirit life, which is everlasting life.
Every human being is born of a natural birth, but not every human being is born again of the spirit from God.
Romans 8:8-10
8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
God no longer considers us to be “in the flesh,” but “in the spirit” since the spirit of God dwells in us. If a person does not have the spirit, that is to say, Christ, he is not God’s. The body [the old nature of the flesh] is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of God’s justness.
Romans 8:14-16
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption [sonship] by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
16 The Spirit Itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
Since we received the spirit of sonship by being born again of the spirit from God we are now the children of God. God is our Father and we are His children. The spirit from God witnesses to our inner being that we are the children of God.
I Peter 1:23
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
The natural birth is corruptible seed; it ends in death and corruption. When a person is born again they are born of incorruptible seed; its end is everlasting life. I Peter 1:3 also speaks of being “begotten again.”
Both the natural birth and the spirit birth are by seed. You cannot lose the seed of your natural birth, nor can you lose the seed of the new birth.
There is another birth we must consider.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee [verse 14: the serpent] and the woman, and between thy seed [the serpent’s seed] and her seed; it [the woman’s seed: Christ] shall bruise thy head [the serpent’s seed], and thou shalt bruise his heel.
This is the first prophecy in the Bible concerning the coming of the Christ. This verse mentions two seeds. One is the woman’s seed, who is the Christ, and the other is the seed of the serpent. Who is this serpent?
Revelation 12:9 informs us that the old serpent is called the Devil and Satan, which deceives the whole world. Revelation 20:10 informs us of the fulfillment of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, when the devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. His children will have the same end that he will have. See Matthew 13:36-43.
In John 8, Jesus had quite a heated confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees about his Father, and theirs. In verse 44, Jesus tells them, “You are of your father the devil, and lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
So there is a natural birth, and people may be born of the spirit from God, or they may be born of the devil’s seed. All human beings are not the children of the One True and Living God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is the Father of those that He fathered in the new birth. They are born again of the spirit from God. They are born of incorruptible seed. They are born in the image of God, which is spirit. These are the children of God, dearly beloved of God.