- Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God
I have been memorizing, studying, and preaching on Romans 8 for the better part of a year now. I never cease to be amazed at the riches contained therein. I am now studying vv. 15-16, where Paul writes of the ‘Spirit of adoption’ who ‘bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.’ I have read numerous Puritan sermons, contemporary sermons, commentaries, and what Greek experts have to say. (The link is to an article by Daniel Wallace that I found to be extremely helpful). They have all been helpful. But I found insight in an unlikely place.
A couple of weeks ago I read a book to my 3 year-old. I had read the book several times before. It is called, ‘Are You My Mother?’, by P.D. Eastman. In the book, a freshly hatched baby bird goes on a quest of sorts in search of its missing mother. The tiny bird approaches several animals (a cat, a dog, a cow, etc) and even an inanimate object. To each it poses the same question: ‘Are you my mother?’ With the other animals they simply respond with, ‘no.’ With the inanimate object, which appears to be a backhoe of some sort, the answer is clear enough without a direct answer. In the end, he finally meets his mother. He knows her immediately without being told.
Forgive me for waxing philosophical about a children’s book, but I couldn’t help but relate this to what I had been reading in Romans 8. All human beings are in the position of this baby bird – except they’re not looking for their mother. Rather, they are looking for a Father. We are walking around, like the little chick, asking one object, one person, after another, ‘Are you my Father?’ This is how idolatry happens. Scripture speaks of this explicitly:
- Jeremiah 2:26 “As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, 27 who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Arise and save us!'”
So then, we are walking around looking for a father, making things that are no fathers into fathers. Douglas Wilson calls this ‘father hunger.’ Recently, on his blog, he shared a little quote from William Bridge that I found intriguing. I found it in its context and it was even more intriguing:
If you should see a child, a pretty child, lie in the open streets, and none own it, would it not make your bowels yearn within you? Come to the little one, and say, ‘Child, where’s thy father?’
‘I know not,’ saith the child.
‘Where’s thy Mother, Child?’ ‘I know not.’
‘ Who is thy father? What’s thy father’s name, child? ‘I know not.’
Would it not make your heart ache to see such a little one in the streets? But for a poor soul to lie in the street, as it were, and not know his Father, whether God be his Father, or the Devil be his father; for a soul to say, ‘I do not know my Father, whether God in Christ, be my Father, yea or no;’ this is pitiful indeed. The word ‘Father’ is a sweet word, for it sweetens all our duties; take the word Father out of prayer and how sour it is. Surely therefore it is a sad and sore affliction to want the assurance of God’s love in Christ.
This is the natural position of man, and Bridge relates it directly to assurance, which, by the way, is Paul’s grand theme in Romans 8. In vv. 15-16 the work of the Spirit is described as having to do with assurance that God is our Father and that we are his children through adoption in Christ. Following the line of thinking in this post, let me summarize the ‘witness’ of the Spirit in this way:
We are walking around searching for a father, making fathers out of things that are no father (idolatry), and then as we deduce from the gospel in Scripture that God indeed is our true Father, the Spirit comes along and adds his ‘amen’ in your soul. Let me put it this way: You come to God, having heard/read the gospel message, and say, ‘Are you my Father?’ And the Spirit responds with a resounding, ‘Yes, and you are his child in Christ!’ He preaches to us the message, using the words of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,: ‘God our Father, Christ our brother…’
And when this happens, like the baby bird in the children’s book, we are filled with joy.
Read William Bridge’s entire sermon HERE.
