Sect. 139Doctrine of Holy Scripture on the Supernatural Communion with God, Considered Especially as Communion by Adoptive SonshipDoctrine of Holy Scripture on the Supernatural Communion with God, Considered Especially as Communion by Adoptive Sonship

It is in the New Testament, rather than in the Old, that we must look for the revealed doctrine on the supernatural destiny of man. Although, from the very beginning, man’s ultimate end was supernatural, still in the Old Testament he is considered as a servant rather than as a son to God. “As long as the heir is a child he differeth nothing from a servant” (Gal. 4:1). The relation of the Israelites to God, which St. Paul’s describes as an “adoption of children” (Rom. 9:4), was a type of the Sonship established by Christ. In the Sapiential books and in the Prophets who form the transition from the Law to the Gospel, there are so many indications of a most intimate and familiar union between man and God, that they can only apply to the supernatural sonship set forth in the New Testament. (See on this point the profound remarks of Card. Wiseman in his essay on The Miracles of the Gospel.) The supernatural life with God, to which man was destined from the beginning, but to which he received a new title through the Incarnation, is referred to in countless texts of the New Testament. The principal passages are the discourses of our Lord (John 6 and 14 to 17); the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel, compared with his First Epistle (chaps. 1 and 3); the introductions to many of the other Epistles which set forth the excellence and exaltedness of the Christian’s vocation, e.g. 1 Cor. 1, 2; Eph. 1; Col. 1; 1 Pet. 1, and 2:1: and Rom. 8 and Gal. 4. The whole doctrine may be conveniently expounded under the following heads.

I. The actual vocation of man to communion with God is spoken of in Scripture as a great mystery, hidden in God, and surpassing all human conception, revealed by the Spirit who searcheth even the deep things of God. But this destiny cannot be man’s natural destiny, because his natural destiny is not beyond his ken: it is found in the depths of human nature, and requires no searching of the depths of God. “We speak the Wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written: Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him. But to us God hath revealed them by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So also the things that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us (freely χαρισθέντα) from God” (1 Cor. 2:7–12).

II. The supernatural character of man’s present vocation appears even more in the emphatic expressions with which the Apostles extol its grandeur and exaltedness above all human conceptions, and see in its realization in the Incarnation a marvellous manifestation of the power, majesty, and love of God. “I cease not to give thanks for you, making commemoration of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him: having the eyes of your heart enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the operation of the might of His power” (Eph. 1:16–19). “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power by His Spirit unto the inward man; … that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth; to know also the charity of Christ which surpasseth knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God. Now to Him Who is able to do all things more abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power which worketh in us, to Him be glory, etc.” (Eph. 3:14–21. See also Col. 1:10 sqq.; 26 sqq.; 2 Pet. 1:4).

III. The status, the life, and the goods to which God has called man, are designated in Scripture as an elevation from slavery to adoptive sonship of God. This designation itself, and the explanations given in Holy Writ, make it evident that the sonship is not merely a natural relation of man to God founded upon sinlessness, but a peculiar, thoroughly intimate relation, raising the creature from its humble estate and making it the object of a peculiar Divine benevolence and complaisance, admitting it to filial love, and enabling it to become the heir of God—that is, a partaker of God’s own beatitude. The adopted creature is described also as the friend of God and the bride of the Holy Ghost.

The gift of sonship is declared by St. John to be the object of the Incarnation: “He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them … who are born of God” (1:12), and it is further explained in 1 John 3:1, 2: “Behold, what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God.… Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” St. Paul speaks four times expressly of “the adoption of sons” (υἱοθεσία), thus making this term the technical expression for the union with God to which man is called, just as in ordinary language it is the technical term for the admission of a stranger or a subject to the rights and privileges of a son. The following texts leave no doubt as to the strict and technical meaning of the adoption. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.… Who has predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the purpose of His will (κατʼ εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ), to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son” (Eph. 1:3–6). “When the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law; that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore now he is [thou art] no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, an heir also through God” (Gal. 4:4–7). Compare the parallel text Rom. 8:14–17; and John 15:14, 15; 1 Cor. 6:16, 17.

IV. Holy Scripture further points out the supernatural exaltedness of the sonship of God, by describing it as a communication or partnership with the only begotten Son of God, as a participation in the privileges which are properly His own in opposition to creatures, and in virtue of His Divine Sonship. Such a communication includes a union between God and the creature analogous to the union between God the Father and God the Son. The absolutely supernatural character of our vocation could not be stated more forcibly.

The most important text bearing on this point is John 17:20–26: “I pray for them also who through their word shall believe in Me; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them: that they may be one, as We also are One. I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou also hast loved Me. Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory, which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world.… And I have made known Thy Name to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” From this text we gather—

1. God’s love for His adopted children is an extension and communication of His paternal love for His Divine Son.

2. By means of God’s love, the creature enters into a communion with Him analogous to the communion between God the Father and God the Son, whence Christ also calls His Father our Father (John 20:17), and condescends to call men His brethren (Heb. 2:11), so that we are admitted into the family of God as members (1 John 1:3).

3. As a pledge and seal of this closer union with Father and Son, our Lord promises, in the same discourse, the same Holy Ghost Who is the eternal pledge and seal of the unity of Father and Son. As St. Paul further explains: “God hath sealed us, and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:22); and again: “That we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, saying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:5, 6). The strongest and most pregnant expression for the “fellowship (κοινωνία), with the Father and His Son” (1 John 1:3), is “the communication (κοινωνία, co-fruition or co-possession) of the Holy Ghost” (2 Cor. 13:13).

4. The consequence of our union with the Father and the Son, is that we shall become partakers of the same glory which the Son has received from the Father, and that we shall be where the Son is, viz. in the house and in the bosom of the Father (John 14:2, 3), and shall have a share in His royal power and sit at His table: “I dispose unto you a kingdom, as My Father has disposed to Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:29, 30).

5. The fellowship in the possession of heavenly goods is further described as being a co-heirship with the Son, and the Holy Ghost Himself is designated as the pledge and guarantee of the inheritance. “In Whom (Christ) believing you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is the pledge (arrha, ἀῤῥαβών) of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:13, 14).

6. The intimacy of our union with Him is likened by our Lord to that of the branch with the vine (John 15); it is such that, as He lives for the Father, so we should live for Him (John 6:58).

All this can only mean that the life which He communicates to us is of the same kind as the life which the Father communicates to Him. St. Paul expresses this idea when he says: “And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20). And, again (Rom. 8), the same Apostle in many ways speaks of God’s own Spirit as being the principle of life in the adopted children of God, the soul, as it were, of the supernatural life.

It is evident that the union of the creature with God does not consist in the oneness of substance or in the communication of the Divine Substance itself to the creature; it is only a unity of relation (ἕνωσις σχετική). It is, however, equally clear that it is more than a moral union. It must be conceived as a physical union, ἕνωσις φυσική, based upon the fact that the united patties live a life of the same kind, and that this similarity of life proceeds from the intimate character of the union: God being the principle and the object of the creature’s supernatural life. St. Paul points out clearly enough that the union of adoption is more than the moral union of friendship, when he compares it to the union of the bodies in carnal connection (1 Cor. 6:16, 17).

V. The adoption to Divine Sonship is essentially superior to human adoption. Human adoption is but an external community of life, whereas Divine adoption affects the life of the creature intrinsically, consisting, as it does, in a true regeneration or new birth of the soul, whereby it is intrinsically likened to the only begotten Son of God, and transformed into His image.

At the very beginning of his Gospel, St. John mentions this new birth: “As many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them who believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (1:12, 13). To be born of God stands here as the condition for becoming children of God. Again, “Unless a man be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (3:5). Christ Himself here sets down the regeneration by God as the title to Divine inheritance. As these words are an answer to the question of Nicodemus, “How can a man be born when he is old?” they show sufficiently that Christ does not conceive the regeneration as a mere change of moral dispositions, but as the mysterious operation of the Holy Ghost. In his First Epistle St. John speaks again of this birth from God, and connects it with a Divine generation in God and a Divine seed in man: “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begot, loveth Him also Who is born of Him” (5:1); “Every one that is born of God committeth not sin; for His seed abideth in him” (ibid., 3:9). This also fully explains the words, “That we should be called and should be the sons of God” (ibid., 3:1). The same notion is found in the other epistles, e.g. 1 Pet. 1:3, and 1:23; James 1:18; Tit. 3:5, and Eph. 2:10, where St. Paul calls the regeneration a creation, because it is a complete renewal of our nature (Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17). Taken by itself, the term regeneration, or new birth, might imply no more than a relative and moral renewal of life. But in the passages quoted above, it evidently implies the foundation of a higher state of being and life, resulting from a special Divine influence, and admitting man to the dignity and inheritance of the sons of God. We must, therefore, take it in the fullest sense admissible, viz. as far as the limits imposed by the essential difference between God and His creatures will allow. Hence, it cannot mean generation from the Substance of God, but can be a communication of Divine Life by the power of God, and by means of a most intimate indwelling of the Divine Substance in the creature. The reality and sublimity of the creature’s new birth out of God are marvellously described in the following texts: “Whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be made conformable (συμμόρφους) to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). “But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). “My little children, of whom I am in labour again until Christ be formed (μορφωθῇ) in you” (Gal. 4:19; see also Gal. 3:26, 27; Rom. 13:14).

VI. The inheritance of the adopted sons of God is not confined to finite and external goods. It includes the perfect transfiguration of their innermost life, which enables them to share in that possession and fruition of the highest good which peculiarly belongs to God the Son as the natural heir of God. For the eternal life of the adopted sons is the immediate vision of God, face to face, as He is. But such intuition of God, as Scripture teaches, is not within the power of man; it is the privilege of the Son Who is in the bosom of the Father. The proof that the vision of God is the object of our vocation is contained in 1 John 3:1–3. The natural impossibility of this vision is set forth by St. Paul: “Who is the Blessed and only Mighty, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Who only hath immortality and dwelleth in light inaccessible, Whom no man hath seen nor can see” (1 Tim. 6:15, 16). The same vision is claimed as a privilege of the Son by St. John: “No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (1:18).

VII. St. Peter, at the beginning of his farewell Epistle, reveals to us the inmost essence of God’s great and precious promises in grace and adoption, when he tells us that we shall be made “partakers of the Divine Nature” (θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως). This expression admirably describes that new being and new estate which the adopted children receive through their birth from God, so that not only they are called, but are really, sons of God. It further contains the great reason why they are called to the vision of God, and why this vision is “a manifestation of the glory due to them.” Lastly, it shows that the destiny of the adopted creatures is essentially above every claim and power of their nature, for nothing is more above and beyond nature than that which it can attain only by being raised to a level with God.

The sublime text to which we refer runs as follows: “Grace to you and peace be fulfilled in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord, according as all things of His Divine power, which appertain to life and godliness, are given to us, through the knowledge of Him Who hath called us by His own proper glory and virtue: by Whom He hath given us most great and precious promises; that by these you may be made partakers of the Divine Nature, flying from the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world. And you, giving all diligence, minister in your faith, virtue.…” (2 Pet. 1:2–5). In the original text the flight from concupiscence is given rather as a consequence than as a condition of the partnership with God (ἀποφυγόντες, “after having fled”); at any rate, the flight cannot be taken as an explanation of its nature, as Baius contended. The whole sublime tenor of this text and the scriptural teaching just expounded, force us to give the “partaking of the Divine Nature” the most literal meaning of which it admits.

VIII. We are now able to understand why, especially in the New Testament, the estate, calling, and life of the Children of God are called “Sanctity,” and the adopted sons “Saints.” They are saints, not merely because they are free from guilt and lead a moral life according to the measure of their natural perfection, but because, by reason of their sublime union with God, they partake of the Divine Dignity and have the power and the duty to lead a life similar to the holy life of God. This holiness is described as something directly given by God, rather than obtained by man’s exertion; it is represented as an outpouring of the Holy Ghost and of His Holiness, and is attributed to His indwelling in the saints as in His temple (1 Cor. 3:16, 17, and often in other places). Holiness implies the same as the partaking of the Divine Nature: hence, first, the ennobling, transfiguration, and consecration of created nature; then the vocation to a life in harmony with this dignity; and, lastly, the actual holy disposition—that is, the charity or Divine Love resulting from the union with God.