Part 1 - Saying it Does Not Mean It’s True

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called Are We All God’s Children?.

Most of have heard people say, “We are children of God.” But the Biblical fact is that not every human born into this world is a genuine “child of God” as so often is falsely claimed by many even in man’s religion.

  • Who exactly are “the children of God”?
  • What makes them His children?
  • What does the Bible say about “the fatherhood of God” and the “brotherhood of men?”
  • How does the Bible describe “the children of God” during today’s age of “dispensation of the Grace of God”?

If we as Christ’s grace believers today then we need to “SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES,” as Paul instructs us, in order to learn more about our True Identity “in Christ.” Only then can we more fully appreciate our new ‘identity in Christ’ and “the riches of inheritance” and the ‘eternal destiny’ that we now possess “in Christ.”

After all, only what the Bible says matters, not our personal view and sense of things, or man’s philosophies, or what a religious church group or ‘denomination’ has to say.

Paul wrote this to the believers in Galatia;

“[26] For ye [the grace believers in Christ at Galatia] are all the Children of God By Faith in Christ Jesus. [27] For as many of you as have been baptized [transferred] Into Christ have Put on Christ. [28] [In Christ] There is neither JEW NOR GREEK [Gk. ethnos, gentile], there is neither bond [slave] nor free, there is neither MALE NOR FEMALE: for ye [the genuine believers] Are ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS.” (Galatians 3:26-28:)

While it is often claimed that everybody is a “God’s child,” this is absolutely NOT true. Verse 26 (above) explains, “Ye [Paul is addressing the Galatian Believers] ARE ALL THE CHILDREN oF God [how?...] BY FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS.”

Now, we all know that there are many people today, all around us, who want nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Are they the “the children of God”? This verse unequivocally says, NO, since they want nothing to do with Jesus Christ!

The “children of God” are those who have trusted in Christ Jesus Alone as their Personal Saviour. If you are not relying solely upon the Lord Jesus Christ as your sole mediator toward God, then you are not God’s child. It is that plain and simple.

If you are working as religion may tell you to try and merit or earn your salvation, relying on your owngoodness to please God so that He will accept you into heaven, then you are not God’s child. This is what God’s Word says.

If one is attempting to approach God through adhering to some religious figure (pope, pastor, guru, imam, archbishop, cardinal, pastor or teacher, et cetera), the Bible says you will never reach God. Jesus Christ clearly declared, I [Jesus Christ] Am The [one] Way, the truth, and the life: No Man Cometh Unto The Father, But By Me (John 14:6).

If you want to be a genuine “child of God,” you must come by Jesus Christ. Thus, according to the Bible, not everyone is a child of God. Only those who have “faith in Christ Jesus” are God’s children.

Unless a person has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31) relying on the sacrifice of Himself for us at Calvary’s cross as the fully satisfying payment for his or her sins—he or she is not a child of God.

All Christians were at one time lost sinners destined for “eternal destruction” (2Thes. 1:9).

Jesus said of Israel’s religious leaders… you are the “children of the devil” (John 8:44).

Ye [the religious leaders of Israel] are of your father the DEVIL, and the lusts [desires] of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” John 8:44 (KJV)

Being religious is of no consequence and ‘of the cloth’ is of no consequence in God’s eyes, He only sees those who are His children as His own. The fact is all humans are born of Adam are actually have the Devil as their false father, the liar and sinner from the beginning. Thus, they we are born into this world “dead [spiritually dead toward God] in our trespasses and sins,” following the evil world system under Satan’s influence and control. Doing what we call “our own thing” is offending God’s righteousness.

“And you [the believers in Jesus as the Son of God] hath he quickened [made alive], who were [in time past] dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3  Among whom also we all had our conversation [manner of living] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians 2:1-3 (KJV)

There came a point in the lives of genuine believers when they finally threw up our hands in exhaustion of trying and failing ‘to be religiously good.’ We likely then began to recognize that the whole evil world system is corrupt, in its politics, in its religions, and that its assumed ‘good works’ weren’t actually ‘good.’ This was all simply due to mankind’s fallen ‘sin-nature.’

We finally realized that we were no-good victims of the ‘Sin-nature’ working in our “flesh,’ and that all our supposed “good” works displeased God as they actually were ‘statements of our self-righteousness.’ There, we finally acknowledged what we knew all along, that we could never “measure up” to His righteous standards.

There, we finally quit working for our salvation, or to earn His favor, instead we cried out to receive Him and His mercy by trusting in the bloodshed, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as sufficient payment for our sins (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1-4). With that we immediately received God’s salvation as a free gift, something we did not deserve (cf. Eph. 2:4-9)!

“[God] Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, NOT according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” (2 Timothy 1:9 (KJV))

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of [good] works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).

If you have trusted Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork on Calvary’s Cross, then you now have total access to God and peace with God through Christ Jesus our Lord. You are no longer separated from God because of your sins. God’s righteous wrath against you and your sins was poured out once for all time on His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, at Calvary’s Cross.

In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of [God’s] grace” (Ephesians 1:7; cf. Colossians 1:14, 2:13).

“But this man [Jesus of Nazareth], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified [declared holy by His grace].” (Hebrews 10:12, 14 (KJV)

Now, being saved, Satan is not our father, God is our Father (Romans 1:7 et al.). We have had a transfer of “race” being once in Adam where all men are dead in Sin, but now in Christ” where all are made alive.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Corinthians 15:22

We are Now and Forever “the children of God!”

“The Spirit [of God] itself beareth witness with our spirit [of man], that we are the children of God:” (Rom. 8:16 (KJV)