The Holy Spirit and the Sons of God 67 Sonship relates not to nature, but to legal standing; it comes not through regeneration, but by redemption. The disciples of Jesus had to wait until the Son of God had redeemed them; and then on the redeemed disciples the Spirit of God was poured at Pentecost, not to make believers sons, but because they had become sons through redemption. In brief, sonship, though ever since redemption inseparable from justi fication, does in the order of salvation succeed justification. Justification in Rom. 5:1 precedes'the “grace” of sonship in 5:2. This “access” or “introduction” is of the justified into the presence of God as Father; and it is through Christ and by the Spirit. (Eph. 2 :18 ; 3:12.) We were “predestined” to be sons of God, and to be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Eph. 1 :5 ; Rom. 8: 29). In Eph. 1: 5 the “sonship” is rather corporate; all believers are viewed as one “son,” one “body,” just as Jehovah said of Israel, “My son,” “My first born.” This corporate ness is really to be understood in Gal. 3:28^ which may read, “Ye are all one son in Christ Jesus,” instead of “one man.” (See also Eph. 4 :13 ; 1 Cor. 12:12.) And this image is His as glorified, so that until we have been conformed to His body of glory, our “adoption” or son- ship is not complete nor our experience of redemption fin ished. (Rom. 8:23.) And special emphasis should be laid upon the truth that sins were before God only pretermitted until the atonement was made; “propitiation for the pretermission [passing over] of sins that are past” (Rom. 3 :2 5 ) ; “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament” (Heb. 9:15). Remission came through the great offering for sin, just as sonship came through this redemption; and as the Spirit was given because believers had become sons, so also He could be given because believers had received the remission of their
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