68 The Fundamentals sins. This is the invariable order; faith in Christ, remission of sins, gift of the Holy Spirit. Yea, more, as without the gracious power of the Spirit of God the new birth would be impossible, so without the redeem ing blood of Christ the estate of sonship would have been unattainable; the Spirit and the blood are equally necessary to the full accomplishment of the eternal purpose of God. In brief, through redemption the new dignity of sonship was conferred, the new name “sons” was given to them as a new name “Father” had been declared of Him; a new name was given to the life in this new relation, “the life eternal,” and a new name, “Spirit of His Son,” was given to the Holy Spirit, who henceforth, with new truth and a new command ment, would nourish and develop this life and illumine and lead believers into all the privileges and duties of the sons of God. These facts are then all related to and dependent upon each other; Jesus must first lay the ground of the forgive ness of sins of past and future times in His work of redemp tion and reconciliation; as risen and glorified, not before, He is “the first-born of many brethren,” to whose image they are predestined to be conformed; as the Son, He declared to them the name of God as Father, the crowning name of God corresponding to their highest name, sons of God. As His “brethren” in this high and peculiar sense, He did not call them until He had first suffered, died, and risen again from the dead, but that name is the first word He spoke of them on the morning of resurrection, as if it were the chiefest joy of His soul to name and greet them as His brethren, and sons of God, being in and with Him “sons of the resurrection;” and because they were sons, the Father, through the Son, sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” It is the marvelous dignity of a sonship in glory, like that of our Lord Jesus, with all its attendant blessings and priv-
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