If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, Roger A. Packer and his famous

book Knowing God, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having

God as his father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole

outlook of life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

That is powerful.

A Christian is one who has been adopted by God, brought into the family of God, all by

the Son of God, and this changes everything.

To better understand how precious it is to be a Son of God, we need to pay attention to

our Bibles, especially as we see the theme of sonship as it unfolds throughout the biblical

storyline from Genesis to Revelation and to that end.

I call up Dr. Don Carson, the co-founder and president of the Gospel Coalition, and he

is also the editor of the NIV's Andervance Study Bible, which is sort of a study Bible

version of what we're doing in these podcasts.

Here's how Dr. Carson explained to me the theme of sonship as it develops in the Bible

from Genesis to Revelation.

One accursary reading of Scripture shows how the expression Son of God can refer to

many, many different people.

In fact, it stretches beyond people.

It can refer to angels in the opening chapters of Job.

The term Son of God can refer to Israel, considered collectively.

That shows up for the first time in Exodus chapter 4.

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