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Your King Has Come - Indelible Grace
In other words, before someone is regenerated, is their father the devil, and are they heaping up for themselves wrath from Almighty God?
Or, are they simply sheep (children of God) who haven’t yet heard the voice of their Shepherd?
I have heard many people describe those who come to Christ as being children of wrath, and having satan as their father, prior to their regeneration…but I don’t know that I agree with that. Work with me through a couple of passages and lines of thought to see if this agrees better with Scripture than the idea that the yet-unconverted are children of satan prior their salvation.
I will start with the passage that I think is used to support the idea that all unregenerate individuals are children of wrath, regardless of whether they are ever saved or not. It comes from Paul:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. – Eph. 2:1-3
Seems pretty cut and dry, doesn’t it? Paul appears to be saying that the elect were children of wrath just as the rest. But is that what he is really saying here? He says we (the regenerated) were the walking dead prior to being saved, following the prince of the power of the air…but he doesn’t ever say we were actually children of satan like Jesus said to those who hated him in John 8 (“you are of your father, the devil…”). Instead, Paul says (and I may be splitting hairs here) that we were “by nature” children of wrath, even as the rest of mankind. Could it be that what Paul was saying is that, our sin nature was like the sin nature of the rest of the human race prior to being saved, but that we were not actually children of wrath as the rest? Look at what else Paul says in this passage:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus – Eph. 2:4-6
This statement by Paul seems to indicate that we were made alive with Christ and raised up with Him well before we were ever born, which suggests that our position (our state) was secured at the resurrection of Christ, which seems to suggest that we could never have been children of satan while we were walking around as unregenerate people. Furthermore, Paul’s own words about his own calling sheds light on this:
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace – Gal. 1:15
If Paul had been set apart for his ministry even before he was born, then how could he ever have been a child of satan, and an object of God’s wrath?
Jesus also said that those who are not already of God do not (and cannot) hear God’s words:
He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God. – John 8:47
Finally, let me pose this question to you. If only those whom God the Father has given to the Son ever actually come to the Son in faith and repentance (because they are brought to the Son by the Father), then how can they ever have been actual children of wrath?
I think it is important to realize that God’s saving love rests upon the elect, even prior to their regeneration. And, while they may have been, by nature, children of wrath even as the rest, they were never actually children of wrath. For to truly be a child of wrath, one must have satan as his father, and that seems to be quite impossible if one has been given to the Son before the foundation of the world.
