Through God’s Son, we become God’s sons. If you commit your life to Christ, he will not merely raise your body to life, he will openly acknowledge you as a son of God as genuinely as Jesus is.    

I. From Slaves to Son

When God originally commissioned Moses to liberate his people from Egypt, he put it in familial terms: “Then say this to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me” (Ex. 4:22-23). The Exodus then is the story of God’s liberating his “son” Israel from their slavery to live freely and happily in his love.

II. From Sin to Son

As Christ the Son of Man hung on the cross, he carried out the plan he, the Father and the Spirit made before creation. On the cross God “made him to be sin for us.” God imputed the guilt of our sin to Jesus. God leveled all his judgment on him. This judgment was rightfully due to us, but Jesus took it so that we could be pardoned from our sin. 

III. Sons in the Son

The climax of the Father and Son’s excruciating emotional pain is marked by Jesus’ cry, “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” The pain of the cross for both the Father and the Son was not the legal transformation of an innocent citizen into a condemned criminal. The pain of the cross was the estrangement of the Son from the Father. Jesus was being forsaken by God so that we could be adopted into God’s family. God preserved his son in the Exodus so we could be saved; God punished our sin in his son so we could be forgiven; and God temporarily abandoned his son so that we could be adopted.