The Integration of Sonship
and Creaturehood
By John Gavazzoni

I am choosing to make a statement to begin this article that is theologically structural, inviting readers to consider what I'm about to posit as a fresh theological structure within which to better find a... if not perfect, at least a better... cohesiveness in our study of the truths presented in scripture that might otherwise miss the larger unifying truth. The statement: The believer (particularly, but not exclusively) must deal with the fact that his/her existence, or being, or personhood in this life, involves living two-dimensionally, as those who are simultaneously begotten of God, and as those created by God.

The Primal source of our being is as those spiritually begotten, while the way forward to the goal of the unfolding of the full glory of our being is as those created. Proceeding in and on The Way, is by both in company. The former lies within the timelessness of God's Being, and the latter within the dimension of space-time materiality. The latter was formed out from the spirit-substance of our God-begottenness. In Christ, these two have been thoroughly and completely integrated. At least three statements about our incarnated Lord Jesus' life and living in this world ought to inform us regarding the necessity of such an integration:

He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; as the high priest of our salvation, He was made perfect/complete by the things that He suffered; and He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. Keep in mind, as Jonathan Mitchell explains in his translation of the New Testament, that "the things He suffered," includes His whole experience, not only the negative painful elements. "Suffered," might better be simply translated as "experienced."

Our Lord's experience is consistent with the fact that the development of the person in this life involves the things experienced. A baby cannot become an adult human being without the experience of living with all its elements. There is an actual integration of being and life's experiences that makes for the whole person. This integration applies not only to the full development of the creature, but also to the full unfolding of all that we are as timelessly begotten of God in union with His only/uniquely/single begotten Son.

To understand this is to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. For the One who indwells us as "a life-giving Spirit" (Paul) is the Spirit of the crucified, risen, ascended, enthroned and glorified seminal New Man/New Humanity, having been completed by the things which He experienced in His incarnated life. Our indwelling Lord is The Man of God's goal for humanity. Peter made this clear in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost declaring that it was Jesus of Nazareth that God raised from the dead. As a hymn we used in an association of fellowship I participated in years ago declared, "there's a Man in the heavens for me."

With Jesus as our life, we have His Being, His Personhood, His life AND His living at work within us. He comes complete with all His completing/perfecting human experience. His, is perfectly representative of the whole of human experience. His coming into this world, His birth, His experience of living as a Man including His death and suffering, His resurrection, exaltation and glorification AS A Man are all at work in us. God, within us, to "will and to do of His good pleasure," is the God who became Man and continues to be Man even in His glorified state.

It is of the deepest theological importance to know and confess that when God became a Man, He did not cease to be God, and upon dying and being raised from the dead, He did not cease to be a Man. While He is A Man, that single Man includes in Himself all humanity, therefore I could have dropped the article and simply wrote "that when God became Man." Divine Sonship and creaturehood indwell us as perfectly integrated. He is the God-Man who indwells us as our life, leading incontrovertibly to the conclusion that in union with Him, we are God-men, conformed to His image who is the exact image of the Divine Nature.