But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13
Jesus was born as a Jew. His human parents were Jews. He came as the promised descendant of King David – the greatest of Jewish kings. He was, therefore, in every sense, the Jewish Messiah. The long-awaited promised offspring of Abraham. Yet, John 1:11 tells us, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” His own people, with few exceptions, rejected him. But, what difference does that make? Does that threaten their position as God’s people? The Jewish people would have never imagined that their favored status would be threatened by a man born in the small town of Bethlehem from the countryside area of Galilee. They had Abraham as their father. That’s all they needed, in their view.
Yet, our Fighter Verse for this week makes clear that how they responded to Jesus is what determined their position before God. It’s easy to miss the weight of what John is saying here. He is saying that being born as a physical descendant of Abraham and having Jewish parents is not enough for you to be a child of God. What makes you a child of God is what you do with Jesus. Do you reject him or do you receive him and believe in his name? Belief in Jesus divides humanity into two groups: those who are children of God and those who are not.
Verse 13 makes clear that those who Jesus gives the right to become children of God don’t gain their status by birthright. It doesn’t matter who your parents are (not of blood). It doesn’t matter how hard you try to make yourself acceptable to God (not of the will of the flesh.) And, it doesn’t matter what anyone else tries to do to change your status (not of the will of man). The only path to becoming a child of God is through belief in the name of Jesus Christ; his life, death, and resurrection. Jesus himself made that clear in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”