Are You Legitimate?

"Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father who is in heaven. Matthew 23:9
This verse always bothered me somewhat because, all of my life, I loved and respected my human father. I knew about my Father in heaven alright, but I certainly thought that I had a right to call my human father, "Dad!" He was a person that I looked up to and was thankful to have as a father. Couldn't I look to two fathers, a human one and a divine One? I just didn't get what Jesus was trying to say in the verse above.
I also didn't understand why, in the light of Jesus' words, we called all the priests in the church "father". What was going on here?
I grew up in my early years in a society that was very disapproving of a child born "out of wedlock". In this day and age, it is hard to imagine how severe the judgment was then by people on "bastard" children – those children born outside of marriage. It can be understood how people could look down on a mother who had an illegitimate child. But why such a stigma on the innocent child? The child was often branded as not much better than a side-show freak, looked down on with indifference, or worse. God's Word leads us to believe that we should hate the sin, but love the sinner, and certainly should love the child who is a product of a sinful act!
I shall never forget back then when a young girl in my neighborhood returned from the east and brought with her a baby. Six months later they found her dead in her home -–the doctor could find no apparent cause for her death.
She had been stoned to death – pelted with judgment, rejection, pity, and downright murderous thoughts which she didn't know how to escape. She apparently became sick to death of the hateful, judgmental society around her.
It came out right after her death that she had been married secretly and the father had died in the war. It is reported that half a hundred wonderful people then came forward and offered to see that the little baby had a good home. But where were they when she needed them?
Gossiping about a scandal such as illegitimacy was almost a full time job for many in those days. In World War II, there was a phrase promoted by the government: "Loose lips sink ships!" It doesn't seem possible, when you think of a huge battleship with all the men and engines, etc., that it could be sunk by a few careless words – to say nothing of the malicious words which are often issued intentionally. But it has happened.
This was a directive toward people not to talk about military matters and troop movements. But it could just as well apply to any form of gossiping. In the case of the girl, she was "sunk" by loose lips!
It is recorded that prostitutes, thieves, murderers, liars, etc., all go into the kingdom of heaven before the gossiper. I would guess that is because it is easier to justify any of those crimes than it is the crime of gossip and scandal.
SO – what DOES it mean: "Call no man your father"? Let's go back to God's beginning purpose for mankind. It is desired by God that every person born into the world become a true child in the Family of God having the very divine nature of God through Christ dwelling within. BUT NO ONE IS BORN HUMANLY THAT WAY! Each one must choose by a process of conversion and new birth to, as Peter said, "partake of the divine nature."
Now whether we are born legitimate or illegitimate according to a marriage contract, WE ARE ALL BORN ILLEGITIMATE SPIRITUALLY!
The Bible says that all of us have an illegitimate father, Satan, until we suddenly claim the Father than Jesus had. "Call no man your father." Why? Because if you do, you have all the damning inheritance of the illegitimate child. Jesus was not putting down human fathers when He made that statement. He was just accentuating God's purpose for humanity – to actually be birthed sons and daughters in the divine Family of God.
If you are one of these "Christians", you begin to see how everything that is not born of God is illegitimate and must come under the condemnation of the illegitimate. No wonder that so many things you try to do go wrong – you are stoned, too, in one way or another because of this illegitimacy.
But the whole picture changes with the new birth, for in that case you have ceased the inheritance of the Adam affair and have begun to call upon God, to look up to Him, and to ask of Him. As surely as your material father would supply you with good gifts, God can much more supply you with the good things of the kingdom of heaven.
"Call no man your father." We then begin to see and sense what it is to be born again into God's Family – it means we are experiencing in a degree the "immaculate conception"! We are beginning to "call no man our father," and to look – actually and practically – to God as the source of life and everything necessary for life through the indwelling Christ.
Yes, legitimacy has to do with the kind of UNION that is involved. A union of man and woman outside of marriage produces a human illegitimate child.
The spiritual union with Satan's nature that we are born with by inheritance from our first parents produces a spiritually illegitimate child.
But a converted Christian has done something spiritually that you can't do humanly – he has changed fathers! Satan is out, God the Father is in.
You are a son of the living God NOW because you have dropped off the nature of your old spiritual father, the evil one.
You have been given the righteousness of the indwelling Jesus Christ.
God has given you righteousness.
GOD HAS MADE YOU – LEGITIMATE!

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