Study Desk

Being descendants of Abraham doesn't make them truly Abraham's children. For the Scriptures say, "Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted," though Abraham had other children, too.

This means that Abraham's physical descendants are not necessarily children of God. Only the children of the promise are considered to be Abraham's children.

And, "Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,' there they will be called ‘children of the living God.'"

And Isaiah said the same thing in another place: "If the Lord of Heaven's Armies had not spared a few of our children, we would have been wiped out like Sodom, destroyed like Gomorrah."

But some of these branches from Abraham's tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God's special olive tree.

I am not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my beloved children.

For the believing wife brings holiness to her marriage, and the believing husband brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would not be holy, but now they are holy.

I am asking you to respond as if you were my own children. Open your hearts to us!

Now I am coming to you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you. I don't want what you have—I want you. After all, children don't provide for their parents. Rather, parents provide for their children.

The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.

God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn't say "to his children," as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says "to his child"—and that, of course, means Christ.

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you.

Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had.

And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.

God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.

And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father."

Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I'm going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.

And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law.

As Isaiah said, "Rejoice, O childless woman, you who have never given birth! Break into a joyful shout, you who have never been in labor! For the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband!"