God is our own Father

The Jewish religious leaders who persecuted Jesus were hypocrites who talked out of both sides of their mouths with the forked tongue of a serpent.  They wanted to kill Jesus because he was calling God his own Father making himself equal with God.¹  Yet they themselves saw themselves as the judges of Israel and "gods, sons of the Most High,"² and claimed they had one Father: God.³  And these hypocrites did deliver up Jesus for the blasphemy of calling God his own Father and making himself a son of God.⁴

It is very common today for people to talk about Jesus as God's only begotten Son as if Jesus will forever remain God's only begotten Son.⁵  And in this same context, people will talk about the children of God as those who are adopted into the family of God⁶  The idea here is that Jesus is God's only begotten and every other child of God is not a natural son but an adopted son. And how God goes about "adopting" is left rather vague in the minds of the people.

But the truth is that all the children of God are begotten of God⁷ just as Jesus was begotten of God in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod.⁸  The very way that God goes about making us sons and daughters is by begetting us by the Spirit of God.⁹  

God sent His only begotten Son not so that Jesus would forever remain His only begotten Son, but so that Jesus who was begotten of God in Bethlehem would die to that life and be begotten again out of the dead so that he might be the firstborn out of the dead,¹⁰ the firstborn of many brothers.¹¹

Flesh gives birth to the flesh¹² and we first we naturally born to fleshly human parents.  But God is Spirit¹³ and the Spirit is the divine nature of God.  The children of God are partakers of the divine nature.¹⁴  Spirit gives birth to Spirit.¹²  And we are begotten of God by the Spirit of God.  In this way, we are natural children of God, new creations, because we are born again out of the divine nature of God, the Holy Spirit.

We are his children if indeed the Spirit of God truly dwells within us and we are being led by that Spirit.  Those who are born of God by the Spirit of God may truly confess, just as Jesus confessed, that God is their own Father.  They have the Spirit of God's Son within them which cries, "Abba, Father.¹⁵"  They were not born of corruptible seed of mortal flesh but incorruptible seed of the life-giving Spirit,¹⁶ and so God is truly their own Father.  God was Jesus' own Father because God had begotten Jesus by His Spirit.  And God is our own Father because God has begotten us by His Spirit.  If you have been begotten of God, be prepared to be charged by hypocrites with the same charge with which the Jews charged the innocent man Jesus.

The Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John 5:18.

Notes:
1. John 5:18
2. John 10:34; Psalm 82:6.
3. John 8:41.
4. John 19:7; Matthew 26:65
5. John 1:14, 18; 3:16,18; 1 John 4:9.
6. Romans 8:15,23; 9:4; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5.
7. John 1:12-13; 3:3-8;  Galatians 4:28-29; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:3, 23; 1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,4,18.
8. Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35.
9. John 3:3-8; Galatians 4:28-29.
10. Colossians 1:18; Hebrews 1:6 (see 2:5); Revelation 1:5.
11. Romans 8:29; Hebrews 2:12-13.
12. John 3:6-8.
13. John 4:22-24.  See also Luke 1:35.
14. 2 Peter 1:4; Colossians 2:9-10; Romans 8:17; 1 John 3:1-2.
15.  Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15.
16. 1 Peter 1:23; John 1:13.