Who Are the Children of God? Satan's Attack on the Plan of Salvation

This issue comes up in discussions with two groups of people: Mormons, who claim that every person is the child of God by creation; and liberals, who hold to a universal salvation, claiming that the fatherhood of God goes with the brotherhood of man. While the two groups are different in many ways, they share this humanistic view of the goodness of man in the eyes of God.

However, Scripture is God-centered, not man-centered, and, therefore, makes determinations on the basis of His perspective, not ours. And what is that perspective?

"It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring" (Romans 9:8). God, in His word, always makes a distinction among men. We see it first in Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve to sin, God announces His plan for salvation, which shall distinguish between the seed of Eve and the seed of the serpent (see also John 8:44). And what Moses describes in poetic terms, Paul describe prosaically.

The efforts of Mormons and liberals to take down the dividing wall between the godly and the wicked is very popular in today's spiritual environment. However, it is an effort to erase a division which God has determined. That puts their effort in opposition to the salvation plan of God. In essence, they seek to undermine God's plan of salvation, the same purpose as the serpent on Genesis 2.