Chapter XXIII. 78. Then, as to the statement which follows, “that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven,”231 it is to be understood according to that rule in virtue of which John also says, “He gave them power to become the sons of God.”232 For one is a Son by nature, who knows nothing at all of sin; but we, by receiving power, are made sons, in as far as we perform those things which are commanded us by Him. And hence the apostolic teaching gives the name of adoption to that by which we are called to an eternal inheritance, that we may be joint-heirs with Christ.233 We are therefore made sons by a spiritual regeneration, and we are adopted into the kingdom of God, not as aliens, but as being made and created by Him: so that it is one benefit, His having brought us into being through His omnipotence, when before we were nothing; another, His having adopted us, so that, as being sons, we might enjoy along with Him eternal life for our participation. Therefore He does not say, Do those things, because ye are sons; but, Do those things, that ye may be sons. 79. But when He calls us to this by the Only-begotten Himself, He calls us to His own likeness. For He, as is said in what follows, “maketh234 His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Whether you are to understand His sun as being not that which is visible to the fleshly eyes, but that wisdom of which it is said, “She is the brightness of the everlasting light;”235 of which it is also said, “The Sun of righteousness has arisen upon me;” and again, “But unto you that fear the name of the Lord shall the Sun of righteousness arise:”236 so that you would also understand the rain as being the watering with the doctrine of truth, because Christ hath appeared to the good and the evil, and is preached to the good and the evil. Or whether you choose rather to understand that sun which is set forth before the bodily eyes not only of men, but also of cattle; and that rain by which the fruits are brought forth, which have been given for the refreshment of the body, which I think is the more probable interpretation: so that that spiritual sun does not rise except on the good and holy; for it is this very thing which the wicked bewail in that book which is called the Wisdom of Solomon, “And the sun rose not upon us:”237 and that spiritual rain does not water any except the good; for the wicked were meant by the vineyard 231 “Not in power or wisdom,—which was the cause of man’s fall, and leads evermore to the same,—but in love” (Plumptre). 232 John i. 12. 233 Rom viii. 17 and Gal. iv. 5. 234 Facit(above, jubet). Bengel’s comment is good: “Magnifica appellatio. Ipse et fecit solem et gubernat et habet in sua unius potestate” (“Splendid designation. He made the sun, governs it, and has it in His own power”). 235 Wisd. vii. 26. 236 Mal. iv. 2. 237 Wisd. v. 6. Chapter XXIII 82 Chapter XXIII