1. A child of God (Romans 8:16)

18. An Heir of God and a  Joint Her with Jesus (Romans 8:17)

 NKJ: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God

AMP: The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God.

THAT WE ARE CHILDREN (born ones) OF GOD: hoti esmen (1PPAI) tekna theou:

Believers also are His children (tekna = “born ones”) by the new birth (Jn1:12,13 1Jn3:1,v2). The Holy Spirit bears testimony to our human spirit that we are children of God (teknon), without article, thus, children of God by nature), and our Spirit-energized spirit thus joins the Holy Spirit in a joint-testimony to that fact.

A comparison of verse 15-16 will bring out an important truth concerning the assurance of salvation. All too often a believer may come to the point of doubting his salvation because his sanctification has proceeded so slowly and so lamely. The Spirit, however, does not base his assuring testimony on progress or the lack of it in the Christian life. He does not lead us to cry, “I am God’s child.” Rather, he leads us to call upon God as Father, to look away from ourselves to him who established the relationship.

 Olshausen  put it like this,

 ‘in His comforting us, His stirring us up to prayer, His reproof of our sins, His drawing us to works of love, to bear testimony before the world, etc. On this direct testimony of the Holy Ghost rests, ultimately, all the regenerate man’s conviction respecting Christ and His work.’ ”

Wesley’s famous experience on May 24, 1738 occurred while listening to Luther’s preface to Romans, he felt his heart “strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

He certainly does that through the inner work of illumination and sanctification, as well as through the longing for communion with God. But here Paul does not have in mind just some mystical small voice saying we are saved. Rather, he may be referring to the fruit of the Spirit (Ga5:22,23), which, when the Spirit produces it, gives the believer assurance. Or, he may be thinking of the power for service (Acts 1:8), which when experienced is evidence of the Spirit’s presence, thus assuring one of salvation.

The nineteenth-century British pastor Billy Bray seemed never to have lacked that inner testimony. He had been converted from a life of drunken debauchery while reading John Bunyan’s Visions of Heaven and Hell. He was so continuously overjoyed by God’s grace and goodness that he said, “I can’t help praising the Lord. As I go along the street, I lift up one foot, and it seems to say, ‘Glory.’ And I lift up the other, and it seems to say, ‘Amen.’ And so they keep on like that all the time I am walking.”

Paul uses still another picture from Roman adoption. He says that God’s spirit witnesses with our spirit that we really are his children. The adoption ceremony was carried out in the presence of seven witnesses. Now, suppose the adopting father died and there was some dispute about the right of the adopted son to inherit, one or more of the seven witnesses stepped forward and swore that the adoption was genuine. Thus the right of the adopted person was guaranteed and he entered into his inheritance. So, Paul is saying, it is the Holy Spirit himself who is the witness to our adoption into the family of God.

Wayne Barber: The Spirit bears witness continuously with (not to) our spirit. This word is Greek is the “biscuit” word composed of “with” (sun) plus “bear witness” (martureo) thus picturing an intimate union & intimate knowledge that comes from the Spirit of God to our innermost spirit. You can know that you are a Christian. Wayne says that the way the Spirit does it with him is that He chastens & disciplines him every time he sins & He does not let him get away with sinning. The word “children” is teknon & means to bear the nature of another, in this context to bear the nature of our Father (2Pet 1:4 “partakers of the divine nature”). So the Spirit within us is continuously bearing witness that we are a child of God. Our relationship to sin will never be the same. Before we were saved we chased after SIN. Now that we are saved SIN chases after us. And the Spirit within us will not let us be “comfortable” toward sin.