The Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers

Publisher's note:

Robert S. Candlish (1806–1873) revelled in how, because of Jesus Christ, we belong to God’s family. If we are one with the Son, then his Father is our Father, and his Spirit our Spirit. Turning this truth over and over, he examines it from this perspective and that, drawing out the glory of it, the dignity that belongs to us in consequence of it, and the graciousness of our Triune Saviour it displays.

On the subject of adoption, Candlish’s distinctive contribution is his insistence that we are made sons by God’s redemptive grace, rather than being sons by creation or nature, a position which serves to amplify the glorious graciousness of God’s act of placing sinful rebels in his own family. Because we believe in the Son, we become sons of God and hence each other’s brothers.

In these discourses on The Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers, Candlish explores the wording ‘Our Father’ at the opening of the Lord’s prayer, gives an exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s description of the ‘benefits of redemption,’ and discusses God’s gift of ‘grace and glory,’ the holiness of God, and ‘the promise of the Holy Spirit.’ His discourses are lively, rigorous and profound. Never content simply to state a biblical truth, Candlish compels our attention so that the truth will take effect in our hearts, consciences and lives, whether in a fresh appreciation of the freeness of justification or a new insight into the generosity of our Father or an endearing sight of Christ our elder Brother and our fellowship in him with our other brothers.

Candlish was one of the most outstanding Scottish churchmen of the nineteenth century. He supported Thomas Chalmers at the time of the Disruption and for the quarter-century following Chalmers’ death, it was Candlish who was recognised as the most prominent leader in the Free Church of Scotland. He became Principal of New College, Edinburgh and was awarded D.D. degrees from both Princeton College and Edinburgh University. Energetic in church business, generous in support for missionary outreach, and enchanting in debate, he was nevertheless extolled by the brilliant Hugh Martin as ‘the great and fascinating, the powerful, gracious preacher of the ever-blessed grace of God,’ one who Hugh Martin regarded as ‘unsurpassed’ as a preacher in the church in Scotland.