But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13 | NRSV)
I recently received a query from a fellow Latter-day Saint about the above text from the Gospel of John and how to answer the claim that this contradicts “Mormon” theology which states we are all the spirit sons/daughter of God.
It firstly should be noted that the “children of God” and the spiritual fathering, if you will, that is in view is that of regeneration of one’s fallen nature and their becoming the adopted son/daughter of God through a salvific covenant (whose instrumentality, according to John 3:3-5, is that of water baptism). Furthermore, as I discuss in a previous blog posts, Spiritual Sons/Daughters of God being “Adopted” in LDS Soteriology and Latter-day Saint Theology and Acts 17:28-29, (1) such a concept is not inconsistent with LDS theology and (2) LDS theology is consistent with the Bible on this score.
Commenting on John 1:12-13, one recent scholarly commentary wrote the following which is rather รก propos, as it shows the focus is on spiritual regeneration:
Still, others did not believe, and those who believed came both from the world and from “his own.” “To believe in his name” means “to believe in him. All who believed were given the authority (exousia) to become God’s children (1:12-13). In several places in the Old Testament, the “children of Israel” are called “the children of God.” In Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, Jubilees expresses the hope that when God creates a new Spirit for the Israelites, they will all be called “children of the living God” (Jub. 1.23-25). In the Psalms of Solomon, the Messiah brings together a holy people who are call “children of God” (huioi theou, 17.27). According to John, God has sent his Son, and God will send his Spirit to accomplish this work, of creating and calling together the children of God. The children of God are those “begotten of God” (1:13), by the agency of the Spirit (3:3, 5), because they have “believed in his name.” Ultimately, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that will precipitate and enable the ingathering not only of Jesus’ own people, but also of all people, the “children of God who had been scattered” (11:52; cf. 3:15; 10:16; 12:32, 47; see also 7:35) (Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary [New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2015], 31)
While much more could be said, it should be clear that John 1:12-13, when exegeted carefully, it not problematic towards the Latter-day Saint view of man (“anthropology”).