“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to
those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).
The Apostle John has opened his priceless epistle by jumping directly into a
discussion of the Logos, the One who created the World and then later came as the
Savior of the World.
Even though His own people did not receive Him, there were those who did. The
Jews as a nation rejected Jesus, but some individual Jews did receive Him along with
many Gentiles. It is to this group of people that Jesus gave the “right to become
children of God.”
Receiving Him did not make them “children of God”—it only gave them the “right to
become children of God.” To complete the process, they had to move forward by
acting on the other commands for obeying the gospel.
That right still exists today—we, too, have the right to become His child after we
have believed in Him. Completing that process includes repenting of our sins,
confessing His name, and being immersed in water for the forgiveness of our sins.