Important words: adoption

This weekend I want to look at the word ‘adoption’. Adoption is a biblical doctrine that has slipped off our radar in recent years. We rightly talk a lot about justification, because all saving benefits flow from that. We must preach justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. But adoption is vital for understanding our present & future relationship with our heavenly Father. In Galatians 4:4-5, Paul writes ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law…so that we might receive adoption as children’.

In Paul’s world, young adult males of good character would be adopted to become heirs and maintain the family name of the childless rich. Through justification by faith in Christ alone, God chooses people of bad character to become heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ! That is the doctrine of adoption, which J. I. Packer calls ‘the deepest insight into the greatness of God’s love’.

Now please remember, before God the Father adopted us we were not merely orphans, we were slaves. We were slaves to sin. We were captive to the power of sin. It was humanly impossible to be freed from sin or its penalty. And we all deserved the appropriate penalty for our sin. We were law-breakers living under the curse of the law and the wrath of God. We needed a Saviour. We needed a Redeemer. And in order to save us, our Saviour must be like us (“born of woman”). But he also must be unlike us (God). He must be fully man and truly God. And he must give his life as a ransom for our sin. And that is what he did! God the Son, born of woman, perfectly kept the law and died a unique death as a substitute for sinners on the Cross. He liberated us from our sin. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). Now redeeming us out of slavery to sin and the penalty for sin would have been sufficiently astounding. But God’s purposes extend beyond the redemption of slaves and include adopting those slaves as sons. Adoption is the bestowal of a relationship with our heavenly Father.
Listen to how Paul puts it in Romans 8:15-17. ‘You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received a Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry ‘Abba, Father’. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we might share in his glory’.

Let me highlight some of the privileges of adoption through Christ:

- The status of children of God belongs to all who receive Christ (John 1:12).
- Not only are we ‘sons & daughters of God’, we are all ‘sons of God’ in that we are all heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.
- In & through Christ, God loves us as he loves his only-begotten Son (1 John 3:1-2).
- Here and now, we are under God’s fatherly care and loving discipline (Matt 6:26, Heb 12:5-11).
- We can pray to God as our heavenly Father (Matt 6:5-13).
- God wants us to bear his character and act accordingly. So we live our lives in light of knowing God as our heavenly Father and imitating him (Matt 5:44-48, 18:21-35; Eph 4:32-5:2).
- We trust God as our heavenly Father (Matt 6:25-34).
- We are brothers and sisters in Christ – part of the same heavenly family.

If you want a greater appreciation of God’s adopting love, stories of sacrifice and love shown in human adoption (such as Russell Moore’s book ‘Adopted for life’) are very powerful. But even more powerful is to sit and pour out your heart to God, using the words ‘my heavenly Father’!

With love from your fellow adopted son of God & brother in Christ
Paul Dale