Adoption

(mumbles) All right, good evening.

We'll continue our series through doctrines that we should not shun, or I will say we shall not shun.

We are discussing or I'm teaching on the doctrine of adoption, the doctrine of adoption this evening.

We're gonna be in three key texts.

The first one is Ephesians chapter one, verses three through six, if you'd like to turn there.

Ephesians one, verses three through six, excuse me.

The next grouping or the next key text is Galatians chapter 4 verses 3-7.

Galatians 4:3–7

If you have multiple ribbons in your Bible you can go ahead and mark the space but I will give some time when we get there.

And then the last reference or last key text on the doctrine of adoption is Romans chapter 8 verses 14-17.

Romans 8:14–17

Romans chapter 8, 14-17.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

So Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3-6.

Ephesians 1:3–6

Galatians chapter 4, verses 3-7.

Galatians 4:3–7

And then Romans chapter 8, verses 14-17.

Romans 8:14–17

Let me read now in Ephesians 1, 3-6.

It says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

So the first thing we see here on the doctrine of adoption, is that we see that adoption is one of the spiritual blessings Paul begins writing about in the beginning of Ephesians.

Notice there in verse 1, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

And you might say, "Well, what are these spiritual blessings in which we have apparently all of them in the heavenly places?" Well, that's exactly what the list is behind it.

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, that He has predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself.

This is all according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise and glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the beloved.

These are every spiritual blessing.

These are the every spiritual blessings under the heavens in Jesus Christ.

It is the doctrine of salvation.

It is the way that we are made accepted by the Lord, both now and into eternity.

So we see adoption here as one of these great heavenly spiritual blessings.

Another thing to note here from these verses is that predestination, it says that we have been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Verse 5, "having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." This shows us that predestination, often when we are thinking about it, often when we are learning about the doctrine of predestination, we think of it as kind of this cold act that God does before the foundation of the world that he's arbitrarily choosing some for the predestination to adoption and some he passes over and they are not predestined to adoption and therefore not predestined unto salvation.

They are passed over, they are left in the dominion of darkness.

We can think upon this as a cold and distant act of God but notice the context, notice the direct phrasing of the doctrine of predestination here.

It's that we are predestined to be adopted.

So when God is before the foundation of the world doing the act of predestining the work of predestination, what is he doing there?

Well, he's not distant and far and separate or doing this cold act, but when he's predestining, he is choosing, he is predestining us as sons.

He is, when, or we could say more personally this way, or Brian Borgman puts it this way, when God chose you, predestined you to use the biblical language here when God chose you predestined you he was choosing you as a son or a daughter. That's the furthest thing from a cold and distant act and we know that this isn't a okay this is not a session on the doctrine of predestination but we know that he didn't do it because he saw something good in us and then therefore and and therefore chose us.

No, what does the very text say?

What do the very verses say?

That he predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.

That's the basis on which he did the work of predestination.

It was according to the pleasure of his perfect will.

And so it was according to His pleasure that He looked upon you Christian and said,"I'm choosing this one as my son.

I'm choosing this one as my daughter." This is a loving father that we are talking about here.

This is a loving father doing this work of predestination unto adoption.

The last thing I want to highlight in this key text on the doctrine of adoption is that that we are adopted in Jesus Christ.

This union with Christ as it is so emphasized throughout the New Testament, this union with Christ is the very basis on which we are adopted.

We are not adopted outside of Christ, but on the very basis of Jesus Christ.

We are adopted in him that we become sons in the only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

That's the only way to sonship or, well, I don't want to say daughtership, even though that's what it is, but Christ is not a daughter, he is a son.

But children of God, that's the way in which any of us, sons, daughters of God, how do How do we get into that status?

Well it's through Jesus Christ who is the only begotten Son of God.

Now through adoption we do not become equal status with Christ.

There's always going to be something special about Him.

He is the only begotten Son of God.

We are not, we do not become the only begotten Son of God but we become His children in a very real and true sense based upon the work of Christ that now that we are in Him we become sons.

The Scriptures refer to us as Christ our brother and us being co-heirs with Him.

It is in this sense that Christ has accomplished adoption on our behalf and it is gained, it It is obtained by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Now let's move through Galatians chapter 4 verses 3-7.

Galatians 4:3–7

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out Abba, Father.

Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

So the first thing I want to point out in this key text on the doctrine of adoption is that look at how it phrases salvation and adoption here.

The purpose for which Christ came in verse 4.

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born unto the law," for what purpose?

"To redeem those who were under the law," for what?

"That we might receive adoption as sons." So this gives adoption as the conclusion or the end of Christ's work or the aim of Christ's work.

Would He come?

He came to redeem us so that we might be sons.

So at the right time, God sent His Son Christ, born of a woman, born of the law, to redeem those so that we might receive adoption as sons.

It puts adoption as the conclusion or the "A" that we were saved and forgiven of our sins so that we might become sons of God, heirs with Jesus Christ, so we could call upon the Lord as Abba Father.

The Galatians text here puts a very high premium on the doctrine of adoption.

This is where it is distinct from justification or redemption or perpetuation that we have talked about previously in this Wednesday evening series.

Now those things are of utmost importance as well.

I am not trying to make adoption more important than those doctrines.

Those doctrines are a prerequisite for the doctrine of adoption.

You can't be adopted if you haven't been justified.

You can't be adopted in the Lord if you haven't been redeemed.

You can't be adopted into the family of God if Christ has not made propitiation for your sins.

So these are surely prerequisites, but it is a distinction.

John Gill, in commenting on this text, says, "Though I am of opinion, they are distinct blessings of grace, and so to be considered, adoption is a distinct thing from either justification or pardon.

A subject may be acquitted by his sovereign from charges laid against him, and a criminal convicted and condemned may be pardoned, yet he does not become his son.

If adopted and taken into his family, it must be by a distinct and fresh act of royal favor." So doctrinally or theologically, John Gill is trying to make a good distinction here.

The adoption is not justification or even necessarily an aspect of justification.

justification clears us or acquits us or pardons us from the condemnation of our sins.

Justification makes a declaration of righteousness on our behalf, but justification does not place us in the family of God.

Justification does not cause us to become God's sons or God's daughters.

This is what God's act of adoption does.

So this is a, as John Gilles put it, a distinct and fresh act of royal favor.

This is the act of adoption is a distinct act of grace, is a distinct work of grace on our behalf.

Adoption like justification is a legal term.

Through adoption we gain the full rights as sons and daughters of God.

John chapter 1 verses 12 and 13 helps us to understand this.

John 1:12

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So notice that language there in verse 12.

It says, "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God." So through adoption, all the rights and privileges of sonship, of being a dependent of the Lord, given to us through God's work of adoption.

Adoption is also a relational term, so it's a legal term and where rights, privileges, protection is given to us through God's work of adoption.

But it is also a relational term.

Again, Brian Borgman says justification addresses our relationship to the law of God.

Regeneration addresses our relationship to sin.

Adoption addresses our relationship to God as our Father.

So justification acquits us of the law of God or pardons us of the demands of God's law of where we've been guilty against the law of God.

Regeneration, the transformation of our heart and the new life, addresses our relationship to sin.

So now we have a distinct and different relationship toward the nature of sin and our sinful nature.

Adoption does something different.

Again, this is a distinction.

It's a fresh work of grace or a distinct work of grace.

Adoption addresses our relationship to God as our Father.

Adoption is what makes us sons.

Adoption is what makes us daughters.

And this is to go back to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

This is a sonship that is given to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood nor the will of flesh nor the will of man but who were born of God." This is someone who is not naturally in the family of God.

Going back to our Galatians text, just in the chapter afterwards in Galatians chapter Chapter 5 it talks about our father being Adam.

We are naturally born under the headship and sonship or daughtership under Adam, our first father.

This is what we are naturally born into.

So to go into the family of God is not something that can be done naturally or not done out of the will of ourselves according to our own will or according to our own efforts or aims but this is something that has to be supernaturally done.

We can't be born of flesh and blood or out of our own will but we must be born of God.

God actually has to take us and much like we're familiar with adoption in our own culture us into his own family by his own free will and work and choice.

So it is also a relational term and adoption addresses our relationship to God as our Father.

John Gerudo is an old school Presbyterian who kind of revives some writing on the doctrine of adoption.

says this, Christ abund, Christ abidance as a servant, entitles us to bow, entitles us to bow before God's throne. But Christ's obedience as a son, entitles us to sit at God's table. So Christ's obedience as a servant, entitles us to bow before God's throne as a servant, but his obedience as a son, and titles us to sit at God's table.

Remember that we gain adoption as sons, as daughters through Jesus Christ and it is because of His obedience as a son in which that is accomplished for us.

Let's go to Romans chapter 8 now.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 8 verses 14 through 17.

Romans 8:14–17

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, But you receive the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father.

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

And if children then heirs, heirs of God, and join heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

These are some absolutely amazing verses here.

So the first thing we see is that the spirit gives us the spirit.

We receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." So this is talking about the spirit of adoption here.

My translation has that the spirit of adoption, spirit is capitalized.

I believe that it should be in your translations in reference to the Holy Spirit.

That the Holy Spirit gives us this experiential knowledge, this awareness that God is our Father.

This gives us the familial reality that the Lord actually is our Heavenly Father.

The Lord doesn't just give us a legal declaration of adoption, but yet remains distant or far from us or we have no relationship with this God who has declared us our Father, but He gives us His very Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is said to give us or that we receive the Spirit of adoption that we may then cry out, "Abba, Father." So it is the effectual reality or experiential reality that in receiving the spirit of adoption then we have this awareness, this knowledge, this understanding and relationship to God as our Father that was distinct from the relationship that we had from Him before.

In verse 15 it says, "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" Also in relation to the Galatians' foretext, what were we redeemed out of?

We were redeemed out of condemnation under the law.

It says here that we have not been given the spirit of bondage again to fear.

So, in our previous family, this family that we desperately needed, adopted out of.

This family that was not good for us.

It was the family of sin.

The Bible also calls it the kingdom of darkness.

This was under the fatherhood or headship of our first father Adam.

This is a household of sin, this is a household of abuse and tyranny and neglect.

This is the state in which we have been adopted out of.

And now we receive, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

And we have now received the Spirit of adoption.

Now we can cry out to the Lord of the universe, the God of heaven and earth, Abba, father, which as you probably know is a very heartfelt, a very familial way to address God.

It's like what a child may call you if you were a father, running and saying dad or daddy.

This is a very affectionate way to refer to the Lord as Abba Father.

We have privileges of adoption that Romans 18 shows us.

The first is that we get God's name.

We get God's name.

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

We take on the very name of God.

This is taking on a new identity.

This is taking on a new identity, new name for yourself.

You take on the name of your heavenly father.

The first privilege of adoption is that you get God.

He's the immediate inheritance.

You get seated at his table.

You get the privileges and protection and discipline and provision that the Lord offers.

Going back to our first key verse in Ephesians chapter 1, as God's son, as God's daughter, you get every spiritual heaven there is under the heavens.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

So you get God's name.

And because of that, the second privilege of adoption here, that you become an heir of God's glory.

So you get God's name or you get to be claimed by him, you get to put God as your, well that's probably a poor example, I'm gonna say it anyway, you get to put God as your last name if you will.

Just as if you were to adopt someone into your family, they take on your last name.

You don't keep calling them by their former parent's name.

They are now your child, so they receive your last name.

This is the way that it works from what I understand, and there are some members here that can educate me or correct me on this.

But this is the way the adoption system works, at least in the United States, and that once a proclamation of adoption is given, once the courts legally proclaim this child yours, they issue a new birth certificate.

And your last name, or the family's last name, is on that birth certificate.

So as far as even their birth certificate is concerned, they're no more different or distinct than any of your other children.

This is in a similar way, this is what we receive by taking on God's name.

Because of that we become heirs of God's glory.

In verse 17, "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joined heirs with Christ, If indeed we suffer with Him, then we may also be glorified together." This is written into encouragement to Christians who are ongoing suffering.

It's like yes, but if you suffer with Him, you are suffering for the name sake of Jesus Christ, you are suffering for the name sake of the Lord that you now have on you as He has adopted you into His family.

But as you are suffering with Him, you may be an heir of the sufferings of Christ, but will also be a co-heir of the glory of Jesus Christ as well.

So the inheritance is sweet in the family of God.

Calvin writes on this, "Now, God's work is accomplished in them when, bearing the image of their heavenly Father in righteousness and holiness, they show themselves to be His true children.

It should be firmly fixed in our heart that the Kingdom of Heaven is not payment owed to servants, but the children's inheritance which will only be enjoyed by those whom God has adopted as His children.

Let me now move to some definitions of adoption.

I mean by definitions, okay, let's summarize what these three verses are teaching.

The first definition or summary is found in our church's confession, the second London Baptist confession in chapter 12.

Chapter 12 is entitled "Of Adoption" and this is what it says, "God has granted that all those who are justified would receive the grace of adoption.

In and for the sake of His only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption by which they are taken into the number and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God.

Have His name put on them, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are unable to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him as by a Father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation." Now there's a mouthful, a big summary, a big definition there, but I encourage you to look it up, at least reference it.

But there we've got, in a compact statement, most of what we've just talked through and looking at are key versus.

We see that adoption is granted to all those who are justified.

is a prerequisite for adoption and it's a guarantee that all those who are justified will be adopted.

There's not going to be any forgotten child like some of you may have forgetting your kids at church.

God doesn't do that on a Sunday morning.

He doesn't do it on any other morning of the week but all his kids may get into the van.

So there is no one who is justified who will not be adopted.

And if this is for the sake of his only son, Jesus Christ, then we are made partakers of the grace of adoption.

We enjoy the privileges, liberties, benefits of being now in the family of God and those are listed there.

John Murray has a definition of adoption.

He defines adoption as the process in which the redeemed become sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty.

They are introduced into and given the privileges of God's family.

Going back to John Gerudo, his definition of adoption is this.

Adoption is an act of God's free grace whereby for the sake of Christ he formally translates the regenerate from the failure of Satan into his own and legally confirms them in all the rights and immunities and privileges of his children.

So this is what it is.

This is why adoption is a fitting translation, a fitting word for it, is that the redeem becomes sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, that the Lord adopts us out of the tragic family of this world, the tragic family of Satan, and adopts us into his own family.

This is going back to the distinction between justification and adoption is that it's one thing for a judge to declare you innocent.

Okay, it's one thing for the Lord to declare you innocent, which is a great and glorious truth to declare you righteous before his law.

I'm not trying to take away from that, but it's a whole nother level.

It's a whole nother thing for God to now bring you into his home as his son, as his daughter, to set you down at his dining room table and say this is your seat, this is your plate, this is your room, these are your benefits, these are your blessings of being in my family.

So now, as a point of application, living as sons, adoption should be the lens in which we view the whole Christian life.

We have different New Testament identities or different identities in relation to God.

Yes, we are servants.

Yes, it even says in some places that we are slays of Christ and these things are true.

But I think that the predominant identity, the predominant way we should view ourselves in relation to God is as His adopted sons and daughters.

This should be the primary lens in which we are viewing our relationship to God or the primary way in which we relate to the Lord.

This is the way that we should view the whole Christian life.

I think this is probably the reason why Christ in His model prayer to us and teaching us how to pray he begins the prayers addressing our heavenly Father or our Father who is in heaven.

This is the primary way that we relate to God.

J.I.

Packer says the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of adoption.

Mark chapter 3 verse 35 says Christ calls his disciples children of God.

Mark 3:35

Or J.A. Packer referencing Mark 3 35 says Christ calls his disciples children of God for whoever this is now the verse for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.

This is what is Christ saying there?

Well he's saying those those who does the will of God is my family.

They are my family.

They are my, and this is why I use familial terms here, my brother and my sister and my mother.

So this is a reference showing us that okay, what is our primary identity?

It's the son of God, daughter of God, and the family of God.

So we live the Christian life now seeking to imitate, glorify and please our Heavenly Father.

My Father did this for me, I am trying to do this for my children and teaching certain Christian virtues, certain life lessons, certain ethics or even certain just rules of the household.

There were many occasions growing up where my dad would say, "Danny, you are a Thursby.

Thursbys do not act like this.

Thursbys do not do this.

Thursbys act this way.

Thursbys do this.

Thursbys work hard." Whatever the lesson was, he was trying to correct me on or instill into me.

It was because this is what Thursbys do.

Well, as now a child of God, as you have a new name, as you are in a new family, you do what God does.

So therefore we seek to imitate, glorify, and please our heavenly Father in whose, it is His name that is on us after all.

So therefore we take on His name, Christian, Son of God, Daughter of God.

We do not do this.

That's not what God's family does.

We do this.

This is what God's family does.

This is what it is to be in the family of God.

This is discipleship.

This is the Christian life.

These are God's instructions to His children that He gives us through His word.

Lastly, living as sons, or not lastly, second to lastly, living as sons, we most identify with the children of God.

I love my natural family.

I love them dearly.

Some of my natural family by marriage we get to worship with in this very congregation.

So this is nothing to downplay the blessing and relationship I have with both my parents and my in-laws.

The family of God is a bond that runs thicker than blood.

It is a bond that runs thicker than blood.

This is in the very same context of the verse that I read in Mark chapter three.

Christ is teaching that, in fact, if you follow me, then it's going to cause strife between mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and mothers and daughters in law.

that it's going to cause family strife.

And in other areas, in other teaching of Christ, he says that if you're going to follow me, then you must hate your mother and your father.

Now the teaching from that isn't that you go and despise and spite or seek to dishonor your mother and your father, but he's talking about a priority of allegiance here.

You can't love your mother and your father more than you love me, that's what Christ is saying.

So on that same line of thought, or on that same principle, on that same truth, the family of God, your brothers and sisters in Christ, there's a deeper, eternal, stronger bond there than between your own blood, brother and sister, maybe your own blood, natural mother and father, that we most identify our closest identification or the family that now, we identify the closest with is the very family of God, the very children of God.

That it's your brothers and sisters here to the left of you, to the right of you, that you are in this family, the family of God, this particular branch of the family of tree of God known as Grace Bible Church of Conway, that in the perspective of the Lord matters the most.

It's your relationship, your identity, your closeness with your spiritual brothers and sisters.

Lastly, I want to conclude with 1 John chapter 3 verse 1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

1 John 3:1

What manner of love is this that we should be called the very children of God?

How in the world did we go from a sinful rebellious enemy of God?

But yet at the right time, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

And it wasn't just that we were let out of jail, or left off the hook of our rebellion, pardoned from our iniquity, pardoned from our sin, or even just let free from the demands of God's law to go live our own lives, but he said no.

Sinner, you are now a saint, you are now even more than that, my own child.

What manner of love is this?

There's no love that is going to be found like this apart from God himself and He has bestowed it on you and on me.

That is an amazing truth.

amazing bestowal, amazing manner of love that the Father has bestowed upon us.

The last end of that verse, "Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." We have been rescued out of the sinful, abusive, neglectful family of this world.

They know nothing of God.

We've been adopted now into his family.

Therefore, they are not going to know anything of us.

It did not know him.

So this is why, brother and sister, if you feel rejected by the world, it's because you have been.

If you feel despised by the world, it's because you are.

because they know nothing of your new father who has adopted you into his family, who has bestowed you with that love.

So now do not live in a manner according to the way of your former family and it could take a while with great difficulty to learn how to live in God's household, to learn how to live not according to the way of this world, not marching to the demands of your former parent, but to live by grace, to live under the household of God. There's a new house with new rules. This can be difficult, but you don't know it because the world did not know it. But now that that you have been saved and adopted in the family of God, the world is not going to know you.

But as you already know, if you do not know, if you have been saved, you are walking with the Lord as you already know, it is a sweet and rich fellowship with our heavenly Father.

His words are good to us, His discipline is even good to us, His provision is good for us.

This is a loving Father who again has chosen you as His son, chosen you as His daughter.

So let's walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel, worthy of this new name that we have on ourselves.

Let's pray.

Our Father in Heaven we come to You, O Lord, our Heavenly Father, our good and gracious Father, Lord, in thinking of this manner of love that's been bestowed upon us, words pale.

The only words that come close are your words to us.

You even help us in that.

You're even teaching your children now and the extent of your love to us, Lord.

Father, I pray that we would think of ourselves primarily as your children, primarily in your good graces primarily as a child who can run into your throne room, run in before your throne at our heart's delight at any time.

You're not going to cast us away.

You're never too busy for us in your throne room, but we rush in and we run and we jump in your lap any time our heart's delight.

It's an amazing reality that you've chosen us as your children.

Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And as He is your only begotten Son, we have now sonship through Him.

This is truly an amazing truth.

This is a life altering truth, Lord.

Help us to live with your name sake.

Help us to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel.

us to live as you want your children to live in your household.

Lord, as the world despises us, I pray that we remember this.

It despises us because it knows not you.

It does not know what it is to be a child in your household.

But, Lord, we can proclaim to the world what it is, and we should proclaim to the world what it is to be a child of God, that they may come and know your sonship or daughtership by you as well.

Lord, it is in Christ's name we pray these things.

Amen.

Dick