4 incredible truths about our spiritual adoption
“Adoption is a legal act, whereby God places the sinner in the status of a child, but does not change him inwardly any more than parents by the mere act of adoption change the inner life of an adopted child. The change that is effected concerns the relation in which man stands to God. By virtue of their adoption believers are as it were initiated into the very family of God, come under the law of filial obedience, and at the same time become entitled to all the privileges of sonship.” (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 516)
Introduction
A. We were not born into God’s family
Ephesians 2:1-3 - And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
i. born into the family of the dead
ii. walking in disobedience to our Creator
iii. obeying our “father”
John 8:34b-35 - Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
B. Spiritual adoption occurs at salvation
Ephesians 1:13-14 - In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
Galatians 3:26 - For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
C. Adoption is a unique privilege
“Although adoption is a privilege that comes to us at the time we become Christians (John 1:12; Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:1 – 2), nevertheless, it is a privilege that is distinct from justification and distinct from regeneration. In regeneration we are made spiritually alive, able to relate to God in prayer and worship and able to hear his Word with receptive hearts. But it is possible that God could have creatures who are spiritually alive and yet are not members of his family and do not share the special privileges of family members — angels, for example, apparently fall into that category. Therefore, it would have been possible for God to decide to give us regeneration without the great privileges of adoption into his family. Moreover, God could have given us justification without the privileges of adoption into his family, for he could have forgiven our sins and given us right legal standing before him without making us his children. It is important to realize this because it helps us to recognize how great are our privileges in adoption. Regeneration has to do with our spiritual life within. Justification has to do with our standing before God’s law. But adoption has to do with our relationship with God as our Father, and in adoption we are given many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all eternity. When we begin to realize the excellence of these blessings, and when we appreciate that God has no obligation to give us any of them, then we will be able to exclaim with the apostle John, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).” – Grudem, Systematic Theology, 738-739.
I. Our Adoption Welcomes Us into a New Family
Ephesians 1:5a - He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself…
Ephesians 2:19 - So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.
John 8:44 - You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.
John 1:12-13 - But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even 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.
A. Our new family is a present reality and independent of our own thoughts, words, and deeds
B. It should be obvious that we’re a part of a different family
Romans 8:14-17 - For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
C. We become more like our new Father
“Human parents can adopt children and come to love them every bit as much as they love their natural children. They can give an adopted child complete equality in the family life, resources, and inheritance. But no human parent can impart his own distinct nature to an adopted child. Yet that is what God miraculously does to every person whom He has elected and who has trusted in Christ. He makes them sons just like His divine Son. Christians not only have all of the Son’s riches and blessings but all of the Son’s nature.” – McArthur, Ephesians: MNTC, 15-16.
1 John 3:1-3 - See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
II. Our Adoption Came at a High Price
Genesis 3:15 - I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.
Ephesians 1:7a - In Him we have redemption through His blood…
Hebrews 2:10 - For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
III. Our Adoption Results in Astounding Blessings
A. Our sins are forgiven
Ephesians 1:7b - In Him we have… the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.
Romans 8:1 - Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
B. We receive an inheritance
Ephesians 1:11a - [In Him] also we have obtained an inheritance…
Galatians 4:1-7 - Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5 so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
Romans 8:32 - He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
IV. Our Adoption Is Final
Luke 15:10 - In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Ephesians 1:11b -…having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.
Introduction
We’re continuing our series that was launched last week entitled Building Upon Our Heritage
This morning, we’re looking at a topic that Paul introduces in verse 5 concerning the notion that We Are Adopted in Christ.
Being a part of God’s family should not be something merely relegated to our thoughts, Christian. Being a part of God’s family, for us, is not a pie in the sky – something that a person hopes will happen – but doesn’t.
When Christ supernaturally bids you and I to come be a part of his celestial family, it’s the reality of you becoming a part of the family of the redeemed whom God is preparing to live with him when the time of refreshing in the age to come.
Being adopted by God the Father is neither fiction nor fairy tale – it’s a glorifying reality in the lives of every follower of Jesus Christ. Please turn with me to
Ephesians 1:5-7, 11 – 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace… 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will”
This morning, we’re going to be discussing 4 incredible truths about our spiritual adoption.
It bears repeating that our adoption by the Father through Christ was “according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved.” - Eph 1:6-7
That is to say, God determined to set his love on some – not all – some to become co-heirs with Christ. Meaning, we are more than servants or citizens, but his spiritual children by spiritual adoption.
The life that you and I live now in Christ is all to the praise of His glory! Theologian Wayne Grudem defines our adoption as an…
Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family
Now, having said that – this also means that
A. We were not born into God’s family. (c.f., Eph 2:1-3 John 8:34-35)
You may have heard this statement being thrown around – “we are all God’s children.” Perhaps you had a discussion with someone who said that they are Christian by virtue of how they were raised – by virtue of their parents being Christian, therefore, I was born as a Christian – I’ve heard that before.
But just because God created us, does not mean we are a part of his family, anymore than we are Christians because our parents are Christians!
And if you think this way, remember how Judaism believed. They believe that if you are Jewish, then that automatically opens the Kingdom of God because you are a descendant of Abraham.
Many a Jew believe this today. John the Baptist encountered this kind of theological thinking in his own day when many a religious Jew were coming to be baptized by him in the
John was a Jew too – he was conversant with the Jewish belief of his day – he was familiar with what the rabbis taught the people. So then, in front of a watching world - do you remember what he said to them?
Matthew 3:9-10 “…do not assume that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you that God is able, from these stones, to raise up children for Abraham.”
Meaning, many a religious Jew thought they were God’s people by virtue of their being a descendant of Abraham by flesh – no no no – that was a mistake then and is a mistake for you if you happen to believe that today.
That’s what the Apostle explained to the believers of the church at Romans 9:6-7 – “not all [are] Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants…” but goes on to say… “it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”
In other words, the spiritual trumps the physical – you are a true descendant of Abraham if you have faith like Abraham!
Your spiritual adoption into God’s family is not based on something that is passed down physically from family to family, but it something that is granted to you from the Father of lights in whom there is no shadow of turning.
Now, understand that prior to this, we were of a different spiritual pedigree.
Ephesians 2:1-3 – And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
According to this passage, we were
born into the family of the dead
Paul has in mind the realm of existence that we were in prior to our being saved. We were “in” a spiritually dead state.
walking in disobedience to our Creator
In other words, the course of our thoughts and actions is in accordance with…
obeying our “father”
Not God the father, but our father the Devil (further explain this using Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees in John 8 if there’s time)
John 8:34b-35 – Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.
In other words, the only course a person has outside of the family of faith is slavery to sin – the course of our will is bound in a perpetual state of deadness – and Christ must reach down from heaven – he must breathe into our spiritual nostrils the breath of life such that he embraces us, calls us his own via spiritual adoption.
All sinners are the slaves of sin,
All poisoned by death’s sting;
Christ only can from sin and death
A full deliverance bring.
So we need to be sons of God, which comes about by..
B. Spiritual adoption occurs at salvation
When we are embraced in the arms of salvation, Romans 9 says of us that “the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.”
That is to say, those connected with God’s promise to redeem are those whom he calls His children.
Paul would go on to say in Ephesians 1 that.
Ephesians 1:13-14 – In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
A number of you may know that I have a twin brother. We were adopted – we did not know our biological mother or father.
Upon our adoption, we were given new first and last names. We legally became a part of the Mora family. We had all the rights and privileges of the Mora family of siblings we were adopted into.
But when God set his love upon you by saving you by his grace, what followed was a spiritual adoption into his family.
He, in effect, erases your previous familial relationship and you now bear a new moniker. Yes – he gives you a new name
Revelation 2:17 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’”
In other words, when we see our Lord face to face, he will replace your earthy name with a very personal spiritual name.
Galatians 3:26 – For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Jesus becomes our brother, and God our Father—and it all happens when a person embraces faith in Christ Jesus. And you receive all the rights and privileges of God’s Kingdom.
I want you to understand that your…
C. Adoption is a unique privilege.
“Although adoption is a privilege that comes to us at the time we become Christians (John 1:12; Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:1 – 2), nevertheless, it is a privilege that is distinct from justification and distinct from regeneration. In regeneration we are made spiritually alive, able to relate to God in prayer and worship and able to hear his Word with receptive hearts. But it is possible that God could have creatures who are spiritually alive and yet are not members of his family and do not share the special privileges of family members — angels, for example, apparently fall into that category. Therefore, it would have been possible for God to decide to give us regeneration without the great privileges of adoption into his family. Moreover, God could have given us justification without the privileges of adoption into his family, for he could have forgiven our sins and given us right legal standing before him without making us his children. It is important to realize this because it helps us to recognize how great are our privileges in adoption. Regeneration has to do with our spiritual life within. Justification has to do with our standing before God’s law. But adoption has to do with our relationship with God as our Father, and in adoption we are given many of the greatest blessings that we will know for all eternity. When we begin to realize the excellence of these blessings, and when we appreciate that God has no obligation to give us any of them, then we will be able to exclaim with the apostle John, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).” – Grudem, Systematic Theology, 738-739
I. Our Adoption Welcomes Us into a New Family
Ephesians 1:5a – He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself…
That is to say, apart from human influence – apart from human merit – from before the foundation of the world, our Lord chose by himself and for himself[1] some to be the objects of his love, mercy and grace – and he accomplished that sweet embrace of salvation through Jesus Christ to those who believe.
We become more like our new Father
I just love the passage you are going to see in a moment – I love knowing that I am and will be a part of God’s family forever. When I consider my own adoption into the Mora family, it became something deeply special. Because when I began to find and do research into my personal family background, I really began to understand God’s providence behind some of it because I understood that my bringing would have been far different than what I was raised in and adopted into.
And when we consider or spiritual adoption, had God the Father not adopted you into the family of faith through Jesus Christ, the course of your life would be far different from what you and I know it would be now.
You and I would be following the course of Ephesians 2:1“the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”
But it’s so very different now. We don’t yet see the full picture yet, but our adoption into the family of faith could not be more glorious…
1 John 3:1-3 See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
II. Our Adoption Came at a High Price
Ephesians 1:7a In Him we have redemption through His blood
III. Our Adoption Results in Astounding Blessings
Eph 1:7b – forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace…Rom 8:14-17
A. Our sins are forgiven
B. We receive an inheritance (Eph. 1:11)
IV. Our Adoption is final
Eph 1:11b – having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will…
A. God initiated the process
B. He acted irrespective of our conduct
[1] John MacArthur Commentary, 14.
Authors
