GOD ADOPTS SINNERS INTO HIS FAMILY, REALLY!

            TERMS OF SALVATION – ADOPTION

                  

ADOPTION is God’s act of grace whereby He saves sinners and gives to them now all the rights and privileges of sonship and makes them heirs of heaven. Justification makes them legally fit to be in God’s Kingdom; Regeneration (the new birth) gives them the filial (family) being and character; Adoption grants the filial (family) entitlements. Salvation would be meaningless without the restoration of all the privileges forfeited by sin.

THREE MAJOR N.T. PASSAGES

ROMANS 8:15-17,19,23

^“15For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together……¹⁹ For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God…..²³ And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” 

(The Holy Spirit works within believers giving boldness and a warm sense of identity with Almighty God. He affirms our childhood. He assures our heirship and the future glories thereof.)

GALATIANS 4:4-6

⁴ “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, ⁵ To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
⁶ And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

(In accordance with His over-arching redemptive plan, God sent His Son to not only redeem us from the curses of the law and save us from our sins, but also to bestow all the entitlements of sonship, and, again, the warmth of a relationship with the heavenly Father, Almighty and Eternal God.)

EPHESIANS 1:3-6

³ “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: ⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: ⁵ Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

(Putting together all the terms of salvation we’ve been learning, thinking them through and adding them up, we then begin to understand just how much He has “blessed  us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” All these blessings were predestined (or predetermined) for us, not because of us (“in my hands no price I bring”), but “according to the good pleasure of His will.” Out of the goodness of His hearts He has so blessed us! These truths are the very grounds of our worship. And so, we ever praise Him for the “glory of His grace.”

-rdc

 “In Rome adoption was a familiar social phenomenon, and its initial ceremonies and incidents occupied a large and important place in their laws. By adoption an entire stranger in blood became a member of the family in a higher sense than some of the family kin, emancipated sons, or descendants through females. Such a one assumed the family name, engaged in its sacrificial rites, and became, not by sufferance or at will, but to all intents and purposes, a member of the house of his adoption. The tie thus formed could only be broken through the ceremony of emancipation, and formed as complete a barrier to intermarriage as relationship by blood.”  - Unger’s Bible Dictionary