We continue with our discussion of the elements of salvation to our lives. Here again is the complete list of the elements:
“The Order of Salvation”
- Election (God’s choice of people to be saved) Posted March 19, 2017
- The gospel call (proclaiming the message of the gospel) Posted March 26, 2017
- Regeneration (being born again) Posted April 2, 2017
- Conversion (faith and repentance) Posted April 9, 2017
- Justification (right legal standing) Posted April 16, 2017
- Adoption (membership in God’s family) This week
- Sanctification (right conduct of life)
- Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
- Death (going to be with the Lord)
- Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)
We should note here that items 2-6 and part of 7 are all involved in “becoming a Christian.” Numbers 7 and 8 work themselves out in this life, number 9 occurs at the end of this life, and number 10 occurs when Christ returns.
In regeneration God gives us new spiritual life within. In justification God gives us right legal standing before him. But in adoption God makes us members of his family. Therefore, the biblical teaching on adoption focuses much more on the personal relationships that salvation gives us with God and with his people.
We may define adoption as follows: Adoption is an act of God whereby he makes us members of his family.
John mentions adoption at the beginning of his gospel, where he says, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12). By contrast, those who do not believe in Christ are not children of God or adopted into his family, but are “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3) and “sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2; 5:6). Although those Jews who rejected Christ tried to claim that God was their father (John 8:41), Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me…. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:42-44).
The New Testament epistles bear repeated testimony to the fact that we are now God’s children in a special sense, members of his family. Paul says:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of son-ship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17)
But if we are God’s children, are we then related to one another as family members? Certainly so. In fact, this adoption into God’s family makes us partakers together in one family even with the believing Jews of the Old Testament, for Paul says that we are Abraham’s children as well: “Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but ‘Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants” (Romans 9:7-8). He further explains in Galatians, “Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise … we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Galatians 4:28, 31).
Paul explains that this status of adoption as God’s children was not fully realized in the old covenant. He says that “before faith came, we were confined under the law … the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:23-26). This is not to say that the Old Testament completely omitted talk of God as our Father, for God did call himself the Father of the children of Israel and called them his children in several places (Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 43:6-7; Malachi 1:6; 2:10). But even though there was a consciousness of God as Father to the people of Israel, the full benefits and privileges of membership in God’s family, and the full realization of that membership, did not come until Christ came and the Spirit of the Son of God was poured into our hearts, bearing witness with our spirit that we were God’s children.
What evidence do we see in our lives that we are God’s children? Paul sees clear evidence in the fact that the Holy Spirit bears witness in our hearts that we are God’s children: “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!’ So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir” (Galatians 4:4-7),
John’s first epistle places much emphasis on our status as children of God: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…. Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:1-2).
Although Jesus does call us his “brothers” (Hebrews 2:12) and he is therefore in one sense our older brother in God’s family, and can be called “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29), he is nevertheless careful to make a clear distinction between the way in which God is our heavenly Father and the way in which he relates to God the Father. He says to Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your, Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17), thus making a clear distinction between the far greater and eternal sense in which God is his Father, and the sense in which God is our Father.
Although the New Testament says that we are now God’s children (1 John 3:2), we should also note that there is another sense in which our adoption is still future because we will not receive the full benefits and privileges of adoption until Christ returns and we have new resurrection bodies. Paul speaks of this later, fuller sense of adoption when he says, “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Here Paul sees the receiving of new resurrection bodies as the fulfillment of our privileges of adoption, so much so that he can refer to it as our “adoption as sons.”
We might initially think that we would become God’s children by regeneration, since the imagery of being “born again” in regeneration makes us think of children being born into a human family. But the New Testament never connects adoption with regeneration: the idea of adoption is opposite to the idea of being born into a family!
Rather, the New Testament connects adoption with saving faith, and says that in response to our trusting in Christ, God has adopted us into his family. Paul says, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith”(Galatians 3:23-26). And John writes, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12). These two verses make it clear that adoption follows conversion and is God’s response to our faith.
Although adoption is a privilege that comes to us at the time we become Christians (John 1:12; Galatians 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.
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).
One of the greatest privileges of our adoption is being able to speak to God and relate to him as a good and loving Father. We are to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven” (Matthew 6:9), and we are to realize that we are “no longer slaves, but sons” (Galatians 4:7). Therefore, we now relate to God not as a slave relates to a slave master, but as a child relates to his or her father. In fact, God gives us an internal witness from the Holy Spirit that causes us instinctively to call God our Father. “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:15-16). This relationship to God as our Father is the foundation of many other blessings of the Christian life, and it becomes the primary way in which we relate to God. Certainly, it is true that God is our Creator, our judge, our Lord and Master, our teacher, our provider and protector, and the one who by his providential care sustains our existence. But the role that is most intimate, and the role that conveys the highest privileges of fellowship with God for eternity, is his role as our heavenly Father.
The fact that God relates to us as Father shows very clearly that he loves us (1 John 3:1), that he understands us, and that he takes care of our needs (“For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all,” Matthew 6:32). Moreover, in his role as our Father, God gives us many good gifts: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). He especially gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort us and to empower us for ministry and for living the Christian life (Luke 11:13). In fact, it is not only gifts in this life that God gives to us, but he also gives us a great inheritance in heaven, because we have become joint heirs with Christ. Paul says, “You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son then an heir” (Galatians 4:7); we are in fact “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). As heirs, we have the rights to a great eternal “inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). All the great privileges and blessings of heaven are laid up for us and put at our disposal because we are children of the King, members of the royal family, princes and princesses who will reign with Christ over the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 2:26-27; 3:21). As a foretaste of this great privilege, angels are even now sent to minister to us and serve us (Hebrews 1:14).
It is in the context of this relationship with God as our heavenly Father that we are to understand the prayer that Jesus told his disciples to pray daily, “Our Father who art in heaven . . . forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matthew 6:9-12). This daily prayer for forgiveness of sins is not a prayer that God would give us justification again and again throughout our lives, for justification is a one-time event that occurs immediately after we trust in Christ with saving faith. Rather, the prayer for forgiveness of sins each day is a prayer that God’s fatherly relationship with us, which has been disrupted by sin that displeased him, be restored, and that he relates to us once again as a Father who delights in his children whom he loves. The prayer, “Forgive us our sins,” therefore, is one in which we are relating not to God as eternal judge of the universe, but to God as a Father. It is a prayer in which we wish to restore the open fellowship with our Father that has been broken because of sin.
The privilege of being led by the Holy Spirit is also a benefit of adoption. Paul indicates that this is a moral benefit whereby the Holy Spirit puts in us desires to obey God and live according to his will. He says, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14), and he gives this as the reason Christians should “put to death the deeds of the body” by means of the Holy Spirit working within them. He sees the Holy Spirit as leading and guiding God’s children in paths of obedience to God.
In addition to these great privileges that concern our relationship to God and fellowship with him, we also have privileges of adoption that affect the way that we relate to each other and affect our own personal conduct. Because we are God’s children, our relationship with each other is far deeper and more intimate than the relationship that angels, for example, have to one another, for we are all members of one family. Many times, the New Testament refers to Christians as “brothers” and “sisters” in Christ. In addition to this, the many verses in which entire churches are referred to as “brothers” should not be understood to refer to the men in the congregation only, but are rather generic references to the whole church, and, except where the context explicitly indicates otherwise, should be taken to mean “brothers and sisters in the Lord.” The designation “brother” is so common in the epistles that it seems to be the predominant way in which the New Testament authors refer to the other Christians to whom they are writing. This indicates the strong consciousness they had of the nature of the church as the family of God. In fact, Paul tells Timothy to relate to the church at Ephesus, and to the individuals within the church, as he would relate to members of a large family: “Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father; treat younger men like brothers, older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1-2).
This concept of the church as God’s family should give us a new perspective on the work of the church; it is “family work,” and the various members of the family never should compete with each other or hinder one another in their efforts, but should encourage one another and be thankful for whatever good or whatever progress comes to any member of the family, for all are contributing to the good of the family and the honor of God our Father. In fact, just as members of an earthly family often have times of joy and fellowship when they work together on a single project, so our times of working together in building up the church ought to be times of great joy and fellowship with one another. Moreover, just as members of an earthly family honor their parents and fulfill the purpose of a family most when they eagerly welcome any brothers or sisters who are newly adopted into that family, so we ought to welcome new members of the family of Christ eagerly and with love.
When we walk in paths of righteous conduct, we honor our heavenly Father and bring glory to him. When we act in a way that is pleasing to God, we are to do so that others “may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Paul encourages the Philippians to maintain pure conduct before unbelievers “that you maybe blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). Indeed, a consistent pattern of moral conduct is also evidence that we are truly children of God. John says, “By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).