How the Doctrine of Adoption Changes Everything
Good News
I love the Gospel. The Good News of what Jesus has accomplished for His people never gets old. The message of salvation freely offered by grace and received through faith is the greatest message ever proclaimed. The late Timothy Keller once summarized the Gospel in remarkable and poetic terms that have stuck in my mind for over a decade: “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” This is the beauty of the Gospel; forgiveness of sins and right standing with God, offered freely in love to those who believe.
Unfortunately, too many Christians try to “move past” the Gospel. They strive to move on to deeper and richer truth, thinking that the Gospel is only for unbelievers – merely a door through which we attain salvation. The Gospel is not merely a message for unbelievers that brings them into saving faith, but it is also a message for Christians, showing them the beauty of God and the new life given to them in Christ. It is not merely the means by which we are made right with God, it is the paradigm through which we view the entirety of our lives.
The more we unpack the Gospel, the more that we see its multifaceted glory. Often, in an attempt to keep it simple, we can err on the side of reducing the Gospel to a two-dimensional picture. In reality, the benefits of the work of Christ spread far beyond merely the forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of sins is not the end goal of the Gospel, although it is a key point. The clearing of our debt because of Christ’s sacrifice is just the beginning of God's good work. God forgives our sins so that He can bring us to Himself.
And when God brings us to Himself, He rewrites our entire identity.
Who Are You?
The family that we are born into has probably the greatest and earliest impact on our lives. We are, from birth, defined by our family name. Our last name is a marker that tells us who we are, where we belong, and what benefits we receive (or don’t receive). Specifically, our last name defines our belonging, our inheritance, and our expectations.
Our last name tells us who our people are. It is supposed to indicate where we belong; our tribe, our team, our unit, our home. There are certain bonds that exist because of familial ties. Certain obligations exist between family members merely because of who their parents are. For many, this belonging was never realized. The family that was supposed to support them never did, and the love that they should have received was never given. For all of us, we are defined in some way by the belonging, or lack thereof, given by our family.
Your name also determines your inheritance. It defines what is yours merely by proxy. Children do not earn a place in their parents' home. An infant does not earn his next bottle or the diapers that he wears. These things are a part of his inheritance. These benefits are received not because of any work or worthiness on the part of the child, they are given only because of who they are related to.
Not only are things freely given because of your last name, but certain things are expected of you as well. Every good parent has probably had to say, at some point, “It doesn't matter what Timmy’s dad lets him do, I’m not Timmy’s dad.” Every family has its own expectations. Every parent has different standards for the behavior of their children. This is especially true for Christian families, who expect a different level and kind of behavior from their children. The bottom line is this, that we not only receive things from our family, but we have expectations placed upon us because of them.
A New Name
This brings us to the beautiful benefit of the Gospel that changes everything. The Gospel shows us that God is not forgiving sins from a distance. He is not clearing the debt of people that He has no intention of ever interacting with. The message is richer than that. The Gospel testifies to us that God is a Father, who adopts us into His family. Our sins aren't just forgiven so that we aren't punished, our sins are forgiven so that we can be brought into God’s inner circle. Paul describes the beauty of this union, and the driving motivation of God in our adoption:
“In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)
In love, God changes our standing in the created order. Because of His love He makes us His. Whether your family relations are positive or negative, God ushers you into a deeper and fuller identity as His divinely-adopted child. In Christ, we receive the name of God, and the blessing of union with God infiltrates every aspect of our lives. God adopts us as His children, and we receive a newer and better belonging, a richer and more secure inheritance, and a more glorious expectation for how we should order our lives.
What greater belonging can there be than belonging to God? If your parents sin against you, God is perfect in all of His ways. If your friends forget you, God has never forgotten His children. Not only do we belong to God ourselves, but we belong with other believers. We have spiritual siblings, the universal church, to whom we are united by the Holy Spirit. The church becomes your family, and God provides for His church.
What greater inheritance can we receive than eternal life? When moth and rust destroy our earthly treasures, what we gain in the Spirit is never lost (Matthew 6:19-21). The stock market has no say on your eternal riches. The economy of the Kingdom transcends the rise and fall of nations. We have all the promises of God in Christ, and they can never be stripped away from us (2 Corinthians 1:20).
With these blessings that we receive comes an expectation for how we live. The key is, however, that we live from our identity, not striving toward it.
Living From Your Identity
After laying the groundwork for the Doctrine of Adoption, Paul pulls it into the mundane of our daily lives. Who we are as children of God is not merely a spiritual reality, it is a permeating identity that changes the way we view our actions and decisions. He charges us to view the entirety of our lives differently because of the identity that we have been given:
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2)
Why are we to imitate God? Because we are His “beloved children”. Why do we walk in love? Because we have been loved immeasurably. Who we are, and who we think we are, has a direct impact on the choices we make. This understanding is key to grasping the motivation behind Christian behavior. We do not behave a certain way to earn God’s favor, as every other religion would preach. Rather, we behave according to God’s law because we have already received God’s favor.
I like to say that Paul goes on to “build the fence” around the backyard. When a father buys a house, the first thing he does is fence in the yard. The fence is not a hindrance to the child’s freedom. It is not there to oppress them or to deny them joy. The fence exists to protect the child. A good father fills the backyard with all of the toys and blessings that he can buy. Joy and life exists inside the fence, and danger lurks beyond.
This is what God does for us, this is why God gives us His commandments. Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, tells the Ephesians that sexual immorality, covetousness, and crude joking have no place in the life of the believer (Ephesians 5:3-6). He is working out this adoption concept. He is defining the boundaries of the backyard that the Father has given to us. He is laying out the law of God that is being written upon our hearts. This law does not restrict us, it protects us. It frees us to be the blessed children of God that He has adopted us to be.
Understanding adoption helps us understand God’s law. It helps us see the good design of God in the commands that He gives us. We can understand why He has certain expectations for us only if we understand the identity that He has given to us. So live your life in light of your adoption. Behave as one who has been brought near to God. Act as one who has a belonging that transcends all of the rejection of this world. Live knowing that you have an eternal inheritance. Behave in a way that imitates and reflects the glorious character of your Heavenly Father.
Christian, you have been adopted, and that changes everything.
