(d): Given The Spirit of Adoption

Driving home: So adoption is distinct but never separate from justification.

A young church member asks if the series on adoption is finished, prompting Martin to explain the sermon's direction and review past points. This sets the stage for the current sermon's topic.

Last Lord's Day evening, I was very conscious of one of the younger members of the church, kind of lingering a few feet off my right shoulder at the conclusion of our evening service. And when I was disengaged from the conversation that I was involved in, I asked if this individual wanted to speak to me. And she said, yes. So we sat down, and she said, I just have a very simple question, and the question is this.

2:42 - 3:12 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the fourth blessing of adoption: the gift of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of adoption. He expounds Galatians 4:4-6, explaining how Christ's coming fulfilled the…

Paul's analogy of God's people under the Mosaic covenant being like children who are heirs but no better than slaves, under rules and regulations of governors and teachers. This illustrates the temporary, preparatory nature of the Mosaic law before Christ's coming.

after he made the promise of salvation to Abraham. It was after he made the promise of salvation to Abraham, it was after he made the promise of salvation to Abraham, added to but did not replace the Abrahamic covenant, it was overlaid for a period of time. And during that period of time, God's people, who truly trusted in the living God, looked to him alone for salvation by faith, they were under that covenant treated like children who, though they are heirs of a great inheritance, are really no better than slaves. They've got to keep.

15:27 - 16:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: when the Scripture says the Spirit is sent into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, we know that He is giving us the ability to address God. In the very language with which the Son of God Himself addressed His Father.

Martin quotes Sinclair Ferguson, who references Joachim Jeremias's research on the rarity of Jews praying to God as 'Abba,' underscoring the unique intimacy of this term as used by Jesus and now shared with believers.

And so Paul is underscoring the fact that when the Spirit of God is sent into the heart of the child of God, it is with a distinct end in view that that child of God may be able not just to whisper or not just to say, but he uses a very forceful verb, kradzo, the very word used for demons shrieking in the Gospels, for Jesus crying out in the temple. It has the element of an intensely emotional outburst. And he says that He has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, enabling us to cry. That is, to have a felt internal awareness of who we are, and in the wonder and glory of it, to give then to it in ...

21:57 - 23:06 Read in full sermon

Driving home: when the Scripture says the Spirit is sent into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, we know that He is giving us the ability to address God. In the very language with which the Son of God Himself addressed His Father.

The example of someone admired inviting you to call them by their first name (e.g., 'John' instead of 'Mr. So-and-so') is used to illustrate the honor and intimacy of being granted access to God as 'Abba, Father,' though this earthly privilege pales in comparison.

And when through Christ, coming to faith in Christ, the Father is revealed to us as our Father, He then sends His Spirit into our hearts, enabling us internally to feel the reality of the new relationship established objectively and external to us. Remember, adoption is a legal status, but He sends His Spirit into our hearts, enabling us to enjoy that status and to address the one true and living God as Abba, Father. Dr. Ferguson goes on to say, it's always a moving thing when someone whom you admire takes you aside and says, I'd appreciate it if you no longer called me Mr. So-and-so or Dr. So...

26:09 - 27:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine yourself by the Bible to determine if your spirit affirms you are a child of God, looking for marks like loving Christ supremely, hating all sin, and being led by the Spirit in progressive holiness.

Martin questions the idea of the Holy Spirit whispering 'Thou art a child of God' in a specific voice (treble, mid-range, bass), to clarify that the Spirit's witness is not an audible voice but an internal, dispositional work.

Examine yourself, whether you be in the faith. Put yourself out there. Evaluate yourself by the Bible. But now, Paul says in this passage, the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, along with the witness of our own spirit about ourselves, when the Spirit of God is sent into our hearts as the Spirit of adoption by working in the secret subterranean depths of our souls, an ability to come before God with filial delight and liberty and joy, the witness of the Holy Spirit with our spirit comes to expression in our ability to cry from the heart, Abba, Fath...

41:41 - 42:58 Read in full sermon