Necessary Introductory Issues

Gratitude and Introduction to the Wonder of Adoption

0:00 Before we turn to the reading and preaching of God's holy word, I believe that I must take just a few moments to express how delighted I am and how thankful to God I am to be found once more in this particular gathering of the Lord's people. Several have asked how long it's been. As best I can reckon, I believe it's seven years. Seven years that have been some of the most trying, have contained some of the deepest waters in my 52 years as a child of God.

0:35 Most of you, many of you I know, perhaps most of you belong to churches where the periodic updates that I shared with the people of God every several months in the lengthy battle that my beloved had with cancer before she crossed the river last September. And so you...

0:54 You have received my constant expressions of gratitude for your love, for your prayers, and for the many other expressions of Christian grace towards me throughout that trial and in the period subsequent to her homegoing as God has been graciously healing what is nothing less than a ragged mutilation of the soul when we lose someone beloved and dear for so many decades. And God has indeed...

1:24 been gracious, but for those of you who are not part of churches that have received those expressions of my gratitude, and yet you have prayed and supported with your Christian grace and love, I thank you from the depths of my being. I have come to a whole new appreciation of the truth that the biblical metaphor of the church as body is more than a metaphor. It is a blessed reality, and you have been Christ's heart, and Christ's compassion, and Christ's concern mediated to my needy heart over these years, and for that, I sincerely thank you. And now let us turn together to the first epistle of John, 1 John and chapter 3, 1 John and chapter 3. And I shall read in your hearing the first three verses. Behold...

2:27 What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. And we are, for this cause the world does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that...

2:56 We know that... If he shall be manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

3:08 It should be obvious to us that in this passage, the Apostle John wrote as one who stood in utter amazement as he contemplated the quality, the measure of the love of God that should constitute both him and all of God's people. Once the alien children of the family of the devil, now the children of God. Not only designated, called children of God, but actually possessing that status, that we should be called children of God, and such we reach. We really are, and furthermore, that love that has so operated toward us in grace, that has constituted us here and now the children of God, the best is yet to come. Obviously, John did not write in the cool detachment of apostolic theological instruction. John penned these...

4:27 He wrote these words under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in a reverie of sanctified amazement that he and his readers should be called children of God. And it's my prayer and will be the aim of all of my labor in preaching in these four sessions assigned to me that when we are done contemplating not the doctrine of adoption, but the wonder of being God's adopted ones, that we will enter in and resonate with John in something of an ecstasy of sanctified wonder and amazement. I have not labored at the desk, nor will I labor in this pulpit, that you go away articulate in the biblical doctrine of adoption. I hope that will be a perk. But I want you to go away to be able to get before God with 1 John 3, 1 and say, John, I know what you felt.

5:40 Behold an imperative. Stand back with me, John says. Stand back in accurate perception of this reality. We are called children of God.

5:52 And we are. And the best is yet to come. Surely. It calls for more than the mere intellectual grasp upon the finer delineations of the biblical doctrine of adoption.

Pastoral Entreaty: Don't Let Adoption Eclipse Other Truths

6:08 It calls for an operation of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts that we might enter in to something of that joannine, holy ecstasy and spirit-sanctified wonderment. However, if we are to attain that end, we must pursue it in a responsible way. And that means for me as a preacher, teacher, we must begin in this introductory message this morning with addressing some matters that are introductory concerns that hopefully will set some categories of perspective both mentally and spiritually that when we come to that fourth message, we will feel stopping, feel safe to let our hearts go because our feet are clearly planted in well-established biblical paths of thought. And so in this introductory message, I want, first of all, to set forth what I'm calling a necessary word of pastoral entreaty, a necessary word of pastoral entreaty. And my word of entreaty is this. It may sound a little strange at first, but I'll explain it, I assure you.

7:30 My entreaty is this.

7:33 If God is pleased in the course of these studies to bring you to a new appreciation of the doctrine of adoption, an appreciation which already here in this week begins to mold and shape your Christian experience in new and wonderful ways, here's my entreaty. Don't let this truth become a Jonah's whale that swallows up. All other truth. Don't let this truth become a Jonah's whale that swallows up all other truths.

8:08 You see, the devil is lurking around this auditorium. He hasn't gone on a four-day vacation.

8:16 And we're not ignorant of his devices. And one of his devices is this, that when the people of God come into a new appreciation of a dimension of who and what they are in Christ. To get them giddy and drunk with that truth, so they lose their spiritual equilibrium. And because that truth so refreshes them and so brings them into a new plateau of spiritual reality, they say, well, every other truth I knew up to then must really have been unimportant because it didn't bring me where this does.

8:50 And then they become imbalanced. And eventually, eventually, they will find their folly if they continue to grow in grace. And then there's...

8:59 There are a couple areas in which the devil lurks to try to take the truth of adoption and to bring it to serve his own ends, namely your spiritual instability. First of all, he will attempt to bring you to the place where God's fatherhood will eclipse your present sense of dependence upon the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. He will attempt...

9:29 He will attempt to get you to the place where the wonder and the reality and living in the light of that reality of God's fatherhood will eclipse and perhaps even in great measure negate or cancel your conscious need of Christ's ongoing mediatorial work. Now, let me tell you how this works. Someone comes into a new understanding of the largeness of God's heart as father. And they understand that...

9:59 As a father, he's not going to kick you out of the house, and he's not going to cuff you on the side of the head when you stumble and you fall. For you know that like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. And the temptation will be that when you sin and fail to say, ah, yes, I've sinned, I've failed, I've goofed up, I made a mess of it, but oh, my father loves me, and I can trust that my father loves me. My father will have his arms wide open to me, and you make your relationship to God as father an occasion to cancel or negate or dilute your consciousness of constant need of Christ's ongoing work as your mediator. And John himself gives us the corrective to this in this very epistle. You remember in chapter 2, he begins with these words. My little children, these things I write unto you that you may not sin.

10:57 He's addressing them. As fellow members in the family, he's conscious of the fatherhood of God. My little children, I write these things to you that you may not sin. And if any man sin, what is his consolation?

11:11 We have a loving father. No. Look at your Bibles. That isn't what the text says.

11:18 If any man sin, John says, now our attention is directed to Christ the mediator. If any man sin. We have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous one, and he is propitiation for our sins. Or think of the apostle Paul in Romans 8.

11:42 Who is he that condemns? He doesn't answer by saying in Romans 8, 34, well, none can condemn. It is God who is justified, and God is our father. We rest in the abiding nature of our filial relationship to the father.

11:56 That is not what the apostle Paul says. Who is he that condemns? It's all Christ now. It is Christ that died.

12:05 Yea, rather, Christ has been raised. Yea, rather, he is at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us. So don't allow this truth of the fatherhood of God in all of its wonder and richness to become a Jonah's whale that swallows up your consciousness of constant need, for the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. He said, he who eats, present tense, and eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

12:42 Don't let any truth ever move you from eating his flesh and drinking his blood, feeding your Christian life by this major stream that flows from the wombs of an exalted saint. A second way he'll attempt to do this and make it a Jonah's wail is to cause the consciousness of God's relationship to you as father utterly to swallow up all consciousness of his relationship to you as judge. When he becomes your father, he does not cease to be your judge. And it's beautiful how Peter brings the two things together in the first chapter of his epistle. I ask you to turn there with me and notice this close juxtaposition of the ongoing consciousness of relationship to God as father and as judge. Verse 17 of 1 Peter 1, and if you call on him as father, now notice you do not simply call upon him with the name father, but with the consciousness of all that it means to have him as my father.

14:00 If you call on him as father, who, without respect of persons, judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear. He's your father, but he's still your judge. Yes. The judge is your father.

14:25 Walk comfortably. Walk cheerfully. He's no longer your enemy in the courtroom of heaven. The judge is my father.

14:36 I can walk comfortably. But my father is the judge. I must walk carefully and circumspectly.

14:47 You see the truth? Don't allow the truth of the fatherhood of God in an expanded, interconnected, open, open space for understanding and appreciation of understanding and appreciation of it. Become a Jonah's whale that swallows up your felt sense of and your commitment to live by the reality, the son of God who loved me, gave himself for me, is my advocate and intercessor at the right hand of the father. Don't allow it to swallow up the reality that God is still your Judge, allow it to swallow up your other essential identities as a Christian. In adoption we become sons and daughters. However, by redemption we become purchased property and slaves. And it's very interesting that the instrument who sets before us more clearly than any other New Testament writer the doctrine of adoption that we will be studying the placing of these aliens in the family of God is the Apostle Paul. He was the instrument who sets before us the concept of hwiathesia, the placing as a son. And yet it is the Apostle Paul who

16:10 gloried in this designation. Paul, bond slave of Jesus Christ. And in Romans 6 15 to the end of the chapter he clearly teaches that in the liberty of union with Christ by which sins dominion is broken, we have become bond slaves of God and of righteousness. And being a son does not negate your identity as a slave.

16:40 It's a wonderful thing when the slave who knows he's the property of his master, who exists, who brings his own identity to the world, becomes a slave of God. It's a wonderful thing when the slave who knows he's the property of his master, who exists, who brings he's the property of his master, who breathes and eats and sleeps and walks and talks to please the master according to his revealed will, with a sense of deepest misunderstanda with a sense of deepest solemn obligation, when he has all the freedom to walk into his master's presence and pop up in his lap and say, hi, dad, how you doing? Son is not to negate slave. Slave is not to negate son, nor any of your other essential identities, slave is not to negate slave. Or, nor any of your other essential identities, as a child of god so i begin with this necessary word of pastoral entreaty that i might as it were take that unseen enemy and smack him right between the eyeballs before he gets a chance to do his work in this place over the next days all right then from that necessary word of pastoral entreaty it's essential for us by way of introduction to consider what i'm calling three necessary distinctions for biblical and theological accuracy three necessary distinctions for biblical and theological accuracy if our understanding of adoption and our experience

First Distinction: Adoption is Distinct from Justification

18:07 of adoption is to be what god intends it to be this god who is spoken in scripture has done so with distinctions with reference to this glorious reality and i want to set before you three of them first of all adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from though based upon justification let me give it to you again adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from though based upon justification now those of you who were here when pastor donley preached those masterful sermons on justification i hope you will remember or from some other sources that god's justifying act his declaration of who and what we are in the court of heaven because of what christ has done has two aspects to it one is the pardon of our sins the negation of our guilt and the other is accepting us as righteous the conferral of a positive standing of being righteous the

19:21 act of free grace where in negative he pardons all of our sins and positively accepts us as righteous in his sight not for anything done by us or wrought in us but solely for the righteousness of christ imputed to us and received by faith alone Now, some have regarded this positive aspect of justification as being synonymous with adoption, since the positive aspect involves this acceptance of us as righteous in His sight. To put it bluntly, God's acceptance of the believing sinner who rests solely upon Jesus Christ is as unreserved, as enthusiastic, as unqualified as the acceptance of His Son back into heaven after He was raised from the dead. Now, how unqualified, totally embracing was the acceptance of the Father of His Son? That's how you're accepted as a believing sinner in God's justifying act.

20:40 So some have said, since there is this positive dimension, justifying... Justification finds its, as it were, its expression in another term.

20:51 The positive aspect is adoption. But we must not think that way. That is defective thinking, biblically and theologically. For these reasons, the family of words used to describe adoption are different from the family of words used to describe justification.

21:09 The fact that in justification, God is dealing with us in the civil court. He is...

21:15 He is dealing with us in terms of His identity as the righteous judge of the world, whereas in adoption, He's dealing with us in the family court, dealing with us in terms of welcoming us into filial family intimacy. J.I. Packer, in his marvelous essay on adoption, in his classic work, Knowing God, writes as follows.

21:43 Our first point about adoption is, is that it is the highest privilege that the gospel offers. Higher even than justification. This may cause some raising of eyebrows, for justification is the gift of God on which, since Luther, evangelicals have laid the greatest stress. And we're accustomed to say, almost without thinking, that free justification is God's supreme blessing to sinners.

22:13 Nonetheless, careful thought will show the truth of the statement we've just made. That justification, by which we mean God's forgiveness, is the past, together with His acceptance for the future, is the primary blessing of the gospel, is not in question. Justification is the primary or foundational blessing because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God's judgment.

22:44 His law condemns us. His guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments, afraid. We have no peace in ourselves, because we have no peace with our Maker. So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world.

23:06 And this, the gospel offers before us, before it offers us anything else. And then he goes on to give a little bit of a summary. A litany of text to demonstrate the validity of that assertion. But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel.

23:25 Adoption is higher because of the richer relationship with God that it involves. And then he mentions that some textbook on theology treat it, as I've said it should not be treated, as just an adjunct to justification. Justification is a forensic idea conceived in terms of law, viewing God as judge. In justification, God declares of penitent believers that they are not, never will be liable to the death that their sins deserve, because Jesus Christ, their substitute and their sacrifice, tasted death in their place upon the cross.

24:03 But adoption is a family idea conceived in terms of love and viewing God as Father. To be right with God, the judge, is a great thing. But to be loved and cared for by God the Father is even greater. And then in an adjustment of something Packer has written in his marvelous little book that I would wish all of you had and studied and mastered, called Concise Theology, this concept has gripped me.

24:36 It's an altered Packerism. Justification results in present and irrevocable acceptance, by God, as the judge of the world. Justification results in present and irrevocable acceptance, by God, as the judge of the world. Adoption results in present and irrevocable intimacy with God, as one's heavenly Father.

25:11 I lay in bed last night trying to memorize that, so I wouldn't have to look at my notes, so I wouldn't have to listen to the Bible. It's a nice kind of memory, hoping someone could give it to you. It's worth memorizing. Marvel of marvels.

Second Distinction: Adoption is Distinct from Regeneration

25:24 The judge of the world who could cast us into hell, presently and irrevocably accepts us as the judge, but wonder of wonders having accepted us, he adopts us resulting in present and irrevocable intimacy with God, And so this distinction is vital. Adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from, though based upon, justification. The second distinction, this must be understood, is adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from, though never separate from, regeneration. I'll give it to you again. Adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from, though never separated from, regeneration. According to the scriptures, God brings us into his family in two ways, the same way you got into a family one of two ways. You're either born into it or you adopted into it.

26:30 One of the pastors here was sharing with me yesterday a moving experience he recently had with one of their members. He accompanied them into the family court. Where they legally adopted a child. And he heard the judge asking the questions, will you accept this child with all of its liabilities and responsibilities, etc., irrevocably.

26:52 He said it was beautiful, beautiful illustration of what God does in adoption. And that child will be a full-fledged member of that family as much as though he or she had been born into it. That child has come into the family by an act of being. That child has been placed in the family called adoption.

27:13 Most of us came into our families by birth. Well, God brings his children in by both means. He brings them into his family by new birth, regeneration, in which he implants within him those dynamics of the presence and power of the spirit, which will give them a family disposition, which will begin to form in them a family disposition, which will begin to form in them a family disposition, which will begin to form in them a family disposition, a family likeness that will consummate in their total family likeness at the coming of the Lord Jesus called glorification. But he not only brings us into his family by birth, regeneration, he brings us into his family by adoption. And adoption is God dealing with us not in the civil court, but in the family court. And the truth of regeneration, regeneration is so massive and important a doctrine that it deserves to be treated on its own. And hopefully in some future conference perhaps it will be treated that way.

28:22 One of the problems with some of the more popular books on adoption or being part of the family of God is they move back and forth between coming into the family by birth and coming in by this being placed legally as a son or a daughter. Well, the focus of my studies with you from the scriptures is going to be getting into the family, not by birth, regeneration, but by this being placed as a member of the family in this legal act of God called in scripture adoption. Peterson's book that I've recommended and I believe is in the book room called Adopted by God, he says this very helpfully in summarizing this point, Adoption and regeneration are two ways of describing how we enter the family of God. Both ideas conceive of God as a father and believers as his children. In regeneration, he begets his children, giving new life to those who were spiritually dead. In adoption, the father places adult sons and daughters, former children of the devil, into his family.

29:37 Adoption is a legal action taking place outside of us whereby God the father gives a new status in his family. Regeneration is a renewal of our nature occurring within us in which the father imparts spiritual life to us. Adoption involves a change of legal standing. Regeneration is a change of heart.

30:01 Both are the result of grace and occur in union with the son of God. Every blessing of redemptive grace comes to us with its foundational nexus being our union with the Lord Jesus. And it's marvelous to trace out how the constituting of that union issues both in our regeneration and in our adoption. So we must understand, first of all, that adoption is a distinct blessing from justification.

Third Distinction: Adoption is Distinct from Other Fatherhoods of God

30:38 Secondly, that it is distinct from regeneration. And then thirdly, if we're to be sure-footed as we read our Bibles, and I'm thinking of what happens after the conference, and you read your Bible regularly, devotionally, and at family worship, and children who sit here hearing this will raise questions. You've got to understand this if you're going to be sure-footed in your Bible when you come across references to God as Father. So this third biblical and theological distinction is this.

31:09 God's adoptive fatherhood as a blessing of new covenant redemptive grace is distinct from all the other fatherhoods of God. Now again, I give you the heading. God's adoptive fatherhood as a blessing of new covenant redemptive grace. And I didn't put those words in there just because Al Martin likes big phrases and big words.

31:37 You will see it's necessary to think in that category. Adoption as I will be preaching and teaching it is a new covenant redemptive grace. It was not known as a redemptive grace under the old covenant. Many dimensions of filial intimacy with God were known, but adoption as a biblical doctrine is a new covenant redemptive grace and is distinct from all the other fatherhoods of God.

32:10 For you preachers, I commend to you in the collected writings of John Murray, volume 2, pages 223 to 225, for the most helpful survey of this, and I'm sort of distilling and culling from Murray's insights. First of all, let me look with you at three other fatherhoods of God distinct from the fatherhood of God. The fatherhood of adoption. Number one, there is inter-trinitarian fatherhood.

32:40 Let me try to state it as crassly as I know how, picking up on a clue from Pastor Donnelly last night. Back when nothing existed but God himself, and two words encompassed all reality, God was. The God who was has always been, essentially, in his own internal life, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There was never a time when God was not Father to the Son, and the Son was not Son of the Father.

33:23 There is an inter-trinitarian fatherhood of God that is utterly distinct, unique in the strictest form, and meaning of that word, one of a kind. And when we read our Bibles, and when we have opened to us, by the help of the Spirit, the wonder of what it is to be placed as son or daughter to the Father, even the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must understand that the highest and most elevated privileges of adoptive sonship, even when we are glorified, and God says in the eternal state, I will be their Father, and they shall be my sons, that fatherhood of God that is essential to his being is utterly unique, and our most elevated privileges as sons and daughters, privileges to call him Father, never approaches impinging upon that unique, distinct fatherhood of God that is part of his very being. Now, you're going to find in your Bible certain aspects of Christ as the Son that are part of his actual redemptive work. For example, in Psalm 2, the Lord said unto me, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you.

34:50 And you say, oh, wait a minute, there was a time then when the Father must not have been the Father because he says this day have I begotten you. No, you've got to understand that that speaks of being installed as the Messianic King was called a begetting. And so there are dimensions of Christ's Sonship in connection with the actual procurement of our redemption, dimensions that are fluid and dynamic and expanding and unique from Mary's womb to the Ascension. But in terms of that distinct identity of God as Father in the mystery of the Trinity, and the second person, as we call him, ever always being the Son, that's an utterly unique inter-trinitarian fatherhood and Sonship. And then secondly, you'll come across in but a few passages of Scripture the creative fatherhood of God. For example, in Acts 17, 28, Paul quotes a heathen poet that we are the offspring of God. By creation, God is in one sense the Father of all of his creatures.

36:02 He's called in Hebrews 12, 9, the Father of spirits. All spirits that are created, God has created them. There is a creative fatherhood of God. However, there is no basis in these texts and the very few others that allude to God as Father on the basis of his role and action as Creator that in any way support that horrible notion that popularized in late 19th century liberalism of the universal fatherhood of God.

36:35 And though it was popularized in a liberalism that for the most part has died, that's the legacy of modern pop religion. Let's not be in conflict with the Muslims because we all have the same Father. We hear it ad nauseam. It's nonsense.

36:54 It's heretical. It is utterly unfounded in the Scriptures. Then thirdly, there is the theocratic fatherhood of God. God's choice of the nation of Israel is called an adoption.

37:08 Paul even uses that technical term of adoption in Romans 9, 4. Who are the adoption? And you will find some nine or ten passages in the Old Testament. Professor Murray lists them all, complete lists such as Exodus 4, 22, Isaiah 63, 15, in which God calls Himself the Father of Israel.

37:34 And His taking them out of Egypt and entering into covenant relationship with Him at Sinai, Israel not only becomes His bride, He is their husband, He becomes Father of Israel. But that does not mean that God was committed to be the individual salvific Father of any one of them. For they are not all Israel who are true Israel. And we've got to understand that so that when we read passages in the Old Testament and we read the Romans 9, 4 passage and we say, oh wait, here we were taught that adoption is a new covenant privilege and here Paul says that the Israelites had the adoption.

38:16 What's that crazy preacher doing? No, he's not a crazy preacher. He's taking time to help you think biblically and theologically. So when you come across a...

38:25 Oh, you say that's theocratic. And you sound very learned, you see. That's theocratic fatherhood. That's God's fatherhood in conjunction with the nation.

38:35 But then fourthly, there is what I am calling new covenant individual redemptive fatherhood. That's the adoption we're going to study God helping us in our time together. That's the adoption of Galatians 3, 26. Now you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

38:58 Either the phrase in Jesus Christ being the object of our faith or it could be. Just listen to the change in punctuation. You are all the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is in union with Christ, personal, individual, dynamic, spirit rock union with Christ that we are the sons of God or we are the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

39:25 Faith that terminates upon God's only Messiah. So we have these three necessary distinctions for biblical and theological accuracy. Adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from justification. Secondly, adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from regeneration.

39:47 Though I didn't quote John 1, 12 and 13 and it came to mind now. I got preaching and got away from my notes. You see how both of them are brought together. That's a good proof text John 1, 12 and 13.

39:58 He came unto his own his own received him not but to as many as received him to them gave he the right the title the legal status of sons of God even to them that believe on his name who were born not of the will of flesh not of the will of the man not of blood but of God. Regeneration adoption united in the faith grip of Jesus Christ. The Savior. So adoption is a blessing of redemptive grace distinct from justification distinct from regeneration.

Adoption in the Eternal Purpose of God

40:33 God's adoptive fatherhood is a blessing of new covenant redemptive grace distinct from all other fatherhoods inter-trinitarian fatherhood creative fatherhood theocratic fatherhood new covenant redemptive fatherhood is that which we God helping us will seek to open up. Now in the time that remains I want to survey quickly the place of this redemptive fatherhood in the scheme of redemption. We're going to consider the place of adoption in the scheme of salvation in the new covenant. I've given you a pastoral warning I've given you three necessary biblical and theological documents and distinctions now point number three for where would Al Martin be without three points the place of adoption in the scheme of salvation in the new covenant. Now you don't like the word scheme do you? Because when you hear scheme you think that's a scheming witch and you think of someone who's being manipulative. No but the word scheme is defined in the dictionary as follows a carefully arranged and systematic program of action for attaining some object or end.

41:55 So we're going to consider adoption in the three categories of God's carefully arranged and systematic program of action for attaining the salvation of sinners. That's the most wonderful scheme that's ever been laid in all the universe. What place does adoption have? God who planned it as we were reminded last night God who has and is and will continue to execute his carefully planned work of redemption.

42:31 What place does adoption have in all of this? Is it a little blister on the side of it? Is it something that once in a while breaks into it? Or is it central and foundational to the entire scheme of redemptive grace?

42:49 Well by the sound of my voice you know what I'm convinced it is. It is the latter. The last. It is.

42:59 Central. Foundational. And what I want to demonstrate in the remaining 10, 20, 23 minutes this place the place of adoption this new covenant redemptive blessing in God's great scheme of redemption. First of all let's consider adoption in the eternal purpose of God.

43:19 Turn with me please to Ephesians chapter 1. Adoption in the eternal purpose of God. And my preacher friends don't we feel like fools when we stand up here and we think we're going to talk about God's eternal purpose. There are many things that make you feel what in the world are we doing?

43:41 But we've got to do it because the word of God forces upon us that task. Here in Ephesians 1 in what most of you know is a marvelous eulogy to the triune God for his great salvation in Christ. The apostle begins in verse 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love having foreordained us unto adoption as sons there's our technical word huiothesia having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. Now our familiarity with verse 4 is such that perhaps you like me have failed to grasp the connection between verses 4 and 5 and it was not until my preparation for these messages

45:09 that I saw that connection and it's not something recondite or hidden away it's on the surface of the text. The apostle is blessing God for this great salvation that has its tap roots in his own free sovereign equality and the sovereign eternal choice of hell deserving sinners all equally hell deserving the choice of some that they should in Christ be holy and without blemish before him in love. But now notice the connection with verse 5 having foreordained us unto adoption in other words there is an intimate connection between his choice of us in Christ and his foreordained purpose that we should be adopted unto himself. And the language is not this look at your Bibles carefully who chose us in him that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love and he also foreordained us no but having foreordained us in other words he chose us having foreordained us and as one very careful Greek scholar has noted he says the participle having been predestined used at the beginning

46:38 of this phrase is causal giving the reason for the election he chose us in Christ that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love why? Because he had foreordained this in his own free sovereign love and grace he foreordained us unto the status of sons and daughters unto himself he so desired his own family out of the wretched fallen hell deserving family that fell in Adam that he foreordained such unto himself by giving them the status of adoption all rooted in grace to the praise of his glory so that adoption we can say this much was at least parallel with his free sovereign choice if we're not prepared to go as far as this one commentator the adoption was prior in the intention and mind of God again how silly we talk mind of God prior I know it's stupid but as Calvin said at best we mumble

48:06 we mumble God's heart so yearns that his alienated family be brought back into familial relations with himself that adoption is no bubble on the side of his purpose to deal with the legal complications of our sin of justification but his heart is set upon adopting us unto himself in and through the work of Jesus Christ and doing it according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace we are warranted to assert that the redemptive grace and privilege of adoption is central to the saving purpose of God from all eternity therefore we ought to treasure what is so close to the heart of God and we ought fully and unreservedly to enjoy as precious to us what is precious to him but then consider with me adoption in the actual procurement of our redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ if indeed it was central in the saving

Adoption in the Procurement of Redemption by Christ

49:34 eternal purpose of God then do we not have a right to expect that scripture will tell us it was central to the accomplishment of redemption in the life history of Jesus of Nazareth yes and we're not disappointed turn please to Galatians 4 verses 4 to 6 in the context in which the apostle is demonstrating that God's salvation is administered over time within different covenantal frameworks with one fundamental covenant foundational to all the other temporal covenants of God and now he writes in chapter 4 and verse 4 when the fullness of the time came God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law and now we have two clauses of purpose you preach to him in order that he might redeem them that were under the law in order that we might receive the adoption of sons and because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba Father so that you are no longer a bond slave but a son

51:02 of God and I I did not know why I said we had to understand that distinction in this context with this limited sphere of reference we are no longer bond slaves so why in the world does Paul say Paul bond slave of Christ if you don't understand those distinctions you're going to stumble Alright? Now, look at the passage and what does it tell us about the work of Christ? It tells us the activity of God in sending His Son, the time, the fullness of the times, the conditions made of a woman, made under the law. That's the activity of God the Father in the sending of God the Son. But now verse 5 gives us the purpose of God in the sending of His Son. And there are two purposes. Notice them.

52:02 Number one, He sent Him forth in order that He might redeem them that were under the law. That He might, by paying back at the payment, by purchasing at the payment of a price, and release from bondage. That's the concept of redemption. The payment of a price that releases from bondage. And Jesus was sent as our Redeemer. He is called the Redeemer.

52:32 But then secondly, to impart the status of adopted sons and daughters in order that we might receive the adoption of sons. It's accurate to say Jesus died. Amen. To make us sons and daughters of the Almighty. You say, but I thought Jesus died that our sins might be forgiven. Yes, He did. Jesus died that we might have no claim against us in the court of heaven. Yes, that's true.

53:03 But don't stop there. Jesus died that we might be the adopted sons and daughters of the Almighty. And as we'll see when we come to the blessings of adoption, both the legal and the experiential, Paul brings forth the law. Paul brings forth the height of the experiential. And he says, and because His death has not been in vain, He has accomplished that which He came to accomplish. And the proof is, there's a bunch of people who once were aliens, who were the sons and daughters of the devil, who now have both the right and the disposition and joy of crying out to the living God, Abba, Father.

53:43 A marvelous thing. So what place does adoption have? Not only in the eternal purpose of God, but in the actual procurement of redemption. It is central. It's a beautiful phrase in Hebrews 2.10, where the whole work of Christ is subsumed under this phrase, for it became Him in bringing many sons to glory, to make the capital of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

54:13 What did Jesus come to do? To bring a whole bunch of sons and daughters to glory. That's what He came to do, to take the lives of us and bring us into the privileges of sonship and not cease in that commitment that we be more than sons and daughters in name and status, but that we share in the very glory of our exalted and glorified head, the Lord Jesus, when God's purpose that all whom He predestined be conformed to the image of His Son, actually thus conformed with sinless souls, inhabiting deathless bodies forever, forever. Well then, when we ask why a manger, why a life of strict obedience to all the demands of the civil and the ceremonial law as well as the moral law, why the horrible agonies of Gethsemane, the bloody sweat dropping to the ground, why the shameful...

55:20 Why the shameful treatment before the high priest, why the buffeting at the hands of the soldiers, why the mockery, the crown of thorns, the purple robe impaled in nakedness and public shame upon a cross, why? That we might receive adoption as sons. That's what the text says. He came to redeem that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Adoption in the Application of Salvation to Sinners: Inception

55:46 Everything He bore, all that He undertook, all that He experienced, has as its great goal, our adoption. But then thirdly, we look at adoption in the application of salvation to individual sinners. We see that it's foundational and central in the eternal purpose of God, foundational and central in the accomplishment of redemption objectively in the person and work of Christ, then surely we should expect that it's foundational and central in the application of redemption to individual sinners. And indeed it is.

56:20 In all three stages of that application. At its beginning. At its continuance. And at its consummation.

56:28 Adoption is central. Look at it in terms of its inception. When does the Christian life begin? Well perhaps the simplest way to answer is when we are united to Christ.

56:42 First Corinthians one nine God is faithful by whom you were called into the koinonia, The fellowship, The shared life, and virtue of Jesus Christ. You were called into union with Christ.

57:01 And when we are effectually called by the Father who does the calling through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, when we are born again of the Spirit becoming God's sons and daughters by regeneration, and as those quickened to life we embrace the Savior, what place does adoption have in the inception? Now we come again to John 1 and verse 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he the pardon of all of their sins. True.

57:39 To them gave he a standing of righteousness before the court of heaven. True. But that's not what John says in this text. As many as received him, to them gave, to them gave he the right.

57:55 There's the concept, you see, of the legal shuffling of God's dealings with us. That our adoption, like our justification, is external to us. It's something declared to be true of us. To them gave he the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

58:19 So at the inception of the Christian life, when in conscious, faith, we embrace the Lord Jesus as our only hope of life and salvation, we are immediately given the status of sons and daughters. Again, Galatians 3.26, you are all children of God, sons of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. Well, what place then does adoption have in the continuance of the Christian life?

Adoption in the Application of Salvation to Sinners: Continuance

58:47 Well, as we shall see in a subsequent message, the essence of a Christian life lived according to the, according to the scriptures, is a life lived before the eye and in fellowship with our Heavenly Father. The essence of the Christian life lived as it ought to be lived is living before the eye and in fellowship with our Heavenly Father. And that's the great emphasis of our Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. It's amazing that people have actually bought the notion that the Sermon on the Mount is legal stuff.

59:25 Just take your concordance and look at how many times the word Father is found in the Sermon on the Mount. All of the Lord's instruction to His own in this that is called the Magna Carta of the Kingdom, pray to your Father in secret. And when you pray, say, Our Father who is in the heavens, hallowed be Thy name. You shall therefore be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Again, in the Sermon on the Mount, again, our Lord is saying I have come that I might have a collection, a gathering of those attached to me who through me will know what it is to live in the way men were made to live before the eye of their God in the intimacy of filial delight and joy. Packer, again in his excellent essay, writes of his own writing, some years ago I wrote, and he quotes himself, you sum up the whole of the New Testament teaching in a single phrase if you speak of it as a revelation of the fatherhood of the

60:38 Holy Creator. In the same way you sum up the whole of the New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's Holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he has not understood Christianity very well.

61:14 For everything Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new and better than the old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God. Father is the Christian name for God. End quote. Packer quoting himself on page 182 of Knowing God.

Adoption in the Application of Salvation to Sinners: Consummation

61:43 Well then what about the consummation? Adoption is there, central on the threshold. Adoption is there, central in the cultivation of the Christian life. What about the consummation?

61:53 Well it's so central that in Romans chapter 8 one of the unfulfilled blessings of adoption, namely the perfection of this mortal body, is actually called the adoption. Paul is bold enough in one of his few usages of that technical word, he uses it here. Listen to the language of Romans chapter 8, having demonstrated that we will live out our lives now as sons and daughters of God in the context of suffering and the suffering is a precondition of being glorified. Not as meritorious but as an inevitable accompaniment of union with a suffering and now glorified Christ. Verse 18, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us-ward. For the earnest expectation of their creation waits for what? The revealing of the sons of God.

62:56 You hear the overtones of John it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We're all living under a veil, thicker and more thorough than the burqa of black in any Islamic society. These faceless, formless poor women in their black burqa. Shapeless, formless, faceless, that's what we are to the world and I got news for you to one another. Look at your brothers and sisters right now. They're not revealed yet. What you see is veiled. It's veiled. Veiled.

63:37 But a revealing is coming. The burqa is going to be torn off from head to toe. And the whole creation is waiting for it. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into what? The liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also have the first fruit of the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for our athessia.

64:21 Waiting for our adoption. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought I was adopted when I received Christ to work. I thought I'm living in the privileges and glory of adoption.

64:31 Yes, I am. So much more awaits that Paul can in a sense say all that you've had now is such a meager dose of it. You're waiting for the real stuff to come. Waiting for the adoption that is the redemption of our body.

64:52 When all that God has marked us out for will be realized. When sinless souls will inhabit deathless bodies. That's the consummation. Of adoptive privilege and experience. So, what place does adoption have in the scheme of redemption? God's well ordered, planned, and purposed commitment to our salvation. In eternity it is central and foundational. In the accomplishment of redemption in the life history of our Lord Jesus it is foundational and central.

Concluding Exhortation: Treasure and Embrace Adoption

65:30 In the application of salvation to the individual sinners at the exception, in the continuance, in the consummation. Adoption is foundational and adoption is central. So then, as Paul said, what should we say then to these things? It's wonderful when at the end of preaching you want to stop and think what you preached, soak it into yourself and say, now what in the world do I say to these? That's what Paul does in Rome.

65:59 He's written all this glorious stuff and he says, now what should we say to these things? Can you help me? I don't know what to say after what I've written. My own heart is so filled with it.

66:07 What should we say? This is what I say in the one minute that remains to me. Dear children of God, I hope you'll find time in your devotions this week. Keep going back to 1 John 3 and say, Lord, before the week's out, take me up where John was when he wrote, behold, stand back, look at, and with intelligent, spirit-aided perception, grasp the wonder of that love which has constituted us children of God, and we really are! And abet what is yet to come. And you who are not Christians, Paul said this after writing certain things in Romans. He says, you know what I'm hoping to do? I'm hoping to provoke some of my fellow countrymen to jealousy.

66:53 I hope as you listen to these things and as the Spirit of God is pleased to accompany the preaching, you'll get so jealous. You'll say, man, man, what a stupid fool I've been. Living as an alien son of the devil who's out to damn me, drag me into hell with me, and then parade me through the archives of hell forever. Here's a trophy of my lies.

67:21 That's what you'll be if you remain what you are. The devil's trophy in hell forever. And Jesus said, I stand ready to make you a trophy of my marvelous grace, son and daughter of God now and forever. Oh, I hope you get so jealous, you'll kick yourself in the backside and say, you stupid idiot, what in the world are you doing remaining where you are? When God, as we were reminded last night, comes to you, not with the fist to smash you, and he could, but with the open hand and say, look at my scheme of redemptive grace, and it's all yours if you just get into Christ. For it's in Christ that it's all to be experienced. And you go to Jesus. Tell him what a stupid fool you've been.

68:16 But that he's opened your eyes and you want to turn from your folly and throw yourself into his welcoming arms. For as many as received him, to them gave he, even you, the right to become children of God. Let's pray. Our Father, what shall we say to these things when you give us the privilege of glimpsing but the edges of your ways? We feel so keenly the narrowness of our hearts and the paralyzing effects upon our puny little brains. O Lord, stretch our capacity to receive. Give us light to understand. Seal your word to our hearts. Bless

69:08 the intervening moments when we gather together again. Come among us with power. Bless your servant. Give us the capacity to receive and to receive more that by the end of these morning hours we may know what it is to have hearts that burn within us as you walk with us and as by the Spirit you open unto us the Scriptures.

69:32 Amen.