The Holy Spirit - Revealing and Convicting (12)

 

Adoption (III)

 

While Ephesians Chapter 1 speaks to us of the placing of a son (Biblical adoption), the two great passages are Romans 8 and Galatians 3 and 4. It is hard to know which of these to explore next, but I think we will turn to Romans 8 in order to see the high calling of adoption and then turn to Galatians in order to see another facet of the calling and also see how Galatians gives us a sure context of the use of the word we translate as “adoption,” and thus its meaning.

 

I should also point out that Biblical adoption is a theme throughout the Bible – that is, the placing of a son, a son (or daughter) entering into the Father’s glory. Ancient Israel was to have been a son entering the glory of Yahweh, being a priest to the nations, a blessing to all, displaying the character and glory of God; sadly Israel and Judah rejected this calling. Of course Jesus is the “Son who learned obedience by the things He suffered, and being made perfect, He has become to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:8 – 9).

 

We see this working of sonship especially in the book of Hebrews, and we see it not just in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation, but we see it in all of us who call God our Father, for our Father is bringing many sons to glory in the Firstborn Son, having “perfected the author of their [our] salvation through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). However, it is important to note that this theme is truly throughout the Bible, another example being in Isaiah in which we see many passages in which the Father calls His Son to be the salvation of all peoples through trial and suffering, entering into the glory of the Father.

 

Biblical adoption is not about becoming a child of God, it is about the children of God growing up, moving from childhood to adolescence; then crossing the threshold into adulthood via adoption, being placed as mature sons and daughters to serve in the Father’s House with their Elder Brother, laying down our lives for those around us to the glory of God. We discover our adoption in Jesus’s adoption, in the Father placing Him as the Son in which we all find our sonship – individual and…more importantly…collective as the Body of Christ, the corporate Son.

 

As we consider Romans 8:12 – 25, I want to point out some preliminary things. It needs to be read and reread in context, a challenge for us today who often have a piecemeal habit of reading and teaching the Bible. I cannot stress this enough, we need to “see” this passage in its setting and keep trying to see it. It also makes sense to read Galatians 3:23 – 4:11 (in its context) alongside Romans 8:12 – 25 to reinforce both what Paul means when he writes of “the placing of a son” and to see the parallels and contrasts between the two passages, for they complement each other.

 

Both our Romans and Galatians passages have our freedom in Christ juxtaposed with bondage to the Law and sin. In Galatians we see this beginning in 3:1 (actually starting with the account of Peter in Antioch in Chapter 2), and continuing  with Sarah and Hagar in Chapter 4 and then into Chapter 5 with Paul’s insistence on our freedom in Christ, and that we are called to be led by the Spirit and that we are not under the Law (5:18), and that we ought to be displaying the fruit of the Spirit (5:23). We also see a parallel between Galatians 5:24 and Romans Chapter 6, and Galatians 5:25 and Romans 8. The parallels are many, how many can you see? Each reading will likely reveal more and more.

 

Romans Chapter 8 ought to be read, as it was originally heard, in the context of justification by the blood of Jesus Christ – God sees us, in Christ, as having never sinned and as having always been righteous (3:1 – 5:11). We are no longer in Adam but in Christ, through the death of Christ we have been taken out of Adam and placed in Christ (5:12 – 21). Our relationship with the old “man” and sin has been severed, for we have died with Christ and have been raised with Him; therefore we are to “consider ourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11) – why do we reject this?

 

Then in Romans 7:1 – 6 we see that through the death of Christ we have died to the Law and are now free to serve God in the newness of the Holy Spirit.

 

All of this means that when we arrive at Romans 8 that we arrive as saints, as children of God in Christ, free from the Law, free from sin, free from death, free from guilt…and we experience the crescendo of all this in Romans 8:38 – 39, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!

 

But…you must see this for yourself in Christ, I can tell you about it, perhaps I can give you glimpses of it by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit, but you still must “see” these things in Jesus Christ for yourself, experience them yourself with your Good Shepherd; so that you in turn can share them with others. If you do not share them then they will not remain with you, they will be fruit that drops to the ground and rots.

 

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption [the placing of a son] as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…” (Romans 8:14 – 16, NASB).

 

“We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 John 3:24b).

 

“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 4:13).

 

Do we preach the New Birth of John Chapter 3, and then once someone has professed faith in Jesus, deny what we have preached? Do we teach the New Creation of 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, and then, once someone has entered into that New Creation in Christ, teach as if it has not really happened? Having “begun by the Spirit, are we now seeking perfection by the flesh” (Galatians 3:3)?

 

I ask these questions because our placing as sons requires that we emphatically affirm our new life in Christ, it requires that we confess that the Spirit of our Abba Father lives within us, it calls us to unconditional security in the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Furthermore, Biblical adoption, being led by the Spirit of God, growing up into our Lord Jesus so that we may be placed as sons and daughters in the Family and Kingdom of our Father, requires a process of discipline, obedience, and suffering. The idea of “being led by the Spirit of God” is not that of someone doing his or her own thing, going and doing wherever or whatever a person’s fancy may lead. There are no loose cannons in sonship, those in the process of sonship are learning to be under the authority of Jesus Christ and His Word and to live in submission to the Body of Christ - there are no Lone Rangers in sonship. Sons and daughters live lives of surrender to God and service to others, presenting themselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1 – 2).

 

Let us remind one another that, immediately after Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is what it looks like to be led of the Spirit of God!

 

Inherent in the concept of Biblical adoption is the idea of our Father’s discipline (Hebrews 12:1 – 17; 2:10; 5:8 – 10) so that we might be partakers of His holiness (Hebrews 12:10) and be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

 

This is why in Romans 8 we see suffering intertwined with the placing of sons, this is why we see the Cross – Biblical adoption is cruciform.

 

“If indeed we suffer with Him” (8:17).

 

“I consider the that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (8:18).

 

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered” (8:36).

 

The glory of sonship is the glory of the crucified Lamb, it is the glory of entering into His sufferings for others (Colossians 1:24), of laying down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16). It is the glory of the koinonia of His sufferings as we are conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10).

 

We can be certain that being led by the Spirit of God leads to the Cross, always the Cross – and on and through the Cross to the Lamb (Revelation 5:6; 14:1 – 5; 21:22; 22:3 – 5).

 

Where else could we possibly want to be?