The Holy Spirit - Revealing and Convicting (16)

  

Adoption (VII)

 

“Now I say, as long as the heir is a [minor] child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything…So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son…that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave [functionally], but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” (See Galatians 4:1 – 7).

 

It is the trajectory that especially matters, the story of adoption, of the placing of sons and daughters. This is, in many respects, the story of Genesis through Revelation. When God made mankind in His image He did not intend for us to remain children, anymore than when a parent holds a newborn baby, he or she intends for that baby to remain in its current state of being.

 

When we ponder the grand Incarnational passage of Hebrews 2:9 – 18, we see the Father “bringing many sons to glory,” and the Father perfecting Jesus (in a mysterious Incarnational sense) through sufferings (also see Hebrews 5:8 – 9). We also see (do we not?) that the one who sanctifies (Jesus) and those who are sanctified (us) are all from one Father, “For which reason He is not ashamed to call us brethren.”

 

The message from the Messiah in Hebrews Chapter 2 is clear, “I will proclaim Your Name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.” In a reversal of the story of the Prodigal Son, in the Incarnation the Elder Brother leaves His Father’s House to come and save His brothers and sisters in the pig pen.

 

We read in Galatians 4:6, “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!””

 

Now for sure Galatians 3:23 – 4:7 is a dense passage with many nuances, but if we don’t see the contour of the forest, if we don’t major on the forest, but rather focus on a few trees, we will miss the glory of our adoption, of our call to maturity in Jesus Christ.

 

Ronald Y. K. Fung acknowledges this when he writes concerning Galatians Chapter 4, “We have consistently understood the references to the status of sons in vv. 5 – 7 in the sense of full-grown sonship, because this appears to be the sense required by Paul’s argument in 3:26, and it is reasonable to suppose that this is also the sense intended in the present passage” (The Epistle to the Galatians, page 186).

 

While Ronald Fung and I may see some trees in this forest differently, we both see the trajectory of full-grown sonship and this is, I think, what is critical. To teach adoption without teaching full-grown sonship is to teach something other than what the Bible sets forth.

 

Of course, if we teach full-grown sonship then we must change the way we teach and preach and pastor and lead, for we must move ourselves and our people out of the nursery, out of primary school, even out of secondary school…and move them into adulthood.

 

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

 

“Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” (Hebrews 5:12 – 6:2).

 

Now I don’t think most people would stand for actual discipleship, for being expected to enter into sonship, for being expected to live as Christ in our generation. Nor are our institutions geared to encourage or accommodate this, there is too much risk in terms of losing control – we don’t really want Jesus to be the Head of His Body. Perhaps acknowledging our barriers is a step in working towards sonship?

 

What I do know is that we have no warrant for not preaching the Word of Sonship which has been given to us and for which Christ came and died and rose again. This Word begins in Genesis and it culminates in Revelation. “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son” (Revelation 21:7).

 

We have been considering Biblical adoption because we’ve been in the Upper Room and we’ve come to John 16:12 – 15 in which we see that all that the Father has belongs to Jesus and that all that Jesus has belongs to us. This leads us to the idea of inheritance and inheritance is found in “the placing of a son,” which is Biblical adoption.

 

Few professing Christians, including pastors, really believe that they are joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), therefore few of us can conceive that all that Jesus has is ours in Him. We are afraid of John Chapter 17 which portrays us as being given the glory of Jesus Christ and as being One in the Trinity – we fail to see and testify to the glorious love and grace and work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. We insist on sewing up the veil to the Holy of Holies every Sunday morning, and woe to the woman or man who believes that she or he can live beyond the veil in intimacy with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

 

Woe to the pastor who desires to move his people on from the elementary principles of Hebrews 6:1 – 2. We would rather go back to Egypt, and as a consequence many of us die in the Wilderness. We would rather travel in circles, year after year, than enter Canaan and face the giants…giants which are nothing in the Presence of Jesus Christ. We would rather exchange our glory for that of the ox, a beast of burden (Psalm 106:19 – 20).

 

Well, let us be encouraged, for Jesus says that the gate is narrow and small that leads to life (Matthew 7:13 – 14). On the one hand we want to bring as many people with us as possible, on the other hand we must follow Jesus, and that includes “going outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:11 – 14).

 

Isn’t it time we lived as grown-ups in Jesus Christ?

 

Isn’t it time we lived as those who have been placed as His sons and daughters?

Isn't it time we lived in the glory of Adoption?