Our friend who died suddenly last week was a motherly person who loved children and cared for everyone as if they had been born to her family. She had two adopted children. They and their families were her great joy. Since today’s word is ADOPTS, she comes to mind on a human level as a demonstration of God’s loving care for His adopted family.
The first instance of a woman raising a child not her own was Pharaoh’s wife who found Moses in a basket floating in the bullrushes. Acts 7:21 tells how “when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.” However, this verse uses a word meaning ‘take possession’ while the word for adoption is used only six times in the NT and only for the concept of becoming children of God.
How it happens is described in John 1:12–13: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
People who believe in Jesus are spiritual reborn into God’s family. This also means a new life, a changed set of values, an incredible realization that eternity with God our Father is now ours. Having this hope begins a wonderful transformation:
1 John 3:1–3. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
This new identity also involves a release from fear and the realization that God is Father and “Abba”, meaning my “Daddy”, and Jesus has made me a joint heir of all that is His.
Romans 8:14–17. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
Jesus is the natural, eternal Son of God. Humans become children of God by virtue of spiritual adoption. He redeemed us and the OT people of God, planning this long ago:
Romans 9:4. “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.”
Galatians 4:4–7. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Becoming a child of God is both an event and a lifestyle with a culmination in the future. I am His right now, yet still live in an earth-bound body. However, there is a future glory for my body too — I will be like Jesus and for this, I am presently eager — to the point of great longing. As Romans 8:22–23 says, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Come, Lord Jesus come.