First of Three Talks on the Doctrine of Adoption (Harris Conference 2005)
The salvation that God has provided is marked by grace and grandeur. Whatever aspect of it we consider should cause us to bow in worship and amazement as we realise afresh the wisdom and power of God in achieving such a magnificent deliverance of his people from the state of sin. This display of his mercy reveals to us both the wide range and the individual aspects of his love.
Why adoption?
There are many ways in which we could approach the subject of God’s salvation, so why do so through the doctrine of adoption? One obvious answer is that it is revealed in the Bible in order for us to understand it and gain benefit from it. And there are other reasons.
J. I Packer has written in his well-known book Knowing God that a Christian’s appreciation of his relationship to his heavenly Father is crucial for his life as a child of God. Packer says: ‘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 holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of 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 does not understand Christianity very well at all.’
Connected to that estimation is the importance of realising that adoption is God’s highest display of grace towards sinners. Part of our heritage has been its focus on the doctrine of justification, of how sinners become right with God. We marvel at the grace shown in the Saviour’s provision of a life of obedience and a sin-atoning death to cover our need of righteousness. But the focus on justification can hide the fact that God has done more for his people. It is possible to imagine the situation where God’s grace went no higher than justification. Of course, such a provision would be marvellous beyond words, but the restoration it would give would mean that we are classified as servants who have fully obeyed God’s law. Justification deals with our disobedience and provides us with the Saviour’s life lived on our behalf. Adoption makes us more than servants and classifies us as sons, which is a higher relationship.
The doctrine of adoption also addresses contemporary outlooks. One prominent concern is the search for intimacy. While the causes of lack of intimacy are diverse, one reason for the absence of intimacy is the collapse of family life in modern society. The family of God is where true intimacy can be found, whether it is the vertical relationship with God as Father or the horizontal relationship with fellow believers in which mutual respect, mutual concern and mutual comfort is shared.
Another contemporary interest is the search for self-worth and many people are trying to find it by looking inwardly to their talents and gifts. While it is important to have self-awareness, we should get our self-esteem from what God has done for us in Christ, with one of his actions being that of adoption. It is a greater blessing to be a child of God than it is to be a success in any other area of life.
1. Adoption is included in God’s restoration of blessings lost by sin
Salvation is viewed against the dark background of our sinful state as rebels against our Creator. Because of our sin we no longer display the beautiful features that God provided us with when he created us originally in the Garden of Eden. One of these features that the human race no longer display in its best colours is its relationship to God as his children. Adam was made in the image of God, which is another way of saying that he was God’s Son because when Genesis uses the language of ‘a son’, it means to be made in the likeness of one’s father. This is seen, for example, in the way Genesis describes the birth of Adam’s son, Seth: ‘When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth’ (Gen. 5:3). The usage there strongly suggests that when God made Adam in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), he made Adam to be his son, which is how Luke in his genealogy describes Adam (Luke 3:38). Sadly, Adam by his sin dimmed the glory of his personal sonship. Part of the work of salvation is to recover and enhance the significance and reality of being a son of God.
2. Adoption involved each person of the triune God
Paul in Ephesians 1:4-5 reminded his readers that the purpose of the heavenly Father included bringing sinners into his family: ‘In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.’
Writing to the Galatians, he details how bringing about the reality of adoption also concerns the Son and the Spirit: ‘But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father” ’ (Gal. 4:4-6).
Concerning the relationship between Jesus and his people, there is a wonderful passage towards the end of Hebrews 2. In verse 14 the writer says that ‘since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity.’ This was a voluntary decision, done gladly out of love to his Father and to them. He identified with them by taking their nature, an identification that would cause him to suffer on their behalf on the cross. His identification continues after his resurrection, as he stated to Mary Magdalene on the resurrection morning, ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” ’ (John 20:17). The passage in Hebrews 2 mentions other ways in which Jesus interacts with his brothers. He declares to them the name of the Father as he sings God’s praises in the midst of the assembly of his people. Although he has ascended to heaven, he is still the teacher of his brethren, both in heaven and on earth, as he unfolds to them the riches and grace of the Father’s character. Because he became their brother and lived here on earth, he knows what it is like to experience temptation and he is able to help them when they are tempted. And Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers, even now. He is indeed our Elder Brother.
The Holy Spirit is involved in the lives of his people. One of his names is ‘the Spirit of adoption’. He is the seal that the Father has given to each of his people as the sign that they have been adopted into his family (Eph. 1:13-14). The Spirit indwells them as the guarantee that they will yet share their Brother’s inheritance and in the meantime gives to them foretastes of its pleasures.
The relationship realised in adoption means that we live all of life in the presence of the Father. This is part of what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to do religious activities, such as almsgiving, prayer and fasting, in secret and not before humans. There are no places secret from the Father, and he receives pleasure when we so live and rewards us greatly. The relationship also means that we live all of life in the presence of our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. He is not with us physically, but in the presence of the Spirit he draws near. Through the Spirit’s use of the Bible, Jesus becomes the Example for our life, the Encourager of our life and the Enabler of our life. And we live all of life in the presence of the Spirit of adoption. It is a solemn thought to realise that at every moment each of God’s children on earth is living with either a grieved or ungrieved Spirit.
3. Adoption experienced in the present
In the next session, I want to consider the role of the Holy Spirit in adoption and in the third session the role of discipline. For the present, under this heading, I will mention briefly some other experiences connected to adoption. One of these is that adoption is God’s means of delivering us from slavery.
Today, when we think of the concept of adoption we usually link it with provision made for orphans or childless couples. But the New Testament usually connects adoption to deliverance from slavery. This was a very powerful metaphor at that time because slavery was a common social divider in Paul’s day, with a high percentage of the populace being slaves. It was also common for slaves in Roman locations to be freed, but not by adoption. According to Williams, there were four ways for freedom to be given in Roman law: by testament when a master in his will set his slave(s) free; by census when a slave’s name was added to the list of names on a city register; the most common form was the practice of vindica when a master set a slave free in the presence of an official (who then introduced the slave into the state of liberty by striking him with a rod!); by adoption, which was the least common way and quite rare.
Paul reminds the Galatians that each Christian is ‘no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir’ (Gal. 4:7). They have been set free in reality as well as positionally: ‘For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship’ (Rom. 8:5).
In what ways were Christians slaves before their conversion? They were slaves to sin, to the sin that controlled their own hearts and minds. Further, they were slaves of Satan, following his will in whatever ways it came to them. In addition, they were slaves to the opinions and ideas of their time. Paul reminds the Galatians that this bondage had involved serving false gods.
Yet we are not to limit lack of freedom to a person’s pre-Christian life because spiritual bondage can hinder Christians from enjoying their freedom. This occurs when they imagine that freedom means they have the liberty to do as they like. Often Christians can allow themselves to become slaves to unbiblical opinions or teachings. The Galatian Christians found themselves in such a state and Paul urged them to realise that it was ‘for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery’ (Gal. 5:1). False teachings are like chains and adopting them becomes a means of not appreciating true freedom.
This is a reminder that we are not set free to indulge ourselves: ‘You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself”’ (Gal. 5:13). True freedom is experienced by Christians when they obey their Father.
Linked to the above is the reality that adoption is a means of delivering us from immaturity. We too can become slaves to many things. One of the biggest dangers to healthy Christian living is legalism of one kind or another. Legalism can express itself as slavery to tradition or as slavery to the latest innovation. In both cases, it is usually a sign of immaturity, of a failure to appreciate that our security and satisfaction is to be found in enjoying God’s grace.
Of course, one of the main privileges of adoption is access to the Father’s presence in prayer. We draw near to him as his children, as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer. Our prayers are part of our communion with the Father and are offered knowing that he will answer them as he sees best. But filial prayer is not only about asking blessings for ourselves and making intercession for others; it also includes confession of our sin to our heavenly Father, aware that he is delighted to forgive our sins and cleanse us of their defilement.
As his children, we have another important privilege in the present, and that is the promises of God. They are great and precious, and should be used in our prayers. And they should also be meditated on for our own spiritual comfort.
Adoption in the future
There is a certain amount of mystery about what our future involves, expressed in the well-known words of the apostle John: ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:1). Yet although there are unknown aspects to our future experience of adoption, some details have been revealed.
First, there is to be a family gathering in the Father’s house. Jesus is yet to experience the joy of saying to his Father, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me’ (Heb. 2:13). It was for them that he became a man, so that he and they would be in the same family of God. This family gathering will not be a reunion, because it has not yet happened. While heaven involves reunion for believers who knew each other, this great future gathering of all God’s adopted children is an event which are anticipating with joy.
But it is not only the adopted members who are anticipating it. Jesus, the elder Brother, is also looking forward to the occasion when he will have his brothers with him for ever. God the Father, too, who is bringing many sons to glory, is looking forward with delight to the day when every room in the Father’s house is full. And the Holy Spirit, who is in our hearts as the Spirit of adoption, who gives to us now foretastes and samples of the inheritance, will be rejoice to bring to each of his people a fullness that now they cannot even imagine. It will a glorious day when the triune God and the heavenly family are together on the day of the family gathering, a gathering that will never end.
Second, this future experience of adoption is one for which the whole creation is longing. Paul encourages us in his wonderful words in Romans 8:19-21: ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’
The destiny and future glory of the universe is connected to our adoption. I suppose there is a parallel between the first creation waiting for the appearance of Adam and his wife and the renewed creation anticipating the appearance of Jesus and his brothers. The original creation was not complete until those for whom it was made appeared. Similarly, there is a kind of incompleteness until the heirs of the inheritance come into possession of it. But the revelation of the sons of God will be more than completion, for it will also be the liberation of creation from all the frustrations and disturbances to which it has been subjected.
Third, this future experience of adoption will involve each of God’s children being fully conformed to the image of their elder Brother, Jesus the Son of God. ‘For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers’ (Rom. 8:29). This conformation will involve transformation of the inner man and the outward man. It will occur at the resurrection when the Elder Brother will descend from heaven, raise his dead brothers and sisters, and transform them and those of his family still alive into his likeness. As we have ‘borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven’ (1 Cor. 15:49). This conformity will include glorification of our body: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:20-21). But it will also include conformity in character as the fruit of the Spirit develops to perfection.
The effect of having this hope is ongoing purification. ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure’ (1 John 3:1-3). When that happens, those who are not yet in the family will be impressed: ‘You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven’ (Matt. 5:14-16).
The grace of God revealed in adoption shows us the wonder of God’s salvation and should cause us to increasingly wonder at God’s salvation.
Why adoption?
There are many ways in which we could approach the subject of God’s salvation, so why do so through the doctrine of adoption? One obvious answer is that it is revealed in the Bible in order for us to understand it and gain benefit from it. And there are other reasons.
J. I Packer has written in his well-known book Knowing God that a Christian’s appreciation of his relationship to his heavenly Father is crucial for his life as a child of God. Packer says: ‘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 holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of 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 does not understand Christianity very well at all.’
Connected to that estimation is the importance of realising that adoption is God’s highest display of grace towards sinners. Part of our heritage has been its focus on the doctrine of justification, of how sinners become right with God. We marvel at the grace shown in the Saviour’s provision of a life of obedience and a sin-atoning death to cover our need of righteousness. But the focus on justification can hide the fact that God has done more for his people. It is possible to imagine the situation where God’s grace went no higher than justification. Of course, such a provision would be marvellous beyond words, but the restoration it would give would mean that we are classified as servants who have fully obeyed God’s law. Justification deals with our disobedience and provides us with the Saviour’s life lived on our behalf. Adoption makes us more than servants and classifies us as sons, which is a higher relationship.
The doctrine of adoption also addresses contemporary outlooks. One prominent concern is the search for intimacy. While the causes of lack of intimacy are diverse, one reason for the absence of intimacy is the collapse of family life in modern society. The family of God is where true intimacy can be found, whether it is the vertical relationship with God as Father or the horizontal relationship with fellow believers in which mutual respect, mutual concern and mutual comfort is shared.
Another contemporary interest is the search for self-worth and many people are trying to find it by looking inwardly to their talents and gifts. While it is important to have self-awareness, we should get our self-esteem from what God has done for us in Christ, with one of his actions being that of adoption. It is a greater blessing to be a child of God than it is to be a success in any other area of life.
1. Adoption is included in God’s restoration of blessings lost by sin
Salvation is viewed against the dark background of our sinful state as rebels against our Creator. Because of our sin we no longer display the beautiful features that God provided us with when he created us originally in the Garden of Eden. One of these features that the human race no longer display in its best colours is its relationship to God as his children. Adam was made in the image of God, which is another way of saying that he was God’s Son because when Genesis uses the language of ‘a son’, it means to be made in the likeness of one’s father. This is seen, for example, in the way Genesis describes the birth of Adam’s son, Seth: ‘When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth’ (Gen. 5:3). The usage there strongly suggests that when God made Adam in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), he made Adam to be his son, which is how Luke in his genealogy describes Adam (Luke 3:38). Sadly, Adam by his sin dimmed the glory of his personal sonship. Part of the work of salvation is to recover and enhance the significance and reality of being a son of God.
2. Adoption involved each person of the triune God
Paul in Ephesians 1:4-5 reminded his readers that the purpose of the heavenly Father included bringing sinners into his family: ‘In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.’
Writing to the Galatians, he details how bringing about the reality of adoption also concerns the Son and the Spirit: ‘But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father” ’ (Gal. 4:4-6).
Concerning the relationship between Jesus and his people, there is a wonderful passage towards the end of Hebrews 2. In verse 14 the writer says that ‘since the children have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity.’ This was a voluntary decision, done gladly out of love to his Father and to them. He identified with them by taking their nature, an identification that would cause him to suffer on their behalf on the cross. His identification continues after his resurrection, as he stated to Mary Magdalene on the resurrection morning, ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” ’ (John 20:17). The passage in Hebrews 2 mentions other ways in which Jesus interacts with his brothers. He declares to them the name of the Father as he sings God’s praises in the midst of the assembly of his people. Although he has ascended to heaven, he is still the teacher of his brethren, both in heaven and on earth, as he unfolds to them the riches and grace of the Father’s character. Because he became their brother and lived here on earth, he knows what it is like to experience temptation and he is able to help them when they are tempted. And Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers, even now. He is indeed our Elder Brother.
The Holy Spirit is involved in the lives of his people. One of his names is ‘the Spirit of adoption’. He is the seal that the Father has given to each of his people as the sign that they have been adopted into his family (Eph. 1:13-14). The Spirit indwells them as the guarantee that they will yet share their Brother’s inheritance and in the meantime gives to them foretastes of its pleasures.
The relationship realised in adoption means that we live all of life in the presence of the Father. This is part of what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to do religious activities, such as almsgiving, prayer and fasting, in secret and not before humans. There are no places secret from the Father, and he receives pleasure when we so live and rewards us greatly. The relationship also means that we live all of life in the presence of our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. He is not with us physically, but in the presence of the Spirit he draws near. Through the Spirit’s use of the Bible, Jesus becomes the Example for our life, the Encourager of our life and the Enabler of our life. And we live all of life in the presence of the Spirit of adoption. It is a solemn thought to realise that at every moment each of God’s children on earth is living with either a grieved or ungrieved Spirit.
3. Adoption experienced in the present
In the next session, I want to consider the role of the Holy Spirit in adoption and in the third session the role of discipline. For the present, under this heading, I will mention briefly some other experiences connected to adoption. One of these is that adoption is God’s means of delivering us from slavery.
Today, when we think of the concept of adoption we usually link it with provision made for orphans or childless couples. But the New Testament usually connects adoption to deliverance from slavery. This was a very powerful metaphor at that time because slavery was a common social divider in Paul’s day, with a high percentage of the populace being slaves. It was also common for slaves in Roman locations to be freed, but not by adoption. According to Williams, there were four ways for freedom to be given in Roman law: by testament when a master in his will set his slave(s) free; by census when a slave’s name was added to the list of names on a city register; the most common form was the practice of vindica when a master set a slave free in the presence of an official (who then introduced the slave into the state of liberty by striking him with a rod!); by adoption, which was the least common way and quite rare.
Paul reminds the Galatians that each Christian is ‘no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir’ (Gal. 4:7). They have been set free in reality as well as positionally: ‘For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship’ (Rom. 8:5).
In what ways were Christians slaves before their conversion? They were slaves to sin, to the sin that controlled their own hearts and minds. Further, they were slaves of Satan, following his will in whatever ways it came to them. In addition, they were slaves to the opinions and ideas of their time. Paul reminds the Galatians that this bondage had involved serving false gods.
Yet we are not to limit lack of freedom to a person’s pre-Christian life because spiritual bondage can hinder Christians from enjoying their freedom. This occurs when they imagine that freedom means they have the liberty to do as they like. Often Christians can allow themselves to become slaves to unbiblical opinions or teachings. The Galatian Christians found themselves in such a state and Paul urged them to realise that it was ‘for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery’ (Gal. 5:1). False teachings are like chains and adopting them becomes a means of not appreciating true freedom.
This is a reminder that we are not set free to indulge ourselves: ‘You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself”’ (Gal. 5:13). True freedom is experienced by Christians when they obey their Father.
Linked to the above is the reality that adoption is a means of delivering us from immaturity. We too can become slaves to many things. One of the biggest dangers to healthy Christian living is legalism of one kind or another. Legalism can express itself as slavery to tradition or as slavery to the latest innovation. In both cases, it is usually a sign of immaturity, of a failure to appreciate that our security and satisfaction is to be found in enjoying God’s grace.
Of course, one of the main privileges of adoption is access to the Father’s presence in prayer. We draw near to him as his children, as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer. Our prayers are part of our communion with the Father and are offered knowing that he will answer them as he sees best. But filial prayer is not only about asking blessings for ourselves and making intercession for others; it also includes confession of our sin to our heavenly Father, aware that he is delighted to forgive our sins and cleanse us of their defilement.
As his children, we have another important privilege in the present, and that is the promises of God. They are great and precious, and should be used in our prayers. And they should also be meditated on for our own spiritual comfort.
Adoption in the future
There is a certain amount of mystery about what our future involves, expressed in the well-known words of the apostle John: ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:1). Yet although there are unknown aspects to our future experience of adoption, some details have been revealed.
First, there is to be a family gathering in the Father’s house. Jesus is yet to experience the joy of saying to his Father, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me’ (Heb. 2:13). It was for them that he became a man, so that he and they would be in the same family of God. This family gathering will not be a reunion, because it has not yet happened. While heaven involves reunion for believers who knew each other, this great future gathering of all God’s adopted children is an event which are anticipating with joy.
But it is not only the adopted members who are anticipating it. Jesus, the elder Brother, is also looking forward to the occasion when he will have his brothers with him for ever. God the Father, too, who is bringing many sons to glory, is looking forward with delight to the day when every room in the Father’s house is full. And the Holy Spirit, who is in our hearts as the Spirit of adoption, who gives to us now foretastes and samples of the inheritance, will be rejoice to bring to each of his people a fullness that now they cannot even imagine. It will a glorious day when the triune God and the heavenly family are together on the day of the family gathering, a gathering that will never end.
Second, this future experience of adoption is one for which the whole creation is longing. Paul encourages us in his wonderful words in Romans 8:19-21: ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’
The destiny and future glory of the universe is connected to our adoption. I suppose there is a parallel between the first creation waiting for the appearance of Adam and his wife and the renewed creation anticipating the appearance of Jesus and his brothers. The original creation was not complete until those for whom it was made appeared. Similarly, there is a kind of incompleteness until the heirs of the inheritance come into possession of it. But the revelation of the sons of God will be more than completion, for it will also be the liberation of creation from all the frustrations and disturbances to which it has been subjected.
Third, this future experience of adoption will involve each of God’s children being fully conformed to the image of their elder Brother, Jesus the Son of God. ‘For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers’ (Rom. 8:29). This conformation will involve transformation of the inner man and the outward man. It will occur at the resurrection when the Elder Brother will descend from heaven, raise his dead brothers and sisters, and transform them and those of his family still alive into his likeness. As we have ‘borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven’ (1 Cor. 15:49). This conformity will include glorification of our body: ‘But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:20-21). But it will also include conformity in character as the fruit of the Spirit develops to perfection.
The effect of having this hope is ongoing purification. ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure’ (1 John 3:1-3). When that happens, those who are not yet in the family will be impressed: ‘You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven’ (Matt. 5:14-16).
The grace of God revealed in adoption shows us the wonder of God’s salvation and should cause us to increasingly wonder at God’s salvation.
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