Sonship by Adoption (Part Two)
by Jay Wegter
The Spirit sanctifies us through sonship. He imparts the disposition of a son so that we are constantly aware of our Father’s love, care, and commands. “Filial fear” is a term which means that we have a deep animating reverence and love for the Father. Thus, as sons, we are careful to order every area of life so that we bring honor and glory to Him in all our behavior (Beeke, 549).
To be able to call God “Father” is the infinite gift of the new covenant. The child of God is a royal heir who will inherit all things (1 Cor 3:21-23; Rom 8:17). But, with that title comes the reality that we are made conformable to Christ’s sufferings (Col 1:24; Phil1:29; 3:9-10; Rom 8:17). Our Father is teaching us to rely upon Christ, our ‘Source Person’. The Father’s faithful care is always about the source of what gives us wellbeing. Idolatry involves forsaking God as first in our lives and then taking our needs to created things (Jer 2:13) (Ibid, pp. 547-549).
Sons of God are to be animated by the transformation mandate. That command is expressed in numerous places in Scripture, but is condensed in Romans 12:1-2. Transformation by mind renewal in the Word is set in graphic contrast to conformity to the world (and the flesh). The controlling family value in our Father’s house is the development of holy love by means of God’s truth—and love of holiness, for holiness is our Father’s essence. It is the power of God’s Word that transforms us (Jn 17:17; 1 Pet 2:1-3). Our biblical instruction is unto the development of ‘holy love’ (1 Tim 1:5).
Our identity as sons comprehensively governs our life direction. In 1John 2:27-3:1-3 we see a ‘mini theology’ of sonship. “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him” (2:27-29). In (2:27) we see the constant work (anointing) of the Holy Spirit as our divine Teacher in the Word of Christ. In (2:28) we see that we live our sonship by abiding in the Lord—caring for and maintaining communion with Him. And we see that this constancy of fellowship is vital to our confidence at the Lord’s return. In (2:29) we see that the ‘warranty’ of our adoption is the manifestation of the righteous character of our Father in heaven.
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (3:1). In this verse we find the true security of the Father’s love. In spite of our flaws, we are safe and secure as His beloved adopted sons. And the world does not recognize our true identity as sons of God because the world does not know our Heavenly Father.
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (3:2). In this verse we see that our relationship with God is concealed from the world. The world rejects us because we are radically identified with God in Christ. Someday our identity as sons of God will become visible to all. That controlling hope has a sanctifying effect upon us.
“And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (3:3). In this verse we see that sonship hope is sanctifying. We live between the cross and the resurrection and we are to be controlled by both sanctifying realties (Ibid, p. 546).
In adoption doctrine there is not only comfort but also the source of enablement to transform us. We are well aware of our neediness as God’s children. In fact, the withering awareness of our unworthiness, weakness, remaining indwelling sin, accusations of the evil one, contempt from the world, and frequently troubled consciences can cause us to say, “Am I really a child of Almighty God” (Ibid, p. 554)?
We must learn to draw comfort from our adoption so that the truth of our sonship is allowed to dispel the mists of sorrow and trouble. For in Christ we are sons of God. Our perfect adoption yet awaits (Rom 8:23; 2 Thess 2:13-14). When we reckon our sonship now, we are consenting to let our Father define us rather than our fears, failures, buffetings, and troubles. The truth that God is for us must dominate our thinking (Ps 56:9; Rom 8:31ff.). His own glory and excellence have formed the gospel promises that will take us from defiled dust to endless glory (2 Pet 1:3-4). To know my true identity in a defining relationship with God my Father shapes and conditions everything in life. To know my true identity as an adopted child of God is to know my eternal destiny as a member of God’s forever family.
The Christian’s secret of a happy, God-honoring life involves the practical outworking of our sonship. That is what really matters in life. The believer is to live upon these truths, being able to say, “I am a child of God, God is my Father, heaven is my home, each day is a day nearer to glory, my Savior is my older brother, every believer is my brother or sister,” “All of God’s promises to me are ‘yes and amen’ because they are blood bought” (2 Cor 1:20-22). This is the secret of a joyful and godly life (Packer, p. 228).
Christ is preeminent, supreme—Lord of all, Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. He is the eternal utterance of God. He is the living Word, and He is the lover of our souls. Therefore He is able to bring us all the way to the Father. The book of Ephesians, says David Powlison, has Christ and the believer in almost every verse—chock-o-block packed together (David Powlison, “Who is God?” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, 17:2, Winter 1999).
Now why is that—why are so many texts in Ephesians unfolding the reality that the believer is ‘in Christ’? Answer: the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Christ, is stressing the relational nature of God’s grace. This means that God’s grace is to be contemplated through the lens of our union with Christ, from the vantage point of our sonship. And out of this relationship comes our obligation to become increasingly like Christ, our ‘older Brother’. But what makes this transformation and conformity to Christ possible is our union with Him, for He is our life (Col 3:3-4). Our lives are bound up in His—we live upon Another, upon Christ (Gal 2:20).
Without this NT emphasis upon identification truths in Christ, and our core identity of sonship, we are left with bare principles. And, that drift into principle-izing (stressing bare imperatives not joined to the indicatives of grace) tends to strip the Christian walk of its motive, meaning, and method of gospel holiness. The answer of course is to return to the animating power of sonship in the Beloved so as to walk worthy of our call (Eph 4:1-3ff.).
There is great value in viewing the infinite gift of sonship through the promise of life in Christ. Why does Jesus describe a relationship with Himself as ‘life’? Consider that 30 times in the Gospel of John our Savior uses the word ‘life’ to describe salvation from sin. For Jesus, ‘nonlife’ is slavery to sin and self. To not have life (life as it is meant to be lived) is described by Jesus as a form of slavery. “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed’” (Jn 8:31-36).
That phrase, “the slave does not remain in the house forever” is alluding to the fact that sin is ultimately destructive to relationships—to die in sin is to experience finality of separation in the termination of all relationships. Permit me to provide a somewhat maudlin illustration. On television and in magazines we have all seen the ads soliciting funds for animal shelters. One ad shows an abandoned puppy with the following caption: “Repair a broken heart.” A cared for family pet such as a Beagle or Labrador retriever is part of a social unit. If that animal is discarded or abandoned, there is visible emotional suffering in that creature. I only cite this example to drive home the point that sin ultimately is devastating to relationships.
We as humans do not understand what a disaster sin really is. Sin has ‘wages’ which cannot be avoided apart from the gospel (Rom 6:23). Sin bears the bitter fruit of death and separation from all personal relationships. Jesus wants us to know that unforgiven sin is ultimately the death of love, relationship, and belonging.
Mankind cannot sustain physical life without bread—we cannot go on living without eating food. And, Jesus in giving us spiritual life (eternal life) compares Himself to that all-essential daily bread we eat to stay alive: “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, always give us this bread.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst’” (Jn 6:32-35).
We come into this world blind to our natural condition of separation from God due to original sin (2 Cor 4:4; Mt 13:13). Because of our natural condition in Adam, we treat separation from God as normal. We look at vigorous people around us and forget that the unsaved are spiritually lifeless. Jesus continually confronted this problem: “. . . and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (Jn 5:40). Christ’s words hit us like a punch to the gut—we’re shocked to hear that apart from Him that we don’t have life.
Each of us gravitates toward activities which we regard as ‘making us feel alive’—whether a sport, or recreation, or creative activity. We tend to justify the fact that our happiness goals in this world are benign and harmless. We all grab life by the throat and demand that it fulfill our deepest yearnings. We take pride in the things that ‘make us feel alive’. But the question that Jesus is confronting head-on deals with the tragedy of missing our created purpose of knowing God and having life in Him.
As creatures made in God’s image and likeness, our deepest yearning is to know and be known. We are created by a personal God who is intrinsically relational because God is a tri-unity of divine Persons; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, as His image and likeness, we are created for meaningful relationships. It is these relationships which above all else, make life worth living.
But, because we are alienated from the Author of life due to our sin, we attempt to make the best out of our existential experience of being orphaned from our Creator. In reality, our earthly relationships are fragile and temporal and our bodies are aging and wearing out. We attempt to live self-determined (autonomous) lives— living with our backs to God—as if we ourselves are the source of human flourishing. That is sinful and that is an offense to our Creator. We cannot pretend to be independent of God forever—at our passing out of this world reality will hit like a 10.0 earthquake.
And, even if we do not dwell upon it, our impending death haunts us, for it holds the portent of judgment, of non-being, of endless alone-ness. Death is the great source of ruin of the relationships we have built over a lifetime—all relationships will end abruptly at death for those who do not have life in Christ. For outside of Christ, death will cause every meaningful relationship we have to turn to ashes in our hands. That is terror indeed to lose all meaningful personal connections forever.
This universal fear of death and what it does to us is unfolded in Hebrews chapter two. “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14-15). This passage is a fascinating analysis of the human condition, for it tells us that our fear of death and our temporality are actually used by Satan to drive us and flog us on to grasp all we can.
Now some will answer, “I am not driven to grasp anything, I don’t ask for much, just to be respected, left alone, to be free to do such and such.” But, in reality, the brevity of life and the ruinous nature of death indeed do drive us to pursue human flourishing on our own terms. That inner posture of heart is known as ‘the boastful pride of life’. It is spoken of in 1 John 2:16. Pride of life maintains the attitude that we in ourselves have what it takes to make life meaningful and fulfilling. We treat the created world as if it is our ‘raw material’ from which we may construct our identity, significance, and security.
God is offended by what is destructive to us—for our rejection of Him and our resultant self-reliance comprise a suicidal choice if we remain impenitent. “Thus says the LORD: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD’” (Jer 17:5). Self-direction and self-trust are antithetical to trust in God. If Christ is not the most important thing in your life, then by default you are an idolater. Idolatry always involves turning away from God to something in creation as the ultimate source of supply and of meeting our deepest needs (Jer 2:13). A Western value is that each person has the right to pursue his or her version of personal happiness as long as it is not illegal. That is certainly one of the pillars of living in a free country. But as fallen creatures that have turned our backs on their Creator, God sees our search for happiness in created things as idolatry. In the majority of His discourse, Jesus removes all imagined middle ground in terms of what it means to follow Him.
Our Lord likens what we trust in for our ultimate security and significance to the foundation of a house. In other words, all of us are always building: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall” (Mt 7:24-27). Death and judgment will expose our foundations.
What this parable reveals is that faith is far different than mental assent, or merely agreeing that something is true. Believing upon Jesus means that the whole life of a man is spent building upon Christ’s words found in the Holy Scriptures. So radical is this change in direction in the penitent that what that person regards as the ultimate source of their wellbeing has been altered forever: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (Jn 12:25). When Christ is one’s Savior from sin, He will have first place. What we used to regard as the ‘source’ of life and flourishing will no longer be seen as such (2 Cor 5:17).
Our Lord puts it all on the line—it is an either-or proposition. One cannot have it both ways. It is life from the Son or non-life from the world. “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (Mk 16:16). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:36). Jesus is stating what is unequivocal: to have the Son is to have life; outside of Christ every person is alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18).
All of human history prior to the cross was leading up to this climax of the promise of life in Christ: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 1:1). “. . . in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior” (Titus 1:2-3).
Against the backdrop of the human condition, the promise of life in Christ makes perfect sense as the only solution to our predicament. Jesus promises that in Him is the very life we desperately need, and that this life is freely offered to us. Our problem is that we have chosen substitutes for the life which God intended for us. We know from Scripture that our affinity for these counterfeits is designated ‘the love of the world’. These substitutes for life in Christ are: approval, acceptance, influence, pleasure, popularity, power, fame (1 Jn 2:15-17).
We instinctively gauge the success of our lives by the index of our relationships— especially how are we perceived by others. It is natural to us—no one has to teach us to do this. Jesus addresses this directly when He indicates that there is a tension between seeking approval from God versus people. “How can you believe, when you receive glory (approval) from one another and do not seek the glory (approval) that comes from the only God?” (Jn 5:44). The Pharisees who had believed upon Christ were not confessing Him publicly, “For they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (Jn 12:43).
In terms of what we view as making us ‘OK’, human approval is universally regarded as one of the highest indices on the list. We choose friends that share the same values and worldviews that we do, and then seek their approval because of the commonality we have with them. This is true whether one is a philanthropist, a corporate head, a homosexual, a philosopher, an athlete, a missionary, or a meth addict.
The new birth places the Spirit of sonship in our hearts. For, the opposite of a self-directed life is life in the Son of God. Only in Jesus is there life abundant (Jn 10:10) and life everlasting. Only in Christ are the separations caused by sin ultimately removed (those separations are separation from God, from others, from ourselves, and from nature). In the Son of God we are reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:21). The flourishing we long for is found only in the Son—for Christ “imports” into our experience the life, light, love, and belonging of the Godhead. No wonder Jesus was so adamant about the need for life in Him. For apart from life in Christ, sin will take its due course—there are no exceptions. How bright the gospel shines against this darkness.
The gracious gift of sonship has a trinitarian origin. The Father chooses, the Son redeems, the Spirit calls. The Spirit grants the blessings and privileges of sonship testifying to us that we are children of God (Rom 8:16; Gal 4:1-6). The Spirit is the ‘Spirit of sonship’—He “carries our hearts to God”—planting in us affections for our Father. This change brought about by the Spirit’s renewing power will have definite evidences. Puritan William Perkins lists six of them:
- A hearty desire in all things to further the glory of God.
- A readiness to subject ourselves to God—to be ruled by His Word and His Spirit.
- Doing His will with cheerfulness and eschewing all we know to be evil.
- Walking uprightly with reliance upon God’s providence (His fatherly care).
- Humbling ourselves before God, sensible of our offenses while trusting the favor we have in Christ—so as to daily renew faith and repentance.
- Vigilance in the daily contest between flesh and Spirit (Packer, Knowing God, p. 228).
To have life in the Son is to have God as one’s very own Father (Jn 1:12). Life in the Son means membership in God’s ‘forever family’. What amazing news it is that God is glorifying His grace by granting it to unworthy sinners (Eph 1:3-6). The Father gave the Son so that helpless ruined dying sinners might have life. Christ is our connection with God. As Mediator and Redeemer, He brings us back into relationship with our Creator.
No wonder the apostle John makes perceived sources of life mutually exclusive when he writes, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 Jn 5:12-13). Life in the Son of God means that ‘sonship’ becomes our relationship to God the Father. That means ultimate belonging in an unbreakable relationship of eternal love. When a sinner finds life in Christ, he is meeting his Creator for the first time.
Why can God only be known through Christ? Christ is the center of it all—He is our connection with God. He reveals God (Heb 1:1-3; 2 Cor 4:6). He reconciles us to God (2 Cor 5:14-21). He is the only Mediator between God and man and the only ransom for sin (1 Tim 2:5-6). All of God’s purposes of creation, grace, providence, and history are in Him. Everything we need for life and godliness are in Christ (2 Pet 1:3).
To believe upon Christ is to repent of living primarily for temporary things; for created things. To find life in Christ is to finally come home to God and to come home forever. For only in the life that Christ gives do we find our deepest longings for home actually met and fulfilled. Home as one of our deepest values is about love, acceptance, belonging, order, purpose, dignity, nurture, service, community, discipline, and honor (Tom Wells, Come Home Forever, pp. 9-13).
These essential relational dimensions are only constant and unchanging in the family of God. Thus, life is found only in the Son and not in the counterfeits offered by the world. The richness of relational life in the Messianic community energized by the indwelling Spirit is the ‘life abundant’ spoken of by Christ (Jn 10:10). When God, the Author of life is one’s very own Father through adoption—that is to have life indeed. Heaven will be endless love in the Father’s house; but eternity will be outer darkness for those who do not have life in Christ (Mt 22:13).
The very core thesis of Christianity is that biblical theism is a completely accurate picture of reality. Thus, what we long for in terms of relationship are the very qualities in God Himself. Therefore Christianity deepens what we want most, and stamps ‘yes’ upon it. Because the Bible is true, the very things you care about (meaningful relationships) are real and at home in the world and truly exist. By contrast Darwin’s worldview of a meaningless man in a purposeless cosmos is an illusion. In reality, the very things you care most deeply about owe their existence to God. We come to God based upon our need—we are created that way. God has put the desire in every person for life. Christ captures all of that in Himself—He is the gift of all gifts (Rom 8:31-32) (Greg Ganssle, “Why Christianity makes Sense,” Veritas Apologetics Conference, 2011).