Recently Amy wakes up feeling anxious, insecure and lacking joy. As she reaches for her phone and scrolls through the BBC website and her social media this only intensifies those feelings. Living on her own means she feels left out of many of her friends’ get-togethers, especially with the current restrictions. With all that is happening in the world she feels little hope for the future. She is a Christian but the ways she feels sometimes causes her to doubt whether she really is one.
I wonder if you resonate with all or part of Amy’s experience. Life in a COVID-19 world certainly feels at times anxious, uncertain and lacking in joy. What would make a difference for Amy? What can help us today?
As part of my degree at Edinburgh Theological Seminary I had to write a dissertation and so decided to investigate the doctrine of adoption in Paul’s letters. As I grappled with this topic I realised how neglected it was in my own life and how fundamental understanding it was to how we lived as Christians.
Many of us, like me, know that through Christ God forgave us, redeemed us and justified us. He dealt with our sin which is an incredible blessing. But I think we fail to grasp that something so much more magnificent has happened. Theologian Trevor Burke explains, “God does not only justify people and then leave them destitute with nowhere to go – he adopted them into the warmth and security of his household.” God has another blessing for us. We have been given new status of sons and daughters of God and have a permanent intimacy with God as our heavenly Father.
However, for this is often not the reality of our Christian life. We can think of God as distant and aloof, rather than as a loving, caring Father, which leads us to feeling anxious, insecure and lacking joy.
Grasping the privilege of our adoption
So what does God’s word say to us about this incredible privilege which has been given to us through faith in Jesus? The apostle Paul addresses our adoption in three of his letters and shows that our adoption is deliverance from the past, a new status and way of life in the present, and a hope for the future.
How our adoption was accomplished
In Ephesians 1: 3-6, Paul wants us to see first and foremost that “our adoption as sons is one of the Father’s best blessings”. What an astonishing privilege for us to be chosen by God the Father. Despite how unlovely we are because of our sin, God brought us into his family through the work of Christ. His death and resurrection enabled us to be holy and blameless so we could come into the presence of a holy God.
Paul also teaches that our adoption is completely dependent on God’s initiative and choice. He has blessed us. He has chosen us. He has predestined us for adoption. This gives great assurance to us as believers. We were not adopted due to any merit on our part. Instead God’s choosing of us with the intention of adopting us and making us sons and daughters in his family is grounded solely in his action as Father before the foundation of the world.
Our adoption was done out of love. This runs counter to any picture of God where he appears as cold, calculating or austere and instead gives an endearing picture of God as one who has chosen his people to be in a relationship with himself out of a heart of love. This should be a great comfort to us. God was not forced into our adoption, instead he willingly did it out of love.
The impact of our adoption on our present
In Galatians 3:26-4:7 Paul shows the impact our adoption has on our present. It firstly gives us a new spiritual family. Incredibly Christ opened up God’s household beyond the Jews to believing Gentiles. Therefore, our adoption impacts how we view other believers. They are our family. We are not on our own but are part of a worldwide family.
Secondly, in the present we are no longer slaves but now heirs. Believers are now fully grown sons and daughters of God and have all the freedoms, privileges and resources that that implies. We are lovingly accepted by the Father and have free access to come to him. We no longer need fear the disapproval or punishment of God. We are now secure in our relationship. Our adoption is for life and life for the believer is eternal.
For the moments when we doubt that truth, God has given us his Spirit to dwell in us. It is his presence who confirms, when we are struggling, that we have the full rights of sons and daughters. It is through the Spirit that we experience the joy, love and confidence of being a child of God as father. We can talk to God like a child talks to their father. We can talk to the infinite, holy and majestic God freely and without fear.
The impact of our adoption on our future
In Romans 8:14-23 Paul points much more to the future inheritance in store for those who are adopted as heirs. The work of the Spirit confirms for us what is to come, a rich inheritance in the presence of God. Romans 8:29 tells us that we are being conformed into the image of Christ and on that day when our glory is fully revealed as God’s children we will be made fully into the likeness of Christ. This will be the day we will experience the full manifestation of the status of adopted children. We shall know full and perfect freedom in God’s family.
For Amy to overcome her feelings of anxiety, insecurity and lack of joy, dwelling more on the remarkable truth of her adoption through Christ into God’s eternal family will certainly shift her perspective. As she does, she sees that she can live as a daughter in freedom, rather than a slave to fear. She can learn to enjoy his tender love knowing he carefully provides for all her daily needs. She can enjoy his constant attention to her prayers and have hope for the future knowing that she will one day receive a glorious inheritance which will never perish, spoil or fade.
Can I encourage you to do the same? Take time to read these three passages and dwell on their truths. “Enjoying God” by Tim Chester or “Children of the Living God” by Sinclair Ferguson are also wonderful books to dig deeper into this doctrine.
