Privileged Adoption
John 20:10–18
I am ascending to my Father and your Father. John 20:17
Our new relationship to Christ provides a new relationship to God the Father. What is involved here is our adoption into the family of God. We are not naturally born into God’s family. We are alienated from God and are born outside it as heirs of sin and death. But God is gracious; therefore, by the death of Christ and by the application of that death to us by the Holy Spirit, God brings us back into fellowship with himself and grants us family privileges.
Could anything be more utterly unexpected or overwhelming than the new relationship with God that is bestowed on his children? It is hard to think so. Justification is overwhelming enough, for it is all of grace. God did not need to justify us. Having justified us he could still have left us on a much inferior level of status and privilege. But he has gone far beyond what we could ever conceive of or expect by taking us into his own family where our status and privilege are that of daughters and sons. So great is God’s condescension in this act of adoption that we would be inclined to dismiss this relationship, thinking it presumption, were it not that God has made a special effort to seal these truths to our hearts. As Paul has written, “‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined—what God has prepared for those who love him—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9–10).
What are these privileges? One is prayer, for access to God is based on our adoption. It is only because of our adoption that we can approach God as “Father,” and it is only through the Spirit of adoption that we can be assured that he is indeed our Father and that our prayers are heard by him. This is what Paul is speaking of when he says, “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!’” (Rom. 8:15).
A second and related privilege of our new relationship to God is that we can have confidence before him. We are his children and we can know that nothing can ever destroy that relationship. If God is our Father, he will help us in the days of our spiritual infancy, teaching us to walk spiritually and lifting us up when we fall down. If he is our Father, he will care for us throughout the days of our earthly pilgrimage and will abundantly bless us. As our Father, he will guide us in the way we should go and eventually bring us home to heaven to be with him forever.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.