Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Romans 8 | Date: July 3, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Doctrine of Adoption

I generally try in this series of messages to give one sermon to each of these doctrines that we take up. The doctrine of justification was a bit different and it’s something of an exception. I had four messages on that, or was it five, whatever it was. Adoption now comes next today, the doctrine of adoption, and I had intended for this to be one message. It looks like it’ll have to be two.

One of the wonderful aspects of my marriage with my wife is that throughout the years, she’s maintained an intense interest in the scriptures and in theology, and one wonderful part of our relationship, which is always a natural part of it, is that as I learn and study, I just naturally share that with her, and she has just a great interest in it, and she’ll often have insightful questions that are helpful. Recently, I was talking to her about the doctrine of adoption, and explaining to her what I was intending to bring to the congregation. And she commented at one point, “You plan to do all of that in one message?” And I said, “Well, I had hoped to.” She said, “You’re gonna write to the congregation and tell them they can bring popcorn?” And at that point, I decided, okay, this needs to be two messages.

So we’ll deal with the doctrine of adoption today and then next Sunday, Lord willing as well. And I want to look at it from Romans chapter eight. We’ve spent a good bit of time in these first chapters of Romans. We’ve spent some time in Romans chapter eight as well. And now today, this doctrine, we just have to look at this chapter because it is, I think, the most intense passage on that subject. Romans chapter eight, and I think I will take the time to read the first 27 verses.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his son who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. 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 of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. A hope that is seen is not hope, but for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this is such a marvelous passage of Scripture. And as we just touch on it this morning, we pray that you will give us a greater insight into it, a clearer insight into what you have revealed to us here, and may our hearts be refreshed in all that you’ve given to us in Christ. May we go from here with a new appreciation of what it is to be sons and daughters of the living God. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

In Romans chapter eight, as I’ve mentioned before in verses one to 11, we have emphasized for us Christ accomplishing in us what the law could not do. By his death and resurrection and by his spirit, he accomplishes in us what the law commanded but could not accomplish in us. And that’s accomplished for us through what he does for us and in us by the Spirit of God. We’ll look more at that in some weeks to come when we look at the doctrine of the leading of the Spirit that Paul mentions in these verses.

When we get to verses 12 and following that we’ve read, we have the most in-depth exposition of sonship in the New Testament, and its focus is on the work of the Spirit in connection with our sonship. And so we come to speak of God as our Father and to speak of ourselves as God’s children. In Paul, usually it’s the word “sons” that is used. He uses the words “sons and daughters” as well, just to put your minds at ease, you ladies; that’s in 2 Corinthians 6. But the focus here is then on familial relationship.

Speaking of God as our Father in these familial terms is a new thing in the New Testament. It’s not to say God is not referred to as Father in the Old Testament. He is, but it’s rare. And it’s certainly the exception, and it is certainly not given to them in the Old Testament to pray to address God as Father and to pray in these kinds of familial terms of intimacy that we have so often in the New Testament.

But with the coming of Jesus, all of that changed. Jesus is God’s Son. The Son of God becomes a huge doctrine in the New Testament. We have the unique relationship of these three persons of the triune Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And the Son has this unique relationship to the Father, proceeding from the Father, imaging the Father fully in every respect. Jesus refers to that in Matthew chapter 11, for example, where he has all that the Father has and he alone is able to reveal the Father because he alone understands the Father. The Son is on equal par with the Father and the Spirit in the Great Commission, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There’s this great emphasis throughout the Gospel of John as Jesus as God’s Son.

And so we see when Jesus prays in the gospel, consistently, when he addresses God, he says, “Father.” Now I think, and we don’t have explicit recognition of this in the New Testament, but I suspect that that was stunning to the disciples as they heard him pray. Every time he bowed to pray, he addressed God as Father. And that was a new thing. And I expect it was probably a little surprising to them to hear someone refer to God, to address God in such terms of intimacy and closeness of relationship. And then when they asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray,” Jesus instructs his disciples, “When you pray, pray ‘Our Father who is in heaven.'”

And we’re left with a distinct impression that somehow by virtue of our relationship with Jesus, God’s son, we now are able also to address God as Father. And of course, the point of all of that, the bottom line of it all is what we’ve seen in connection with this doctrine of our union with Christ. In Christ, we benefit from and partake of all that he accomplished in his saving work. Justified, we share in his vindication and so on; so also now with the doctrine of adoption. He is God’s son, and by virtue of our union with him, by the spirit and through faith, we also are God’s children. And so we now may address God as Father also.

John speaks of this in his gospel in John chapter one, opening prologue: to all who received him, to all who believed on his name, he gave the right to be called children of God. So this is a unique experience that in Christ, now we become God’s children. We are, as it’s often been called, we are “sons in the son.” By virtue of our relationship with him, we become God’s children. And that in a nutshell is the doctrine of adoption.

Adoption was practiced in the Roman world, not quite like it is today. The common practice today is to adopt infants or small children. That wasn’t very common at all in the Roman world. There was not the concern and the compassion that we are accustomed to today. Generally, it would be a childless family, a couple, who would adopt an adult son, and there were certain benefits to both sides. For the adoptive parents, there would be care for them in their old age. There would be someone to carry on the family name. And for the person being adopted, well, there was sometimes the honor of it; often they would be “adopted up,” so to speak, and they would inherit the family’s estate, and so there are benefits to both sides. And Paul picks up that metaphor here, and he does it several times through the New Testament, and he uses it to demonstrate how we are now in Christ related to God.

Now there is something of a distinction we should keep in mind, and that is the distinction between adoption and regeneration. In the doctrine of regeneration or the new birth, we often speak of being born into God’s family. The way that metaphor is used in the New Testament, it generally speaks of our nature, what we have become. We are God’s seed and because we are his offspring, so to speak, our nature has changed and so we are able not to sin and so on. We have much of that emphasis in 1 John. The doctrine of adoption does not have to do with our nature. It has to do with our status and our standing before God and the privileges we have as God’s children. And that’s the emphasis now in this doctrine of adoption. Broadly speaking, that doctrine of adoption is a Pauline metaphor, usually, and the doctrine of regeneration is something we find more in the Gospel of John. Both speak of both, but adoption is primarily a Pauline thing, and the new birth is something we read of more in John.

Now we have in Paul then several, just a handful of primary passages on adoption and I’ll just read them for you here briefly. Ephesians chapter one in verse five: “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.” He predestined us for adoption. So there is adoption planned—that God in the ages past set apart a people, rebel sinners, and said, “I’ll make them my children.” That’s Ephesians 1:5.

In Galatians 4, verses four and five: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.” So here we have adoption accomplished. God the Son becomes incarnate, born of a woman, joining himself to humanity so that through his redemptive work we may be one with him and be made sons.

So we have in Ephesians 1, adoption predestined and planned. We have in Galatians chapter 4, adoption accomplished through the work of Christ. And now we come to Romans chapter 8 here that we have read. And in verse 15 we have adoption applied: “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 of God has been made ours, and by him we are put in union with Jesus Christ and made in experience now and in our own status sons of God.

We have it again then in verse 23, Romans 8:23: “Not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruit of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” And here we have sonship fully realized. God predestined us to sonship, He has sent his Son to accomplish it, He has sent his Spirit to bring us into that, and then finally, in the days to come, when Christ returns and in the last days, we will receive the full experience of sonship, which he says here entails the redemption of the body. We have reference to that in verse 19 as well: “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”

So as so much of what we’ve seen before, there is a “now” and a “not yet” to adoption. We have been made sons in Christ and we have the privileges associated with it. The full experience of our sonship awaits the last days. Now this is just, in that brief overview of these verses in which Paul speaks of adoption, it’s just a stunning portrayal of God’s grace. God looks ahead and he sees these sinners in rebellion, and he says, “I will make them my children.” And he decrees that they will be made sons in the Son. And then in the fullness of time, he sends his Son and joins him to humanity in the incarnation, and through his redemptive work, joins himself to us, and we in him become sons. And then he sends his Spirit one by one, bringing us into the experience of sonship, as he unites us to Christ in faith, and joined to Christ in faith by the Spirit, we become sons and daughters of God. And then finally, in the last days, in the eschaton, the sonship will be fully realized, and we will be fellow heirs with Christ, inheriting with him all things. That’s a broad overview of it, a stunning portrayal of the grace of God and what he has accomplished for us in Jesus Christ.

So this concept now of God as Father and we as his sons is pervasive in the New Testament. I’ve already mentioned John 1:12: “As many as received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” We find it in 2 Corinthians chapter six that I mentioned earlier, verse 18: “I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” In Matthew chapters five and six in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounds at some length the privileges and the responsibilities associated with sonship. We’ll put that off until next time. But here we’ll look at this doctrine of adoption as expounded for us in Romans chapter eight.

Surely, surely this is the crowning glory of the gospel. Justification is often referred to as primary, the primary blessing of the gospel. That here we come as sinners and we are declared righteous before God by virtue of Christ and what he has done for us. And that’s the basic, the primary blessing of the gospel. But the blessings of the gospel just keep piling up on top of one another. And we’ve seen that through these studies. It is one thing to say that we’ve been forgiven, pardoned. It’s another thing to say we’ve been accepted. It’s still another thing to say that we’ve been made friends. And it’s still another thing and it’s almost breathtaking to think now that we have been made his sons and daughters. It surely doesn’t get any better than that.

Justification, we have the courtroom atmosphere. God is judge and we are the accused. We come into the courtroom and because of our advocate, the Lord Jesus, who has stood in our place and done for us all that God requires of us, God declares us on righteous grounds to be righteous. But in adoption now, the atmosphere is not that of the courtroom, it’s that of the family. And we are not simply declared righteous, but we are family. There is personal relations. God is our Father and we are his children. If justification is primary in the blessings of the gospel, adoption is surely the highest. It’s something of a comprehensive metaphor. It takes into it everything else. If we are made God’s children, then we have been accepted. We have been justified, but this is the crown and the apex of all of it. It’s richer, it’s brimming with connotations of not only acceptance and pardon and access, but it has connotations of intimacy and affection and honor. We fail to appreciate what God has done for us in Christ if we do not understand this doctrine of adoption—that he has brought us into his family and made us his sons and daughters. John has something of that in mind in 1 John 3:1, where he exclaims, “What kind of love this is that God has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God,” and we are. In saving relationship to Christ, God is our Father, and we are his sons.

As I say, next time we’ll look at the privileges of adoption, and I want to explore that. But here we’ll look at Paul’s emphasis in Romans chapter eight, and here he focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit in adoption. In Romans chapters one to seven, curiously, the Holy Spirit is referred to something like four times in all of those chapters. In Romans 8 and following, we have something like 20 times he’s referred to, and always here associated with sonship. So what is it that he emphasizes about the Holy Spirit and our adoption?

1. The Holy Spirit Establishes Our Adoption

Now I’ve mentioned this before so I can get through this very quickly, but we need to reemphasize it to get us on track. Number one, the Holy Spirit establishes our sonship. He is called the Spirit of Adoption or the spirit of sonship. Romans 8 verse 15: “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.”

Now notice the Holy Spirit is spoken of here as the spirit of adoption, or the spirit of sonship. That defines his role in this regard. His purpose in being sent to us is to make us sons. He unites us to Christ, and by this indwelling of Christ, indwelling of the Spirit, we are united to Christ in whom we become sons of God. Jesus alludes to this in John chapter 14, by the way, where he says, “I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.” There’s much discussion on that. The context of John 14 seems to tell us plainly that “I will come to you” by means of the Holy Spirit and his indwelling; that Christ comes to us through him and unites himself to us by means of the Spirit. And this is the idea here of the Spirit as the Spirit of Sonship. His purpose is to come and to unite us to Christ in whom we become sons of God. So we are sons because we are in the Son. But that relationship with Christ is bonded by the Holy Spirit.

That, by the way, is how we have in these earlier verses—you might have noticed it as we read through verses 1 to 11 or so here—where the Holy Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Christ. And in some ways, the Spirit and Christ are almost interchangeable. To have the Spirit is to have Christ. To have Christ is to have the Spirit. The indwelling of Christ, the indwelling of the Spirit; these terms are used interchangeably in these verses. There’s this close association of the two. And verse 14: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” He has come, He has taken control of us, He’s come to indwell us, uniting us to Christ, making us sons. So the Spirit has come, and this is His defining role, to come and establish us as sons of God in Christ.

2. He Leads Us To Live As Sons

Now there’s another emphasis Paul has here, then—again, I just have to mention this briefly because we will deal with it later in the series, but it should be mentioned—not only has he come to establish our sonship, but also secondly, he leads us to live as sons. In these earlier verses, 1 to 14 or so, the Spirit of God is spoken of as the one who has come to take control of our lives. Paul’s word is, we’re “led by the Spirit.”

We will see in a couple of weeks that this leading of the Spirit is not what it is often taken as today with mystical connotations: “God is leading me to talk to you about this,” or “God is leading me to write a letter, to take this new job.” Paul does not use the leading of the Spirit in that sense. The leading of the Spirit is the Spirit of God coming to take control of our lives so that rather than being controlled by the flesh and controlled by the law and under sin, we are now under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and he enables us then to live like sons. And this is the authenticating mark of our sonship, that now, as we were not able before, by the Spirit’s indwelling, we are enabled to live for God, and we are able now not to sin. And the whole New Testament comes to us with these repeated commands to be holy and to live above sin and to stop sinning, and the whole ground of it is that we are able now to obey that command because of the great new covenant blessing of the spirit; he has come and is enabling us to live for God.

In verse 13, it’s spoken of in terms of killing sin: “If you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” So the Spirit has become this new determining factor. He’s come to oppose sin, to give us a new attitude toward sin and toward holiness, and to enable us to live for God. He’s been building toward this since chapter 6, and as I say, we’ll see that more in a couple of weeks. I’d like to spend some time here actually and go back to chapters six to eight and show how he builds to that. But we didn’t bring the popcorn.

3. The Holy Spirit Affirms Our Sonship

All right, so the Spirit establishes our sonship. Number two, the Spirit enables us to live as sons, and we will deal with more of that in time to come. Number three, the Holy Spirit affirms our sonship. And here I’ll take a little bit more time. The Holy Spirit affirms our sonship. Look at verses 15 and 16: “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.”

Now, several things we have to look at here. Notice it says the spirit of adoption—the one who has come to unite us to Christ and to make us sons is the one by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Whatever else that entails, he’s speaking of the experience that we have now as God’s sons to make us know in experience that we are his children. The Spirit has come to indwell in such a way to make us feel—the knowledge of feeling—to make us sense that we are God’s children so that we cry, “Father.”

Now this word “Abba,” we have to talk about that just a little bit. It probably does not mean “daddy,” as we’ve all heard so many times. That term “daddy” is probably a little bit more familiarity than is intended by this. It’s probably a little bit more childish or sentimental than the term is intended to convey here. It’s certainly intended to convey terms of endearment, and we’ll talk about that. But this is just the regular term. “Abba” is simply the Aramaic term for father. It’s the word that children use. It’s the word that adults use. It just means father, and that’s all. It’s the word that everyone would have used in reference to the father. In both polite conversation and familiar conversation, this is the word that was used for father. If Paul wanted to say “daddy,” he could have used a word like papas or something like that. That’s not the word that he used here. And in fact, in every occurrence of this word, Aramaic word abba, in the New Testament, it’s followed immediately by the Greek translation for father. That’s just what it means is father. It’s just the Aramaic term for father. And in fact, in each of the 17 prayers of Jesus that we have in the Gospels, he begins with “Father.” Presumably, Abba is when he spoke in Aramaic. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray. He uses the word “Father.” “When you pray, pray ‘Our Father.'”

I think the term “daddy” that has become familiar to use in expressing this, it just goes beyond what the word means. And I think 1 Peter 1:17 might inform that a little bit as well: “If you call on him as father, who judges impartially according to each one’s deed, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile.” And “daddy,” I don’t think quite preserves that kind of connotation. That said, the connotations of warmth and familiarity and feeling of love and affection, all of that is to be sure. And so I suppose if we wanted to press the idea here, we could translate it, “Dear Father.” Something like that is what’s going on, but not quite “daddy.” That seems more familiar than what’s intended.

But there’s another word that’s important in this verse that we should look at: “By whom we cry, Abba, Father.” And that’s the word “cry.” This has to do—it’s used with connotations of a loud cry, a call out. Sometimes it’s even used with the connotations of a shriek. The idea there pictures not a child cuddling in his father’s arms, but it pictures a child in danger and calling out, “Father! Father help!” That’s the connotation of the word “cry.” So he’s in danger and he’s pleading to the one who loves him to come and give protection. Well, that’s the sense in verse 15 here. It is by the spirit of God that that cry, “Father,” becomes to us instinctive.

And that’s a remarkable change. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. In people of the world, when some tragedy happens, and when it happens to them, “Why would God do this to me?” That’s the instinct. But for us, the instinct is entirely different. When danger and trouble comes, the instinct is, “Father! Help!” And it is by the Spirit of God that we have come to have that instinct. There’s a new relationship entirely. There’s a sense of belonging that we have, and that is what the Spirit of God has come to ignite in our hearts. He has come then to minister a sense of belonging. Paul alludes to this in chapter five and verse five, where he says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” It’s a marvelous metaphor: God pouring out love—a sense of his love for us—into our hearts. And how does he do that? By the Spirit of God, assuring us of God’s love for us.

What a sorry kind of father it would be who didn’t make sure that his son felt that he belonged. It’s one thing to tell him, “You’re my son.” It’s another thing entirely to make sure that he knows in feeling and in experience that “I’m his son.” And that, he says, is what the Spirit of God has come to do—to minister in our hearts an instinctive sense: “God loves me. He loves me as his son.”

Folks, this is just the deepest kind of assurance. In weeks to come, we’ll deal with the doctrine of assurance. We’ll deal with it at some length, I think. But this is just the deepest kind of assurance that we could want. On one level, assurance of salvation is an exercise of faith. In fact, the Reformers argued that assurance is entailed in saving faith. The very act of coming to God in faith and in trust of Christ to save us implies an assurance that he will. And so on one level, assurance is a function of faith. And at some point, believers who keep doubting and keep doubting and keep doubting and can’t find assurance—they are genuine believers—at some point, you have to ask if they’re just a failure of faith and they won’t trust and take God at his word.

But that’s one level of faith. But this goes deeper than that. The spirit himself, the spirit of adoption, the spirit of God who has come to unite us to Christ and make us sons, the spirit of adoption as sons, himself bears witness with our spirit, he says in verse 16, he bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. So then we are not just intellectually persuaded—”God told me, so I must be his son; God’s son because the Bible tells me so”—but he has come to make us feel and to sense that we are loved.

I mentioned some weeks ago recently that according to the Roman Catholic teaching during the Reformation, the greatest of the Protestant heresies was assurance. Well, you know, if the final judgment is what you have to wait for to know whether or not God accepts you or not, then the assurance of that now would be a heresy. We saw that in the doctrine of justification: that final pronouncement has been made in Christ. So in Roman Catholic theology, assurance is a great heresy. In much of the Reformers, assurance is simply tied to faith and a confidence of trusting Christ. What’s interesting here in Paul in Romans chapter eight is that assurance goes deeper than that. Assurance is just the birthright of every Christian. It’s just the fact. This is the normal Christian experience. The Spirit of God has come to indwell us, join us to Christ, to shed abroad in our hearts the sense of God’s love for us, so that instinctively now we cry, “Abba, Father,” and we look to God as our Father, sensing that he loves us and cares for us.

One theologian, James Denney, remarked this way (I thought it was helpful): “Assurance in Romanism is a heresy and a sin. In much of Protestantism, it’s a duty. In the New Testament, it’s just a fact.” It’s the normal experience of the child of God. That’s not to say it cannot be interrupted—we’ll deal with that later in the doctrine of assurance—but this is the normal experience; this ought to be the normal experience of the child of God. This is why the Spirit has been sent to us: to minister to us a sense that we are His children.

Now that opens the question then of how is it that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are his children? We are his sons. And I have to say it is not just an ungrounded feeling. It’s a grounded assurance. It’s grounded in the gospel. It’s grounded in what God has promised. It’s grounded in the renewed heart that he’s given to us and the renewed affections that he’s given to us. And all of that plays into it. But still there is the spirit of God who has come through all of these means to minister to us a sense that “God loves me. I am his child. I belong to him.”

4. The Holy Spirit Enlivens Our Hope

So the Spirit of God establishes our sonship. He enables us to live as sons. He affirms our sonship. And then number four, finally, the Holy Spirit enlivens our hope with regard to the future. The Holy Spirit enlivens our hope with regards to the future. And here we have yet another level of assurance. Verses 16 and 17: “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 that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

So he assures us not only of our sonship, but he assures us that as sons, we are heirs. No, we are fellow heirs with Christ. We are sons in the Son, and so we are not only heirs of God, but we are fellow heirs with Christ to inherit with him what he inherits. Now he picks up with that in the following verses as well. Let me start again with verse 16: “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 be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not the creation only. 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.”

So he makes reference here to the broader effects of the curse in Genesis chapter 3. Man was judged, woman was judged, all of humanity is caught up in it, but all of the created order is caught up in it as well. And Paul expounds here some of the implications and he gives this metaphor of the earth crying and all of its reeling from the effects of the curse—with all of the upheavals of nature and all that happened—it is as though the created order itself is crying and waiting for something better, and that something better is tied to the revealing of the sons of God. Just as the created order has fallen in connection with the judgment on humanity, so also the restoration of creation is tied to the restoration of humanity, and when the sons of God are fully revealed, then the created order will be restored as well.

And Paul then speaks of it now in verse 23 in terms of our experience in it. It’s not just the creation, but we groan also. We have this sense of anticipation. He uses the metaphor of childbirth, the pains of childbirth. It’s through these pains, something good is going to come. So we’ve been adopted, we have become God’s sons, but we have not yet realized the full glory of it. And that is coming and we wait for it. And it’s the Spirit himself now, he tells us, who enlivens our hope, not only by teaching us about this in the scriptures—”You are sons, therefore heirs”—but he has work involved in it himself in the inward heart. Verses 16 and 17: “The spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” In this whole matter of groaning in verses 22 and 23, we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly, so he instills within us and in us this anticipation of glory—full privileges that we will have in glory. He plants in our heart an anticipation of it.

And these are the primary functions of the Holy Spirit as he has come. His purpose is to unite us to Christ and to make us sons. And in brief, we enjoy in Christ and we will enjoy in Christ as sons, all that Christ has already attained. All that Christ has attained as Son of God and as the accomplished Savior, we will attain in him.

The 19th century, there’s a theologian by the name of Robert Candlish. He wrote a book, one of the few books written on the doctrine of adoption in those days. There was just a scarcity of it for decades and decades. He wrote a book called The Fatherhood of God, and he made the statement that turned out to be very controversial. It was disputed. He said, “The only difference between our enjoyment of sonship and Christ’s enjoyment of sonship is that Christ enjoyed them before we do.” The only difference between our enjoyment of sonship and Christ’s enjoyment of sonship is that he enjoys them before we do. You might see how that could be disputed. Is that going a little far? The “only difference”? Sinclair Ferguson makes reference to that at one point, and he said, it’s not difficult to see why his statement caused so much controversy. What was and remains difficult to see is how it can be demonstrated that this is contrary to Scripture. Perhaps Candlish went beyond what was written, but it’s not easy to show that he went against what is written. And this is what Paul seems to be telling us here, that all that Christ inherits, we will inherit with him as fellow heirs, and it is the Spirit’s ministry to give us this distinct sense of anticipation of that coming glory, when we will experience our sonship in its fullness.

Now in our generation, there’s been a lot of talk about the Holy Spirit, and almost inevitably, almost inevitably, the discussions of the Holy Spirit come in recent decades. The focus is on the miraculous, the spectacular, the gift of tongues, the gift of miracles and healings. There’s a place for that discussion. But what I want you to see is that Paul presents something that is more deeply spectacular than all of that. The Spirit of God has come to establish our sonship. This is his role. He has come to enable us to live as sons. He has come to affirm our sonship and to make us feel it. And he has come to enliven our hearts with this anticipation of glory. And this is among the most glorious of the saving experience that we have, this side of glory: the sense of divine sonship, that we live daily in the sense of renewed confidence that God is our Father in heaven and that we are his children.

Now, I’ve asked this question several times as we’ve gone through this series. What is God’s purpose in revealing this to us? Why has he shown us all of this? Not only in the scriptures, but now as we’ve seen this morning, he has given us his spirit now to make us sense that he has done these things for us. And what’s God’s purpose then in doing all of this? And the answer I keep coming up with is the same for all of them. It seems to be, it’s just so that we will revel in it and glorify God for what he has done for us in Christ. Again, this seems to be what John has in mind when he says, with a kind of exclamation in 1 John 3, “What kind of love is this? That we should be called children of God.”

We ought never take for granted the high privilege that this doctrine affirms for us. When we bow to pray and we say, “Our Father,” we ought never to fail—it ought never to fail to strike us: this is just an amazing thing. And it ought always to instill in us a sense of confidence in prayer. And when I go to pray, this God of heaven is my Father. He views me as his child. He has sent his son to join him to me so that I could become his son. He has sent his spirit to make me know it. And when we bow to pray and we say “our father,” it ought every time to just excite us. And we ought daily to revel and rejoice in the honor that we are God’s children. There is a sense in which God is the father of all and he’s the creator. The fatherhood of God that is described here is those who are in Christ, redeemed through him and made his.

Next time then we’ll look at more of the family privileges and also the family responsibilities associated with our adoption. Let’s bow for prayer. Our father,