Over the next four articles, we will explore the meaning and implications of one of Christianity’s most important doctrines. One that the Reformers celebrated, and the Puritans treasured. The believer’s adoption into the family of God.
The gospel of Christ does far more than remove the guilt of sin,[1] through the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus, God graciously adopts those who were once his enemies into his own household family. Granting them all the privileges, rights, and inheritance of being a child of God and co-heir with Christ. The reality of the believer’s adoption is therefore one of the highest privileges of redemption, revealing what God has done for us, in us, and what he will ultimately transform us to be.
Does someone earn their way into adoption? Can a baby, young child, or even an adolescent, provide something to prospective adoptive parents? Perhaps there is a small margin of ability, potential, or characteristic that may catch the attention of the prospective parent, yet, when it comes to our own adoption, our spiritual adoption, there is absolutely nothing that we could offer to a majestic, transcendent God who lacks nothing.
Many Christians understand that the language which the Biblical authors used to describe salvation was almost entirely language which was used within the judicial system. Reformed believers are no strangers to the categories that describe Christ paying the penalty for sin. That God forgives the sin of the believer through the death of Christ and those who believe in their hearts and confess with their mouths that Jesus is both Lord and Saviour, are declared righteous.[2] This is a glorious truth and one deserving full attention. Yet, Scripture does not leave the subject in the courtroom. Scripture moves from the judge’s bench to the Father’s house. If justification answers the question, ‘How can guilty sinners stand before a holy Judge?’, then what answers the question, ‘How can those same sinners now sit at the Father’s table and enjoy all the bounty and joy found there?’. That answer is found in the adoption of the believer. This is the surprising nature and wonder of adoption. In the adoption of a believer, the gospel is not simply an escape route for sinners fleeing the judgement to come, but that those sinners who were once called rebellious, hostile enemies of God, are now part of the family of God.
The world and its systems, if they will go so far to admit the reality and existence of the transcendent God of the Bible, will most often assume that everyone is already a child of God. Indeed, the number of evangelicals who subscribe to the statement that, ‘everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God’, is staggeringly high at 64%. While the same group displays an ever-deeper problem by believing that although everyone sins a little, most people are good by nature.[3]
Every human, from conception to the grave, bears God’s image (Gen 2, 9). Every human being possesses dignity by virtue of this image.[4] But not every human being belongs to God’s family. The Lord Jesus chastised the Pharisees because they are of their father the Devil. Meaning they, in their hearts, minds, attitudes, and actions display their true nature of belonging to the Devil as sinners (John 8:42-47). The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesian church, describes the believers there as once being dead in their sins, following the Devil (course of this world), living out their passions and lusts – displaying their true nature as children of wrath (Eph 2:1-3). The Apostle Paul would further add in his letter to the church in Rome that the mind which is set on the flesh (and its desires, intents, and rationale) is not only hostile to God, but cannot even submit to God’s law, thus rendering the possibly of pleasing God unattainable on its own (Rom 8:7-8). This distinction is critical to the understanding of adoption. A sinner, before trusting in Christ for salvation, is spiritually dead, hostile toward God, under God’s righteous judgement against their sin, and deserving of wrath. Is it no wonder that the apostle Paul would further add that the sinner, in this state, is without God and without hope (Eph 2:12).
Further, in reformed theology,[5] the doctrines of total depravity, effectual calling, and union with Christ, become rich with meaning and promote the cause of assuring the believer of their salvation.
Specifically, the doctrine of ‘Total Depravity’ as described in questions 20 through 22 of the Baptist Catechism,[6] states the following;
Question 20. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
Answer. The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. (Rom 5:12)
Question 21. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate where into men fell?
Answer. The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. (Rom 5:12-21)
Question 22. What is the misery of that estate whereunto man fell?
Answer. All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. (Gen 3:8, 10/ Eph 2:2-3/Rom 6:23)
In his commentary on the Baptist Catechism, Jim Orrick explains the implication of original sin consisting of three components.[7] First, the result of Adam’s fall means all of mankind is accounted “imputed” guilty for Adam’s sin. Second, there is a lack of desire for the original righteousness that Adam experienced prior to the fall. God had made Adam and Eve upright (Eccl. 7:29) and had he persevered in that righteousness, he would have been confirmed into a state of righteousness.[8] Third, due to the entrance of sin into the world through the disobedience of Adam, the corruption of man’s whole nature, his understanding, his affections, and his will, is total and complete (1 Cor. 2:14). Thus, the scope of ‘Total Depravity’ does not include an understanding that man is as evil as he can ever be, but rather it means that man, in his fallen state, is completely unable to rectify his own spiritual condition due to him being totally corrupted to the point of spiritual blindness (John 12:40) leading unto spiritual death towards God and his righteousness (Eph 2 & Rom 8). Man’s actual transgressions are the sinful acts that inevitably grow out of sinfulness.
This is what makes effectual calling such a deep and important doctrine. For if man is completely dead spiritually then he must have an outside force influence him towards salvation. If the Arminian and/or the Semi-Pelagian[9] is right, then man is not utterly affected by the curse of sin. Indeed, the Arminian and Semi-Pelagian would think it untenable for God to hold future generations of mankind captive for the sin of Adam, thus creating a need for man to have some vestige of hope within him so that when he hears the gospel he can chose to receive or reject it. However, if man could refuse God, if he has the power and ability to actively thwart God’s plans and desires, then the question of, ‘who is really sovereign?’ looms large. Some have argued that God limits his power in order for man to be free to choose or reject God. Yet, the Bible never reveals God’s acquiescence of his sovereignty to any creature, heavenly or earthly.
Further, with the state of mankind being one of spiritual death, spiritual hopelessness, and a future of being in eternal hell, the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ brings assurance, courage, and a hope that never disappoints (Rom 5:5). The believer’s union with Christ is based upon the redeeming work of Christ. The believer is fashioned, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, with power over sin (Rom 6:14), and the believer is endowed with a new identity. The believer is no longer a stranger nor alien to the promises of God. The believer is transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Col 1:13). Further, the believer is wrapped in the eternal security of permanent acceptance by God and experiences an unbroken covenantal connection with God.
No sinner earns this adoption. The Father initiates the process, provides the payment, and secures the future of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
When one examines the doctrine of adoption, moving backwards into eternity is paramount. For when Paul wrote to the Ephesian church that God the Father had blessed them in Christ with every spiritual blessing, he did so according to his glorious predeterminate plan of redemption made before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:3-5). Notice that God did not merely chose to save, he deliberately predestined them. The Father, in his eternal decree, chose people to be saved through the atoning work of the Son through the cross, before the Trinity even created the world. All for his grace and glory. The eternal decree, otherwise known as ‘divine election’, was not merely a rescue. It was not done as a response to a cry for help Nor was it, as our Arminian friends would claim, done in response to humans first choosing Christ.[10] Election is based on the eternal design and purpose of God, as explicitly laid out on the first chapter of Ephesians, and is done with a purpose towards adopting rebellious creatures into the family of God for the glory of the Son. The Father’s eternal design was always to have sons and daughters conformed to the image of Christ, the new Adam.
The difficulty in this issue is one of squaring the love of God, the justice of God, and the mercy of God, towards sinners who would reject the Son. Space does not permit a deeper explanation about the love of God and the justice of God in the salvation of sinners. Suffice to say that adoption originates not in the human will or from human potential, but rather to the purpose of the Father’s will which was set forth in Christ (Eph 1:9). This magnifies grace. What started in the garden as a covenantal fellowship between the almighty Creator and the creature, ended in a divorced and broken covenantal relationship where the only hope of escaping judgement was through a penal substitutionary sacrifice for sin, imaged in the sacrifice in the garden that provided the animal skins to cover the shame of Adam and Eve. The sacrifice was penal because the covenant (law) was broken. It was substitutionary because the animal died in the place of Adam and Eve. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), except the covenant explicitly laid out that in the day Adam should eat of it, he should surely die (Gen 2:7). The day that they both ate, an animal died in their place to provide propitiation[11] and the skins were used to cover the result of their disobedience. All of this foreshadowing the life and death of the Son. The creational covenant was broken, but redemption through Christ would restore fellowship through a new covenant established in the shed blood of the incarnate Son (Luke 22:20). Redemption restores the fellowship, and God the Father adopts those whom he has freely chosen in Christ.
We now come to the theological centre of this article. One of the main New Testament passages dealing with the doctrine of adoption is Galatians 4:1-7. The Apostle Paul begins this section by creating a metaphor from everyday Roman life – the issue of when a child graduates from being under the management of appointed guardians to his release unto freedom. Although an heir to the estate, the child is no better off than a slave. Then Paul makes the connection. In the same way, before one comes to know Christ, they are a slave to sin (elementary principles of the world). When the providential timing of the Father came to fruition, the Son became incarnate. The Son assumed flesh (born of woman), actively and passively obeyed the Law of God (born under law) to fulfill the righteous requirements of that law to release (redeem through his obedience and bearing the curse) those captured by it into a new status, that being an adopted son/daughter. The sealing of that transaction and declaration being the indwelling Spirit (God sent the Spirit of his Son). The adoption of the believer is not a sentimental moment conceived out of a need for family. The believer’s adoption is a purchased adoption, not unlike adoption in Paul’s or the current time. The propitiation at the cross, and the justification of the believer through the resurrection, secures this sonship. Every privilege of adoption has been bought by the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19) and applied through the grace of God.
In the ordo salutis (order of salvation), found in Romans 8:29-30, the term adoption is not found. This, possibly, is one reason why the topic and teaching around the believer’s adoption is lacking. In Reformed circles, the doctrines of election, justification, and sanctification are well represented, and deservedly so. For the doctrine of election would clearly display a choice made by a completely autonomous God towards the sinner for the purpose of bringing that sinner back into a renewed covenant relationship. The doctrine of justification is, at the risk of sounding simplistic, a judicial act of the Father. The Father declares the sinner justified through the blood. With sanctification as being both positional and progressive,[12] the believer overcomes sin and displays the righteousness of Christ to the world, finally culminating in the believer’s glorification at either the point of death or the second coming of the Shepherd-King.[13] Therefore, justification changes the legal standing of the believer, sanctification changes the character of the believer, glorification completes the process, and all of this is graciously covered by the believer’s adoption, for adoption changes the relationship from one of enmity to family. Together, they all form one unified act and work of grace. Is it any wonder that J.I. Packer would state that, “Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption”.[14] For the judge becomes father, and this is an amazing grace indeed.
To contrast the emphasis of the doctrine of adoption to the doctrines of justification, sanctification, and glorification (as pertaining to the preservation and assurance of the saints), the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession[15] contains six paragraphs for justification, three paragraphs for sanctification, seven paragraphs collectively for perseverance and assurance, with only one paragraph for adoption. Although this is somewhat surprising, what should not come as a surprise is the robust and rich theology contained in this one paragraph.
First, ‘God has granted’[16] is a powerful way to begin the paragraph. This article will not reiterate what is contained in the previous section regarding divine election, suffice to say that if the Father had not initiated the choice to save, and he would have been perfectly just to not chose any for salvation, there would be no ordo salutis.
Second, The Father delights to magnify and glorify the Son (John 17), therefore the Father delights to adopt for the sake of His one and only Son (Eph 1:5). In the privilege of adoption, the believer has full access, without any other mediator than the Lord Jesus Christ, to the throne of grace (Gal 4:6, Eph 2:18). In such access come the privilege of conversation through the reading of God’s word and prayer. God the Holy Spirit enables the believer to spiritually discern what the scriptures say and teach, and the believer is assured that their prayers will ascend to the throne as a beautiful aroma of incense. Within this covenantal relationship of adoption, the believer is not only bestowed with compassion and grace, but is also chastened by the Father, proving that those who belong to the Father and given to the Son are indeed children of God (Heb 12:6). Yet, despite what the world systems of false religion and philosophy would say about a God who disciplines his children,[17] those believers which are disciplined by the Father are never cast off, nor banished from God (Isa 54:8-9, Lam 3:31). Again, none of the blessings listed in the Confession’s paragraph were ever earned or merited because of something good done by the believer. Every one of these blessings, and countless more, flow from the believer’s union with Christ and reflect the believer’s adoption as heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ.
The culture of the day, despite its willful ignorance and rejection of God’s grace in the gospel, searches desperately for belonging. According to the data,[18] 17-23% of youth and young adults report “always, or often, being lonely”. With 25% of seniors, and 13% of the general population report feeling isolated and alone. When other factors are considered, over half of Canadians report feeling lonely. With the rampant identity crisis and confusion, broken families, and the rate of fatherlessness in the nation, which are all results, even consequences of sin, the gospel message of salvation, forgiveness, and adoption, could not be more significant. The gospel answers every one of these longings, and many more. The answer rests in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, not through more self-discovery. Adoption matters because it is rooted in the powerful sovereignty of God and this majestic and sovereign Lord calls each of his children a son or daughter of the Shepherd-King. In the hands of this Shepherd-King, each believer is assured of the forgiveness of their sins; past-present-future, and of their continued growth in godliness through the indwelling Spirit.
In returning to the courtroom imagery, the criminal stands before the judge. The judge declares him innocent based on the work of another to pay the debt owed. This is justification and this should be astonishing to the believer if they truly understand the spiritual state they occupied before a holy and just judge. But imagine the judge stepping down from the bench and bringing the now pardoned criminal home. Granting the pardoned criminal a new name, indeed the name and the reputation of the judge and his family; inviting the pardoned criminal to eat at the same table and granting the newly pardoned criminal a stake in the estate of the judge – something reserved only for the judge’s family members.
Justification is a forensic trial. God the Father acts as the righteous judge. He pardons sins and imputes the righteousness of his Son to the believer’s spiritual account. Adoption is a domestic reception. God acts as the loving Father and changes the status of the sinner from stranger, slave, and enemy to son or daughter and a rightful heir. Justification is the necessary foundation, but adoption is the crown of salvation. It is possible to be pardoned by a judge without being invited to live in the judge’s home; adoption takes the pardoned, redeemed criminal and makes them a member of the family. Justification grants citizenship. Adoption grants inheritance. Both justification and adoption are definitive acts. Neither of them is progressive like sanctification. They are both complete the moment one places their faith and life in Christ. Although not definitive, adoption does shape one’s daily experience. While both justification and adoption are legally secure because of the unfailing character of a loving and saving God, adoption specifically governs a believer’s life as they learn to read scripture, pray, and grow in obedience to their Shepherd-King. Believers are no longer sinners without hope in the world. Believers are not lost children. Believers are beloved by the Father, sons and daughters of the Shepherd-King who are kept by the power of the God unto salvation (1 Peter 1:5).
To encourage you to move beyond the theological understanding of adoption into a daily, worshipful response, the following are listed as suggestions for the reader to pursue.
Read Ephesians 1:3–14 Slowly
Spend a week meditating on every blessing that flows from being “in Christ.” Ask how God’s eternal purpose in adoption shapes your understanding of salvation.
Memorize Galatians 4:4–7
These verses beautifully summarize the Father’s plan, the Son’s redeeming work, and the Spirit’s confirming ministry in adoption.
Thank God Specifically for Adoption
During your prayers this week, spend time thanking God not only for forgiveness but for welcoming you into His family. Let your gratitude move beyond the courtroom to the Father’s house.
Reflect on Your Identity
Ask yourself:
Do I think of myself primarily as a forgiven sinner, or as a beloved child?
How would my prayers change if I consciously approached God as my Father?
Are there lingering fears that reveal I still relate to God more as a Judge than as a loving Father?
Worship with Greater Wonder
Read the opening of the 1689 London Baptist Confession, Chapter 12, alongside Romans 8 and 1 John 3. Allow the truth of adoption to deepen your worship and your confidence in God’s unchanging love.
[1] In reformed theological circles, this is most referred to as ‘expiation’. Expiation theologically covers the reality of the removal of actual sin as well as the removal of the guilt of all sin.
[2] The term most used to describe this situation is called ‘imputation’. This coming from the Latin term, imputare. Formed from ‘im’ meaning ‘in’ or ‘into’, and ‘putare’ meaning to reckon, or to clear up an account’. The vehicle most associated with the imputation of sin and the imputation of righteousness, in relation to the application of our sin upon Christ as he hung on the cross, and his righteousness being applied to the believer is called, ‘penal substitutionary atonement’.
[3] These stats are taken from ‘The State of Theology’ survey that Ligonier Ministries conducts every year. Obviously, the term evangelical, belief, good, and innocent need detailed definitions, the numbers are staggering; 64% towards everyone born innocent, and 53% believing that most people are good by nature. See https://www.ligonier.org/posts/64-of-evangelicals-think-were-born-innocent-the-state-of-theology
[4] For further study, it is recommended that one survey the ‘Levitical Code’ in Leviticus chapters 17 through 26), these chapters outline what it means to live a biblical, God-honouring, ethical life in morality, worship, and society.
[5] From this point on the term, ‘Reformed Baptist’ will be used to describe that these doctrines of Reformed Theology are not relegated to the Presbyteries and Synods of our Reformed Heritage. They also became the backbone for those ‘Congregational Separatists’, based upon a credo-baptistic ecclesiology.
[6] The Baptist Catechism of 1695, Founders Ministries, Founders Press, 2025.
[7] Jim Scott Orrick, A Commentary on the Baptist Catechism, Founders Press, 2025.
[8] In some reformed circles this situation is described as the ‘probationary period’ for Adam and Eve. It is worth noting that given the sovereignty of God and the eternal decree of God in election, this probationary period is, in some ways, a praeposteratio [backwards construction] arrangement originating from the prohibition of God’s command to not eat of the fruit of the tree.
[9] Both of whom deny Total Depravity in favour of a synergistic (God working with Man) soteriology. Reformers subscribe to a Monergistic (God alone working) soteriology.
[10] This is often one of the most well used arguments for the synergistic argument in soteriology. Namely, that God the Father, looking through the corridors of time [or more precisely described as God the Father – because he is transcendent from time], chose to save because he saw into the future that some humans would decide for Christ. This however is a grave misunderstanding and a vain attempt to cojoin the eternal sovereign power of God to a free-will endowed human being. This view should raise the question of, ‘Who is truly autonomous?’.
[11] Propitiation: the act of appeasing or turning away the wrath of God.
[12] The believer’s positional sanctification occurs when the Father sets the believer apart from the world for the purpose and glory of the Father’s will, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, to become the bride of Christ. The believer’s progressive sanctification is the process of how the believer is changed, moment by moment, into the image of Christ – a restoring of the image of God to pre-fall condition.
[13] Shepherd-King is a title for the Lord Jesus originating from the book of Micah.
[14] J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Intervarsity Press, 1973, p. 257
[15] Stan Reeves, Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century, Founders Press, 2012.
[16] Ibid., p. 30.
[17] Oftentimes, non-believers (perhaps especially atheists) who claim that if a God demonstrates anger, wrath, judgement, upon his people, then that action only proves their perspective that God the Father is a God that cannot be loved.
[18] Statistics Canada - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/211124/dq211124e-eng.htm
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