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What Adoption Means: A Sermon Based on Ephesians 1

One of the Biblical images of our relationship with God is that of ADOPTION. It's an image Paul often used, and I'd like to have us look at one of the passages in which he used it - Ephesians 1:5

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he talked about God choosing us to be His children: “He chose us and adopted us,” he says, “as His sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, out of His own good pleasure and will!”

Adoption was a concept that Paul got, not so much from his Hebrew heritage, but from the Roman culture.

Apparently the Jews didn't have a strong adoption tradition. Although an orphaned Jewish child would have been taken in and raised to adulthood by a Hebrew family, there was no legal adoption as in Roman society. The reason for this may have been the preservation of the birthright and the inheritance within the family.

Within Roman society, however, adoption was a legal reality. Under Roman law, an adopted child became a new person. He received a new name, a new identity. Adoptees were legally separated from everything that made up their past, and were given legal rights to all the wealth and fortunes of their new families!

Now Paul says, that's what God has done for us! "In love, He has adopted us as His sons/daughters through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace!" (Eph. 1:5).

Not only that, He has also given a sign or seal of our adoption...in baptism. In some of the earliest baptismal liturgies, the bishop dipped his finger into oil (and/or water) and made the sign of the cross on a person's forehead. That sign was like a brand to show ownership, and it was a seal to show adoption.

But what does it mean - that we are adopted into God's family? What are some of its implications for our lives? Well, the Bible alludes to several things.

For one, it means that we have a NEW RELATIONSHIP with God, a new position before God!

Jesus, obviously, was a Child of God, He was the Son of God. His first recorded words in the Bible include a reference to God as Father ("Don't you know that I'm to be about my Father's business?"); and His last words on the cross were "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit." And between these two, the Gospel writers record the word "Father" on His lips 170 times!

The interesting thing is that no individual ever referred to God in that way; no one ever called God "Father." To the Jews and the Jewish disciples of Jesus, that was a new, startling in fact! When they referred to God, they were very formal in the expressions they used; and they even withheld use of the name of God in their prayers and public speech! Not Jesus!

More than that, the term Jesus used was the Aramaic "Abba," an expression of unparalleled closeness that Jesus felt...it was a child's expression, like our word "Daddy." Now, no Jew ever used that word in reference to God; and on Jesus' lips, it was blasphemy to them!

BUT - and here's the most amazing and stupendous thing - He taught us to use it too! And He sends His Spirit, Paul says, to help us say it! The close relationship Jesus enjoyed with the Father, has been given to those adopted as His children!

About a century ago, a Scottish Presbyterian pastor and theologian named Robert Candlish made a statement that caused a lot of controversy, but no one could show that it was contrary to Scripture. He said: "The only difference between our enjoyment of sonship and Christ's was that Christ enjoyed the privileges of sonship before we do, but not in a different manner!"

Not in a different manner! Christ, our Brother; His Father, our Father! “Abba!” We have a new relationship...a new position!

But not only do we have a new position, we also have a NEW DISPOSITION.

You see, God's adoption procedure isn't simply a legal act; it's a work, a process of transforming us, of actually making us into the family likeness.

In Romans 8:29, Paul says that His purpose is "that we might be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." To that end, He sends His Holy Spirit to mold and to form that life and image of Christ in us.

In Romans 8:14 he says, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." You can turn that around too: "Those who are sons (children) of God are led (continually being led) by the Spirit of God." In other words, along with our changed relationship to God, there’s a change of attitude and desire, a change of outlook and direction; there's a growing family likeness governed by the gracious work of God's Spirit.

Now He doesn't do that automatically and without our activity. "Be imitators of God," Paul commands us in Ephesians 5:1. That's our responsibility: "Be imitators of God as dearly loved children!" We need to show—and the world ought to recognize—that we are His because they see Him in us. Our position as children of God brings with it the obligation of a high walk, a holy walk, and a heavenly walk with God, our Father. A new position...a new disposition.

A third implication of being a child of God is that we are SURROUNDED WITH GOD'S CARE.

Remember Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount when He referred to the birds and the flowers and God's care of them? He said, "How much more won't your heavenly Father care for you!"

Someone has said, “God will never break His own law. Our (Heavenly) Father's parental love and care—all that His wisdom can devise, all that His power can do, all that His resources can supply—is secured to His children, or else He wouldn't be the Father He professes to be.” Since He is my Father, "He will supply all my needs,” says Paul in Philippians 4:19, “according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus!"

Is He my Father? If so, then, "we have the forgiveness of sin, in accordance with the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us!" Paul says in Ephesians 1:7.

Is He my Father? If so, then, "the angel of the Lord encamps round about me, and I am kept by the power of God thru faith unto the completion of my salvation" in heaven!

Is He my Father? If so, then, "neither death nor life, nor angels or demons, nor the present or the future...shall be able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" Surrounded with God's care!

And then a fourth implication (and there are many more we could mention), but a fourth implication of our being children of God Paul mentions in Romans 8:17, "If we are children, then we are heirs!"

There's tremendous assurance here! If we are God's children, then we are God's heirs! "Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ!" That means that everything that God the Father has given to the Lord Jesus Christ has been given to us too! If we read the Bible to discover all that God has planned for Christ, we'll find that there isn't one promise given to Him that isn't given to us as well! In His life and death and resurrection, WE were joined to Him in the reality of God! Everything was and is planned for us “TOGETHER WITH CHRIST”...the Bible says...for all eternity!

Much of what that means, we can't even begin to contemplate; but it's sure, it’s eternally sure!

It's what ADOPTION means!
We have a new relationship with God, a new position!
A new disposition!
We are surrounded with God’s loving care!
And He’s made us His heirs with Christ!

I know analogies can be stretched too far, and legal adoption is no exception. Nonetheless, in [child’s name] adoption we may see our own.

[Child’s name] has a new status, a new position. A new name and completely new parents. So do we! [Parents’ names]’s love poured into her, creating a bond of love, has grown and will continue to grow into a completely new life from that into which [child’s name] was born! And God’s Spirit does the same in us!
These parents have and will continue to surround [child’s name] with care and providences s/he’s not had before, and wouldn’t have had without their choosing of him/her with cost to themselves. And the price God paid for us and the care God gives is infinitely more! And [child’s name] is an heir, an heir with [names of siblings]; and we are heirs–heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ!

In his book, What’s Good About This News?, David Bartlett tells this story: “My wife and I have friends who have a wonderfully mixed family, mixed in part because one of their sons (Mark) is their biological offspring and the other children are adopted. Not long ago they were explaining to the youngest child (Tommy) what it meant for him to be adopted–how he had been chosen, and waited for, and welcomed with joy. As part of the story, they also had to explain that Mark, the brother, was their child biologically. When they had finished explaining what it meant to say that Tommy was adopted, he cried out: ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Can’t we adopt Mark too?”

Well, you and I are! By God!
I AM ADOPTED! A CHILD OF THE KING!

"I once was an outcast stranger on earth,
A sinner by choice, an alien by birth;
But I've been adopted, my name's written down,
An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown!

"I'm a child of the King, A child of the King!
With Jesus my Savior, I'm a child of the King!"

--Sermon preached by Rev. Edward Tamminga at the baptism of his adopted grandchild