Day 8 of the 22 Day Salvation Study
Notes compiled by Steve McAtee and Marty Zide
Questions to be Covered
What does adoption mean? Why does a person need to be adopted? How is a person adopted and what changes occur? What are some of the results of adoption?
In regeneration, God gives us new spiritual life within. In justification, God gives us the right legal standing before Him. But in adoption, God makes us members of His family. Adoption focuses much more on the personal relationship that salvation gives us with God.
Blessing of Adoption
Rom. 8:14-17 - For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Messiah, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
Definition
Adoption is an act of God whereby He makes us adult children who are members of His family. Adoption gives the believer the position as a son of God, a full-fledged member of His family.
It is important to note that we do not enter God’s family by means of adoption; we enter God’s family by means of the new birth. Adoption brings us into the status of God being our father and we being His children.
Before adoption took place, we were not children of God, rather we were children of wrath, children of disobedience, and worst of all, children of the Devil. To put it as plainly as
it can be stated, God is not the father of anyone until they are born again by faith in Messiah Jesus.
John 8:41-44 - “You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him... we have one Father, even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from
God, for I, have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth...
Need for Adoption - Why does man need to be adopted?
BECAUSE OF ALIENATION
Before adoption took place, we were not children of God, rather we were alienated from Him.
We were estranged and separated from God because of our sin.
Col. 1:21 - And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.
Eph. 2:2-3 - in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
Eph. 2:12 - remember that you were at that time separate from Messiah, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Is. 59:1-2 - Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short That it cannot save; Neither is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
Means of Adoption - How does adoption become a possibility?
BECAUSE OF JESUS THE MESSIAH
Adoption becomes possible because of the predetermined plan of God and all that He provided through Jesus the Messiah.
Eph. 1:5 - He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus the Messiah to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
Gal. 4:4-5 - But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
There is no possible way for a person to become a child of God apart from experiencing adoption. And there is no way to experience adoption apart from being born again. Until that takes place, the one true God is not their Father.
Time of Adoption - When does adoption become a reality?
WHEN FAITH IS PLACED IN MESSIAH
Adoption becomes a reality when saving faith is placed in the Messiah Jesus. As a response to our faith, God adopts us into His family.
Gal. 3:23-26 - But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Messiah, that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Messiah Jesus.
Results of Adoption - What happens when a person is adopted?
OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GODHEAD IS GREATLY EFFECTED Adoption brings about incredible blessings with the entire Godhead. Our relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is entirely changed.
There is a new intimacy with the Father
Mark 14:36 - And He (Jesus) was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for Thee; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
Rom. 8:15 - For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Gal. 4:6 - And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!
Father!”
There is an inheritance with the Son
Rom. 8:15,17 - For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” ...and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Messiah, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
There is illumination with the Holy Spirit
Rom. 8:14,16 - For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
Although we have been adopted and possess the blessings of that privilege, there is a future aspect of adoption that still waits for its ultimate fulfillment.
Rom. 8:20-23 - For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Phil. 3:20-21 - For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus the Messiah; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.