Adoption – TGN

Ordo Salutis: Adoption

Michael Franco Smit — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 07:49:16 +0000

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator

Romans 1:25

The Ancient Gentile Wasteland

The Apostle Paul does not describe the Gentile nations as harmless peoples quietly searching for truth in their own sincere way. He writes with dreadful clarity: we were “separated from Christ,” “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel,” “strangers to the covenants of promise,” “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). These are not gentle words. They describe a humanity outside the covenant household of God, cut off from the promises, far from the Messiah, estranged from the people among whom God had set His name, and wandering beneath the dreadful darkness of divine judgment. This is the world from which we, the Gentiles, have come.

Our fathers were not merely cultivating different customs. They were not innocently decorating the world with cultural variety. From Europe to Africa, from Arabia to the Americas, from the great empires to the scattered tribes, mankind built temples, altars, priesthoods, myths, calendars, sacrifices, and whole civilisations of worship apart from the living God. Men bowed before Thor and Odin, Anubis and Ra, Baal and Molech, Artemis and Zeus, the spirits of the dead, the powers of nature, the gods of fertility, war, harvest, blood, and empire. They kissed idols. They carved images. They chanted before demons. They consulted the dead. They burned their children. They worshipped ancestors. They sanctified lust. They deified kings. They bowed before created things while refusing the Creator. This was not spiritual neutrality. This was a rebellion with liturgy.

The nations did not lack evidence of God. “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived” in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20). Yet man suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. He exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. He exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Therefore, God gave the nations over. He gave them over to dishonourable passions. He gave them over to a debased mind. He gave them over to the bitter harvest of their chosen gods. This is the heathen wasteland of the Gentile world: not empty of worship, but overflowing with false worship; not empty of religion, but enslaved to corrupt religion; not empty of gods, but without the true and living God.

The Modern Gentile Wasteland

And we must not imagine that this wasteland belongs only to the ancient world. The old gods have not vanished. They have simply learned to speak with modern accents.

Man still suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. He still exchanges the glory of the immortal God for images of created things. He still refuses the Creator and gives himself to the creature. The ancient idol had a carved face; the modern idol has a glowing screen. The ancient shrine stood in the high places; the modern shrine sits in the palm of the hand. Social media has become a vast liturgy of self-exaltation, envy, lust, outrage, vanity, false witness, and restless comparison. Men and women are catechised daily to curate the self, worship the body, perform virtue, despise authority, pursue desire, and measure their worth before the watching eyes of men.

The old Babel also rises again. The nations still seek to make a name for themselves apart from God. Through globalist dreams of unity without Christ, peace without repentance, justice without righteousness, and humanity without the image of God, fallen man labours to build one house while rejecting the Father’s house. He imagines a world healed by human management, technological control, economic engineering, and political salvation, yet he will not bow before the King whom God has installed in Zion.

The confusion of our age descends even deeper. When man rejects the Creator, he also rejects the created order. Male and female become burdens to be escaped rather than gifts to be received. The body is no longer regarded as a divine trust, but as raw material for self-definition. Sexual desire is enthroned as identity. Rebellion is renamed courage. Disorder is renamed freedom. Shame is renamed pride. Like the nations of old, modern man sanctifies what God condemns and condemns what God has sanctified. This is not progress. This is paganism with electricity.

From Rebels to Sons

From the beginning, mankind was created for sonship. Adam was a son by creation, made to live before the Father in obedient fellowship. But through sin, mankind forfeited the blessedness of that household life and became alienated from God.

Adam was made to live before God, under God, and with God. He was not created to wander through the world as an orphan, nor to build his own house apart from the Lord. He was made for communion with God, obedience to God, and life in the presence of God.

The wonder of adoption does not begin with the sinner seeking a home. It begins with the Father’s eternal purpose. Before the foundation of the world, God did not merely determine to forgive His people, nor merely to rescue them from wrath, nor merely to cleanse them from guilt. He predestined them “for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:5).

This means that adoption is not an afterthought in salvation. It is not a decorative blessing added after the greater work has been done. It belongs to the very purpose of God in redemption. The Father chose a people in Christ not only that they might be pardoned, but that they might be sons.

This should humble us deeply. By nature, we were not sons drawing near, but rebels running away. We were not worthy children waiting to be recognised, but children of wrath deserving judgment. Yet the Father, according to the purpose of His will, determined to bring the far-off near, to give His name to the nameless, to bring strangers into His household, and to make sons out of rebels. Adoption restores more than Adam lost, because believers are brought into sonship in the eternal Son Himself.

The Blood of the Son

The Father’s purpose is accomplished through the Son. Paul writes:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:4–5

The Son of God came into the world so that enemies might become sons. He was born of a woman, entering our humanity. He was born under the law, placing Himself under the very law we had broken. He obeyed where Adam failed. He fulfilled what Israel did not. He bore the curse that belonged to the guilty. He died outside the gate so that those who were outside the household might be brought in. The cost of adoption was the blood of the Son.

God did not adopt us by ignoring our rebellion. He did not bring us into His house by pretending that our idolatry, uncleanness, and guilt did not matter. The Father sent the Son to redeem those under the law, so that the guilty might be justified and the justified might be adopted. We receive the status of sons because the true Son stood in our place.

Christ is the Son by nature. We are sons by grace. Christ is eternally beloved of the Father. We are beloved in Him. Christ has the right of sonship in Himself. We receive the right to become children of God through Him.

The Son Makes Us Sons

This is why adoption cannot be separated from union with Christ. God does not become our Father apart from His Son. No man comes to the Father except through Him. The Father does not look upon the believer as an isolated individual standing on the strength of his own name, his own obedience, or his own worthiness. He sees him in Christ. The beloved Son brings many sons to glory.

This gives adoption its security. If our sonship rested upon our feelings, we would lose heart. If it rested upon our obedience, we would fall into despair. If it rested upon our ability to keep ourselves worthy of the household, we would never sleep in peace. But our adoption rests upon Christ. The Father receives us in the Son, loves us in the Son, names us in the Son, and makes us heirs with the Son. When the Father looks upon those who are in Christ, He sees sons.

The Spirit of Adoption

What the Father planned and the Son purchased, the Holy Spirit applies and confirms. Paul writes:

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!’

Romans 8:15

The Spirit of adoption does not make the believer careless before God. He does not make the holiness of God seem small. Rather, He teaches the believer to approach the holy God rightly: not as a condemned criminal, not as a terrified slave, not as a stranger outside the door, but as a child coming to his Father.

This cry, “Abba! Father!” is not a shallow sentiment. It is the Spirit-wrought language of sonship. It is the cry of those who were once far off but have now been brought near. It is the cry of those who were once children of wrath but have now received the right to become children of God. It is the cry of those who know that the Judge who justified them is also the Father who receives them.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. He assures us that adoption is not fiction, metaphor, or wishful thinking. We truly belong to God. We truly have access to the Father. And if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.

Conclusion

Though there is far more to explore concerning the privileges of adoption, we may fittingly conclude with a hymn that captures the heartbeat of this great reality. Stuart Townend’s How Deep the Father’s Love for Us gives voice to the wonder of the Father’s love:

How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

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The Blessing Of Abraham

Ebenezer Foster-Nyarko — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 09:00:41 +0000

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles , so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” (Galatians 3:13-14).

What glorious promise! To know that one such as the Son of God, the Holy one, took my place and died on a cross, the most shameful death of all! And to think that He did that just for me! The just for the unjust; a righteous man for sinners like you and I!

But the promise doesn’t end there. Christ did not only take my place and die on a wooden cross; He redeemed me from the curse of the law; by being himself accursed! As if this was not stupendous enough, the Apostle piles yet another superlative upon superlative and declares “that the Blessings of Abraham might come upon the gentiles.”

But what do these promises really mean? Redemption from the curse of the law; and the blessing of Abraham? Does this verse speak to the mysterious ancestral curses that are purported to follow all those with ancestral ties to idol worshippers?

In a continent such as ours, that would include a vast majority of people including me, whose forefathers poured libation to images carved out of stone or wood and made obeisance and sacrificed to these. And what are these blessing of Abraham? Are they his cattle, or his donkeys, or his silver and gold?

The bible did let us know that Abraham was heavily loaded with substance. Are we to lay claim to his riches and wealth? How do we begin to find where he stashed his treasure? And who are these to whom this is addressed? Are these promises for the Galatian Christians of the first century only, or are we beneficiaries in this 21st century? And why does the Apostle speak of Christ’s redemption in connection with the blessing of Abraham?

Paul did not leave his statement in ambiguity leaving us to figure out and choose our own meaning.The letter to the Galatians contains what is referred to as “apostolic astonishment ” over the Galatians who were so quickly turning from the Gospel of Christ to another Gospel – which he alluded to was no gospel at all (1:6). He warned sharply, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” (1:8).

In chapter 2, we are given an insight into what this false Gospel is all about. A group of Jews, who Paul referred to as “the circumcision group” (2:12) were teaching in essence that if these Galatians did not get circumcised (a requirement of the Jewish law), then something was lacking in their Christianity. Even apostle Peter was at a point nearly carried away by this false teaching, attracting a remonstration from Paul (2:11).

In chapter 3, Paul lays down the crust of his argument – and the overarching theme of the true Gospel: “salvation is by faith, not by works of the law”. He lays down his principle, “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.” How is Abraham the father of the children of faith? We find the answer in the rhetoric of verses 5 & 6:

Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Abraham believed God when He promised him that “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” (3:7). Expounding what this promise entailed, Paul says “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.” (3:16). So God promised a “blessing” (not blessings) to all nations through Abraham. This was the promise to send a Messiah, namely Christ. “So then, those who are of faith [in Christ] are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (3:9; emphasis mine); meaning, all those who would believe in Jesus for salvation will be partakers of “the blessing” that God promised the world through Abraham thousands of years ago.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, that if they yielded to the deception of the “circumcision group” to be circumcised in order to attain salvation, then they might as well keep the whole law! He goes on further to explain why it is crucial to believe in Christ for salvation (faith) as opposed to trying to do so by observing the law (works). He says, all who try to attain salvation by keeping a set of codes are under the “curse of the law” – because, the law works such that, to attain salvation by it, one must keep all of it (100%); and keep doing so till their final breath, if they will have any hope of attaining salvation by it.

This is an impossible task, which no man, apart from Christ, has ever, or ever will attain (3:2); because “it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law” (3:11). Christ alone perfectly obeyed all of God’s holy law; and by His substitutionary sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, He thus freed all who will believe in Him from this curse of (not being able to keep) the law.

It is in this context Paul makes his statement of verse 13&14 – our opening verse.

This verse does not speak of material possessions or earthly benefits; no! Nor are ancestral curses the focus here. This promise is far beyond that. The context shows us quite plainly that these verses speak to us about the Gospel – if we would have faith in the Son of God and what He has done for us on the cross; we would be saved! Those who read material prosperity into this verse are manufacturing another gospel — which is no gospel at all.

Once saved, we become sons (and daughters) of God, and qualify by faith to receive the Spirit of God, which He has promised to give all those who put their faith in His Son Jesus (Acts 2: 38-39; 5:32). Thus Paul writes in chapter 4,

that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father” (4:5b-6).

Adoption into God’s family by faith in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the blessing herein spoken of.

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