Adoption (Whaling)
From Encyclopedia Reformata
By Thornton Whaling, Louisville, Ky.
- From: "The Biblical Doctrine of Adoption." The Princeton Theological Review XXI/2 (April, 1923): 223-235.
Adoption is one of the chief constituent doctrines of the New Testament Theology. The uiothesia of the believer is the climax of the redemptive process in its objective aspect. Some strategic and wonderful biblical passages contain the whole doctrine in essence. Gal. 4: 4-7, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” Rom. 8:14-15, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” Eph. 1:3-6, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places [in the heavenlies] in Christ: according as he bath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Every one of these sublime passages revolves around the central doctrine of adoption, of viothesis, which is the supreme illustration of grace, and the highest reach of glory for the redeemed.
In order to analyze adoption into its ultimate elements, we must understand the dual relation to God which Adam and Christ and all redeemed men sustain. The two Adams were both alike, God’s servants or subjects and were also as well, {224} God’s sons. The redeemed saint is given the status of a confirmed subject or servant, and also of a confirmed or legal son. The two relations are both blessed in their nature, but are quite different in essence or character. The servant of God might or might not have the status of son. Justification gives the servant a legal title to God’s rectoral regards and everlasting favor. While adoption gives the son a title to God’s paternal regard and immutable fatherly love.
We must also observe and distinguish the three kinds or species of sonship. First, natural sonship conferred by the creative act by which God made Adam a free personal spirit after the pattern of God’s own being. He endowed him with reason, emotions, and will, faculties similar in kind to those immanent in God Himself. He created Adam an immortal spirit, fashioned in the likeness of the Divine Spirit by which he was originated. Second, Spiritual sonship or likeness not simply in faculty and endowment, but likeness also in character or holiness. Adam was made not only in God’s natural image, but in God’s moral and spiritual image as well. The righteousness and holiness of God were copied in the righteousness and holiness of the newly fashioned man. Third, legal sonship by which the law of God recognizes his status as not only that of a servant but also that of a son, and in the case of adoption, gives a title to God’s unchanging fatherly love, which can never be lost. At creation, Adam was God’s Son in all three senses, but his legal confirmation or adoption as a son was conditioned upon his filial obedience, just as his legal confirmation or justification as a servant was conditioned upon his loyal obedience as a servant.
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The Fall
By his fall Adam lost his spiritual sonship or the moral image of God and became “corrupt according to the delightful lusts”; he lost also his legal sonship, or title in law to God’s fatherly favor; but he retained his natural sonship which is an inalienable possession which can never lapse. His descendants are born in the same condition, without moral or spiritual likeness to God, and “children of wrath” without legal title to God’s fatherly grace; but they are by creation the natural children of God, by bonds and ties which can never be dissolved. According to our Lord, the prodigal in the far country said, “I will arise and go to my Father.” The whole teaching of the Parable is that all men are by nature God’s children, although they do not have His character and are without a legal title to His paternal regards. Paul speaks on this same wise, when in his famous apologetic on Mars Hill, he quotes with endorsement from Aratus and Cleanthes, “As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. F rasmuch as we are the offspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man’s devices.” The implication of course is that if we are the offspring of God, He is like us a free, personal Spirit, and not a block of wood or marble, a crocodile or sacred bull, or carved and cunningly wrought golden figure. The natural Paternity of God and the natural sonship of man are immutably and eternally fixed and not even hell itself can alter or modify this unchangeable relation. If lost forever, the lost man is forever and ever God’s lost child. This is the pathos and tragedy of the ruin of a human soul; made a free personal spirit in God’s natural likeness and destined to wear that likeness and bear that relation of sonship forever. {225}
In the process of applying redemption, the steps which precede adoption, or the bestowment of a legal and indefectible title to God’s eternal and infinite fatherly love and grace, are,
First, Regeneration, by which the spiritual or moral image of God is restored. Eph. 4:22-24, “. . . as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Second, Justification, by which the servant, who is also a son, is declared to be free from all guilt and to have a title to God’s favor which can never be lost. A servant or subject who was under condemnation or without a fair legal title to the favor of, the ruler, could scarcely be made a son and heir of the king.
Third, Our Lord’s presentation of us to His Father and His claim that we now have conferred upon us the status of sons upon the basis of His filial obedience and suffering for us. Heb. 9:24, “For Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence bf God for us.” Then follows the adopting act of the Father by which we are legally recognized as God’s sons and heirs with a status which is inalienably ours. {226}
Grounds of Adoption
The Grounds of Adoption make up a great section of Biblical Theology.—They are, first, the purpose of the Father. Eph. i:5, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ Jesus to Himself.” Second, the natural union with Christ through the incarnation by which He became the Son of Man. Heb. 2:14, “Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same.” Third, the spiritual or vital union, established in regeneration by God’s Spirit and faith on the believer’s part. John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Fourth, the Federal Union by which He is the representative of His people, both as servant and Son. As a Son, He both suffered and obeyed for us: filial suffering and filial obedience in order to our adoption through Him as sons. Heb.:8, “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” Heb. 9:26, “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” The person who obeyed and who suffered, is He who is declared to be God’s “Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds, who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son” (Heb. 1:2-5). {227}
As man was both a servant and a son and sinned both as a servant and a son, the Lord Christ became both a servant and a son and suffered and obeyed both as a servant and a son, and provided through His obedience and suffering a righteousness which secured the justification of the servant or subject, and the adoption of a son. The imputation of Christ’s perfect and finished righteousness as a Son, both His active and passive righteousness, His obedience and suffering as a Son, is the meritorious or procuring cause, the real and essential ground of adoption. Hence our Confession of Faith asserts, “All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for His only Son, Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption: by which they are taken into the number and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the Children of God.” (Chapter XII) The Larger Catechism states that “Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for His only Son, Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of His children, have His name put upon them, the Spirit of His Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all His promises, and fellow heirs with Christ in glory.” (Answer to Question 74)The Shorter Catechism affirms, “Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.” (Answer to Question 34.)
Adoption and Faith
The condition or instrumental cause of Adoption is faith; fides specialis or saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. John I:12-13, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to them which believe in His name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Gal. 3:26, “For ye are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Faith sustains exactly the same relation to adoption, which it does to justification; viz: it is the condition upon which Christ’s righteousness is imputed, in the one case, Christ’s righteousness as an obedient and suffering servant which obtains our justification; on the other case, Christ’s righteousness as an obedient and suffering Son which secures our adoption.{228}
Adoption and Regeneration
Spiritual or filial sonship is bestowed in regeneration or effectual calling. Adam lost for himself and his posterity this spiritual sonship which consists in the “new nature,” or the possession of righteousness and true holiness.” This sonship is restored in the new birth by which we are reborn as God’s sons, having His holy character communicated to the spiritual man. Eph. 5:1-2, “Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.” We know we have the spiritual or filial sonship by the concurrent testimony of two witnesses; first the testimony of our consciousness to the existence of the faith by which we accept Jesus Christ; and then the testimony of the Holy Spirit to this sonship which faith expresses. I John 5:10, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” Rom. 8:i6, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” Gal. 4:6, “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
The theological and Biblical situs and nexus of adoption will appear from contrasting it with some of the other central doctrines to which it is closely related. Adoption must be distinguished from regeneration. On the one hand, adoption is the Divine recognition and authorization of legal sonship, while on the other regeneration is the Divine bestowment and creation of spiritual sonship.
(a) Regeneration therefore is a creative act, while adoption is a legal and forensic. In regeneration or effectual calling there is a re-creation which issues in the “new creature in Christ Jesus.” A new or holy nature or character is restored or originated in the fallen and sinful man by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit in the new birth, while adoption is the formal declaration of the fact that upon the {229} basis of Christ’s perfect satisfaction of the law for His own people by His filial obedience and suffering that a just and infallible title before God’s justice and law, to God’s everlasting love and favor, is now conferred once and for all. The viothesis can know no repetition or additions or subtractions.’
(b) Regeneration certainly ensures the resulting faith which is its necessary issue and therefore the new birth can know nothing of faith as condition or instrumental cause. The result can in no sense be the condition or the instrument of the procuring cause, on the other hand adoption has for its unvarying and necessary condition, or instrumental cause, the saving faith which accepts Jesus Christ in all his offices. “Ye are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
(c) Regeneration is a real translation by which those who were the children of Satan, whose spiritual paternity was in the Devil, are now transformed in nature and character into the children of God. John 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father, ye will do.” Adoption is the formal and legal translation of the citizenship and sonship from the kingdom of Satan to the citizenship and sonship of the heavenly kingdom. Col. 1:12-13, “Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us unto the kingdom of His dear Son.” 1 John 3: 9-10, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit (practise) sin, for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.”
(d) Regeneration fits us for our place in God’s family and kingdom, for the high and holy service we are to render as God’s children. While adoption introduces us into His family and kingdom, and authorizes our permanent residence in the divine household: it establishes our position or status “in the heavenlies.” Eph. 2: 1-7, “And you who were dead {230} in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others: —But God who is rich in mercy, for His great mercy wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” This is regeneration and its rich transcendent results in glorious service here and in “the ages to come.” Now for the legal or formal recognition of our sonship: Eph. 2:18-19, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Phil. 3:20, “For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
(e) Regeneration would not necessarily confer a holy or new nature, which was an indefectible and inalienable possession, never by any contingency to be possibly lost or forfeited, for Adam had a holy nature and character, a true spiritual sonship, which he forfeited and lost by his free and guilty act in committing his first sin. Adoption, on the basis of the “righteousness of God,” wrought out for us through the obedience and suffering of God’s own Son, in our behalf, and imputed to us upon condition of faith, gives us an indefectible title to the immutable and changeless love and grace of God the Father, which in the nature of the case can not suffer change or loss. The shadow of a possible defection disappears before the splendor of a passage like Eph. 1:3-5, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heaven- lies—in Christ: according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the pleasure of His will.” In Christ we are “holy and without blame before Him in love, and being predestinated unto vioOwía through Jesus Christ, our legal status as God’s sons is as sure as God’s purpose and grace and power can make it.
Justification and Adoption
The difference between justification and adoption opens before us as one of the most profound and interesting departments of Biblical theology.
Justification has regard to the legal status of a servant or subject of the divine government. Adam as God’s rebellious subject and servant brought himself and his posterity under condemnation. Jesus called Himself a servant, Luke 22:27, “I am among you as he that serveth.” Paul declared that Jesus Christ took upon Him the form of a servant. Phil. 2:5, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death.” It is the obedience of this divine servant, which imputed to us, secures our justification or title as servants to the everlasting favor of God as our Sovereign and Lord. Adoption has respect to our status as sons. Adam is declared by Scripture to be God’s son, Luke 3:38, “which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” His sin therefore, was the sin of a son, which brought him and his descendants under the Father’s righteous and holy displeasure. The divine Son of God Himself assumed the legal status of these sinning human sons of God, and thus through the obedience and suffering of God’s only begotten Son, was perfect satisfaction to divine justice and law rendered, and a title earned to the Father’s everlasting favor and grace, for all those to whom this perfect satisfaction is imputed. {232}
Gal. 4:4-5, “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of Sons.”
The contrast between Sanctification and adoption is worthy of comment. Sanctification is the process by which the work begun in regeneration is carried to its completion in glorification. The purpose of sanctification is to develop the spiritual sonship created by the new birth until it reaches sinless and absolute perfection in the attainment by the saint of the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Paul declares, “One thing forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth unto the things which are before, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 3:13-14). The prize which shone resplendent at the goal was a completely developed spiritual sonship, which made him like to his glorious elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Adoption, on the other hand, is ipso facto and essentially complete and perfect in the one act by which is gloriously given the status of a son, upon the basis of Christ’s perfect filial obedience. Rom. 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” It is evident that nothing can be added to this legal status of our sonship, with its sublime corollaries of heirship to God and joint-heirship with Christ. There is nothing which can be added, and no subtraction can be made since this legal status rests upon the perfect obedience of God’s own Son.
Privileges of Sonship
The Privileges of Sonship through adoption are entitled to careful statement. Analysis of the Confession, Chapter XII, yields the following results:
I. They have His name put upon them. II Cor. 6:18, “I will receive you and will be a Father and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
2. “They receive the spirit of adoption and are entitled to cry, “Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:15, “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”
3. They have access to the throne of grace with boldness. Eph. 3:12, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.”
4. Are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by Him as a Father. Heb. 12: 6-7, “For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards and not sons.” Ps. 103: 13, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Prov. 14:26, “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His children shall have a place of refuge.”
5. They are’ the heirs of God; and thus inherit the promises, and shall never be cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption. Heb. 6:12, “That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Lam. 3:31, “For the Lord will not cast off forever. Eph. 4:30, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
Duties of Sonship
The Duties of Sons, thus crowned with vioûwla, deserve exposition.
1. They owe their Father trust, love, obedience, imitation. Heb. i I:6, “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Matt. 22:37, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, strength and mind.” I Sam. 15:22, “To obey is better than to sacrifice.” Matt. 5:48, “Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
2. To receive the Spirit of adoption. Gal. 3:14, “That ye might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith.”
3. To love with a unique love our brethren, the children of God by faith in Christ, who share with us in the v~oO€o1a. John 13:34, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” {234}
In closing it will illumine the whole subject to recall that the two relations of servant and son may co-exist in the same person. Jesus was both a servant and a Son. Heb. 2:7, “He took the form of a servant.” Heb. 1:2, “God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His son.” The believer in Christ has the same status. Rom. 6:22, “Now being made free from sin and become servants to God.” Matt. 10:25, “It is enough for the servant to be as his Lord.” Gal. 3:26, “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
We must also remember that the believer is no longer under God’s retributive government, but is now solely both as servant and son under God’s disciplinary government. The work of Christ for his brethren has met all the demands of God’s distributive or retributive justice, and while God exercises a retributive government over rebellious and wicked servants and sons, the believer’s spiritual and legal status have both been so changed that he is no longer under the retributive government but is solely and exclusively under God’s disciplinary government over His servants who are justified and over His sons who have the blessed relations, immunities, and privileges conferred by vioO€crla. The believer is therefore under the disciplinary government of an all gracious Sovereign and Judge; and also of a loving, all gracious Heavenly Father whose eternal purpose finds its chief fulfillment in bestowing upon His children the sublime and transcendent rights which adoption confers.
The history of the doctrine of adoption is yet to be fully and adequately written. Both spiritual and legal sonship was affirmed by the church fathers, and this doctrine was influential in the thought and theology of Augustine. Calvin’s views on this theme are not so adequately given in his Institutes, his earliest work, as in his Commentaries, where his fully matured views on this as on other themes, are more adequately expressed. Turretine recognizes the central place of adoption in the application of redemption. The views of Dr. Charles Hodge and Dr. W. G. T. Shedd alike on this subject are more thoroughly wrought out in their respective commentaries on Romans than in their volumes of theology. Two of the strongest modern discussions of this doctrine, and quite singularly almost identical in construction and exposition, are to be found in Dr. E. Y. Mullen’s The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression (pp. 401-416), and in Dr. John L. Girardeau’s Theological Discussions (pp. 428-521). Dr. A. A. Hodge’s Commentary on the Confession of Faith (Chapter XII) is rich and illuminating, but is brief and condensed. A complete and well-rounded, and systematic presentation of the Biblical meaning of vioOcaícL, or of the theological significance of adoption is still a desideration. Dr. Girardeau’s discussion, while unsystematic, is the most complete exposition extant in theological literature, and it is a great misfortune that his exposition of the doctrine is so little known and that the volume in which it is contained is now out of print.
