The GOSPEL AND adoption
rOMANS 8:12-17
What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father… If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
~ J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Main Idea: Though we were orphans, we have been adopted into God’s family and guaranteed an inheritance with Christ.
I. Brothers & Sisters by the Spirit (8:12-13)
John 14:16-18: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
II. Sons of the Father (8:14-16)
The Spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us: not just heard, but seen; not just seen, but felt; not just felt, but enjoyed. The Spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about Jesus’ heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience. It is one thing, as a child, to be told your father loves you. You believe him. You take him at his word. But it is another thing, unutterably more real, to be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms. It’s one thing to hear he loves you; it’s another thing to feel his love. That is the glorious work of the Spirit.
~ Dane Ortlund, Gentle & Lowly
III. Co-Heirs with the Son (8:17)
We should not try to correct Scripture. It is true that in Rome ‘sonship’ was a status of privilege and power given only to males. Yet Paul now has the boldness to apply this to us - to all believers! This shows that God does not distinguish in giving honor. All Christians, male and female, are now his heirs. It was a subversive thing for Paul to take a masculine-only institution and show that, in Christ, the institution of "empowering-through-adoption" is used on females as well as males without distinction. Christian women should not resent being called "sons" any more than Christian men should resent being called part of the bride of Christ (Revelation 21:2).
~ Tim Keller, Romans 8-16 For You
Our inheritance with Christ means:
Our Past is Redefined (Gal. 3:13-14)
Our Present is Redeemed (Heb. 2:11)
Our Future is Secure (Eph. 1:3)
