God’s Word describes many ways that His free gift of grace changes our lives. If we are united to Christ by faith, we receive all that He secured for us through His life, death, and resurrection: redemption, forgiveness, eternal life, and more. We’ve been looking those gifts for the past several weeks.
One of my favorites of all the benefits we receive from Christ is our adoption as sons and daughters of God. And over the next month, we’ll take a deep dive into adoption in Galatians 4.
“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)
Apart from Christ, we are under the law and separated from God because of our sin. But God, in His grace and mercy, sent His Son to redeem us so we could be brought into God’s family. In 1 John 3:1, we read: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Because of the lavish love of the Father, He sent His Son to make us His children.
We receive this adoption by faith. Just a few verses earlier, Paul told the Galatians that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (3:26). Our adoption as sons and daughters is a free gift of God’s grace, given to us through faith in Christ.
If our adoption is an act of God’s free grace, then we can’t earn it, and we can’t lose it. He doesn’t love us as His daughters and sons because we’re loveable, because we’re good children, or because we bring something valuable to the relationship. Notice how Galatians 4:5 says we “receive adoption.” We are passive recipients, not earning or working for our adopted status.
Adoption is one-sided—a Father welcoming a child and giving the child all the privileges and rights that come with being part of the family. We are adopted because of the love the Father has for us and because He graciously sent His Son to redeem us.
No matter what you face this week, you’ve been adopted by God’s free grace.
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[…] us into this special relationship and giving us the privilege of calling God our Father. We saw last week that we are adopted children because God sent forth His Son to redeem us (Galatians 4:4-5). God […]