Now our scripture reading this afternoon is a brief one, once more from Ephesians chapter one, the first six verses only Ephesians chapter one, verses one through six where we read these words Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, gracely to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places 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 good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. May God again bless to us this short reading of his own inspired word. Now again, as a number of you realize, on these Lord's Day afternoons, in this early afternoon service, we have been looking for a number of Lord's Days at some of the fundamental doctrines of Scripture that all Christians should believe and be committed to. The series title, of course, is What Presbyterians Believe and sadly we're living in days when even some of the mainline Presbyterian churches in our country and throughout the world no longer believe these basic Christian doctrines taught in Scripture. We began, you may remember, with the doctrine of Scripture itself after an introductory exposition on the need for a confession of faith, and we have moved through some of the fundamental doctrines of the nature of God and the nature of his decrees and creation and the four and then the beginning of God's work in terms of redeeming fallen sinners through Christ, the great chapters for instance on the covenant and on Christ the mediator, some of them unsurpassed in my opinion in any statement of confessional doctrine in other Reformed churches, the one in the Westminster Confession being in many ways the richest and the fullest statement Now, as I remind you, we are looking at these things in the light of Scripture and only secondarily in the light of the Westminster Confession of Faith which is our subordinate standard of doctrine in the denomination of which this congregation is a part, the WPCUS. Now, we've come this morning to the great subject of the, I should say this afternoon, to the great subject of the children of God. or, as it is called in the Confession of Faith itself, chapter 12, of adoption. Some of you, I know, have memorized the Shorter Catechism questions. I would encourage all the children in the congregation to make a serious attempt to do this, if you have not already begun to do it. I wish in my Christian upbringing, converted at the age of 13, that I had had the privilege of being taught the catechism and being required to memorize it but you may know the question what is adoption is beautifully answered 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 question 34 whereby we are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God now this is the subject that's before us and our text was in Ephesians 1 and particularly verse 5 I'm going to refer to it and one or two other texts of scripture in just a moment but let me say several things by way of introduction to you quite briefly this afternoon it is a greatly neglected doctrine of God's Word the subject of adoption it has been so sadly for much of church history which is very surprising considering the richness of scripture that was discovered at the great reformation of the 16th century particularly under John Calvin and his successors the doctrine of adoption has not received generally the treatment that one would expect of it. For instance, of all the great creeds of Christendom, only the Westminster standards contain a separate statement and chapter on the subject of adoption. I don't know if you realise that. The Belgic standards do not have a separate treatment of adoption, and a number of the other European reform standards also do not have a distinct and separate statement. And so, what I handed out this afternoon, chapter 12 of the Confession of Faith of Adoption, is very precious indeed, and of course, as I reminded you, our catechisms deal very beautifully with the subject of adoption. Now the other thing I want to say is that there has been little written on it, as I mentioned, until comparatively recently in our time. There is a book by R. A. Webb called The Reformed Doctrine of Adoption I'm not familiar with it, but it has been recommended to me There is an older one by a Scottish Divine that I am familiar with, being from Scotland myself R. B. Candlish wrote a book called The Fatherhood of God in the later 19th century on the subject of adoption more recently John Murray, famous as a reformed theologian and now with his Lord in heaven wrote in Redemption Accomplished and Applied a chapter on the great subject of adoption Sinclair Ferguson has written a book recently on adoption and interestingly Dr. J. I. Packer a name well known to you probably for his book Knowing God has a chapter on adoption, and I'm going to quote from Hacker in a moment. Surprisingly, and this is the third thing by way of introduction, a number of Reformed theologians have considered adoption only to be a sub-category of justification. Remember we were looking at justification recently how God justifies us in Christ by crediting to us the very righteousness and obedience of Christ in place of our sinfulness and fallenness not only pardoning our sins we saw but crediting us with an active perfect righteousness Well, some great theologians have simply viewed adoption as a spin-off, if you like, a subsection of justification. Louis Virchow does this, R. L. Dabney does this, even the great Puritan John Owen, surprisingly, does this. And I want to say to you this afternoon that this is unfortunate. as well as surprising, because adoption is a separate and wonderful subject in the light of what scripture teaches about the believer's relationship with the Heavenly Father. It's not just a subsection of justification, it is another glorious subject that lifts us, as I'm going to show I hope this afternoon, however briefly, to one of the highest privileges that a believer can possess. now coming to J. I. Packer and the quotation I promised he says in his book on adoption or chapter on adoption adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers higher even than justification isn't that something? in other words, while he sees justification as primary and fundamental for the believer, which it is. We could never be right with God unless we were justified by his pardoning our sins and crediting to us the righteousness of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. While it's primary and fundamental as a blessing, he maintains that adoption is the highest blessing of the whole gospel. Well, it's a challenge, isn't it? Well we looked at the text in Ephesians 1 verse 5 and I'm going to refer briefly to a text in Galatians 4 and also Romans 8 but in Ephesians 1 you remember Paul is writing to the Ephesians Christians where he ministered for three years in Ephesus, his longest stay in any church of the New Testament and where clearly these believers were ready and ripe for deep teaching of the gospel not merely things that are on the surface, but some of the deepest doctrines you find in the New Testament are here in Ephesians, and many of them are stated in this first chapter, and you notice that in verse 4, as we've read, that God the Father has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love and then in verse 5, having predestinated us in this way unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will and so on. So what is the purpose of the believer's predestination? According to Paul here it is even more than justification he puts adoption there, in verse 5, predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. Now many of his other letters of course deal with repentance and the need of faith and the need of being justified by faith alone through Christ alone but here as he writes to these mature Ephesian Christians he goes to the very height of the privilege of our predestination by saying that that height is the adoption of children through Jesus Christ. Now isn't that something? Now in Galatians 4 verse 4, I didn't take time to read it, but from verse 4 of chapter 4 in Galatians onwards we read God sent forth his son to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now that's interesting. If Ephesians 1 verse 5 says it was our Heavenly Father's supreme purpose in saving us to give us the status of his children by adoption that was the purpose of predestination by the Father in Galatians 4 it's the height of the work of the Lord Jesus God sent for his son to redeem those under the law that they might receive what? not merely justification, wonderful as that is, but the adoption of sons and then in Romans 8 verse 50 you have the third person of the Trinity referred to in terms of adoption where we read in Romans 8 verse 15 for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father in other words the Holy Spirit is the one, the agency that brings the believer into that position of having become a child of God by adoption. So do you see what I'm saying? The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are all involved in their separate agencies and purposes in the great status of adoption, or making us children of God. Ephesians 1, Galatians 4, Romans 8, Father, Son and Holy Spirit involved in this. brought about, in other words, by the eternal decree of the Father, by the mediatorial work of the Son and by the regenerating work of the Spirit the result of Trinitarian activity doesn't that make it something of immense value and importance? what a blessed privilege it is and those of us who sadly neglect the doctrine of adoption are missing wonderful assurance and comfort for the Christian believer Now I want to look at this and look at it just briefly this afternoon really in the light of the one chapter of adoption in the Westminster Confession referring always of course to Scripture itself as our primary authority you notice that the first thing that I said in the sermon notes this afternoon is all who are justified are also adopted that is the opening statement of the chapter 12 on adoption. Now there are several things to notice, and I've referred to some of them already, so I'll be very brief here. The Westminster Confession and Scripture sees adoption, as I said, as much more than just one aspect of justification, because the opening sentence makes a distinction. Those that are justified have been made partakers of the grace of adoption. It's not the same thing. It's different. And as I said to you, we're going to see it's a much higher privilege. Now justification involves the pardon of sin and the imputing of Christ's righteousness. It's wonderful, but it says nothing about our filial relationship. You see, I can be forgiven my sins and I can know that my salvation rests upon the work and righteousness and obedience of the Lord Jesus but that doesn't make me a son of God, that doesn't bring me into God's family and what scripture says, as we have seen, though there are few places in scripture where this is dealt with admittedly, but what scripture says is that God has done infinitely more than that he's not left me in a righteous neutral position he has drawn me in as one of his very own children through the Lord Jesus Christ the incredible truth of being taken into an intimate family relationship as a son of God or if you like a daughter of God as well as the Catechism said, taken into the number and enjoying all the privileges of the family of God so you see, you could look at justification in one sense as a judicial pronouncement, which it is a pronouncement in God's court, sin is forgiven righteousness is credited to our account and you could say, well that's rather cold and clinical although of course it's not but you understand what I'm saying But adoption is warm-blooded and personal. I have become a member of the family of God himself. In other words, through our Lord Jesus, who is the elder brother, I have begun to enter into that relationship of closeness with God that is a family relationship. Now of course Paul's great emphasis in Romans and Galatians is on justification, it's vital and necessary, but we need to remember in the New Testament, for instance in 1 John 1 verse 12 John stands back in amazement at that we should be called the sons of God and you find the emphasis in John's epistles is very much not on justification, important as that is, but really upon adoption upon our being made the sons or the children of God. The other thing I want to say is it's a necessary step in our salvation, that salvation must be understood in terms of a restored sonship and a restored family relationship. You see, wasn't that the purpose of God in creating Adam? That Adam might, in a sense, be a son of God of all the creatures Adam was made, remember, in knowledge of righteousness and holiness the only one in all of the rational creation that could have a relationship with God and that relationship, as we know, was utterly spoiled and ruined by sin and so it makes sense, doesn't it, that in God the Father's eternal decree and the Son's mediatorial work and the Spirit's work of regeneration the end is to restore that relationship again that Adam in his innocence and Eve had in the Garden of Eden but to restore it in a much fuller and richer way than it could ever have been for Adam and Eve if they had not sinned. Why? Because our relationship as children of God is through God's own Son, His own beloved Son. Through that relationship of the Son of God, we have come into a relationship with God as His children ourselves. well all of this flows from the sovereign grace of God, doesn't it? and it surpasses expression 1 John 3 verse 1 again behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us says John that we should be called the sons of God now the second heading is believers become children of God by adoption We need to remember that modernism and liberalism has taught for many years, you're aware of this, that God is the universal father and man has a universal brotherhood. So we are all, in a sense, liberalism and modernism says, we are all in a sense sons of God already. now is that what scripture teaches? well the answer of course is no except in a very very limited manner you remember that scripture speaks of of sonship and very quickly on this in three ways it speaks of sonship within the Trinity which is unique there are three persons in the Trinity but one God and the Lord Jesus is the only begotten Son of God there you have sonship that is unique Secondly, in a very limited and general sense, God may be said to be the father of all mankind. Why? Because he created us and he provides for us. As Paul said in Acts 17, you remember, quoting a heathen poet, he said, we are his offspring. the offspring of God, the children of God but only in a very limited sense should we say of God that he is Father to all mankind in that he is the source of life and the sustainer of human life but the third emphasis is that specifically God has become through Christ's work as we have seen and the Father's predestinating purpose and the Spirit's regenerating work the father of believers and of the church comprised of believers so those who are not in Christ are not children of God in the end, they are children of wrath we need to remember that, as in Ephesians 2 verse 8 and it's utterly unscriptural and false to hold with liberalism that there is a universal fatherhood of God so everybody is alright it strikes at the very heart of the Gospel and the need for regeneration. In other words, as I said, a believer becomes a child of God only by this process of adoption through regeneration. Now it's worthwhile, before I leave this, it's worthwhile remembering, you know, that only a child of God can really use the Lord's Prayer. I was always concerned, I came through the public schools in England and Scotland for a period of time at least, and we would still have Christian services in schools at the beginning of the day, not every day, but once or twice a week, and the headmaster would lead the whole school in the Lord's Prayer. When I became a Christian at age 13, I began to be uncomfortable with this, because unbelievers cannot use the Lord's Prayer in a really meaningful sense, because it begins how? Our Father, who art in heaven, and God is not the father, as I was saying, of all children or all people but only of believers so here is the great privilege adoption is an act of transfer from an alien family into the family of God himself and you know where it differs from adoptions we know it we have families here in this congregation I know have adopted children there are at least three differences in God's adoption from human adoption I wonder if you know what they are one thing men often adopt to supply a defect in their family I don't have a son in my family only three daughters and I want a son so I'm going to adopt a son or I have five sons in my family I want a daughter and I can't have a daughter so I'll adopt a daughter to supply a defect but you see, God has no such inducement to adopt any of Adam's seed he already has a perfect, beloved son a well-beloved son in whom is all his delight and is an act of grace, isn't it? a marvellous grace but he has gone beyond, or through, I should say, the Lord Jesus through him to adopt an infinite number into his family now, the second difference is men usually only adopt one or two Scripture tells us that God brings many sons unto glory and the third difference is men are often influenced by some real or supposed excellency in the person who is adopted if that were the case, none of us would ever have been adopted into God's family I know I wouldn't this is not so with God there is no excellency or desert in us whatsoever when we were yet sinners Christ died for us so J.I. Packer, I think he's right our adoption shows us the greatness of God's grace and love toward us Then, thirdly, those adopted have God's name and spirit. We all know that when someone is adopted into a human family, there is a name change, and that child then bears that name change, but also has all the privileges and the downsides, sometimes, of being in that adopted family. but in our case, one of the great privileges, as we know, is that we are able to call God Father. Romans 8 verse 15, the Spirit of Adoption enables us to say Abba, Father. The Aramaic word Abba meaning My Dear Father. A term of intimacy with God Himself. And as we've seen, we receive the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Adoption. And by the way, this is one of the great means of knowing Christian assurance if you realize that you are a child of God that God has brought you right in to his own family when Satan assaults us by doubt about whether we are Christians we are able to say through the spirit witness within us giving out that great cry Abba Father we are able to know from the spirit witness that we are indeed children of God even when sometimes sin prevails in our lives and doubt comes upon us and difficulties ensconce us around and we say Lord am I really one of yours? Adoption through receiving the spirit of adoption enables us you know to find a sure ground of Christian assurance. Well then, God becomes our Father, we've seen that, the ending of the wording in this short chapter there is wonderful, do you notice that it says that God pities us as a Father, He protects us, He provides for us and also, as necessary, He chastises us. Last Psalm 103 verse 13 which speaks of, As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth those that fear him. and we have so many instances and illustrations of his protection of his church in scripture, his provision for it we've already read in this very service about God's preparation to release his people Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and to do it with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Was there anything ever in the Old Testament so wonderful as that? we are chastised at times when we misbehave and break the family code but we are not put out of the family isn't that wonderful? and it does indeed remind us this language of the teaching of the chapter in the confession on providence that God takes special care of his church and disposes all things for the good thereof special care of his church and disposes all things for the good thereof my dear friends if you are a believer this afternoon there are unlimited supplies for all your needs all possible circumstances and needs of yours are already provided for by the God who pities, protects, provides and as necessary chastises his children to bring them back into the family when they have temporarily disobeyed finally the children of God are never cast off or disinherited you see the end of the language there? sealed to the day of redemption and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation once you are in God's family you are never out of it again that's where our minionism and so forth have gone so seriously wrong in the eternal security of the believer we are sealed to the day of redemption we shall have our full inheritance that God has promised us as his children and you see our adoption therefore shows the glory of our Christian hope J. I. Packer again quoting him our adoption gives us the clue we need to see our way through all the problems of the Christian life to glory itself Well then, in conclusion, you know I've often thought of Jesus' words in the parable of the prodigal of the lost son in Luke chapter 15 remember when the father saw the son coming back, the older brother was indignant that the father would kill the fatted calf for this wayward son and he remonstrated with his father, the older brother did and said, I served you faithfully all these years, and you've never done this for me. You remember the Father's words to the older brother, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. Isn't that a wonderful statement of the doctrine, biblically, of adoption? Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. How privileged we are how conspicuous our adoption will be one day it's not conspicuous to men of the world around us but when the children of God appear in their final glorified state how conspicuous they will be before all the unbelieving world awaiting judgment what a great privilege this is of adoption that we are sons of God and let us then seek to live as burning and shining lights to the glory of God in this life. The children of God of adoption. Let's pray. Our gracious Father in heaven, we thank thee for our time in thy word this afternoon for this rich, wonderful, encouraging, nourishing doctrine. of the adoption of the children of God. Bless, we pray, these frail words to all our hearts in Christ's name.