Romans 8: 15
The Spirit of Adoption

"Justification is the work of God's free grace, whereby he imputes all of our sins to Jesus Christ and all of Christ's personal righteousness to us, and declares us righteous."

"Adoption is the changed disposition of God toward those who were once enemies but are now justified, treating them as beloved sons and daughters instead of as enemies as they deserve to be treated. -- all because of the work of justification."

If you are a justified person and you understand justification, then you will have a "spirit of sonship" or "adoption," as it is here called, because you have experienced the "Spirit of Adoption," the Holy Spirit.

I. NOW NOTICE IN THE FIRST PLACE, THAT THIS TEACHING IS NOT THE SAME THING -- OR EVEN IN THE SAME BALL PARK -- AS THE VIEW THAT GOD IS UNIVERSALLY AND UNQUALIFIEDLY APPROACHABLE.

1. That is a common but incorrect view which might be called "Bubba Theology."

"Bubba theology" deserves to join the ranks of liberation theology, Process theology, God is dead theology.  It is the malady that conceives of God as a "Good old boy" -- a celestial version of the architypical southern "Bubba" -- who likes to hang out with the boys at the local pub (or at least, at the transcendental equivalent of the local pub) and is hail-fellow-well-met to everyone he meets.

2. This view ignores the theology that filled people with terror, and who, seemingly, do not have in its Bible such texts as

"Moses, Moses, Do not come near; put off the shoes from your feet; for the place upon which you stand is holy ground!"

Or, Isaiah's vision

("In the year that King Uzziah died" when) he "saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up and cried "Woe is me, for I am undone!  For I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips"

3. Now, the Bible view is not that the way of justification and adoption is a replacement of that view, but is an addition and supplement to that view.  The Biblical and historical view is that God is almighty, infinite and unapproachable by right of both our finitude and our fallenness; and our access to God is not a right but a grace; not a natural outcome of the way things are, but as a gracious outcome of atonement and consequent justification.

And do not ignore or condone or become comfortable with the incredible blasphemy that is becoming commonplace in our culture.  It is well to remember that one such usage deserves instantaneous, divine judgment and it is a matter of the great grace of God that he withholds judgment, that judgment being visited upon our Lord Christ as far as the believer is concerned.

We are brought near to God, but we are brought near to God, i.e., it is not a privilege granted to just anybody!

II. "THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION" IS THE OPPOSITE OF " A SPIRIT OF SLAVERY UNTO FEAR," ("Spirit," in this case, meaning much the same thing that what we speak of as of, as the word "mentality" conveys: "The mentality of fear.")  "v.15a"

1. The Old Testament people often had a "spirit" of fear, and perhaps, sometimes, even "a spirit of slavery and of serfdom."

We know with hindsight that they were justified if they trusted in God for their salvation, but we can make a good guess that they did not appreciate the theological "mechanics" of their salvation, not knowing the historical events of Christ's salvation and atonement,and all the teaching of the New Testament on the life of Christ and his atonement, all of which came hundreds of years later in the mature form of the doctrine.

2. And so too, Christians -- in this age, on this side of the incarnation, have often failed to appreciate the truth of justification and have, instead, lived in terror of God.  What a pity when those who belong to God miss out on some of the chief benefits during this life of being children of God during their mortal lifetime.

The Holy Spirit isn't the one who taught the believer -- a justified person -- to think of himself as a cowering slave of God who was "out to get him."  It is true that "bondslave of Jesus Christ" is one of our wonderful titles in the New Testament, but the image it conveys is one of joyful and willing obedience to one's Master.  This is not a cowering servanthood but a voluntary and ennobling servanthood: "You are saved by grace, through faith; and that not of yourselves.  It is the gift of God lest any one should boast."

III. NOW, MY THIRD AND MAIN POINT IS THAT WE HAVE RECEIVED "THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION."

1. "Adoption" implies, not equality, but irrevocable, filial relationship, by right of once-for-all acceptance.  Employees are a denarius a dozen.  Servants come and go.  Slaves go up and down in the esteem of their masters.  But sons are a part of the family, and live in the family house and eat at the family table.  They have birthright acceptance!

2. Sons and daughters are honored with the inheritance (Not to say, also: "enriched"). V.17 speaks of this. The New Testament frequently speaks of this joint -- inheritance with Christ in eternity, as if to say that the great riches of his grace and provision during the days of our lives is just the small "stuff" in comparison to what, some day, "will be."  The bulk of the inheritance comes later on.  God will pour out upon us the riches of Christ's inheritance.

3. And the dignity and the prestige of the family passes to the child, even the adopted child.  When Queen Elizabeth of England was a little girl, she and her playmate were temporarily lost in the rural environs of Balmarl Castle way up on the north of England.  A peasant woman who encountered this lost child, was very sure that the child was from a distinguished family by her clothes and manner.  She asked the child, "Who are you?"  And the little girl's answer was: "I'm nobody!  But my daddy is the King."  So too we have such an attitude about life and history.  This is the "spirit of adoption" that stamps our every action, of us who know that we have been adopted into the family of God and that he is our Father.

4. Sons and daughters are familiar with the parent and know they are accepted.  Often you will find that the most aloof and distant monarch has children who are unquestionably accepted into the presence of their parent.  Back in the days of Kennedy's presidency, the president might have been dealing with a distinguished foreign ambassador who came to see him through all the tedious difficulty of diplomatic channels and the formal processes of the White House.  And at the same time John John, the presidents little boy, sometimes was said to run into the midst of a world -- influencing conference, to sit on his daddy's lap.  So too we have, in a spirit of great reverence, a special intimacy in the presence of our great God who loves us.

5. Ideally, sons and daughters are not only familiar with their parent; they are intimate with the parent.

Paul says here that this spirit -- this mentality -- of "adoption," given to us by the Spirit of adoption, the Holy Spirit, teaches us to say "Abba Father," an expression like "dear Daddy."

This expression "Abba" comes out of Paul's youth.  The Greek in which he wrote his letters, was not his native tongue.  He would have spoken Aramaic, a dialectical cousin of Hebrew in his childhood.  Then, quickly, he was taught the Ancient Hebrew, and soon after the Koine Greek.  And it is likely that he also learned Latin (since his Father and he were both Roman citizens).  But one never escapes the culture and language of his youth.  Here in this passage Paul goes way back to the beautiful word of his childhood -- something equivalent to our term "Daddy" and "Papa" which children first use to call their fathers.  And he combines it with the Greek word for "Father," making a word something like "daddy-father," as it would be literally translated into our language.

Dear Christian brothers and sisters: What a wonderful feature of God's grace it is that we may come before the holy, awesome, transcendent, eternal Creator of everything that there is, whose angels and the glorified saints in heaven worship continually who only gives meaning and perspective to every created thing in heaven and on earth, and who alone, precedes all of creation -- to come into his presence, I say, and with no more formality than that of a bowed head and a fervent heart, to call upon his name: "Dear, gracious, Heavenly Father," in presenting to him our prayers and requests that must seem, even in their weightiest parts, as the merest of minutia, compared to God's way of seeing things.

What an unlikely privilege is this, that we communicate with God Almighty.  What an unfathomable privilege it is that we communicate with God Almighty!  What an unfathomable wonder it is that we do so without form or complicated formality.  Let us use the privilege regularly, with great delight and with the realization that we alone have the unimaginable privilege of intimacy with the Deity himself.  And what privilege and inducement to meaningful and satisfying life, it is to know that while we are nothing in ourselves, our Father is the King! All the self-confidence and self-assertion seminars in the world cannot create the kind of comfortability with one's self and calling that the knowledge of theological "adoption" can create.