Latest / Reformed Thinking / Sons in the Son: The Forensic Foundation and Organic Vitality of Divine Adoption

Transcript

Sons in the Son: The Forensic Foundation and Organic Vitality of Divine Adoption · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed Thinking. I have to admit, I've really
• 0:03
  been looking forward to this discussion all week.
• 0:04
  We we usually grab a stack of theological sources and, you
• 0:08
  know, prepare to have our brain stretch, which is great.
• 0:11
  But today feels a little different.
• 0:13
  We're looking at a topic that is, on the one hand, one of the
• 0:17
  most intellectually demanding doctrines in Scripture, but on
• 0:20
  the other, it might be the most emotionally satisfying 1.
• 0:23
  It is. It's the doctrine that Ji
• 0:25
  Packer, I think, once called the highest privilege the Gospel
• 0:28
  offers. He actually put it even higher
• 0:30
  than justification. Wow, that is a bold claim.
• 0:34
  I mean, especially in our circles where justification is
• 0:37
  usually the main headline. It really is.
• 0:39
  We are of course, talking about the doctrine of sonship and
• 0:42
  divine adoption, and looking at our sources for today,
• 0:44
  specifically one called Suns in the Sun, the theology of the
• 0:47
  divine adoption, the mission here seems pretty aggressive.
• 0:52
  We're here to shatter a very popular cultural assumption.
• 0:55
  We are, Yeah. If you just walk down the street
• 0:57
  and ask the average person, or honestly, even the average
• 1:00
  churchgoer about their relationship with God, you're
• 1:03
  almost guaranteed to hear the phrase Well, we're all God's
• 1:07
  children. The universal fatherhood of God.
• 1:10
  It sounds nice, doesn't it? It's on greeting cards.
• 1:12
  It makes everyone feel warm and included.
• 1:14
  It does. But our sources today are
• 1:17
  throwing a very wet blanket on that whole idea right from the
• 1:19
  start. Oh, it's more than a wet
• 1:21
  blanket. It's a demolition.
• 1:22
  The sources make it absolutely clear that creation and
• 1:25
  redemption are two very different things.
• 1:27
  OK, unpack that. Well, yes, in a creation sense,
• 1:30
  we are God's offspring. We bear His image, but in terms
• 1:34
  of relationship, in terms of being in his family, the sources
• 1:38
  point us straight to Ephesians chapter 2, and it says that by
• 1:41
  nature we are not children of God, we are children of.
• 1:44
  Wrath. That's a heavy place to start.
• 1:47
  Children of Wrath. So the whole premise of this
• 1:49
  deep dive is to figure out how on earth a child of Wrath,
• 1:53
  basically a rubble against the king, becomes an heir to the
• 1:57
  universe. It requires a change in legal
• 1:59
  status, a change so significant that it alters your identity.
• 2:03
  You don't just slide into God's family.
• 2:06
  You have to be adopted into it. And to even begin to understand
• 2:09
  that, we have to start with the only person who actually belongs
• 2:12
  there by right. OK, so let's start there.
• 2:15
  The archetype who is the true son.
• 2:18
  Our sources make a huge distinction between Jesus as the
• 2:22
  natural son and believers as adopted sons.
• 2:26
  I think a lot of people get tripped up on the language here,
• 2:28
  especially the Greek word monogenes.
• 2:31
  This is where it gets really interesting, and frankly where a
• 2:33
  lot of bad theology can start if you're not careful.
• 2:36
  If you grew up with the King James Version, you know John 3.1
• 2:40
  C as gave his only begotten. Son right and begotten sounds
• 2:43
  like born. It sounds like biology.
• 2:45
  It gives the impression that there was a time when the Father
• 2:48
  created the Son. Which is in essence the Aryan
• 2:50
  Heresy, the idea that there was a time when he was not.
• 2:53
  But our sources, they really breakdown this word monogenies.
• 2:56
  It comes from monos meaning only and genos meaning kind or
• 3:01
  species. But doesn't mean only born of.
• 3:03
  Not at all. It means one-of-a-kind, unique
• 3:06
  in his class, so. It's not about his origin story,
• 3:09
  it's about his uniqueness, his nature.
• 3:12
  Precisely. Jesus is the suey, generous Son.
• 3:16
  He is the unique possessor of the Father's nature.
• 3:19
  He shares the very same essence. He is from the Father, but, and
• 3:23
  this is so important, he was not made by the Father.
• 3:25
  And that's critical because if Jesus is just a creature, even a
• 3:29
  super creature or a high-ranking Angel.
• 3:31
  He can't save us. He can't bear an infinite wrath
• 3:33
  for sin. He has to be God to do that.
• 3:36
  This connects directly to that concept of eternal generation
• 3:39
  that the sources bring up. It sounds so technical, but it's
• 3:41
  right there in the Nicene Creed, isn't it?
• 3:42
  Yeah, God from God Like from light.
• 3:44
  Begotten, not made. That the sources really
• 3:46
  emphasize this Trinitarian relation.
• 3:49
  The Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally begotten, and
• 3:53
  the Spirit eternally proceeds. It's not a timeline.
• 3:55
  It's not like the father existed for a billion years and then
• 3:58
  decided to, you know, have a son.
• 4:00
  Exactly. It's an eternal relationship.
• 4:02
  Sonship is internal to the Trinity itself.
• 4:05
  It's who God is. So before there was a Manger in
• 4:08
  Bethlehem, before there was Mary, before there was even a
• 4:10
  universe to save, he was the Son.
• 4:13
  He is Son before He is sent, and that matters for us because, as
• 4:17
  the source puts it, our adoption is only possible because the
• 4:20
  natural son was willing to enter the slave market to buy us.
• 4:22
  We are sons by grace only because He is the Son by nature.
• 4:27
  That's a perfect segue into the problem, or as we're calling it,
• 4:31
  the crisis. If he's the son by nature and we
• 4:34
  are children of wrath by nature, well, we have a pretty serious
• 4:37
  issue. The source material talks about
• 4:39
  something called the Orphan spirit.
• 4:41
  It's the default setting of fallen humanity.
• 4:44
  An orphan spirit always seeks autonomy.
• 4:46
  It wants independence at all costs.
• 4:48
  He wants the inheritance without the father.
• 4:50
  That's the prodigal son story right there, isn't it?
• 4:52
  Give me my share now. We want to be self-made.
• 4:55
  We want to be the captains of our own ship.
• 4:57
  But the spiritual reality is that we're estranged.
• 5:00
  We're not just lost. We are legally condemned.
• 5:02
  We're spiritual orphans. This is where that really
• 5:05
  helpful distinction between justification and adoption comes
• 5:09
  in. Yeah, I loved the analogy one of
• 5:11
  the the sources used about a judge in a courtroom.
• 5:13
  It makes things so clear. Justification is a legal
• 5:17
  forensic term. Imagine you're a criminal
• 5:20
  standing before a judge. You're guilty.
• 5:23
  The evidence against you is overwhelming.
• 5:25
  There's no doubt about it. You're cooked.
• 5:27
  You're cooked. But then, because of what Christ
• 5:29
  has done, the judge slams the gavel down and declares you
• 5:32
  righteous. You are acquitted.
• 5:35
  The debt is completely paid, which is.
• 5:37
  Absolutely amazing news. It is the best news.
• 5:40
  But here's the thing. A judge can acquit you, declare
• 5:43
  you innocent, and tell you that you're free to go, right?
• 5:46
  But that judge doesn't usually step down from the bench, put
• 5:48
  his arm around you and say, now come home with me, take my name,
• 5:52
  and you're going to inherit my entire state.
• 5:53
  That's the difference. Justification keeps you out of
• 5:56
  prison? Yes.
• 5:57
  Adoption brings you into the family's living room.
• 6:00
  Justification answers the question, am I right with the
• 6:02
  law? But adoption answers the
• 6:04
  question, Do I belong to the Father?
• 6:07
  And the incredible thing is that God does both.
• 6:08
  He settles the massive debt and then he adopts the debtor.
• 6:12
  So how did this actually happen? The sources do a deep dive into
• 6:15
  Galatians chapter 4, which seems to be the Magna Carta of this
• 6:20
  whole doctrine. Paul writes when the fullness of
• 6:23
  time had come. And Paul is so precise here.
• 6:25
  He lays out the timeline, the fullness of time, and then the
• 6:28
  action. God sent forth His Son.
• 6:31
  That word in Greek is exopasibone.
• 6:33
  It implies he was already there in the Father's presence to be
• 6:36
  sent. There's that preexistence again.
• 6:38
  It's everywhere. But then look at the purpose
• 6:40
  clauses. Why did God send him?
• 6:42
  Paul gives 2 reasons. OK, the first is to redeem those
• 6:45
  under the law. Right.
• 6:46
  And the word for redeem there is exaggerus.
• 6:48
  It literally means to buy out of the marketplace.
• 6:52
  The imagery Paul is using is the slave market, the agora.
• 6:55
  Wow, he's painting a picture of humanity on the auction block.
• 6:59
  Sold under sin and the crushing liability of the law.
• 7:02
  Were trapped. And in this section the law is
• 7:05
  described as a beta gogos, a tutor or guardian.
• 7:09
  Yes, but we have to be careful with our modern idea of a tutor.
• 7:13
  A pedagogos in that culture wasn't really a teacher.
• 7:16
  He was a slave whose job was to walk the boy to school and
• 7:20
  discipline him. He had the authority to punish,
• 7:23
  to restrain. But not to give the inheritance.
• 7:25
  He could not make the boy a man. He couldn't confer adulthood or
• 7:29
  intimacy. The law is like that.
• 7:31
  It shows us we're wrong. It convicts us.
• 7:33
  It restrains us, but it has no power to make us sons.
• 7:37
  So Christ buys us off that auction block.
• 7:39
  That's the exaggerus, the buying out.
• 7:41
  But then there's the second purpose that we might receive
• 7:44
  adoption as sons. And here's the keyword way,
• 7:47
  Ephesia. This is where the Roman legal
• 7:49
  context just blows the doors off the meaning of this doctrine.
• 7:52
  I was hoping we would get to this.
• 7:53
  The source material points out that Paul is writing to people
• 7:56
  living under Roman law, and for them, adoption meant something
• 7:59
  incredibly specific and powerful.
• 8:01
  It was grave, and it was absolutely irrevocable.
• 8:04
  In the Roman world, you didn't usually adopt A baby.
• 8:07
  It was almost always an adult male that you adopted
• 8:09
  specifically to be your heir. OK.
• 8:12
  And when that adoption happened, there was a legal process called
• 8:15
  capitis deminuccio. It meant a decrease of status
• 8:19
  regarding your old life. So a complete severance from
• 8:22
  your past. Total.
• 8:23
  All of your old debts instantly cancelled.
• 8:26
  They just vanished. All your old family ties legally
• 8:29
  severed. You are considered a new person.
• 8:31
  And then you came under the Patria Potesta as the father's
• 8:34
  power. The Roman father had absolute
• 8:36
  authority, even the power of life and death over his
• 8:39
  household. But with that came the absolute
• 8:41
  obligation to provide for and protect that son.
• 8:45
  So when Paul uses wayothesia sun placement, he's telling these
• 8:49
  former pagans in Galatia look, God didn't just foster you.
• 8:53
  He didn't just let you stay in his house for a little while.
• 8:55
  He underwent a formal binding legal proceeding that wiped your
• 8:58
  slate clean and gave you his family name forever.
• 9:01
  And notice the sequence. It flows from the Sun to us.
• 9:06
  The source calls this union with Christ.
• 9:09
  We are sons in the sun. God loves the adopted child with
• 9:13
  the very same love He has for the natural son.
• 9:16
  But why not? Because the adopted child is so
• 9:19
  lovable or has cleaned up their act.
• 9:21
  It's because they are hidden in the natural son.
• 9:23
  They are united to Him. That is secure.
• 9:27
  That isn't based on my performance today or whether I
• 9:29
  had a good quiet time this morning.
• 9:30
  Not at all. It's based on the permanent
• 9:32
  legal standing of your elder brother.
• 9:35
  So that's the legal side of it, the forensic Foundation, as
• 9:38
  theologians would say. But we're not just walking
• 9:40
  around with a legal document in our back pocket.
• 9:42
  There's an experiential side to this.
• 9:44
  The sources talk about the spirit of adoption.
• 9:46
  This is so crucial because adoption isn't just an abstract
• 9:49
  fact. It's meant to change how you
• 9:50
  feel and how you live every day. Paul in Romans 8 contrast the
• 9:54
  spirit of slavery with the spirit of adoption.
• 9:57
  OK, what's the difference? A slave obeys out of fear.
• 10:01
  A slave is constantly looking over their shoulder wondering,
• 10:04
  did I do enough? Is the master pleased?
• 10:06
  Will I get beaten? Will I get sold?
• 10:09
  It's a relationship based on terror and performance.
• 10:12
  But a son? A son knows he belongs.
• 10:14
  He's not trying to earn his place at the table.
• 10:16
  He already has one. And the spear is the one who
• 10:18
  confirms this. He prompts the Cry ABBA father.
• 10:23
  Now, we should probably pause here, because one of our sources
• 10:26
  makes a very specific theological notes, a
• 10:28
  cessationist note. Actually, yes.
• 10:30
  It warns against thinking this cry is some kind of, you know,
• 10:33
  chaotic new revelation. Or maybe speaking in tongues?
• 10:37
  Correct. The view in the source material
• 10:39
  is that this is not about the spirit whispering new secret
• 10:42
  information to you. It's an internal testimony to an
• 10:45
  objective external reality. It's the spirit silencing the
• 10:49
  accuser in your own heart. So when your conscience or the
• 10:52
  devil says you're a thinner, you're a fraud.
• 10:54
  God must hate you. The spirit of adoption rises up
• 10:57
  inside. And says no, that's not who you
• 10:59
  are anymore. You are a child.
• 11:00
  Your father loves you. Call him Father it.
• 11:02
  Cures that orphan spirit we talked about earlier.
• 11:05
  It assures you that you belong by birthright, or I guess new
• 11:08
  birthright, not by. How will you perform that
• 11:10
  morning? And that changes everything
• 11:11
  about prayer. The source references Hebrews
• 11:14
  4.16, the throne of grace. I love that image.
• 11:17
  It's a throne which is majestic and frankly intimidating, but
• 11:22
  it's the throne of grace. Think about the difference in
• 11:24
  dynamic. If you have to approach a judge
• 11:26
  on a throne, you're careful. You're formal.
• 11:29
  You speak only once spoken to. You're terrified of saying the
• 11:32
  wrong thing and getting held in contempt.
• 11:34
  But a child, A child can run into the throne room.
• 11:36
  A child can climb up on their father's lap.
• 11:39
  A child can be totally honest. I'm scared, I'm hurt.
• 11:42
  I don't understand. You don't have to sneak in.
• 11:44
  You belong there. But belonging to the family
• 11:46
  isn't just about cozy prayer times and, you know, feeling
• 11:49
  secure. The sources bring up a much
• 11:52
  tougher aspect of family life discipline.
• 11:55
  The weary Saints, as the source calls them.
• 11:57
  This is Hebrews chapter 12, and this is a massive paradigm shift
• 12:01
  for anyone who's going through a hard time through suffering.
• 12:05
  How so? Yeah, because I think our
• 12:07
  default is to see hardship as punishment.
• 12:09
  Exactly. We naturally interpret suffering
• 12:12
  as God's anger. We think God is mad at me.
• 12:14
  I'm being punished for that sin I committed last week.
• 12:17
  But the doctrine of adoption completely flips that on its
• 12:20
  head. Hebrews, 12, says God
• 12:22
  disciplines the one he loves. He treats us as sons.
• 12:25
  So suffering is not penal wrath, It's not punishment for a crime.
• 12:29
  No, that's the key. All the penal wrath, all the
• 12:32
  punishment for all our crimes was poured out on Christ at the
• 12:36
  cross. That cup is empty for the
• 12:38
  believer. What we experience now is
• 12:41
  fatherly discipline, like training.
• 12:42
  Exactly like training. It's the coach pushing the
• 12:45
  athlete to make them stronger. It's the loving father
• 12:48
  correcting the son to keep him from running out into traffic.
• 12:51
  The motive is love and the goal is holiness.
• 12:54
  The source actually says something pretty terrifying on
• 12:56
  this point. It says the alternative to
• 12:57
  discipline is not a life of ease, it's illegitimacy.
• 13:01
  It's a stark warning. If you are without discipline,
• 13:05
  then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
• 13:09
  Think about it, If God let you continue in sin without any
• 13:12
  consequence, if he just lets you wreck your life without
• 13:16
  intervening, that is not a sign of his favor.
• 13:19
  It's. A sign of his indifference.
• 13:20
  It's a sign that you might not belong to him at all.
• 13:22
  He guards his own. He disciplines his own.
• 13:25
  The goal is never to pay you back for your sin.
• 13:28
  The goal is to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
• 13:31
  That really reframes hardship. It means the difficulty I might
• 13:34
  be facing isn't evidence of God's absence, it might just be
• 13:37
  the strongest proof of His loving presence.
• 13:40
  It's the rod of a shepherd guiding you, not the baton of a
• 13:43
  police officer finishing you. OK, I want to pivot a bit to
• 13:45
  some of the theological battles that are mentioned in the
• 13:47
  sources, because whenever you have a doctrine this
• 13:50
  substantial, this rich, people tend to twist it.
• 13:53
  The sources identify a few common distortions.
• 13:57
  Yes, there are several. One of the most common today, I
• 13:59
  think, is the King's kid mentality that you often find in
• 14:02
  the prosperity gospel movement. Right, the idea that my dad owns
• 14:06
  the cattle on 1000 Hills so I should be driving a Bentley and
• 14:09
  never get sick. It takes the truth of our
• 14:11
  inheritance and uses it to justify greed and materialism.
• 14:16
  But the counter argument from Romans 8 is just so clear.
• 14:19
  Yes we are Co heirs with Christ, but what did Christ inherit on
• 14:23
  this earth? Suffering.
• 14:24
  A cross Romans 8.17 says we are heirs provided we suffer with
• 14:29
  Him. We share in his suffering now so
• 14:31
  that we can share in his glory later.
• 14:33
  Sonship is not a ticket to a first class, comfortable life in
• 14:36
  this world. It's a call to follow the Sun's
• 14:38
  path, which often leads right through the valley of the shadow
• 14:41
  of Death. Then there's the other extreme,
• 14:43
  the little gods theology. I've heard this before, the idea
• 14:46
  that because we are God's children, we sort of become
• 14:49
  little gods ourselves. The source hits this one hard.
• 14:52
  This is the original Eden lie all over again, isn't it?
• 14:55
  You will be like God. Adoption is about relationship,
• 14:58
  not essence. We partake in fellowship with
• 15:00
  God. We never ever become God the
• 15:02
  Creator. Creature distinction remains for
• 15:04
  all eternity. We are adopted sons, but we are
• 15:06
  still created sons. He is the uncreated natural son.
• 15:10
  Another distortion mentioned was from liberal theology, the old
• 15:14
  heresy of adoptionism. This is the idea that Jesus was
• 15:17
  just a really good man, a moral teacher.
• 15:19
  And at his baptism, God looked down and said, you know what,
• 15:22
  you're doing such a great job. I think I'll adopt you as my
• 15:25
  son. Which?
• 15:26
  Completely destroys the gospel. Utterly.
• 15:29
  If Jesus is just a man who was adopted by God, then he can't
• 15:33
  bear infinite wrath. He can't save anyone.
• 15:35
  He has to be the eternal Son before he's sent where the whole
• 15:38
  thing is pointless. And finally, there's a category
• 15:40
  the source calls Modern Therapeutic Deism.
• 15:44
  This is the I am a Child of God slogan used mainly as a self
• 15:48
  esteem booster. You see this everywhere on
• 15:50
  social media and pop psychology. I'm a child of God becomes a way
• 15:53
  to say I'm special and God accepts me exactly as I am
• 15:57
  without any need for change or repentance.
• 15:59
  It detaches sonship from holiness.
• 16:01
  It completely detaches it, but biblical sonship is always
• 16:04
  linked to holiness. It's linked to repentance and
• 16:07
  faith. You are adopted in order to be
• 16:09
  conformed to the image of the Son, not to be affirmed in your
• 16:12
  sin. It's a call to transformation,
• 16:14
  not just affirmation. Now, there's a section in our
• 16:17
  source material that gets into some very specific distinctives.
• 16:21
  The sources are clearly coming from a specific Reformed
• 16:24
  perspective, but they also take time to draw a line between the
• 16:27
  sonship of Israel and the sonship of the Church.
• 16:30
  This is really helpful for the learner who wants to build a
• 16:33
  solid theological structure. The source distinguishes between
• 16:37
  what it calls national sonship and spiritual sonship.
• 16:41
  Because in the Old Testament, God clearly called the nation of
• 16:43
  Israel my first born son. Exodus 4.22 yes, but the source
• 16:48
  argues the sonship was typological, it was national, it
• 16:51
  was connected to the land of Canaan and the physical lineage
• 16:53
  of Abraham. It did not mean that every
• 16:56
  single Israelite was spiritually regenerate and saved.
• 16:59
  Whereas the church is described as the one new man.
• 17:02
  Right. And our sonship in the Church is
• 17:04
  spiritual and regenerative. It's based on the new birth
• 17:07
  through the Holy Spirit, not physical birth.
• 17:09
  And the source material brings up something interesting about
• 17:11
  the future about eschatology. It specifically mentions a pre
• 17:15
  tribulational viewpoint. Yes, one of the sources
• 17:18
  explicitly rejects what's called replacement theology, or
• 17:21
  supersessionism. It makes the case that the
• 17:23
  Church has not permanently replaced Israel in God's plan.
• 17:28
  How does that play out? The view presented is that the
• 17:30
  Church is gathered to Christ before the Tribulation, the
• 17:33
  Rapture, and then in the future God will turn his attention back
• 17:37
  to national Israel, restoring them in the Millennium to
• 17:40
  fulfill those specific national promises made to them.
• 17:44
  It's a way of honoring both the spiritual adoption of the Church
• 17:47
  and the national adoption of Israel without confusing the 2.
• 17:51
  That brings us to the other major distinctive mentioned
• 17:53
  baptism. The source has a very specific
• 17:56
  logical argument regarding believers baptism versus pedo
• 18:00
  baptism or infant baptism. And the argument flows directly
• 18:03
  from the doctrine of adoption we've been discussing.
• 18:05
  The logic goes like this. If adoption is the result of
• 18:08
  faith, John 1.12 says to all who did receive him, who believed in
• 18:12
  his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
• 18:15
  So belief comes first. Belief comes first, then the
• 18:17
  badge or the sign of that adoption, which is baptism,
• 18:20
  should logically follow the reality.
• 18:22
  You don't put the family Crest on someone who isn't in the
• 18:24
  family yet. That's the argument.
• 18:26
  The source critiques the idea of baptizing an infant because an
• 18:29
  infant cannot consciously exercise faith or cry ABBA
• 18:33
  Father. That cry of the Spirit is the
• 18:35
  internal evidence of the sonship.
• 18:37
  So the argument is that baptism is for those who have
• 18:40
  experienced that regeneration and can publicly identify with
• 18:44
  their elder brother Jesus. It's.
• 18:46
  The uniform you put on after you've been drafted on the team,
• 18:49
  not before. That's a very good way to put
• 18:50
  it, yes. So with all this, yeah, what
• 18:53
  does it mean for us today? We've looked at the archetype,
• 18:57
  the legal act, the personal experience.
• 18:59
  But we still live in this broken world.
• 19:01
  We don't always feel like Princess and princesses of
• 19:04
  heaven. And that's the tension of the
• 19:05
  already and not yet. It's a key part of living the
• 19:08
  Christian life. Legally, forensically, your
• 19:11
  status is settled. The judge has banged the gavel.
• 19:14
  The adoption papers are signed in the blood of Christ.
• 19:16
  That is the already. It's a done deal.
• 19:18
  But the not yet. That's what I feel on a Tuesday
• 19:21
  morning when things are going wrong.
• 19:23
  The not yet is our experience in these bodies.
• 19:26
  We still get sick, we still struggle with sin, we still die.
• 19:29
  Paul says in Romans 8 that we groan inwardly as we wait for
• 19:32
  what? The redemption of our bodies.
• 19:35
  So there's a future component to our adoption.
• 19:37
  There is. The final stage of our adoption
• 19:40
  is not just a legal status, it's a physical resurrection.
• 19:43
  We are waiting to get our new bodies to finally look like the
• 19:47
  family we belong to, perfectly conformed to the image of
• 19:50
  Christ. I love how the source material
• 19:52
  frames the final charge at the end.
• 19:54
  It addresses 2 specific types of people, the moralist and the
• 19:58
  fearful. To the moralist, that's the
• 20:00
  person who is striving, working, trying to be good enough,
• 20:03
  putting in overtime to earn God's favor.
• 20:05
  The doctrine of adoption says stop.
• 20:08
  You cannot earn an inheritance. You only receive it as a gift.
• 20:11
  The price is already paid. You are trying to buy what has
• 20:14
  already been bought for you. And to the fearful.
• 20:16
  To the person who thinks they've blown it too many times, who
• 20:18
  feels like God is just barely tolerating them, this doctrine
• 20:22
  says to lift up your head. Your name is not written in
• 20:25
  pencil in the family Bible. It's written in what the source
• 20:28
  calls indelible grace. You are not a slave fearing the
• 20:32
  lash. You are a son or a daughter and
• 20:35
  you are secure at the table. It brings us right back to that
• 20:38
  quote from first John 3.1, doesn't it?
• 20:41
  See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should
• 20:43
  be called children of God. And so we are.
• 20:47
  It is a present reality to be enjoyed, not a future wage to be
• 20:50
  earned. And that is such a powerful
• 20:52
  place to land. It really shifts your entire
• 20:55
  Christian life from a posture of I have to to, I get to.
• 20:59
  Exactly. We obey God because we are sons.
• 21:01
  We don't obey God in order to become sons.
• 21:04
  The relationship is the foundation for the obedience,
• 21:07
  not the other way around. Well, I think that gives us more
• 21:09
  than enough to chew on. This has been a true deep dive
• 21:11
  into what it really means to be Suns in the sun.
• 21:14
  A beautiful and life changing doctrine.
• 21:16
  Thank you all for listening to Reformed Thinking.
• 21:19
  We hope this helps you understand a little more about
• 21:21
  who he is and who you now are in him.
• 21:24
  We will catch you on the next deep dive.