Training · The 1689 Baptist Confession
Adoption
The shortest chapter in the confession, and the one about being family.
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Card 1 of 5
What is adoption?
God taking everyone he has justified, in and for the sake of his Son, into the standing and privileges of his own children.
He grants it to all the justified and to nobody else, so it is not a further stage that some Christians reach later. It is worth setting beside justification: one settles that the person is not condemned, the other settles that they belong to the family, and neither on its own says what the other says.
But when the time was just right, God sent his Son into the world. He was born from a woman, and he lived under the same law as everyone else.
God did this so he could free those who were stuck under the law, and so we could be adopted as his own children.
Galatians 4:4-5Confession 12.1
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Card 2 of 5
What does adoption add to justification?
Relationship. Justification settles a legal standing; adoption makes the person a child of the household, with the name, the access and the inheritance.
You could be acquitted by a judge and walk out of the building with no further connection to him. The confession will not leave it there. Having dealt with the verdict, it immediately says that the one who cleared you has taken you in.
But when the time was just right, God sent his Son into the world. He was born from a woman, and he lived under the same law as everyone else.
God did this so he could free those who were stuck under the law, and so we could be adopted as his own children.
Galatians 4:4-5Confession 12.1
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Card 3 of 5
What privileges belong to God's children?
His name put on them, the Spirit of adoption, access to the throne of grace with boldness, and the ability to cry Abba, Father.
The list is deliberately domestic. Access with boldness is the phrase to hold on to: not admitted on sufferance, but able to come in without an appointment.
You didn't get a spirit that makes you slaves and afraid again. Instead, you got the Spirit who makes you God's own children, and now we can call him 'Dad.'
Romans 8:15Confession 12.1
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Card 4 of 5
Does adoption mean nothing hard will happen?
No. They are pitied, protected, provided for and disciplined by him as by a father - but never cast off.
Discipline is listed among the privileges rather than against them, because it is what a father does for someone who is staying. Never cast off is the clause that carries the weight.
Confession 12.1
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What does adoption guarantee about the future?
That they are sealed for the day of redemption, inherit the promises, and are heirs of everlasting salvation.
The chapter is a single paragraph and it ends by looking forward, which is what keeps it from being only a warm description of the present. Sealed is a legal word about something already settled and marked as such, not a hope that it might turn out that way.
Confession 12.1