Paul's great eulogy to God for
his rich blessings of us, Ephesians 1, 3 through 6. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as
He has 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. Verse 5 again, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself
according to the good pleasure of His will. Now our blessed
brother Paul, being an apostle of God and an apostle of Christ
by the will of God, is free and exuberant in his praise under
God and under Christ for blessings with which he has spiritually
blessed us in Jesus Christ in the heavenlies. So let's note
something. Paul calls these spiritual blessings. They're not temporal. They're
not earthly. They're not material. They are
spiritual blessing. They are distinct from other
sorts of blessing. They are spiritual. They are
the gospel blessings, if we may call it that, spiritual in their
nature. And look how Paul emphasized
it, having blessed us with all spiritual blessing. I was reading
my Marshall's Greek-English in a linear and it renders it this
way, quote, the one having blessed us with every blessing, end quote. Now with all blessing has he
blessed us, especially as Paul calls them spiritual again, that
he might distinguish them from material, earthly, or temporal
ones. How can we define these blessings? Spiritual is how Paul described
them. So what is the meaning of bless
or blessing? If God blessed us, if God has
given us blessing, what is the meaning of it? Now, in some way,
that might be rather difficult to sort out, owing to the fact
that the word bless or blessing is used in the scripture as a
noun or as a thing. It is also used as a verb, that
would be the act of blessing, and it also is used as an adjective
in the New Testament. And in Ephesians chapter 1 and
verse 3, it is used both as a verb, blessed us, and to eulogize,
and to speak well of him, and well of his person, and well
of the blessing that he has showered upon us. And as an adjective
it is, who hath blessed us. He hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessing. Now, we bless God. That means
we praise Him, we exalt Him, we honor Him, we eulogize Him,
we lift Him up. And for what? For His divine
generosity and beneficence unto us, the children of God, with
which He has blessed us. not in the future, but has already
blessed us. The us being the apostle and
also the saints at Ephesus and all the people of God of all
time in history. By the way, When we sum up the
dealings of the Lord with Abraham, when God came, when God revealed
Himself, when God appeared, when God made covenant and promise
with Abraham, then the covenant and the promise, we find that
it consists basically in this. We can reduce it down unto this. He was blessed of God. God blessed Abraham, and that
has the same connection. In Genesis chapter 12 and verse
3, in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. In Genesis 18 and 18, all the
nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Genesis 22 and
verse 18, you might like to put down. And Paul, playing off of
that, in Galatians, the third chapter, and verse 8 and 9, speaks
again of the blessing of Abraham, that it might come on the Gentiles
as well. So likewise, Paul sums up the
gospel privileges by saying, he has blessed us with all spiritual
blessing. And these blessings consist in
what the Puritan Thomas Goodwin described, quote, God's bestowing
or communicating all good together with himself and all hearty good
out of love toward our persons." Now Paul leaves us not to guess. as to the essence or the nature
of these blessings, because he names them here in verse 4 through
verse 6. And these blessings all pertain
to the hope of eternal life, to the way into immortality,
everlasting life, and these distinct blessings, which Paul mentions,
I'll mention again. They are election, chosen in
Christ, and they are for ordination, predestinated, as he writes here,
and the privilege of and the dignity of adoption, to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ. Now, in this study We want to
single out from the herd that great blessing of adoption. The adoption of sons, or children,
is how Paul puts it. Now, no doubt you remember that
we recently were in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1 through 3, what love
the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. And that we saw involved regeneration
and adoption, which we hope to expand on now, that is the doctrine
of adoption. Now, in working our way toward
that spiritual adoption, Let's lay the groundwork for our study
on spiritual adoption. The word itself, adoption, in
the New Testament is five times. All of them, as I said, in the
New Testament, and all of them are from the pen of the Apostle
Paul. It is he that uses the word all
five times. And all five of them are from
one and the same Greek word, and it means son-placing or placing
among the sons or the children. Now, the scriptures where he
uses the word are in Romans chapter 8, verse 15, and again in verse
23. Then he uses it again in Romans
9 and verse 4 as pertains to Israel. He uses it in Galatians
chapter 4 and verse 5 and here in our text in Ephesians 1 and
verse 5. Again, the meaning of adoption
is to take one and place them among the sons. That is to bring
them into the family to put them into a new family, one who would
not otherwise and could not otherwise become a part of the family. In no other way could one become
a child of God than by and through adoption. Now, as far as adoption,
let's look at some adoptions in scripture and in history. There is a clear civil adoption
that is practiced and legal in most societies in the world today. Gill pointed out In some ways,
this civil adoption resembles spiritual adoption. But in other
ways, they disagree, and they are not alike. In civil adoption,
most of us know someone who has been adopted. And in some way,
they mirror spiritual adoption, and they do so in this way. in
that one is put into the family who was not so naturally or by
birth had no original right to join or become a part of the
family except by the voluntary desire of the adopters who looked
and adopted. They became children of the adopters
then. They were brought into the family
and they became their children. They became a brother and a sister
to any natural children that might already have been in the
family. And as a child brought into the
family, they have their needs supplied. They take care of them
and furnish them those things that they have need of. They
take the name of their adopter, and that becomes their name.
They're subject to the discipline and the oversight of their new
parent, and they become an heir of those parents who have adopted
them and receive a child's portion of the inheritance of the family. And to enhance this, we can recall
a couple, two very prominent adoptions that are written up
in the Old Testament scripture. Can you think now who in the
Old Testament was adopted, brought out of their one original family
and put into another? Well, the first one that I mentioned
is Moses. You remember the king had given
command all little boy babies, when the midwife saw them to
be boys, were to put them to death. They were to be killed.
Moses was kept by his mother made a small ark, you remember,
cast it out into the river. And one day, Pharaoh's daughter
was down by the river with her servants, and she heard little
Moses crying in his little ark in the bulrush. And so in Exodus
2 and 10, he was brought into Pharaoh's daughter's house, and
he became her son, and she gave him his name Moses, which means
drawn or fetched out of the water. In Acts 7 and 21, Stephen mentions
it. When he was cast out, Pharaoh's
daughter took him up and nourished him for her own son. He was raised by Pharaoh's daughter,
adopted into her house. Now the second that I'll mention
is Esther. In the book of Esther, chapter
2, verse 5 through verse 7, she had been left an orphan. her
parents had passed, and she was adopted by her cousin Mordecai,
who brought her into his family. And we read in verse 7 of that
chapter, when her father and her mother were dead, took her
for his own daughter. You see that again in verse 15
of Esther 2. Now here's the point of emphasis.
In spiritual adoption, nothing but the sovereign goodwill, pleasure,
and purpose of God determines who he adopts. While in civil
adoption, usually there is something, there are circumstances that
may drive or may influence the adoption, such as The couple
may be childless and therefore desire to adopt. The child may
be his kin and their parents have been killed, left them an
orphan. The child maybe has been abandoned
by its own person and family. Maybe the, we see this so often,
the father's in prison and the mother's a street walker and
the child is raised in that type of environment. He has been abused
perhaps, or he's a ward of the state. And so somebody looks
in compassion and adopts him. Now, there were factors in the
adoption of both Moses and of Esther. The one in Moses' case
was this. He was a goodly child. If you read that in Exodus chapter
one and chapter two. In Exodus 2-2, exceedingly fair. Moses was a beautiful baby as
she saw him there in that little ark. You have it mentioned again
in Acts 7 and verse 20 by Stephen. And as Pharaoh's daughter came,
she heard crying. He was weeping. He had been cast
out. He hadn't been fed. And so weeping,
and she looked upon him, and they opened the ark, and she
knew that one of the Hebrew women's children, but she brought him
into her house and raised him. Now, with Esther, there were
circumstances. She was an orphan, so therefore
kin. under Mordecai, naturally, his
uncle's daughter, Esther 2 and verse 7, and in the same verse,
quote, the maid was fair and beautiful and so was adopted. And Esther 2 and 15, Esther obtained
favor in the sight of all of them that looked upon her. So
here it is that the looks of both these probably influenced
their adoption. However, Nothing about the spiritual
adopting, good or evil, moved God to adopt or not adopt, is
simply the pleasure of His will. Now, before we get to that, I'd
like to mention one more mention of adoption in the Scripture. And that's in Romans chapter
9 and verse 4, where Paul is listing the privileges of Israel
as a nation and after the flesh. And the second one that he mentioned,
they're Israelites, but the second one, to them pertaineth the adoption. To Israel pertaineth the adoption. Now, this is a national adoption
of a people, the descendants of Abraham, which God chose and
blessed and multiplied in and through him, and he separated
them from the other people of the world. And as John Brown
put it this way, and I'm quoting, placing them under a peculiar
economy and bestowing on them peculiar privileges." This does
not mean that every offspring of Abraham or that every Israelite
after the flesh was a spiritual adopted son of God. Paul explains
that in Romans chapter 9 and verse 6 through 9, not all of
Israel are of Israel. Paul calls it here the adoption. That's one of their privileges,
the adoption. And in keeping with the meaning
of that word, we read in Exodus chapter four and verse 22, Israel
is my son, my firstborn. They adopted, the adoption, they
enjoyed that, sonship. Hosea 11 and verse one, When
Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of
Egypt." One more, Jeremiah 31.9, I am a father to Israel and Ephraim
is my firstborn. And such adoption, again, was
a type of that spiritual adoption in and through Jesus Christ. And as we will see, if time allows
us to consider it, Paul's great passage on the law as a pedagogue
in preparing the Jew for their full-fledged adoption or sonship
in Christ in Galatians 3 and 4. Now to spiritual adoption. It predestinated us to the adoption
of sons. John Murray called that, quote,
the apex of Christian privilege, unquote. What higher blessing
can God bestow upon us than to become our God and we be his
children, his sons and his daughters? Paul writes in Ephesians 1.5, having predestinated us unto
the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ. Having chosen us in Christ,
and this choosing is not just unto service, it is not just
unto office, but it is a choosing unto salvation from the beginning. 2 Thessalonians 2 and 13. Now
the choosing is towards this end, Ephesians 1-4, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. Not just in this
life, and not just in this world, but in that perfectly consummated
sinlessness in that life that is to come. Now in verse 5, He
not only chose us in Christ, but he hath appointed us to obtain
the adoption of son. And before we wade out into this
ocean that has neither bank nor bottom, we see that Paul shows
the foremost goal of God is not just our unending happiness,
that certainly is a part of it, to bring many sons unto glory,
but it also fulfills God's will and it magnifies some of the
chief attributes of God. Looking at this chapter right
here, Let me point out some verses. Look at the last part of verse
5, chapter 1. According to the good pleasure
of his will, he hath adopted us as sons by the good pleasure
of his will. Look at verse 6. to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Look at verse 7, according to
the riches of His grace. Look at verse 12, to the praise
of His glory. And over in chapter 2 and verse
7, that in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches
of His grace in His kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. So, now let's consider how it
is that adoption fits into the saving process. Remembering that
adoption means to place as sons, so that we should be called the
sons of God, 1 John 3 and 1, and have the spirit of adoption,
Romans 8 and verse 15, and also that we might have a new family,
father, brother, and sister. Now, we are not and we never
would be spiritual sons of God simply by our natural birth or
by nature. That cannot make us the children
of God. It is a blessing that is freely
bestowed upon the elect without any merit on the part of the
adopted. It's what John Eady called, quote,
a constituted relationship, unquote, constituted by God and by Christ. For it speaks of that sonship
that is only acquired through Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it would
never be. We would never be the son or
the daughter of God, as one cannot put themselves out of one family
and into another in their very own. Now, one thing about this
adoption of sons, it is, it was foreshadowed and foreordained
one of the blessings. Look, having predestinated, marked
us out, foreordained us to the adoption of son. To put it another
way, the adoption of son is something to which the elect were chosen
and appointed, chosen in Christ and appointed by God. It preexisted
time, our adoption. It was a purpose of God to bestow
the grace of adoption. John Gill, I read heavily the
last two weeks in preparing this message, called it as among the
internal and imminent acts of God taken up in his mind from
eternity and which abides in his will, end quote. By imminent,
Gil means what existed in the mind and the will of God, and
therefore was certain to come to pass. And we know the acts
are plural. God's will to elect is our election. God's will to justify is our
justification, and God's will to adopt is our adoption. And each of these are manifest
in three aspects. in the will and purpose of God
in eternity, election, justification, and adoption. B, in the incarnation
and the suffering and death of our Lord. And C, in the application
to the believing elect after their regeneration. And then
they feel and they experience their sonship and God is their
father. And they cry, Abba Father. So what Christ gained for us
in his suffering and death, and what the Spirit supplies in regeneration,
is that which the Holy Trinity will before the foundation of
the world. we could turn it around and say
just as truly what God ordained before the world is what Christ
gained in his death and what the Spirit reveals and applies
to the elect of God in their regeneration and conversion. Now, the decree to elect, justify,
and adopt was made before the world. It was made in our behalf. in, by, and through Christ, and
was applied unto us, revealed to us, manifested unto us by
the Spirit. So let's notice something in
Ephesians, which I first learned from Thomas Goodwin a lot of
years ago. Number one, There are those things
toward our salvation that were done before the world ever began,
before time, before eternity. And I think they're mentioned
in verse 4 through verse 6 of Ephesians 1. Secondly, there
are those things that were done in time, all connected, issuing
from flowing out of the person and the work of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Goodwin included verse six in
the eternal blessing, whether you thought of it, among the
things done in eternity, making us accepted in the beloved. I want to dwell on that a little
bit. Well, the word accepted, which
is how it's translated in King James, is from the root word,
kharis, and that word is most often translated in the New Testament
by the word grace. And the word accepted means to
make accepted, to highly favor, to be gracious. It appears in
the New Testament only one more time than from Paul's passage
here. It appears in Luke chapter 1
and verse 28, when the angel said unto Mary, You are highly
favored. Verse 28, and again in verse
30. You have found favor with God. God cast upon her a very high
favor. that of all women born into the
world, she might bear the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ without
a man, not in a natural way, but by a supernatural conception
in her of the humanity of Christ by the Holy Spirit. God highly
favored her. A common man. Now remember, Mary
was not immaculately conceived like our Lord, not a virgin all
the rest of the day of her life. The Catholics have made her the
fourth member of the Godhead. She was a common maid in Israel,
chosen by God according to his good pleasure, fulfilling the
prophecy, a virgin shall be with child. Even so, the elect that
word, have been highly favored in Jesus Christ. They have been
made sons in the eternal decree that in time they might experience
it and in heaven they might receive its full consummation and fullness
of glory. So let us notice here in Ephesians
1 the tenses as proof that the blessing of verse 6 might rightly
Be put among the things done before the foundation of the
world watch He has blessed us. He has chosen us. He has predestinated
us he has favored us in the beloved and then in verse 7 forward he
begins to speak in the present tense. We have redemption and
such like. Now back to verse 5 where this
adoption is said to be by Jesus Christ or through Jesus Christ. in our adoption as son. It has its connection to Jesus
Christ, who is God's son, not by adoption, but by eternal generation,
by sameness of nature and sameness of essence. and is the only begotten
Son in the bosom of the Father. John 1, 14 and 1, 18. John 3,
16. 3, 18. 1 John 4 and verse 9. John loves that word or that
statement, the only begotten of the Father. Probably refers
to Psalm chapter 2 and verse 7. Thou art my son this day have
I begotten thee. And each has the word only. only begotten, the sole, S-O-L-E,
the sole begotten. The one and only sole begotten
is the Son, John 1 14. It is as the only begotten of
the Father. Now this begotten Son is beyond
our comprehension. It's more than we can take in. We can believe it, but we cannot
explain it or fully understand it. It does set forth the uniqueness
of the Son, that He is in a class all by Himself when it comes
to being the Son of God. It does not refer to His creation
or His beginning, for He had neither, nor is it His incarnation. or His resurrection from the
dead, but His eternal and unique Sonship that He has with the
Father God. Now, for the adoption of children
to take effect in the elect, it required the incarnation of
Christ, it required His suffering and His death to put away sin,
and to justify and regeneration to give them the heart of a child
of God. Now, listen to this point. In
civil adoption, the adopters, those who take a child into their
family, cannot give that adopted child the nature of a son, and
they cannot give him a completely new and changed heart, for they
forever have the genes the DNA, the predisposition of their biological
parent. And in spite of training and
example, love, sound discipline may make them a good and a solid
citizen or they may turn out to be a fool or a prodigal. because they cannot give them
a new heart and a new nature. I've read not a few adopted children
have murdered their parents for the inheritance, but so have
natural biological children turned out to be a fool or a prodigal
and have practiced patricide and matricide as well. Now it
might bear repeating to settle in our mind the adoption is God's
will to put them among the children of God and then to manifest them
to be his children and to make it known and to reveal it unto
them. Now, regeneration gives them
the nature that they need. Regeneration quickens them, draws
them to life, gives them the nature that they need to love
God and to walk after Him. Here's Gil's words, suitable
to that relation, unquote. Regeneration gives them a nature
suitable to the relationship of sons of God. And then they
live in the hope and assurance of their full and final inheritance
and adoption. Now, a couple of passages quickly
before we go. In Galatians 3, 21 through chapter
4 and verse 7, Paul deals with the situation of Israel under
the law in the old economy. And in that analogy, He likens them to young sons. He likens Israel to young sons
under a pedagogue or a school trainer or a child trainer until
they reach the time of age. And he makes that distinction.
And so it was the situation with Israel. Whenever sons and heirs
were treated no better than a servant. They were a son, they were an
heir, but Paul said they were treated as a servant. And in that state, They could
not enjoy the fullness of sonship while Israel was yet under the
law. So Christ came in the fullness
of time and redeemed them from the law. And Galatians 4 and
verse 5, that we might receive the adoption of children or of
son. Now get it? We were like children
under age before Christ came. Then he redeemed us from the
curse of the law that we might become or receive the adoption
of sons. That is, we might become partakers
of the grace, the blessing, the privilege of adoption, being
the sons of God. Now, not the whole nation. was
the spiritually adopted of God. But the elect, the call, the
spiritual sons of Abraham, and they being sons, having once
in non-age, albeit sons nevertheless, The Lord sent Jesus Christ into
the world, and there he bore their sin, endured the curse
of the law, brought them out from under the law, and into
the fullness of grace, crying, Abba, Abba, Father. For he, the spirit, is the spirit
of adoption, giving witness to sonship, that is, to adoption,
that such have been put among the sons of God. God is their
father. They are God's children. See 2 Corinthians chapter 6. verse 16 through verse 18. And such a blessing only comes
through Christ. Only by Him is such adoption
put in place and enforced and manifested, especially in the
situation of the Jew under the old economy. And this adoption
Galatians chapter 4 is not the same, I believe, as that in Romans
9 and verse 4. Now the second and last passage
is that one in Romans chapter 8. Verse 19 through 23. I'm not going to read it. It could be and should be a sermon
in itself. But it is a comparison by Paul
between creation and the sons of God in their present state
of bondage, that is, in this world. But being in bondage,
expecting by the promise of God a future liberty. And if I should have turned there,
because there is a verse that I want to read from Romans chapter
8, and it's verse 23. not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves,
grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption
of the body. Now let's scan that passage again. Look at verse 18. to the glory
to be revealed in us. Full glory is not here. Look
at verse 19 where we read the manifestation of the sons of
God that will occur in 21. the glorious liberty of the children
of God. And in each of that Paul said,
creation hath an eye to those things in regard to the children
of God. The glory revealed, the manifestation
in verse 21, the glorious liberty of the children of God. In verse
23 again, waiting for the adoption. Now in verse 18, 19, 21, The
glory, the manifestation, and liberty, all of those are mentioned. Their adoption, this adoption
rather, he connects unto the body, to wit, waiting for the
adoption to wit. And notice the word he uses.
the redemption of our bodies, waiting for the redemption of
the body when adoption then is full and complete. Now I close
with this. Thank God for being called the
sons and the daughters of God. Thank God for His plan and for
His purpose, whereby He has willed to make us the sons and the daughters
of God, spiritually in the fullness. I will be their God. They shall
be my children, saith the Lord God Almighty. Now, I don't think
we can rise any higher than that. to be counted and literally to
be the children of God. Adopted, brought into his family,
translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of his dear son. Thank God for the doctrine of
adoption.