“Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”—ROMANS viii. 15.
IN dealing with this subject we have to notice a preliminary question which concerns the meaning of a single term. Are we to understand the preposition “of” in our text in the sense of giving origin to, or in the sense of issuing from? In other words, is the expression, “the Spirit of adoption,” equivalent to “the Spirit that causes or effects adoption”? Or does it mean “the Spirit that flows from or accompanies adoption, and therefore witnesses to adoption”? Not the former interpretation, but the latter, we take to be the true one.
That the phrase, “the Spirit of adoption,” does not mean that it is the Holy Spirit that is distinctly the author of adoption, is shown by the circumstance that the Scriptures do not assign this authorship to the Holy Spirit distinctly, or as a Person distinct from the Father and from the Son. The Holy Spirit is indeed given, according to the Scriptures, (1) in order to faith, and (2) on account of faith, or at least consequent upon faith. But the act of adoption is, in the order of nature, after the gift of the Spirit in the former sense, and before the gift of the Spirit in the latter sense. The faith that saves has the Holy Spirit for its author, but in the order of nature faith itself must go before adoption. Thus the Apostle John (John i. 12) says that to them that believe on His name, Christ gives power to become the sons of God. And the Apostle Paul (Gal. iv. 26) teaches that it is by faith in Jesus Christ we must become the children of God. Again, believers experience what is called a sealing by the Holy Ghost, but that is subsequent not only to faith but also to adoption. For not only do we read of the Ephesians (i. 13), that after they believed they were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, but of the Galatians (iv. 6), that because they were sons (and therefore after their adoption), God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their heart. Two other facts, which will become clearer as we proceed, to wit, that adoption does not refer to a change of nature or disposition, and that as an act it is distinctly what belongs to God and the Father, compel us, when taken in connection with what has already been said, to come to the conclusion that the expression, “the Spirit of adoption,” does not mean that the Spirit is the author of adoption or effects adoption, and that therefore the phrase ought to be taken in the sense that the Spirit accompanies adoption—in a certain sense, flows from adoption—and witnesses to adoption as a completed act. We shall therefore, in what follows :—
I.—Enquire into the nature of adoption as a benefit of our redemption;
II.—Consider in what sense the Holy Spirit is given as flowing from, or accompanying adoption;
III.—Refer to one of the activities of the Spirit as thus given; and
IV.—We shall conclude with a brief application of the doctrine.
I.—We have to consider the nature of adoption as a benefit of redemption. To begin with: We are wont to distinguish between a change of state and relation, and a change of nature and disposition. Justification is a change of state and relation, but not in itself a change of nature and disposition. Sanctification on the other hand is a change of nature and disposition, and not a change of state or relation. Now to which of these categories does adoption belong? We answer that, like justification, it is a change of state or relation, and not in itself a change of nature or disposition. If we adopt the phraseology of our Shorter Catechism as correct, as well we may, we may observe that the fact that adoption, like justification, is spoken of as an act, and not, like sanctification, as a work is in favour of the view, although not absolutely decisive in itself of the view that, in the judgment of the Westminster Divines at least, adoption, like justification, referred to a change of state or relation. And the general truth of what we say is clearly brought out in the manner in which the Scriptures speak of the change experienced in adoption. In our justification the change is from a state of condemnation to a state of acquittal and acceptance. Those who before were under the wrath of God are now, that they are justified, no longer under that wrath, but are accepted as righteous in God’s sight. Now, if justification means a change from the state of condemnation to that of pardon and acceptance, adoption means a change from being in the relation of servant to being in the relation of child or son. Thus the Apostle Paul (Galatians iv. 7) says: “Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a Son.” And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has evidently the blessing and benefit of adoption in view when, according to John viii. 36, he says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Thus we see that the teaching of the Scriptures is, that adoption being immediately subsequent upon faith, it is an act, and not a work—it is a change of state and relation and not a change of nature and disposition, and it is distinctly the act of “God and the Father.” This should be acknowledged from what has already been brought forward, but for further confirmation one may be referred to Romans viii. 29, and to 2 Corinthians vi. 18.
Not only does adoption mean a change of relation—a change from the relationship of a servant to the relationship of a son—but a relation may be said to be its own ground or source.
When, however, we say relation here we use the word practically in the sense of Person. If we ask, “What is the ground of our justification?” the Scriptures answer that it is Christ’s blood or Christ’s obedience unto death. But when we ask for the specific ground of adoption, we conclude that it is the Person of the Redeemer, or the relation in which Christ stands in His own Person to the Father, as Son. Of course, when we thus distinguish between the ground of our justification and that of our adoption, it is not in the sense of excluding the Person from the blood, in the matter of our justification, nor of excluding the blood from the personal relation in the matter of our adoption. But that being understood, we reckon that the Scriptures bear us out in maintaining that the specific ground of our justification is the blood of Christ, and the specific ground of our adoption is the filial relation of Christ to God. Thus the Apostle John, in the prologue to his Gospel, connects the blessing of adoption with the doctrine of the Person of the Redeemer. Christ Himself, as we have already seen, seems, according to John (chapter viii.), to connect the sonship of His people with His own sonship; and the Apostle Paul reasons in a similar strain in Galatians (iv. 1-7).
The fact is that, according to the Scriptures, Christ is, in the proper sense, in the order of nature, God’s only Son. He is the only-begotten of the Father. It might be thought that angels are regarded in the Scriptures as sons of God. But according to the Hebrew idiom, “sons of God” need not necessarily mean persons standing in the filial relation to God, but may be understood as another way of indicating “strong ones,” and the more one thinks of it, the more one is disposed to come to the conclusion that this latter is all that is meant when angels are spoken of as “sons of God,” or “sons of Elohim.” Nowadays one hears nothing more frequently than that all mankind are by nature sons or daughters or children of God, and indeed not a few preachers make that out to be the sum and substance of the Gospel. But very different is the teaching of the Bible. According to it, Christ is the only proper Son of God. And we become sons—in the sense of adopted sons—only if we believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Is not that implied in the passage already quoted? Would the Apostle John have said that Christ gives power to believers in Himself to become the sons of God, if the implication were not that, apart from such faith, we are not sons? Would the Apostle Paul have declared that all believers were sons of God, if the implication were not that unbelievers did not belong to the family of God? But all believers are, at the same time, the children of God, and the faith, in virtue of which they are adopted, regards Christ as the eternal Son of God, and therefore as Himself God.
This doctrine by no means intends that believers are deified. They are sons, and their sonship arises out of Christ’s Sonship, and Christ’s Sonship is eternal. But it must be observed, in order to bring out the difference of the status of the two, that Christ Himself (John xx. 27) distinguishes between the sense in which God is His Father and the sense in which He is His people’s Father. One has to note at least two things. In the first place, it was not simply necessary that Christ should stand in the relation of Son to God, even such a Son as is all that God is, in order that He might be the medium of the sonship of believers in respect of God; He must be more than Son in order to be such a medium; He must also be a brother, His people’s brother. And such a brother, according to Hebrews ii., He could not be if He did not assume human nature. True it is that the assumption of our nature did not result in two Christs, nor in two Sons, nor even in two Sonships within the One Person. Yet the fact that it is only because Christ is Son in human nature that He becomes the medium of our sonship with God, is enough to shew that adoption does by no means intend deification. And secondly, even in human nature itself, Christ has the pre-eminence. He is the Head; we are only members.
On the other hand the blessing of adoption, although far from being deification, is a tremendous privilege, if one may so speak. It is a great matter that a sinner should through faith in the Redeemer be saved from hell, but there is more in redemption than that. It is implied that believers gain a title to heaven. It is a great matter that sinners should through faith in the Redeemer be acquitted and accepted as righteous, but there is more in redemption than that. It is implied that from being enemies we have become friends. Not only so. There are friends and friends. Adam in innocence was a friend of God, but not in the high sense in which sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty are now friends through faith in Christ. Elect angels are indeed friends, but not in the sense of being sons of God, at least in the high sense in which believers are sons, for otherwise it should not be said of them, from the highest to the lowest, that they are but ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation (Hebrews i. 14). The privilege of adoption to be bestowed upon believers in Christ occupied the mind of God and gave it satisfaction before the eternal ages. Believers, says the Apostle Paul (Ephesians i. 4, 5), were, before the foundation of the world, predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. According to Romans viii. 29, the summit of the purpose of their election was that that they should be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. The Apostle John cannot find words in which adequately to express all it means. “Behold,” says he (1 John iii. 1, 2), “what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! And it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” And that only Christ’s second coming and the consequent resurrection of His people from the dead, would alone bring adequately to light the gracious implications of adoption, is the teaching of the Apostle Paul also. “We wait,” he says (Romans viii. 23), “for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Continue, then, to think of it.
II.—But we must now proceed, in the second place, to consider in what sense the Holy Spirit is given to believers, as flowing from or accompanying their adoption.
That He is given, as described, should be evident if there were no other passage to quote than Ephesians i. 13: “After that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” And it is utterly unwarrantable to imagine that this sealing of the Holy Spirit was not intended to continue in the Church until the end of time. On the contrary—although we do not say that this sealing is equally distinctly felt by all that are partakers of it, and although we should be extremely sorry to say anything to wound the weakest of Christ’s true people—we are bound to ask those whose consciences tell them that they are utter strangers to what it was that the Ephesian or Corinthian or Galatian or Roman believers experienced when thus sealed—(see 2 Corinthians i. 22; Galatians iv. 6; Romans v. 5)—we are bound, I say, to ask such persons, how they expect to be with those Ephesian, Corinthian, Galatian or Roman believers in heaven for ever, if they are utter strangers to the experiences of those believers here in this world? Many are apt to think that religion is a matter about which we can have no certainty. But, if this sealing be a fact, as it is a fact, believers are in virtue of this sealing alone made as sure of the truth of the Gospel as that they have a being, although I do not mean by that that they are not liable to be tempted with infidelity and even atheism: as what sin are they not liable to be tempted with? Now, adoption, as we have seen, is an act involving a change of relation. As such it is primarily known only to God. But He is pleased to accompany this act with this giving of the Holy Spirit to which our text refers. The subject now therefore before us is a large one, and one in connection with which we can discuss or note only one or two things.
To begin with, we note that believers receive more than the graces of the Holy Spirit exclusively. They receive Himself. It is to the receiving of a person that the Apostle Paul refers when, in Galatians iii. 2, he puts the question: “This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” And he evidently expects them to answer that by the hearing of faith they did receive the Spirit. The matter is put, if that were possible, still more clearly in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians. For in that chapter the Apostle speaks of the mission of two, the first sent being the Son of God, who is surely a person, and the second sent being the Spirit of the Son, whom by parity of reason we must regard as also a distinct person, and as having been sent or given in the sense of person. Thus also Christ (John xiv. 17) says that His disciples knew the Spirit of truth, because He dwelt in them. Surely then it was a person they knew, and it was as a person He dwelt in them?
When God sent forth His Son, He sent Him into the world, and the mission of the Son involved His becoming man, His being obedient unto the death of the cross, and His being exalted. But when God sends forth His Spirit, He sends Him into the heart of sinners. But although He is a person that is sent and He is received, as Dr. Thomas Goodwin was fond of putting it, not merely in His graces, but rather with His graces, we are not therefore to suppose that the Spirit unites believers to Himself in a personal union, so that He and they should be but one person. The diversity of personalities is always understood, and is brought out perhaps most clearly of all, in Romans viii. 16, where the personality of the Spirit of God and that of believers is sharply distinguished: “The Spirit itself,” we read, “beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” The gift of the Spirit is the gift of a person. When, however, He comes into the heart, it is not to form a personal union with any or all believers, as the Son of God took human nature into personal union with Himself. But, notwithstanding that the Spirit does not come into the heart to take up that heart into personal union with Himself, He does come with a purpose never to leave, never to forsake the heart, or the people whom He has thus visited. He is, indeed, in time the very principle of their soul’s life. And when the resurrection comes He will be a principle of life to the entire person of believers, soul and body being then re-united.
So must we understand the language of the Apostle Paul in Romans viii. 10, “The body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” That is to say, it is on the ground of Christ’s obedience unto death that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in believing sinners, and He so dwells in them that He is in time itself a principle of life unto their souls. Adam, we believe, enjoyed this principle of spiritual life in innocence, but through disobedience he lost it, and at once became spiritually dead. Believers now have the Spirit as a principle of life and that life is life eternal, because as it was for Christ’s sake alone that He became theirs, Christ merits that for His sake He should never leave a member of Christ’s mystical body, who has become such by faith in Christ. And we are taught further, that He, who is a principle of life to the soul in time itself, will become a principle of eternal life to soul and body, or to the entire person from the resurrection henceforth. “For if,” says the Apostle Paul (Romans viii. 2), “the Spirit of Him that raised Christ from the dead dwell in you, He that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” And thus we are brought again to have regard to a consummation such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man.
Secondly, we should reckon that the gift of the Spirit is a marvellous manifestation of the love of God to poor sinners. There is a sense in which the gift of the Son is the gift of gifts, the unspeakable gift, not because the Spirit as a distinct person is one to whom less glory belongs than to the Son Himself, but because of the sense in which the Son was given. He was given in order to be humbled, to die; not so with the Holy Spirit. Yet the gift of the Spirit is an infinite gift, because the Person is infinite. And although it is in Christ crucified that the love of God to sinners appears as the sun at its noonday height—(see John iii. 16; Romans v. 8; 1 John iv. 10)—yet it is only in virtue of the gift of the Spirit that, according to Romans v. 5, the love of God to sinners can be subjectively realised. It is, indeed, primarily the work of the Spirit to glorify the Father and the Son by leading those, in whom He comes to dwell, to have respect to the fountain of their salvation in the love of the Father, and to the channel by which that love became theirs in the blood of Christ. Yet is He Himself an infinite gift, and an infinite token of love, and a proof of the unchangeableness of God’s love, for the believing soul may well say that surely God does not upbraid him or her for the death of His Son, seeing that He has followed it with the gift of the Holy Spirit!
III.—We proceed in the third place to refer briefly to one of the activities of the Holy Spirit as thus given. He is said to enable those, unto whom He is thus given, to cry “Abba, Father.”
Abba and Father mean one and the same thing, only that Abba is Hebrew, or speaking more accurately, Aramaic, whereas Father is English. Of course, the Apostle used an Aramaic and a Greek word. Possibly a term may have been drawn from the language of the Jews, and another term from the language of the Gentiles with a view to intimate the unity of these two sections of the Church of Christ. Or it may be only for intensification. But, however that may be, our text teaches us, that the same Spirit that was upon Christ Jesus, and in which He prayed, “Righteous Father,” etc., is the Spirit that believers are sealed with. In Galatians iv. 6, the Holy Spirit Himself is said to have come into the heart of the Galatians with this cry, “Abba, Father.” In our text the same Spirit is said to enable us to cry, “Abba, Father.” The sense of both passages seems to be combined in Romans viii. 16, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Of course, we should err if we said that true believers are, at all times, enabled with perfect confidence to claim that God is their Father. We only make the following observations.
(1) It is with this cry, “Abba, Father,” that the Holy Spirit always enters the heart of believers, and, accordingly, you will find that there are few of the Lord’s people who will not look back to some moment of their life when they reckoned that they got a glimpse of an eternal day.
(2) Albeit it be the case with regard to those who were favoured with such a glimpse, that on account of the machinations of the devil, and the corruptions of their own heart, and the allurements of the world, their evidence of sonship became possibly very dim; yet will it always be the case, that if in any measure their soul is restored, they will reckon that during all the time of their doubtings they were actually in possession of all they needed for a perfect salvation, to wit, Christ.
(3) It is a sure sign of sonship, if we regard such an interest in God as adoption implies as more than all the world to us. In earthly families, where there is natural affection, the children reckon that their father’s and mother’s favour is to them worth more than gold. Such as are dead in trespasses and sins reckon very little of God’s favour, but those that have the Spirit of adoption, have this instinct that a sense of the favour of God, if they could only come at it, would be as an eternal inheritance to them.
IV.—Application.—To the righteous, we should like to say but two things:
(1) An assurance of God’s love, and that, in virtue of the promptings of the Holy Ghost in the heart, ought to be regarded as the healthy state of a Christian. The believers in the days of the Apostle enjoyed it in large measure. It was a sense of this that made the Reformers such giants in their labours for God. Calvin in the Prefatory Address to his Institutes gives it as the cause of much of the enmity which Papists bore to the Reformed that the latter dared assert such blessedness as adoption means as belonging to themselves. “They attack us,” says he, “and loudly maintain, that this sure confidence is not free from arrogance and presumption. But as nothing is to be presumed of ourselves, so all things are to be presumed of God; nor are we stript of vain-glory for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord. Why go farther? Take but a cursory view, most valiant King, of all the parts of our cause and count us of all wicked men the most iniquitous, if you do not discover plainly, that ‘therefore we both labour and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God’ (1 Timothy iv. 10).”
(2) Consider that if we have but an occasional glimpse of God’s having made us the recipients, first, of the gift of the Son, and, second, of the gift of the Holy Spirit, what obligation we are under to live for God. What shame each of us, who profess the name of Christ, ought to feel and express on account of how little we have lived to the glory of Him who loved and favoured us so!
Of those whose consciences tell them that they are utter strangers to the experiences of which we have now tried to speak, I would, again, ask how they can expect to have the company of New Testament saints eternally if a rehearsal of what they enjoyed here in this world, be to them as one speaking a foreign language? And further, I would point out, how infatuated rejecters of the Christ of God must be! We are naturally wedded to our self-righteousness. It was that condition of things that made the Jews as a rule to reject the Son of God in the days of His flesh. To us, as to them, Christ still says: “If the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed.” He is offering Himself to us in the Gospel; and in offering Himself, He offers the Holy Spirit, He offers pardon, He offers life, He offers adoption, and all that this implies. Will you not strive, then, with the great object in view, that the Christ of God should become your own?