1. A Privilege
James Buchanan
The spirit of bondage unto fear, which is produced by the law when it is applied to the conscience, can only be exchanged for “the Spirit of adoption” by believing the gospel. And the sinner is in a hopeful state of preparation for receiving the gospel when he is awakened out of the lethargy of nature and convinced in his conscience, or pricked in his heart, and begins to inquire, “What must I do to be saved?”
And (1) if under the teaching of the Spirit, he is enabled to understand the message of peace which God has sent from heaven; (2) if he is taught to apprehend the nature of the scheme of grace, the design and object of the Saviour’s work, the value and the efficacy of His death as an atonement for sin, His all-sufficiency as One who is able to save unto the very uttermost, and the richness and freeness of His grace as it is expressed in the free, universal calls and invitations of the gospel; and (3) if especially he is enabled to apply the truth to his own case, so as to feel that the gospel, which is glad tidings to all, is a gospel to him, and that Jesus, who is the Christ of God, is a Christ to his own soul – then, at the instant when he understands and believes the gospel message, and appropriates it to himself, the spirit of bondage is displaced by the spirit of adoption in his heart, and he may enter at once on the glorious liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free.
For it is simply by faith, simply by believing what God speaks to him in the Word, that the convinced sinner becomes a converted man; and there is enough in Christ’s gospel to produce and sustain a spirit of adoption in his heart, even if he was the very chief of sinners. The reason why we remain so long under the bondage of legal fears is not that the gospel is inadequate to remove them or insufficient to produce a spirit of adoption, but because there is either some defect or error in our apprehension of the truth, or some lurking spirit of unbelief concerning it, or some remaining unwillingness to close with it. If we would only believe, we would see the salvation of God.
23Pete Sullivan, A Gloucester Martyr: John Hooper and the English Reformation, Country Books, 2004, p 71.
1The first part of an extract from a chapter entitled, “The Work of the Spirit as the Spirit of Adoption”, in Buchanan’s book, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit.
The most disconsolate sinner is to look out of himself to Christ and behold Him as “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”. Opening his mind to the full impression of the truth, the sinner is to receive it as “a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”; that Christ speaks to him individually in the gospel, and offers him a free salvation, and calls, invites, beseeches and commands him to accept it; that He who died on the cross is now on the throne, a Saviour mighty to save. The sinner is to believe that God is not revealed in the gospel as the Lawgiver, Judge and Avenger, but as God in Christ reconciling (“the Lord God merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin”). If he would do so, the most anxious inquirer that ever smarted under the yoke of bondage would pass at once into a state of perfect freedom, and exchange all his misgivings, forebodings and fears, for peace and joy in believing. This peace is the peace which passes all understanding, and the joy is the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory.
For by faith in the gospel the inquirer comes at once into a new state and relation to God. Formerly he was a child of disobedience, a child of wrath even as others; now he is, by adoption, a son; and if a son, then an heir, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. This change in his relation to God necessarily precedes the witness of the Spirit, by which it is declared and confirmed; and it is because believers are sons that God sends forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, “Abba, Father”. This filial relation is constituted by faith, for as soon as a sinner believes the gospel, he is adopted into God’s family and becomes a partaker of all the privileges of His children. His whole relation to God is changed, so that he may be addressed in the language of Paul: “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ”.
Adoption is a most precious privilege; it brings sinners into a new and most endearing relation to God; it makes them the children and the heirs of Him who graciously condescends to call Himself their Father in heaven. As it is bestowed, like every other privilege of His grace, through the mediation of His own Son, it confers an infallible security by making His children “joint-heirs with Christ” – heirs not in their own right, but in the right of Him who is God’s only begotten and well-beloved Son. This precious privilege – which brings them now under the fatherly protection of God and gives them a sure interest in all the promises of the gospel – is attained simply by believing; for there is enough in the message of the gospel to warrant even the very chief of sinners to draw nigh unto God as a forgiving Father. And as soon as that message is clearly understood and cordially believed, we may enter at once on the state and condition of children.
But this change in a sinner’s relation to God will be accompanied with a corresponding change in his views and feelings towards Him; he will now regard Him as his Father. His state being changed, his spirit will be changed also; he will be conscious of a new frame of mind, which is here called “the spirit of adoption, whereby [he cries], Abba, Father”. This childlike disposition can only be produced by the truth as it is in Jesus, received in the exercise of a simple faith, and applied with power by the Spirit of all grace.
The spirit of adoption springs as naturally from the Spirit’s work in applying the gospel as the spirit of bondage does from the Spirit applying the law. It is part of the work of the Holy Spirit to unfold to the believer the unsearchable riches of Christ, to open up the freeness of His grace and the fullness of gospel privilege which His people have. For the Lord says of the Spirit: “He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you”. And Paul says, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. . . . Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
The work of applying the gospel to comfort and establish believers, considered as the children of God, consists of two parts. Although these parts may be closely connected and mutually related with each other, they can nevertheless be distinguished, and Paul mentions them separately. He refers to two distinct effects of the Spirit’s operation; we read in one verse of “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”; and in the next of the witness of the Spirit, whereby He assures believers that they are the children of God. The one denotes the childlike disposition which characterises every true believer; the other speaks of the assurance of their sonship, which is a higher attainment than the former, but one that is not always enjoyed, even by those who manifest much of the spirit of filial reverence, submission and love.
Some latent feeling of hope, some secret trust and confidence, is indeed necessarily implied in the spirit of adoption, by which the believer cries, “Abba, Father”; and he may really be drawing near to God with the confidence of sonship while, from some remaining darkness or defect in his faith, he may shrink from using the strong language of assurance and dare not say in so many words that the Spirit bears witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. But if he has believed the gospel at all, if he has been enabled to understand the gospel message and apply it to his own soul, he must have experienced a great and growing change in all his views, feelings and dispositions towards God; he must have been liberated in some measure from the spirit of bondage and pervaded with the spirit of adoption. Wherever this
new spirit exists, it is itself a proof of sonship and, in its growing strength and habitual exercise, it may lay the foundation of that full assurance of hope which is produced in the mind of a believer when the Spirit bears witness with his spirit that he is one of the children of God.