Vertical and Horizontal Adoption
To steal a line from Randy Alcorn, I could teach the Bible and stay away from talking about issues like abortion, but the reality is I could not live the Bible and stay away from it. The issue of abortion and fighting for the life of the unborn is a human issue, a moral issue, a Sovereignty of God issue, a biblical issue and a great commission issue - calling us to blow the trumpet for the unborn. So, the question is, What note will we play? I want to encourage and challenge us to play on that trumpet the note of foster care and adoption.
My prayer as a church is that we would be a culture that,
Delivers those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, oh hold them back. Proverbs 24.11
Opens our mouths for the mute (those who cannot speak for themselves), for the rights of all the unfortunate (doomed or being crushed). Proverbs 31.8
Defends the fatherless. Psalm 10.18 and Isaiah 1.17
To encourage us to have such a DNA as a church I want us to look at vertical adoption in Scripture and then move to the horizontal adoption. To do such, turn to Galatians 4.3-7 and read. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world (4.3). Paul here describes those before coming to faith in Jesus Christ as children enslaved to the immature thinking and beliefs of human religion, which were filled with laws and ceremonies to be performed so as to achieve divine acceptance. This is the condition of all of us before we come to know God through Christ.
A good example of this is the story told by Jesus of the two sons and their father in Luke 15. In this story you have two sons who are estranged from their father. This is a picture of all of humanity who is estranged from God. We are all rebels, all disobedient sons, for we were all made in God’s image (which in the language of Genesis to be made in the likeness or in the image of was the same as being a son) and created to worship Him, yet we have rejected Him, just as Adam did in the garden and just as Israel did. In the story of the prodigal, you have one son in the story who squandered his father’s wealth in sinful living and the other brother was caught up in external works more than enjoying the relationship with his father. They both are examples of idolaters who have a loving Father, but yet hold other things as more important than the relationship with the Father. In fact, the prodigal son as he was planning to come home had planned to say that he was no longer worthy to be called a son, which by his actions this was definitely true. He had lost all hope of receiving love from his father. In fact, the son says, I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants (Luke 15.18-19). He is thinking he can maybe earn his way back into the house. Little does the son know that his father is waiting to receive him with extravagant love and grace just the way he is.
But when the fullness of the time came, God (the Father) sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (4.4-5). Look what the Father does here. He sends Jesus to redeem us for our freedom and adoption. First, the Father sent Jesus who enjoyed communion with the Father and the Spirit into our world of sin, pain and suffering. Jesus became like us, human, so He could redeem us that we might receive adoption as sons. So, this is amazing to think that Jesus’ communion with the Father is ushered into this messy world. Next, God redeems us through Christ. Redeem means to obtain or to set free by paying a price. Galatians 3.13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” It cost God the price of his Son’s life, so we might be adopted. Until Paul’s use of the word adoption in his letters the word was known as to referring to human adoption only. But Paul shows us the vertical adoption referring to God’s adoption of sinners.
Paul speaks of adoption in four contexts in his letter writing:
1. Ephesians 1.4-5 – It predates the universe being on God’s mind and heart before human history started.
2. Romans 9.4 – Paul speaks as Israel as God’s corporate son when God declared them a nation at Mt. Sinai after He had delivered them from Egypt. He redeemed them in order to adopt them.
3. Galatians 4.5 – Through Jesus God redeems us, so we might be His sons and daughters.
4. Romans 8.15, 22-23 – Looking forward to the new heavens and earth Paul sees adoption as central to the end of God’s redemptive story. This is the glorification of our bodies in the final outward manifestation of our adoption.
The good news of the gospel is that God’s gracious provision of adoption, irrespective of our grievous demerit, is the activity by which he enlarges the circle of communion that has eternally existed between the three Persons of the Trinity! The joyful news of the gospel is that God the Father brings us to share in the loving communion that he forever enjoys with his eternal and natural Son through the work of his eternal and natural Son in our place and in our stead. Through adoption God graciously brings us to participate in the reciprocal love that ever flows between the Father and his Son. Not only is this the very heart of adoption; it is also the very heart of the gospel (Dan Cruver).
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (4.6). God gives us His Spirit when He adopts us, so that we know that we are being embraced in the family. Paul says in Romans 8.15-16, that we have received this spirit of adoption and that the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. These that are adopted by God have legal standing, but they don’t need to check out any documents, they know by the Spirit. So, it is in a loving home of those who adopts. There is no need to go check the adoption papers because the love of the parents is there, so that the child calls out, daddy and mommy.
Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God (4.7). Our status has changed. We are now sons and daughters of God. As sons and daughters we are heirs, literally heirs with Christ. We have present blessings as sons and daughters as those who cry out, Abba Father, we have access to God in Jesus’ name and are received by Him just as Christ is. We are also provided for, having our spiritual and daily needs cared for. We are disciplined as well, as children who are loved by God. Not only that, but we look forward eternally knowing that we will inherit God’s glory and all His goods in Christ. One day we will enter into glory.
So, what more glorious thing can the church do and be a part of to reflect the heart of God? Adoption, foster care and care for the fatherless provides a visible demonstration of the gospel. Our prayer is that this becomes part of our DNA here at The Ridge. The entire congregation takes ownership of it. The children’s ministry is equipped and mobilized to care for special needs children, adopted and foster children. The small-group ministry is equipped to care for special needs, adoptive and foster families. We need to think through the implications of adoption for a family’s finances. The budget reflects it. Some church members will adopt. Some will foster. Some will finance adoptions. Some will pray and support families. Some will go overseas and give their lives to orphans and the gospel. We must remember that God has done it. He knows what it cost. He stands ready to support it. The gospel must be the motivation, not because it is a fad or because everyone else is doing it.
When people embrace the pain and joy of children rather than using abortion (or birth control) simply to keep children away, the worth of Christ shines more visibly. Adoption is as far as possible from the mindset that rejects children as an intrusion. Praise God for people ready to embrace the suffering—known and unknown. God’s cost to adopt us was infinitely greater than any cost we will endure in adopting and raising children (John Piper).
The ultimate purpose of human adoption and foster care is not to give orphans parents. It is to place them in a Christian home that they might be positioned to receive the gospel, so the world might witness a representation of God taking in and genuinely loving the helpless, hopeless and despised. This is what God has done for us through His Son, Jesus. He has made our adoption into His family possible. He takes those who are estranged from Him and brings them into His forever family.
