Since we're learning new songs that focus on the doctrine of adoption this month, I thought I'd pass on to you two great quotes I came across on the topic. May God use the truth of this doctrine to deepen our certainty that He views us with closeness, affection, and generosity!
In a recent blog post on adoption, CJ Mahaney writes:
Just as human adoption is deeply personal, the doctrine of God's adopting grace is deeply personal. It is assuring. It reminds me that God loves me. "Adoption is a family idea," wrote J.I. Packer, "conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship-he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection, and generosity are at the heart of the relationship." (1)
Do the words closeness, affection, and generosity describe your experience of God? If not, perhaps you are more aware of your sin than of the adopting grace of God. If not, perhaps you are more aware of justifying grace than of adopting grace.
The second quote is taken (slightly paraphrased) from the book "Communion with the Triune God", written by the 17th century Puritan pastor John Owen. After writing that believers have communion (what we might call fellowship or personal relationship) with God the Father in His "free, undeserved, and eternal love" (2), Owen tells us what this love then requires of us. And what is the first requirement of God's adopting love? Receive it!
Communion consists in giving and receiving. Until the love of the Father be received, we have no communion with him in it. How, then, is this love of the Father to be received, so as to hold fellowship with Him? I answer: by faith. The receiving of it is the believing of it. (3)
O Father, help us believe Your love for us so that we may receive it and live daily in the good of it!
(1) J.I. Packer, Knowing God (IVP, 1973), p. 207
(2) John Owen, Communion with the Triune God (Crossway Books, 2007), p. 107
(3) Owen, p. 111.
