Page 42 - Journey of Grace - Spring-Summer 2021 Curriculum

Soteriology (Objective) Applied: Adoption
Rose Miller
I. The Doctrine of Adoption “Our sonship to God is the apex of
creation and the goal of redemption.” Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the

Living God
II. 1. All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for his only
Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption, by which

they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of
the children of God, have his name put upon them, receive the Spirit of
adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled

to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened
by him, as by a father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of
redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.

III. A. Change in Status: Legally (Forensically) Adopted
a. Not Our Natural State We are not children of God by birth. We are
by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3), “separated from Christ, alienated
from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of

promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12)
b. Not Earned by Our Worthiness “Adoption is, like justification, a
judicial act. In other words, it is the bestowal of a status, or standing, not

the generating within us of a new 2 nature or character.” John Murray,
Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 133 3. It is a Gift: There is
nothing we can do to earn or lose this status.
I. From Doctrine to Doctrine Applied

a. A. 1 John 3:1-2 (NIV) 1 See what great love the Father has
lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is
what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not

know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we
will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ
appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

b. B. Radical Split between knowing about wonderful truths and
living them out. 1. You can know the right doctrines, but are you living
out the implications? 2. “Although your greatest difficulty in the

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