Julie Fillinger

God’s Plan for Adoption 

My nephew Carter was born 6 months after Nicholas died. Even though it was my sister and brother in law who adopted him, we love him like our own. At a time when we were helplessly wallowing in a pit of grief, it was as if God was giving us this gift as a reminder that there is life after death. He has been a healing balm to our hearts ever since.

I pick Carty up from school one day a week so we can have adventures. We shoot BB guns, throw rocks in the lake behind our house, catch baby frogs, and go on hikes when Eric can join us. This week he wanted to fish so we went to the Mary Carter Store to get his fishing poles all set up because I don’t actually know how to do this.  We had a little success with live crickets as bait, but before I could take a picture, Carty dumped the bucket with the fish back in the lake. Next time, he wants to clean the fish we catch, cook them over a fire, and eat them. I don’t know how to do that either, but I guess we will learn together. Maybe we will wait until Eric is available.  

Adoption is the act of bringing someone who is the offspring of another into one’s own family. ¹ Carter joining our family is a beautiful picture of how God confers sonship onto His children. By nature, we were not His offspring, but He adopted us as His children with all of the rights and privileges that come with being a part of His family. Our Heavenly Father teaches us what this means and is patient with us as we grow to learn what this entails. 

Owner or slave? 

Paul has been explaining that man was held captive under the Law until Christ came. Christ is the Offspring God promised to Abraham. If we are Christ’s, then we are Abraham’s spiritual offspring and joint heir according to this same promise.  

Now Paul says as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave. What Paul is trying to say is that the heir is the owner but no different from the slave while he is under age. He will inherit the whole estate but not until the time set by his father. Meanwhile, his father sets strict guardians and managers over him who could be quite harsh. In the same way as this, Jewish Christians were enslaved to the system of external observations and regulations bound by the rules of Hebrew ritual. ² They were heirs of the Promise which God made to Abraham but they hadn’t yet received the inheritance. ³ Remember, the Promise to Abraham came before the Law of Moses. The Law was necessary to reveal sin and show man his need for a Savior.  

When the fullness of time had come… 

But when the time set by God the Father came, He sent His Son and He sent His Spirit. These miraculous gifts to humanity came at the right moment in history. As soon as man sinned in the Garden of Eden, God told them they would have to leave, but He would make a way back. ⁴ Then he called out Abraham while he was living as a pagan and reiterated the promise to him. Now 1,300 years after the Law was given, it was finally time. ³   

God sent His Son. He was fully God to be of infinite worth to atone for sin, and He was fully man so He could take upon Himself the penalty of sin. ⁵   He was born subject to the conditions of the Law but was the only One ever able to perfectly keep them. He did this so that those who were under the Law’s curse would be set free to receive adoption as children of God.  

I have to pause here and let the full impact of what happened hit me. God willingly gave His Son to purchase my freedom because it was the only way I could be His adopted child and receive all of the inheritance that comes with being His heir. There is nothing I can do to be His child but believe and receive this gift by faith.  

If that were not enough, God also sent His Spirit into our hearts to testify this Truth to us. The Spirit’s cry to our Papa, our Father, reaches into our spirits to confirm with a holy seal that we are indeed His children. ⁵ As such, we are no longer slaves but heirs with complete access to the inheritance God has for us. We will receive the full inheritance when Christ returns, but we receive it in part now by His Spirit living in us. 

The appeal 

Based on this, Paul makes an impassioned appeal to the Galatians who were once enslaved by either gods that didn’t exist or worse, demonic spirits. ⁶ He says they know God only because He first chose to know and understand them. Like Abraham, they and we were helpless and hopeless sinning enemies when God took the initiative to have a personal relationship with us. ⁷ So how can they now turn back to a worthless religion that intimidates them into following its traditions and superstitions but has no strength to free them?  Paul fears the work done to save them served no purpose. It’s as if they are saying to God, “You made me your child and an heir, but I would rather be a slave.”  

A word of caution 

It’s a word of caution to you and me as well. If God adopted me as His child, then I need to act like it. Being an heir comes with responsibility, but it also comes with an inheritance. It is liberating to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be who God made me to be. The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is what I have access to, if only I will lean into it. There is nothing else like it. Why would I go back to being a slave to sin or in bondage to rule-keeping when I can live on a higher plain, one of love and service to my Father. It encourages me to spur one another on all the more until the Day my Brother Christ returns.  

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1. Feature Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash  
2. John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006. 
3. Amplified Bible. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. 
4. John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968. 
5. Genesis 3:15 
6. Ephesians 1:13 
7. The ESV® Study Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
8. Romans 5:6-11 

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