II. Figurative. — Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God's free grace hy which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inheritance of heaven.
1. In the New Testament, adoption appears not so much a distinct act of God, as involved in, and neces- sarily flowing from, our justification; so that at least the one always implies the other. Nor is there any good ground to suppose that in the New Testament the term adoption is used with special reference to the civil practice of adoption by the Greeks, Romans, or other heathens, and, therefore, these formalities are illustra- tive only so far as they confirm the usages among the Jews likewise. The apostles, in using the term, appear rather to have had before them the simple view, that our sins had deprived us of our sonship, the favor of God, and the right to the inheritance of eternal life ; but that, upon our return to God, and reconciliation with him, our forfeited privileges were not only restored, but greatly heightened through the paternal kindness of God. They could scarcely be forgetful of the af- fecting parable of the prodigal son ; and it is under the same view that Paul quotes from the Old Testa- ment, " Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the un- clean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh- ters, saith the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. vi, 18).
(1.) Adoption, then, is that act by which we who were alienated, and enemies, and disinherited, are made the sons of God and heirs of his eternal glory. " If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. viii, 17); where it is to be remark- ed that it is not in our own right, nor in the right of any work done in us, or which we ourselves do, though it should be an evangelical work, that we become heirs ; but jointly with Christ, and in his right.
(2.) To this state belong, freedom from a servile spirit, for we are not servants, but sons ; the special love and care of God, our Heavenly Father ; a filial confidence in him ; free access to him at all times and in all circumstances ; a title to the heavenly inherit- ance ; and the spirit of adoption, or the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption, which is the foundation of all the comfort we can derive from those privileges, as it is the only means by which we can know that they are ours.
(3.) The last-mentioned great privilege of adoption merits special attention. It consists in the inward witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit to the sonship of believers, from which flows a comfortable persua- sion or conviction of our present acceptance with God, and the hope of our future and eternal glory. This i3 taught in several passages of Scripture :
[1.] Rom. viii, 15, 16, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adop- tion, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit it-
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self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." In this passage it is to be remark- ed, (a.) That the Holy Spirit takes away "fear," a ser- vile dread of God as offended. (A.) That the " Spirit of God" here mentioned is not the personified spirit or genius of the Gospel, as some would have it, but "the Spirit itself," or himself; and hence he is call- ed (Gal. iv, G) "the Spirit of his Son," which can- not mean the genius of the Gospel, (c.) That he in- spires a filial confidence in God, as our Father, which is opposed to "the fear" produced by the "spirit of bondage." ((/.) That he excites this filial confidence, and enables us to call God our Father, by witnessing, bearing testimony with our spirit, "that we are the children of God."
[2.] Gal. iv, 4-G, " But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons ; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Here, also, are to be noted, (a.) The means of our re- demption from under (the curse of) the law, the in- carnation and sufferings of Christ. (6.) That the adoption of sons follows upon our actual redemption from that curse, or, in other words, upon our pardon, (c.) That upon our being pardoned, the " Spirit of the Son" is "sent forth into our hearts," producing the same effect as that mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, viz., filial confidence in God, " crying, Abba, Father."
[3.] To these texts are to be added all those pas- sages, so numerous in the New Testament, which ex- press the confidence and the joy of Christians, their friendship with God, their confident access to him as their God, their entire union and delightful inter- course with him in spirit. (See Watson, Institutes, ii, G9 ; Dwight, Theology, vol. iii.)