The Trinitarian Beauty of Adoption: The Holy Spirit

This is the final post in a three-part series looking at the Trinitarian contours of the doctrine of adoption. Thus far, I have tried to show how the Father from eternity past predestined us to be adopted into his family as sons and daughters. This adoption into his family is through the work of his Son, Jesus Christ. The eternal Son of God took on flesh and offered himself, so that we could be brought into the family of God. This post considers the work of the Spirit in our adoption. The works of the persons of the Trinity are inseparable. Thus, I have said, the Father has adopted us into his family through the Son by the Spirit. Therefore, we can proclaim we are sons and daughters of God not by nature but by grace.

The Spirit of Adoption

In Roman 8:15 Paul calls the Spirit, “The Spirit of adoption.” This is the only place in the Bible that this phrase is used. It is striking that this title is only used once, but when Calvin is discussing the titles of the Holy Spirit, the first one he picks is this one. He says:

First, he is called the “Spirit of adoption” because he is the witness to us of the free benevolence of God with which God the Father has embraced us in his beloved only-begotten Son to become a Father to us; and he encourages us to have trust in prayer. In fact, he supplies the very words so that we may fearlessly cry, “Abba, Father!”[1]

There seems to be something connected here to the fact that as we saw in the first post, adoption is the highest privilege of our redemption. The work of the Spirit in uniting us to Christ and making children of God, changes our experience of the Father that we are able to call God by the same name that Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36).Like a father eager to hear from their children of their day and respond to their needs, our Father stands ready to hear our prayers and respond. Click To Tweet

There is an affective aspect to this. The Spirit changes us. Our conversion is not a purely intellectual change. There are noetic effects of the Fall. However, the Spirit also changes our emotions. The Spirit changes our experience of God. Being given the Spirit of adoption allows us to approach the Throne of Grace not with a trepidatious spirit but with confidence that we will be heard. The Spirit works in us to realise that God is our Father. Like a father eager to hear from their children of their day and respond to their needs, our Father stands ready to hear our prayers and respond. The Spirit works in us not only in applying all of Christ’s benefits (adoption being at the top of the list), but also in transforming us that we may know with certainty that God is our Father, “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16).

The Christlike Family of God

Another aspect of the Spirit’s work in our adoption is that he is always pointing us back to Christ and his work to bring us into the family of God. Sometimes he does this drastically when we least expect it, and we are moved to worship the Lord for his great redemption. More often, though, the Spirit does this in the simple and ordinary means. As we read the Scriptures and we are reminded of the fact that Christ is our Elder Brother and God is our Father. Other times he does this in participation in the sacraments when we are baptised and brought into the family of God or when we are gathered at the Lord’s Table eating a meal that was prepared by the Lord himself. The Spirit of adoption works in us constantly pointing us to the reality that we have been brought into the family of God by grace through the work of Christ, our brother, on our behalf.

Finally, the Spirit of adoption works in us to cause us to bear a concern for the family. We often hear “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” or “like father like son.” These sayings are supremely true in the Triune life. The Son is the exact image of the Father. Those who have seen the Son have seen the Father. However, the Spirit of adoption, who dwells in us, conforms us more and more to the image of the Son, so that we grow in Christlikeness. He causes us to bear a family resemblance. The Spirit also works in us not only to unite us to Christ but to unite us to one another. The Spirit of adoption causes us to realise that we are members of the family of God. This family is larger than just me and Jesus, but includes brothers and sisters in my church, and down through history, and around the world. The last part of being a part of the family is being concerned for bringing honour to the family name and the Spirit works in us to have this concern too.The Spirit also works in us not only to unite us to Christ but to unite us to one another. The Spirit of adoption causes us to realise that we are members of the family of God. Click To Tweet

Both of my own children are adopted. They are amazing. My wife and I love them to the moon and back. In our family, we have a mantra that we use when talking to our kids about things we don’t want them to do. We will say to them “I understand that your friends do it that way, but you are a Clausing and as a Clausing this is what we do.” We want them to recognise who they are and to live into that reality. There are times when things come out that my wife and I wonder “where did that come from,” and in those moments we have to remind them “You are a Clausing.” We will hear from one of them, “Well, at the orphanage we did….” At that moment we acknowledge that this was the past experience, but then we remind this dear child of their identity and where they are now. We say, “You are a Clausing. This is what Clausings do.”

So often the work of the Spirit is the same. The Spirit works in us to remind us of our adoption, to remind us of our true identity. We slip, at times, into our old ways of living. We slip into habits into which we were born. However, the Spirit works in us to remind us that God is our Father, Christ is our brother, and the Spirit is at work to cause me to bear a family resemblance.

J. I. Packer wrote that adoption ‘is the highest privilege the gospel offers: higher even than justification.’[2] Viewing this doctrine from a perspective that allows us to see how the Triune God is at work in every aspect of our adoption, only brings out the beauty of this doctrine. The Father has adopted us as sons and daughters into his family through the Son by the Spirit as sons and daughters, not by nature but by grace.

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[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 540.

[2] J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 206.