Thinking On Scripture With Steven Cook

Adoption      As those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, we have been transferred from Satan’s “domain of darkness” (Col 1:13) and placed into the family of God. Our new status is as “children of God” (John 1:12; cf., Rom 8:16; Phil 2:15). John wrote, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1a). We do not come into the world as natural born children of God; rather, we are naturally born “in Adam” (1 Cor 15:21-22), as “sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2), and are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). But at the moment of faith in Christ, we receive “adoption as sons” (Rom 8:15; cf. Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5). The term adoption derives from the Greek word huiothesia (υἱοθεσία) which, according to BDAG, refers to “those who believe in Christ and are accepted by God as God’s children…with full rights.”[1] For the first time, as children of God, we have the privilege and right to cry out to God as “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15). This a