It’s my turn to post at Out of the Ordinary. I’ve written on the believer’s adoption, adding one more to my list of truths every Christian woman should know.
When you believed the gospel, you were adopted by God. He became your father and you became his child. Before you believed, you were estranged from God, but with adoption, you come into a loving father/child relationship with him. J. I. Packer explains that our “adopted status means that in and through Christ God loves [us] as he loves his only begotten Son and will share with [us] all the glory that is Christ’s now.”
Adoption is one of the saving benefits that comes to us through Christ’s work. The believer’s sins have been forgiven and they have been given right standing with God, so they can be adopted by him. Or to think of it another way, believers have been united with Christ, and the relationship they have with God the Father is in many ways similar to his. He is the unique Son of God, but those united to him, as his siblings, are also God’s sons and daughters—sons and daughters by adoption.