John Fonville, of Gospel-Driven Blog, just e-mailed me about the upcoming Gospel-Driven Life Conference. Its theme is “The Gospel-Driven Life: Growing in Holiness by Living in Union with Christ.” Michael Horton, R.C. Sproul, Scott Clark, and Robert Godfrey will challenge the false notion that the gospel is merely what gives us entrance into the Christian life and explore the wonderful truth that the gospel is not only the power of God to justify us but also His power to sanctify us. Here’s what John wrote on his blog about their hope for this conference:

Our hope is that God would use this conference as a small means to:

First, aid Christians in realizing the joyful truth that the gospel is good news for Christians, too. Through faith in the Gospel, sinners are brought into a mysterious and glorious union with Christ. The Gospel is not just a doctrine that “gets me saved.” The Gospel is meant to be that which believers live by each and every moment of their lives (cf., Gal. 2:20).

Second, to observe how great the importance of preaching the Gospel is not only in order to give sinners encouragement respecting free justification, but also with regard to their sanctification, i.e., that the Gospel is the great means of sanctification.

Third, to proclaim that it is the gospel that exhibits God’s highest glory, which He chiefly designs to display before sinful men, even that glory of God that shines in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4:8).

I may be on a trip somewhere else the dates of this conference, but if I’m not, I really hope to attend this excellent conference. Here’s information about Gospel-Driven Life Conference: Read the rest of this entry »

As part of my adoption blog’s interview series, I’m interviewing several theologians about the doctrine of spiritual adoption and its implications for earthly adoption. I believe that the practice of earthly adoption will be significantly enriched as we grow in our understanding of what it means to be adopted by God.

Our second interview with a theologian (you can read the first interview here) is with Dr. R. Scott Clark, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California since 1997. Dr. Clark has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson), and Concordia University (Irvine). He is also presently Associate Pastor of the Oceanside United Reformed Church, where he preaches and teaches regularly.

Dr. Clark’s blog.

1. What do you cherish most about the doctrine of adoption?

There are three things that should be mentioned. First it is the God by whom we have been adopted that makes adoption significant. The God who adopted us is the God who made all that is (Gen 1:1-3; John 1:1-3) and who, by the power of his will and grace, redeemed his people out of sin and bondage (Exod 20:2).

Second, we should remember that spiritual adoption is a significant truth embraced and confessed by the Reformed churches. It is expressed either implicitly or explicitly in our Reformed confessions and it underlies much of what is confessed by the Reformed churches even if the language of adoption is not used explicitly.

For example, the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) uses the truth that we are “also the children of God” as the basis for a question about Christ’s sonship. Though Christ “alone is the eternal, natural Son of God” we are “children of God by adoption, through grace, for his sake” (Q. 33). The Belgic Confession, (1561), speaks the same way (Art. 34). This doctrine is significant enough to the Reformed Churches that it merited an entire, albeit brief, chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) where we confess that those who are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (WCF ch. 11) are to rest in the fact that we are also “partakers of the grace of adoption.” As a consequence of this free gift we, who are not God’s children by nature, are treated as if we are natural children, as it were. We have the “liberties” that belong to God’s children, we have his name, we have his Spirit, and we have free access to the Father. We are “pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him as a Father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption.” In Christ it is as if we have done all that Christ did for us and, on that basis, we are heirs of all his promises.

Finally, the doctrine of adoption is a biblical doctrine. The Apostle Paul teaches explicitly that those who have true faith (and by that faith) are united to Christ (Gal 2:20; WCF ch. 12). By virtue of that union we have “received the Spirit of adoption as sons.” Therefore, we have the privilege of intimate, personal communion with the Creator and Redeemer God. The Spirit of God testifies to us that we, who believe, are God’s children (Rom 8:15-17). Paul teaches that we have been redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal 4:5). Indeed, we who believe have been “predestined…for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will….” (Eph 1:5).

2. Do you believe that the doctrine of adoption has received its due attention within the history of the church? Read the rest of this entry »

*Originally published at from hope to reality, the adoption blog of Carolina Hope.

It is not unusual for adopted children to struggle with a sense of past rejection, particularly if they do not know their birth mother’s story. As a result, some adopted children will wrestle, sometimes intensely, with the thought that they were rejected by their birth parents. This can potentially result in a haunting fear that deep down their adoptive family really hasn’t accepted them either.

If your adoptive family is anything like mine, your adopted children are probably too young to be struggling with this issue, at least as intensely as a young teenager would (my adopted children are 5 and 4). As a result, it may be hard for you to picture your children having this particular inner-struggle. But if you are wise, you will think through this issue now and consider how you might be proactive in addressing it.

If you have read this blog for any length of time, Read the rest of this entry »

Read my interview with Dr. Dave Garner about theological adoption and its implications for earthly adoption. He is the Vice President for Alumni Relations & Educational Advancement at Westminster Theological Seminary. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the doctrine of adoption. It’s entitled “Adoption in Christ” (Westminster Theological Seminary, 2002).

This article by Mark Noll is REALLY thought provoking.

Praise the Lord: Song, culture, divine bounty, and issues of harmonization

One great sentence:

The increasing number of such examples makes it possible to imagine a fully harmonious and spiritually edifying service of Christian worship where new Christian believers played Palestrina on the indigenous musical instruments of Burkina Faso, where an African American gospel choir led in a chorale of Heinrich Schütz, where white middle-class Presbyterians surged with Christian ecstasy to the beat of a drum, where teenaged believers filled up their iPods with the Robert Shaw Chorale, and where learned Western theologians delighted in a nearly infinite repetition of “God is so good, he’s so good to me.”

(HT: Scott Anderson)

I had the opportunity to preach on Ephesians 1:15-17 a few years ago. It is Paul’s first recorded prayer for the Ephesian believers. As I prepared for that sermon I realized that if we were to understand this prayer rightly, we had to discern its connection with Paul’s river of doxological doctrine running through verses 3-14. God used my meditation on the connection between Ephesians 1:3-17 and Ephesians 1:15-17 to provide rich food for my faith.

The central request in Paul’s prayer (vv. 15-23) is in verse 17. He prays that “the Father of glory may give them a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.” The question that arrested my attention as I studied was why does Paul refer to the Father as “the Father of glory”. Why didn’t Paul just say, “the Father”? Why did he add the words, “of glory”?

“Glory” is one of those words that is extremely difficult to define or explain. Read the rest of this entry »

Video One: My sons, Isaiah (5) and Noah (4), mixin’ it up a little. All in good fun, of course.

Video Two: Isaiah (5) cranking out some pushups when he should have been in bed.

“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6)

The first person who ever called me “Daddy” was my daughter, Hannah. I can still remember what it felt like as a new father to hear that word come from her young little lips. She’s now 11 years old and still calls me by the same name; and it continues to fill me with a sweet joy.

Hannah is not the only one in our household that calls me “Daddy.” There are two others, Isaiah (5) and Noah (4). They are my sons through transethnic adoption. Both of them call me “Daddy” as often as Hannah does. If you visited our home on any day of the week, you would hear one White child and two Black children referring to me as “Daddy” - and my heart is filled with the same sweet joy every time I hear that name, no matter which of my children says it. I am the privileged and happy father of a multi-ethnic family.

I’m sure you have heard that “Abba” (from “Abba! Father!” - Galatians 4:6) is the Aramaic equivalent to our word “Daddy.” This is often argued because of how easy the word “Abba” is to say, but I think this understanding of “Abba” misses the point.

Its significance lies not in the thought that those adopted by God now have the privilege of calling Him “Daddy.” As warm as that thought may be to many who have heard it, I think Paul has something else in mind—something that tells us about the unique makeup of the family God has brought together through the gospel. Read the rest of this entry »

My fundamental identity is not found in the life I lived today, no matter how well I think I lived it. I have the privilege of working each day to bring justice to orphans, particularly the orphans of Ethiopia. There are approximately 10 million orphans in Ethiopia today, creating a huge need for physical support and for adoption. There are orphans as young as two years old who live on the street begging daily for food. James 1:27 says that one of the essential marks of true religion is caring for orphans in their affliction. I am committed both personally and vocationally to serving Ethiopia’s orphans through our adoption program and orphan care ministry. It is certainly a great cause that is close to the heart of God. But my fundamental identity must not be found in my little work to bring a small measure of drop-in-a-bucket justice to Ethiopia’s orphans.

My fundamental identity is found in the One who lived and died in my place, in the One whom God raised up from the place of the dead ones, in the One who is seated at the right hand of the Father. The One in whom the Father will unite all things, things in heaven and things on earth, is, amazingly, my fundamental identity. He is the One who savingly visited me in my affliction—affliction caused by my own sin and rebellion. Jesus frees me to do what little I can for the orphans of Ethiopia even when my efforts really amount to nothing when compared to the number of orphans who are in need. Fortunately, my identity is not found in what I do. It’s found in who Jesus is and what he’s done.

Here’s the audio from my keynote address at the Adoption & Orphan Weekend sponsored by Colonial Baptist Church, Cary, NC. It’s only 31 minutes.

God’s Story of Adoption (right click / choose “save target as” to download)