“My relationship to God is not a variable one. The case is not that I am a child of God, and then again not a child of God. That is not the basis of my standing, that is not the position. When God had mercy upon me, He made me His child, and I remain his child. A very sinful, and a very unworthy one, perhaps, but still his child! And now, when I fall into sin, I have not sinned against the law, I have sinned against love. Like the prodigal, I will go back to my Father and I ill tell Him, “Father, I am not worthy to be called your son.” But He will embrace me, and He will say, “Do not talk nonsense, you are My child,” and He will shower his love upon me! That is the meaning of putting on the breastplate of righteousness! Never allow the devil to get you into a state of condemnation. Never allow a particular sin to cause again the whole question of your standing before God. That question has been settled.” ~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

(HT: My good friend George Koontz)

If my memory serves me correctly, this is the first Christmas I’ve actually celebrated my adoption into God’s family as I’ve celebrated God’s gift of His Son. If you think about it, what we celebrate during the Christmas season—God sending His Son to redeem us—was for the purpose of giving us adoption as sons. According to Paul, God the Father sent His eternal Son into the world so that we might receive the status of sons and eternally share in the Son’s communion with Him.

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:4-6).

So, as you celebrate the gift of God’s Son this Christmas season, celebrate the Read the rest of this entry »

We had some of our boys’ friends over this afternoon. So I took a picture of everyone and created this snowball fight video. They loved it. Enjoy!

Watch several Carolina Hope staff members, including myself, mix-it-up in a little snowball fight. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Herman Ridderbos writes:

“It is very striking that Paul, at least in the epistles that have been preserved to us, makes no attempt whatever to present the church with a balanced eschatological timetable. It may perhaps be said by way of conclusion that in Paul a ‘mingling of the two ages’ takes place and that the advent of Christ is to be viewed as the ‘breaking through of the future aeon in the present.’ For him the future has become present time, and even when he speaks of the groaning of the creation and of the church in the present world, that is for him not a reduction, but a confirmation of the coming redemption (Rom. 8:13). But Paul himself gives no explanation of this tension between the ‘even now’ and the ‘already now’ in the categories of an eschatological system. For he was not a ‘theologian who thought in terms of the aeons.’ but a preacher of Jesus Christ, who has come and is yet to come. Here is the reason why his eschatology is ambivalent and fits into no single schema, and why he can employ the eschatological categories at one time in a present, and at another time in a future sense, apparently without concerning himself about the ‘unsystematic’ character of it. The revelation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah promised by God to Israel determines and creates Paul’s historical consciousness and eschatological thought, and not the reverse. Who Christ is and what he does, what the relationship is between the time of salvation that has been entered upon with him and the future still to be expected, all this is not determined by eschatological-theological presuppositions, but is only gathered by the apostle from the unexpected and overwhelming manner in which God in Jesus Christ has given and will yet give the fulfillment of the redemptive promise” (Paul: An Outline of His Theology, 53).

Check out my “Adoption and the Trinity” post at my adoption blog.

Read part 2 of my interview with Dr. Timothy Trumper where he answers the question, “Why do you believe it is important for the doctrine of adoption to be recovered?”

*This was originally posted at from hope to reality.

As part of our blog’s adoption 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 fourth theologian interview is with Dr. Timothy Trumper (you can read the others here). Dr. Trumper is a native of Wales (UK). He was converted at the age of 15 and felt constrained to preach God’s Word while he was as a student of politics at the University of Wales. He then trained for the pastorate at the Free Church of Scotland College, Edinburgh (1989-1993).

While studying theology Dr. Trumper he was captivated by the doctrine of adoption (Eph. 1:5; Gal. 4:4-6; Rom. 8:15, 23; 9:4). As a result, he enrolled in doctoral studies at New College, University of Edinburgh. It is there that he gave himself to a concentrated study on adoption. His dissertation is “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition” (Ph.D. thesis: University of Edinburgh, 2001). Dr. Trumper taught at Westminster Seminary from 1999-2003. He is presently Senior Minister at Seventh Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, MI.

Because of the length and richness of Dr. Trumper’s answers, his interview will be posted in six parts. If you are interested in deepening your understanding of the doctrine of adoption significantly, you will want to take the necessary time to carefully read his answers. Here are a few excerpts from the interview to encourage you to read all six parts as they are published:

“The recovery of adoption would help us express what we are saved to as much as what we have been saved from. The great Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield summed up this imbalance by reference to what he called ‘Miserable Sinner Christianity’. Now, undoubtedly, we are miserable sinners. That is after all why we come to Christ. But is this the final word on who we are as God’s people? Surely not! The NT mentions a number of themes depicting the new standing we have in Christ, one of the richest of which is adoptive sonship. The recovery of this motif would enable us to even out our respective emphases on the retrospective and prospective aspects of the atonement. Stated alternatively, it would help us to be as forthcoming about what we are in Christ as about what we have been in Adam.”

“The recovery of adoption would help us prioritize the identities we Christians share in Christ over against other identifying factors that threaten division within the household of God (Eph. 2:19). We are not predestined (literally pre-horizoned [Eph. 1:5]) first and foremost to be male or female, Jew or Gentile (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11-22), or even to be educated or uneducated, or rich or poor, but to be sons of our God. This should be our primary consciousness. This prioritization has massive pastoral ramifications. I think, for instance, of second-generation ethnic Americans who are confused as to whether their primary identity is American or Chinese, Korean, Polish, Dutch, African, Hispanic or whatever. Christians have a way out of the dilemma. They can think of themselves first and foremost as sons and/or daughters of God. For in his family, rightly understood and outworked, race and color is put in its place. Differences in both are accepted, yet neither can legitimately overshadow the ultimate basis of the unity we possess in Christ.”

“Adoption speaks of hope. This hope Paul depicts by means of the word “inheritance” (Rom. 8:17f.). Not only has God given his family members a promise of the inheritance, in granting us his Spirit he has also given us a downpayment on it (Eph. 1:13-14). We come by the inheritance not because of what we do, but because of who we are in Christ. The inheritance is, then, a free gift of the grace of adoption. This we shall come into in its fullness on the day of redemption (“the adoption” [Rom. 8:23]). From that day on we shall experience the consummation of God’s saving purposes, and shall do so as much in our bodies as in our souls.”

Here’s part one of the interview with Dr. Trumper. In it he surveys the history of the doctrine of adoption within the church. It’s lengthy but worthy of a careful reading.

1. One of your desires for the church is that she would recover the doctrine of adoption. You’ve written elsewhere that adoption has not received its due attention within the history of the church. Why do you believe that adoption has been overshadowed by other doctrines? Read the rest of this entry »

*This was originally posted at from hope to reality.

As part of our blog’s adoption 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 third interview with a theologian (you can read the first and second interviews here and here) is with Dr. Sam Storms, the founder of Enjoying God Ministries. I thought about interviewing Dr. Storms about spiritual adoption after my brother reminded me that he had written about it in his book The Singing God: Discover the Joy of Being Enjoyed by God (Creation House, 1998). His answers to the questions are very thoughtful and encouraging. As I read them, I found myself rejoicing afresh about my adoption into God’s family. You’ll find yourself rejoicing as well.

1. Why do you believe that adoption is the greatest gift of the gospel next to Jesus’ death for our sins? What makes it so great?

Although we should be careful when we compare the goodness of God’s gifts, I do believe that adoption is near the top of the list. This isn’t in the least to slight justification or forgiveness or the indwelling presence of the Spirit. All God’s saving gifts are precious and perfect. But I consider adoption to be the most marvelous proof of God’s love for us (next to the love demonstrated by the cross itself; cf. Romans 5). I draw this conclusion from what John said in his first epistle:

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! . . . Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2).

John’s tone and terms virtually bristle with urgency and excitement. “Come quickly and see! Look! Listen! You can’t imagine what I have to tell you!” I like that. Here’s an elderly man nearing the end of life who still gets excited about the love of God. And he did so because he knew that God’s love has bestowed on us the greatest of all blessings: sonship. Here is the measure of God’s love. Here is the test of how deeply He treasures us.

2. Most Christians really don’t struggle believing that adoption brings us into God’s household, but they do struggle believing that God the Father feels the same way about His adopted children as He does about their Elder Brother, Jesus. Can you address this struggle? Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Dewalt, a former student of mine and current student at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, recently preached in PRTS’ seminary chapel about boasting in the gospel. It’s excellent.