I had the privilege of preaching at Grace Church of Memphis yesterday on the cosmic significance of adoption within the story of redemption. You can listen to it here.

Even though the term adoption occurs only five times in Scripture (all in Paul’s epistles), its “marking” function within redemptive-history demonstrates its theological significance. Vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting us as His children) plays a key role from the beginning of the unfolding story of redemption (before god even created the world) all the way [...]

Justin Taylor introduces his sermon (23:35) on adoption by considering adoption within Islamic thought in contrast to its central importance within Christianity. I think you will find the entire sermon a great introduction to Scripture’s teaching on God’s gracious provision of adoption. (HT: Jason Kovacs)

Part Six: The Trinity and Adam’s Sonship (read the other parts here) We concluded Part Five by asking this question: In what sense was Adam a son of God? Have you ever considered why it is that God is three persons and not just one? (This question is relevant to our discussion of Adam’s sonship. [...]

Part 5: The Question (read the other parts here) As I have tried to demonstrate in parts 3 and 4 in this series, it really is not difficult to recognize the importance of adoption in Paul’s thought. It clearly plays a central role in the outworking of the history of redemption. Adoption precedes human history [...]

Part 4: Quick Survey of Adoption’s Marking Function (read the other parts here) As I noted in part 3, God’s work of adoption has a “marking” function in the grand story of redemption. It plays a leading role from before the beginning of the unfolding story of redemption (before God created the world) all the [...]

Part 3: Adoption’s Importance and Recovery (read the other parts here) So how important is the doctrine of adoption and why should it be recovered? Its importance should not be evaluated by considering the number of times the term adoption is actually used in Scripture. One of the other reasons adoption has been neglected in [...]

Part 2: The Neglect of Heavenly Adoption (read part 1 here) If adoption is first heavenly (i.e., vertical) before it is earthly (i.e., horizontal), why do we Christians so often think of earthly adoption before we think of heavenly adoption? Why do we think horizontally before we think vertically? I think one reason for this [...]

What do you first think of when you hear the word adoption? Most people think of the earthly practice of adoption before they think of heavenly adoption, that is, they think of couples adopting children before they think of God adopting us as His children. Throughout this new series of posts on the importance of [...]