Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

First, fatherhood implied authority. The Father commands and disposes; the initiative which he calls his Son to exercise is the initiative of resolute obedience to his Father’s will.

Second, fatherhood implied affection.

Third, fatherhood implied fellowship.

Fourth, fatherhood implied honor. God wills to exalt his Son.

All this extends to God’s adopted children. In, through and under Jesus Christ their Lord, they are ruled, loved, companied with and honored by their heavenly Father.

Our first point about adoption is that it is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.

That justification—by which we mean God’s forgiveness of the past together with his acceptance for the future—is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question.

But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves.

Justification is a forensic idea, conceived in terms of law, and viewing God as judge.

But contrast this, now, with adoption. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father.

To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.

When one sees depression, randomness and immaturity in Christians one cannot but wonder whether they have learned the health-giving habit of dwelling on the abiding security of true children of God.

Our second point about adoption is that the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of it.

It is clear that, just as Jesus always thought of himself as Son of God in a unique sense, so he always thought of his followers as children of his heavenly Father, members of the same divine family as himself.

And two Evangelists note how after his resurrection he called his disciples his brothers.

Now, just as the knowledge of his unique Sonship controlled Jesus’ living of his own life on earth, so he insists that the knowledge of our adoptive sonship must control our lives too.

First, then, adoption appears in the Sermon as the basis of Christian conduct.

The reason why the Sermon has this quality is not far to seek: it is because it is in truth instruction for the children of a family—God’s family.

Number one is the principle of imitating the Father.

The children must show the family likeness in their conduct. Jesus is here spelling out “Be holy, for I am holy”—and spelling it out in family terms.

Number two is the principle of glorifying the Father.

It is a fine thing for children to be proud of their father, and to want others too to see how wonderful he is, and to take care that they behave in public in a way that is a credit to him; and similarly, says Jesus, Christians must seek to behave in public in a way that brings praise to their Father in heaven.

Number three is the principle of pleasing the Father.

Such “reward” is not, of course, a mercenary matter—it will be a reward within the family, an extra-love-token such as parents love to surprise their children with when the children have tried especially hard to please.

Second, adoption appears in the Sermon as the basis of Christian prayer.

The Father is always accessible to his children and is never too preoccupied to listen to what they have to say. This is the basis of Christian prayer.

First, prayer must not be thought of in impersonal or mechanical terms, as a technique for putting pressure on someone who otherwise might disregard you.

Second, prayer may be free and bold. We need not hesitate to imitate the sublime “cheek” of the child who is not afraid to ask his parents for anything, because he knows he can count completely on their love.

Not, indeed, that our Father in heaven always answers his children’s prayers in the form in which we offer them.

Third, adoption appears in the Sermon as the basis of the life of faith—that is, the life of trusting God for one’s material needs as one seeks his kingdom and righteousness.

On those thus tempted in the life of faith, Jesus brings the truth of their adoption to bear.

“Do not worry about your life,” says the Lord, “what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Mt 6:25). But, says someone, this is not realistic, how can I help worrying, when I face this, and this, and this? To which Jesus’ reply is: Your faith is too small. Have you forgotten that God is your Father? “Look at the birds of the air,. . . your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (v. 26). If God cares for the birds, whose Father he is not, is it not plain that he will certainly care for you, whose Father he is? The point is put positively in verses 31-33: “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’. . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need [these things]. But seek first his [your Father’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.

first, the greatness of God’s love; second, the glory of the Christian hope; third, the ministry of the Holy Spirit; fourth, the meaning and motives of what the Puritans called “gospel holiness”; fifth, the problem of Christian assurance.

First, then, our adoption shows us the greatness of God’s love.

The New Testament gives us two yardsticks for measuring God’s love. The first is the cross (see Rom 5:8; 1 Jn 4:8-10); the second is the gift of sonship.

Of all the gifts of grace, adoption is the highest.

You will echo Charles Wesley’s question: O how shall I the goodness tell, Father, which Thou to me hast showed? That I, a child of wrath and hell, I should be called a child of God. You are not likely, however, to feel, any more than he did, that you know how to give that question an adequate answer.

Adoption, by its very nature, is an art of free kindness to the person adopted.

Nor does his grace stop short with that initial act, any more than the love of human parents who adopt stops short with the completing of the legal process that makes the child theirs.

But God receives us as sons, and loves us with the same steadfast affection with which he eternally loves his beloved only-begotten.

We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved.

Second, our adoption shows us the glory of the Christian hope.

For the Christian, the best is always yet to be.

To start with, it teaches us to think of our hope not as a possibility nor yet as a likelihood, but as a guaranteed certainty, because it is a promised inheritance.

Next, the doctrine of adoption tells us that the sum and substance of our promised inheritance is a share in the glory of Christ.

This, the blessing of resurrection day, will make actual for us all that was implicit in the relationship of adoption, for it will introduce us into the full experience of the heavenly life now enjoyed by our elder brother.

Finally, the doctrine of adoption tells us that the experience of heaven will be of a family gathering, as the great host of the redeemed meet together in face-to-face fellowship with their Father-God and Jesus their brother.

“I see myself now at the end of my journey, my toilsome days are ended,” said Bunyan’s Mr. Stand-fast, as he stood halfway into Jordan’s water, “the thought of what I am going to, and of the conduct that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. . . I have formerly lived by hearsay, and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him, in whose company I delight myself.”

Third, our adoption gives us the key to understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit,