The Cause of God's Adoption | Clip from Salvation in Full Color: Adoption

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One of the points that he makes is the cause of this adoption is God's love. He talks about it from three perspectives that, you know, there's the love that kind of, that plans salvation, the love that carries it out.

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But now, where adoption really comes in is, he speaks of it as a love of complacency, which is kind of an unusual term for us.

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But the idea that God is at rest in his love, which is a wonderful thought, that he's not up and down in his love toward us, but that it is settled and settled in Christ.

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Yeah, another word we could say, I mean, because complacency has a negative connotation. If I say,

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Chuck is a complacent Christian, you would say, what is it about my life that makes you say that?

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But if we say God loves us with a love of complacency, we don't mean kind of a shoulder -shrugging, eh, you know, kind of indifferent, you know, lack of zeal.

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So complacency, as you said, means that the love of God is at rest or it's satisfied.

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It's not looking at the object of its love for any reason to continue to love it.

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There is a determination in the heart of God. His love rests satisfied with us.

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And he's not saying to us, John or Chuck, I would like for you to do certain things today if you want to maintain this kind of family love.

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Well, we have a couple of great examples of that. Let me give you one, and then Chuck, you can throw in one. One is

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Christ, and particularly what Christ says in John 15. And the other is human adoption.

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I mean, that really does give us a pale but good picture of what God's saying. In John chapter 15, when

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Christ is about to leave the disciples, you know, in these chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and in the prayer of chapter 17, these are really, one writer called them the inner sanctuary.

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These are the holy of holy chapters with Christ and his people saying things that only apply to his people.

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And he says to them in the same way that the Father has loved me, even so I have loved you. And then he talks about how that would affect their life, obedience, abiding in that love.

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But let's just take that phrase. Ask ourselves, how did the Father love the perfect Son of God?

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And one thing that immediately jumps out is he never loved the Son with the love of mercy and forgiveness.

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The Son never required that. We require that. We want pity and mercy and grace.

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We want undeserved love, but not Christ. So the love that the

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Father had for the Son is this is the term that you just mentioned. The old writers gave it this description, complacency.

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The Father looked on the Son with complete satisfaction, delight, joy.

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And that's the kind of love that we understand comes in this great work of adoption.

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Yeah. So the other illustration that does pale in comparison for sure is the love of human adoption or back up.

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It is human adoption. And we have adopted a couple of little boys as well as having children by birth.

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And in adoption, there is the legal declaration and it's settled. These are your children now.

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They have your name and you promised to take care of them and they are to inherit from you like your other children, etc.

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All of that is kind of taken care of in the courtroom setting. But also in that, you could do that,

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I suppose, for reasons of just pity. But there's also, I would hope, there's reasons of love and that love is settled there.

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I have determined to love this child. And so for those reasons, I've taken them into my home and given them a name, etc.

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And I don't know that a kid ever looks at adoption that way, especially when they're small and thinks, you know, okay, dad went to court and did these things and so his love is settled.

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But as a parent, you would hope so. Yeah. And that brings us to another one of the points we wanted to mention. Is the term adoption referring primarily to a legal change or a moral change?

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So, he actually throws in an element that I think, and when we discussed this earlier before the podcast, that really doesn't, strictly speaking, fit with adoption.

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But it's fine to throw it in there. And I think the reason he throws it in there, he wants to guard us against an abuse and we'll talk about that.

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But so, when we talk about earthly adoption, we can see this reflected there.

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When you adopted the boys, their legal status completely changed. They were yours and you're theirs legally.

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And that's not going to shift. But there was not a moral change. You didn't say to the boys, now, as we're walking into a courtroom, your moral character in the hallway was one way.

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But as soon as that judge says, okay, this is done, and we sign on the dotted line, we expect you to begin to act like us.

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So, while as adoptive parents, and we have an adopted daughter, we do hope that our children pick up on the better parts of us, you know, not all of us.

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But, you know, the things we value, we want them to value. We want them to love the Lord we love, if they don't already, you know, you got the boys very young.

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And so, they've been watching you and they listen to you and to Elizabeth. And so, you want to see that happen.

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But that moral change, that's really up to the Lord. And that comes with time, you know, as they're molded into your image to some degree.

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But adoption is primarily a legal shift. Yes. And while we desire that they take on certain qualities or that they grow to love the

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Lord, the sad reality of human adoption is you cannot guarantee that or make them to do that.

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You have hopes, but you parent to the best of your ability. You pray to the Lord, but you can't make them.

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One of the wonderful things about God's adoption is that he does see to it that his children all grow up into the likeness of Christ.

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And there is a moral change, even though adoption is not strictly, as you're saying, a moral change, but a legal change.

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God does see to it that that does occur. Go ahead. I was also going to mention in the idea of complacency, when we say that he's complacent in his love, it is that he is settled in his love for you because of Christ.

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But it does not mean that he now has no expectations, which is back to the moral part. He does have expectations.

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There's the expectation of obedience. And he's pleased with obedience. He's grieved by disobedience.

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But the obedience or disobedience does not change the nature of the relationship, which is the complacency again.

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