John MacArthur on the permanence of adoption:
The doctrine of adoption establishes the reality that believers, once saved, are always saved. As one scholar, commenting on Paul’s use of adoption imagery, has explained, “The important term ‘adoption’ bears a relationship to justification in that it is declarative and forensic (inasmuch as it is a legal term). Adoption bestows an objective standing, as justification does: like justification, it is a pronouncement that is not repeated. It has permanent validity. Like justification, adoption rests on the loving purposes and grace of God.
. . .
If our adoption were not permanent, we would have great reason to fear. Our sin might yet condemn us. But “contrasted with this inner sense of dread before God, the righteous judge, is the sense of peace and security before God, our heavenly Father, that is produced by God’s Spirit in the heart of Christians. Paul could hardly have chosen a better word than ‘adoption’ to characterize this peace and security.” Thus Paul’s point in Romans 8:15 is that the spirit of adoption casts out the spirit of fear that comes from slavery to sin. The Holy Spirit testifies to our spirits that we are the children of God (v. 16), and if we have the Holy Spirit, we have God’s unbreakable seal guaranteeing our future inheritance. Moreover, “adoption does not depend on any worthiness in us, but upon unmerited favor. It is all of grace.” We did nothing to earn our adoption into God’s family, and we can do nothing to lose it either.
—John MacArthur, Slave (Thomas Nelson, 2010), 170–171.
TrackBack URL: http://www.thirstytheologian.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1831
Share this post:
Posted in: John MacArthur · Slave
Link · 0 Comments · 0 TrackBacks
← Previous · Home · Next →
