Joel Beeke

Reformation Heritage Books is publishing a new book by Dr. Joel R. Beeke on the beliefs held by the Puritans on the doctrine of Spiritual Adoption. Heirs With Christ: The Puritans on Adoption will be out on June 3rd, and is available for pre-order here. To read the Foreword, click here. I don‘t believe I have a single book specifically dedicated to the doctrine of Adoption, so this will be a welcome addition to my library.

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Endorsements:
“Dr. Beeke is well-known for his landmark work setting the record straight on the Puritan doctrine of assurance. Now he comes to our aid again with a superb treatment of the Puritans on adoption. I welcome his expert entry into this important field, and commend his keen insights and careful analysis to all who are interested in knowing ‘what the Puritans really said’ about adoption.” —Ligon Duncan

“In this short but spiritually substantive book, Dr. Beeke—a wise and careful ‘pastor theologian’ in the best sense of both words—introduces us to the Puritans’ comforting and transforming work on spiritual adoption. More than just historically informative, this volume should be warmly welcomed by all Christians who want to learn more about this crucial aspect of our identity as sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” —Justin Taylor

Joel Beeke on the distinction between the doctrines of Justification and Adoption:

. . . “Undoubtedly the new testament never separates justification and adoption, but neither does it confuse them. In human terms it is quite possible to imagine a man being justified without the remotest thought of his being adopted. The fact that a judge pronounces the verdict ‘not guilty’ does not commit him to take the accused to his home and allow him the privileges of his son!”*
   Though both justification and adoption are forensic concepts — the former derived from the realm of criminal law and the latter from family law — their practical outworkings differ substantially. Justification in abstraction from adoption leaves us with a rather bare, legal concept — though of course, the privilege of having our sins forgiven and being made acceptable to God must never be underestimated. But adoption enlarges our understanding of what it means to be acceptable to God. We are acceptable not just as moral agents, but as the image bearers of our Father who are being subjectively conformed to Christ. We are acceptable as sons of God who have the privilege of calling God our Father and bear the responsibility of serving Him as His children.

—Joel R. Beeke, Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption (Reformation Heritage, 2008), 32–33.

*Sinclair B. Ferguson, Know Your Christian Life: A Theological Introduction, (InterVarsity Press, 1981), 82.

More from Joel Beeke on Adoption:

[H]ow astonishing it is that, unlike people’s heirs who don’t share their estates with their friends, we as God’s adopted children share the same privileges that belong to God’s only-begotten Son! The puritans reveled in what Christ prays in John 17:23: “[Thou] hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” This is the essence of God’s fatherhood. It shows us how far God is willing to go to reconcile us to himself.
   How great is the love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God (1 John 3:1) — we who deserve His judgment, dethroned Him from our lives, spurned His love, and defied His laws. We never deserved God’s love, yet He graciously lavished His love on us. Here, surely, is the great assurance of the child of God, that God the father loved him when he was bound for hell. God loved the sinner who had no thought of God in his heart, and He adopted him. How wonderful is the assurance of the Father’s words: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).

—Joel R. Beeke, Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption (Reformation Heritage, 2008), 44.

The gospel is inherently Trinitarian. Joel Beeke shows how one aspect of the gospel, spiritual adoption, is an act of Trinitarian cooperation:

The puritans emphasize that all the members of the Trinity are involved in our adoption. Stephen Marshall summarizes it this way: adoption is the gracious act of God the Father whereby he chooses us, calls us to himself, and gives us the privileges and blessings of being his children. God the Son earned those blessings for us through his propitiatory death and sacrifice, by which we become children of God (1 John 4:10), and applies them to us as Elder Brother. And the Holy Spirit changes us from children of wrath, which we are by nature, into children of God by means of regeneration; unites us to Christ; works in us a “suitable disposition” towards God and Christ; and seals our sonship as the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the sons of God. In that witnessing, the Spirit shows us God’s work of grace in our hearts and lives, and also “carries our hearts to God, and testifies to the Soul that God is [our] Father.”

—Joel R. Beeke, Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption (Reformation Heritage, 2008), 45–46.

In the writings of John Calvin you will find a great emphasis on prayer in the Christian’s life. Calvin considered habitual prayer to be so important that, according to Joel Beeke, “Calvin focused more on the practice of prayer than on its doctrine.” The following guides are Calvin’s Rules for Prayer:

   The first is a heartfelt sense of reverence. In prayer, we must be “disposed in mind and heart as befits those who enter conversation with God.” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.4–5.] Our prayers should arise from “the bottom of our heart.” [John Calvin, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust,
1973), 679.] Calvin calls for a disciplined mind and heart, asserting that “the only persons who duly and properly gird themselves to pray are those who are so moved by God’s majesty that, freed from earthly cares and affections, they come to it.” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.5.]
   The second rule is a heartfelt sense of need and repentance. We must “pray from a sincere sense of want and with penitence,” maintaining “the disposition of a beggar.” [Ibid., 3.20.6–7.] Calvin does not mean that believers should pray for every whim that arises in their hearts, but that they must pray penitently in accord with God’s will, keeping His glory in focus, yearning for every request “with sincere affection of heart, and at the same time desiring to obtain it from him.” [Ibid., 3.20.6; cf. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, 280–281.]
   The third rule is a heartfelt sense of humility and trust in God. True prayer requires that “we yield all confidence in ourselves and humbly plead for pardon,” trusting in God’s mercy alone for blessings both spiritual and temporal, [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.8–10.] always remembering that the smallest drop of faith is more powerful than unbelief. [Ibid., 3.2.17.] Any other approach to God will only promote pride, which will be lethal: “If we claim for ourselves anything, even the least bit,” we will be in grave danger of destroying ourselves in God’s presence. [Ibid., 3.20.8.]
   The final rule is to have a heartfelt sense of confident hope. [Ibid, 3.20.11–14.] The confidence that our prayers will be answered does not arise from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit working in us. In believers’ lives, faith and hope conquer fear so that we are able to “ask in faith, nothing wavering” (James 1:6, KJV). This means that true prayer is confident of success, owing to Christ and the covenant, “for the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ seals the pact which God has concluded with us.” [Cited in Niesel, The Theology of Calvin, 153.] Believers thus approach God boldly and cheerfully because such “confidence is necessary in true invocation . . . which becomes the key that opens to us the gate of the kingdom of heaven.” [Commentary on Ephesians 3:12. For a helpful explanation of Calvin’s four rules of prayer, see Don Garlington, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Prayer,” The Banner of Truth, no. 323–324 (Aug.–Sept. 1990): 45–50, and Stephen Matteucci, “A Strong Tower for Weary People: Calvin’s Teaching on Prayer,” The Founders Journal (Summer 2007): 21–23.]
   These rules may seem overwhelming—even unattainable—in the face of a holy, omniscient God. Calvin acknowledges that our prayers are fraught with weakness and failure. “No one has ever carried this out with the uprightness that was due,” he writes. [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.16.] But God tolerates “even our stammering and pardons our ignorance,” allowing us to gain familiarity with Him in prayer, though it be in “a babbling manner.” [Ibid.; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 2:171.] In short, we will never feel like worthy petitioners. Our checkered prayer life is often attacked by doubts, [Commentary on Matthew 21:21.] but such struggles show us our ongoing need for prayer itself as a “lifting up of the spirit” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.1, 5, 16; cf. Joel R. Beeke, The Quest for Full Assurance: The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999), 49.
] and continually drive us to Jesus Christ, who alone will “change the throne of dreadful glory into the throne of grace.” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.17.] Calvin concludes that “Christ is the only way, and the one access, by which it is granted us to come to God.” [Ibid., 3.20.19.]

—Joel R. Beeke, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology, ed. Burk Parsons (Reformation Trust, 2008), 236–237.

The Prayer life of John Calvin reflects a profound sense of the majesty of God, and a deep appreciation for the privilege of communing with him in prayer. Joel Beeke writes:

Throughout his writings, Calvin offers a theology of prayer. He presents the throne room of God as glorious, holy, and sovereign, while also accessible, desirable, and precious in and through Christ. Given the rich blessings accessible to us through prayer, those who refuse to pray “neglect a treasure, buried and hidden in the earth, after it had been pointed out” [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.20.1.] to them. They also commit idolatry by defrauding God, since prayerlessness is a blatant denial that “God is the author of every good thing.” [Ibid., 3.20.14.]
   We must persevere in pursuing precious access to God in prayer, Calvin concludes. [Ibid., 3.20.51–52.] Discouragements may abound and almost overwhelm us: “Our warfare is unceasing and various assaults arise daily.” But that gives all the more reason to discipline ourselves to persevere in prayer, even if “we must repeat the same supplications not twice or three times only, but as often as we need, a hundred and a thousand times.” [Cited in Hesselink, On Prayer: Conversations with God, 19.] Ceasing to pray when God does not answer us quickly is the surest mark that we have never become believers. [Commentary on Psalm 22:4; Wallace, Calvin, Geneva, and the Reformation, 214.]
   Calvin counsels believers not only to better methods of prayer, but to a deeper devotion and a surer access to the triune God who has given the gift of prayer. He modeled this prayer life by accompanying every public act with prayer, by providing forms of prayer, [John Calvin, Treatises on the Sacraments of the Church of Geneva, Forms of Prayer, and Confessions of Faith, trans. by Henry Beveridge (repr. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2002)] and by appointing days of prayer for a variety of occasions—as well as privately in his own life. [Elsie McKee, John Calvin: Writings on Pastoral Piety (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 29, 167ff.] These merge well in the last prayer he records in his commentary on Ezekiel, which, because of failing health, he was not able to complete:

Grant, Almighty God, since we have already entered in hope upon the threshold of our eternal inheritance, and know that there is a certain mansion for us in heaven after Christ has been received there, who is our head, and the first-fruits of our salvation: Grant, I say, that we may proceed more and more in the course of thy holy calling until at length we reach the goal, and so enjoy that eternal glory of which thou affordest us a taste in this world, by the same Christ our Lord. Amen. [Commentary on Ezekiel 20:44.]

   Ultimately, for Calvin, prayer is a heavenly act, a holy and precious communing with the triune God in His glorious throne room, grounded in an assured eschatological hope. [Wallace, Calvin, Geneva, and the Reformation, 214.]
   “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).

—Joel R. Beeke, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology, ed. Burk Parsons (Reformation Trust, 2008), 241–242.