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.

Description: The Puritans have gotten bad press for their supposed lack of teaching on the doctrine of spiritual adoption. In Heirs with Christ, Joel R. Beeke dispels this caricature and shows that the Puritan era did more to advance the idea that every true Christian is God’s adopted child than any other age of church history. This little book lets the Puritans speak for themselves, showing how they recognized adoption’s far-reaching, transforming power and comfort for the children of God.

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.