Some thoughts on adoption I've had in preparing for a class I'm teaching at church on Ephesians:
Ephesians 1:4-5 says that God "chose us in him before the foundation of the world...in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ."
First thought: adoption offers a very helpful analogy that helps us think about the much-maligned and oft-misunderstood idea of predestination, which usually brings to mind a scary, capricious God arbitrarily determining who will be saved and who will be damned, thereby stripping human life of freedom and dignity. Adoption helps us see why this is a misunderstanding. Predestination means that God chooses to adopt.
I think of our own situation: long before the child we hope to adopt knew about us (he still doesn't), we knew of him. In love, we have chosen him and "predestined" him for adoption as a son. This, I think, is something of an analogy (though very small and imperfect) of how God loves: long before we know about him or can return his love, God chooses to make us part of his family. The good news is that God's choosing to adopt is far more effectual than our human choosing to adopt. When God chooses us for adoption, nothing can stop him, there is no local government that can suspend adoptions and hold up the process!
Second thought, this from John Stott's
commentary:
"God destined us in love to be his sons. This expression seems to be the key to our understanding of the present consequences of our election. Election is with a view to adoption.
Indeed, when people ask us the speculative question why God went ahead with the creation when he knew that it would be followed by the fall, one answer we can tentatively give is that he destined us for a higher dignity than even creation would bestow on us. He intended to 'adopt' us, to make us the sons and daughters of his family." (39)
That bold section is what caught my attention. I can't tell you how many times as a pastor people have asked me this exact question: why would God create humans if he knew that they would fall into sin and screw it all up? Stott's answer is intriguing: God's
choosing to love us ennobles us and grants an even higher dignity than "mere" creation. Indeed, God's creation is "very good" (Genesis 1:31) and something of his love is revealed in the beauty of creation, but his love and grace is demonstrated even more powerfully and gloriously in the beauty of adoption.
Astonishingly, that this determination happened "before the foundation of the world"--before he made anything, God knew that we would turn from him and reject him, but decided that he would adopt us back into his family anyway (and at great cost!) The fact that God loves us enough to choose to adopt us grants us a
higher dignity!
This passage articulates how our family's process of adoption has caused us think of God's love for us in a new way. And it reminds me that though God is not pleased that so many children are without families (anymore than he is pleased by any other manifestation of the fall), but when families welcome children through adoption, it paints a picture of his great love.
I only hope that our adoption contributes "to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved" (Eph 1:6), and that it participates in raising our child's dignity--and the dignity of
orphans like him--as those created in the image of God and loved from before the foundation of the world.
My favorite part was when one guy inquired at great length about a breast pump. He then decided to buy it but wanted to assure us that he was planning on selling it, not using it himself. Uh, thanks buddy. We kind of assumed.
