11
Westminster commissioners were as concerned as Calvin to apply predestination
soteriologically, there is little purpose in driving a wedge between Calvin and the later
Calvinists on this issue, as is often done.
30
Fourth, union with Christ is inseparable from adoption. The sonship we receive is
Christ`s in the first place. Adoption transpires in and for His Son Jesus Christ, so that
the adopted have His name put upon them, the Spirit of His Son given to them (LC 74;
WCF XII). Justification, adoption, and sanctification all flow from union with Christ (LC
69). Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, the Westminster Divines were as
concerned as Calvin to maintain that to be adopted is to be united with Christ in his
Sonship.
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Fifth, the Westminster Divines harmonized the forensic and familial elements of
adoption. They spoke of both the judicial pronouncement of adoption (LC 74; WCF
VIII:v, XII) and the adoptive experience of sonship, referred to as the liberties and
privileges of adoption (LC 74; WCF XII). This is evident in the chapter on justification
also, where forensic and familial aspects are united in stating that though the justified
can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God`s
fatherly displeasure (WCF XI:v, emphasis added). Adoption, therefore, is not exhausted
by its forensic aspects; rather, the forensic aspects imply an ensuing familial life of
sonship that manifests itself in the visible church, which is described as the house and
family of God (WCF XXV:ii).
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Finally, the Westminster Divines emphasize that adoption is an act of free grace
(SC 34, LC 74, WCF XII). In adoption, the unlovable sinner is freely loved by God and
taken into the divine family. Thomas Watson puts it this way: Adoption is a mercy spun
out of the bowels of free grace; all by nature are strangers, therefore have no right to
sonship, only God is pleased to adopt one, and not another, to make one a vessel of glory,
another a vessel of wrath. The adopted heir may cry out, `Lord, how is it, that thou wilt
show thyself to me, and not unto the world?`
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The transforming power of adoption
When we are born again, God delivers us from Satan`s enslaving family and, by His
astounding grace, transfers us to the Father`s sonship. He calls us sons; we are adopted