13
which he has no right to belong; (3) that there is an authoritative legal translation from
one family to another; (4) that the adopted person is freed from all the legal obligations of
the family from which he came; and (5) that by virtue of his translation he is invested
with all the rights, privileges, and advantages of the new family.
37
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.
38
Pastoral advice in promoting adoption
As pastors, the Puritans distinguished people in four ways with regard to adoption.
First, some are visibly adopted into God`s church family but lack its experiential power.
Their adoption, says Thomas Shepard, is external, whereby the Lord take a people by
outward covenant and dispensation to be his sons, and thus all the Jews were God`s `first
born,` (Ex. iv. 22,) and unto them did `belong the adoption,` (Rom. ix. 4, 5;) and hence
their children were accounted `sons` as well as saints, and `holy,` (1 Cor. vii. 14; Ezek.
xvi. 20, 21;) but many fall from this adoption, as the Jews did.
39
Today, this visible adoption applies to the New Testament church. Many have
professed the gospel as members of the church, but do not know its power. Not being
born again, they do not possess the Spirit of adoption. That is not the gospel`s fault, but
their own. Manton writes, They are strangers to the grace of the covenant under which
they live, by their own negligence and folly. Manna is around their tents, Manton