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Adoption is not justification
Justification is the primary, fundamental blessing of the gospel; it meets our most basic
spiritual need--forgiveness and reconciliation with God. We could not be adopted
without it. But adoption is a richer blessing, because it brings us from the court room into
the family. Justification is conceived of in terms of law, adoption in terms of love.
Justification sees God as a judge, adoption as a father.
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Justification and adoption obviously have much in common. The Puritans taught
that the status of adoption, like justification, is an act rather than a process. Contrary to
Robert Bellarmine and Roman Catholicism, this act is administered by imputation, not
infusion.
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It is punctiliar, not linear. Believers are not progressively adopted, becoming
more and more the children of God; adoption is no more subject to degrees than
justification is. When sinners believe, they are made full children of God, and remain
such. Justification declares them to be righteous--in a moment! They become His
children, sons and heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.
When an attempt is made to pinpoint more precisely the relationship of
justification and adoption, three viewpoints surface among the Puritans. The first,
represented by Wilhelmus à Brakel, says that since justification includes not only a
negative aspect of acquittal from guilty and punishment, but also a positive aspect of the
bestowal of the right of eternal life, in which God`s children are declared heirs, adoption
is best seen as being included in the positive side of justification. Hence, justification
includes spiritual sonship.
The second position, represented by Thomas Ridgley, a moderate Calvinist best
known for his exposition of the Westminster Larger Catechism, is that adoption is
included in justification from one perspective but not from another. Ridgley maintains
that adoption can be reckoned as a branch of justification in some respects and a branch
of sanctification in other respects. He writes, If justification be explained as denoting an
immanent act in God, whereby the elect are considered, in the covenant between the
Father and the Son, as in Christ their federal head; they are then considered as the
adopted children of God in Christ. Accordingly, when described as chosen in Christ unto
eternal life, they are said to be predestinated unto the adoption of children.` Both
justification and adoption, Ridgley adds, are received by faith. On the other hand, if