My mum is half-Japanese and my Dad is Caucasian. In my family, we often joke that my brother Mike took all the Asian, while I got stuck with all the white! Once, at a costume party, I decided to go dressed as him (I thought it was a pretty good idea at the time). It took four layers of mum’s makeup to even get close to his skin tone! Naturally, over the years, this has led to many jokes about how one or other of us is adopted – especially seeing as we have polar-opposite personalities.
Funnily enough, this isn’t too different to the picture painted in the book of Romans (8:12-17). We’ve seen that although we reject God, cut ourselves off from him, and deserve his anger and punishment, he has worked in those who trust him, to unite us with his Son, Jesus Christ. In doing this, Jesus’ death counts as our death – the death we deserve for our sin. And because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we can have the hope of new, eternal life with God (Romans 8:1-11).
Now we see something that’s perhaps even more amazing
We are adopted as God’s sons (8:14-17). We who had completely rejected God and lived like we were our own “gods”, we who had always done wrong to God and each other; we who deserve nothing more than being cut off from God’s love forever – we, by God’s Spirit, are given a status like Jesus, God’s Son, the King of the universe.
In the time Paul was writing, a father’s inheritance was divided up between his sons. So, as he writes in verse 17, because we are adopted as God’s sons, we get to share in Jesus’ inheritance – his reward and his glory. We get to be friends with God. We get to enjoy a perfect relationship with him and each other forever, along with all the good things he will provide when he fixes this broken world once and for all (for a taste, see Revelation 21:3-4).
But how are we adopted as God’s Sons?
By trusting in Jesus as our saviour and King, who took our punishment in our place and who rules all things for all time (Romans 1:17, 3:24-25, 4:1-25, 5:17-21).
We who trust God should therefore put to death “the deeds of the body” – that is, the actions that are against God and his loving commands (8:13). We should instead, live with obedience to God as our goal, being happy to suffer in this life (more on this in the next article!) knowing the great things to come in the next (8:17).
Will you live in obedience to your heavenly Father, knowing what he has in store for you?
