CHAPTER 3

THE POSITION OF THE BELIEVER IN CHRIST

 

ROMANS 8:14-17. Adam received his life from God. When God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, as I understand it, there was at first only a body formed and fashioned by the hand of God. And then God breathed into that body the breath of life and man became a living soul. So Adam received his physical life from God. All of the rest of us, however received our life from Adam.

Now it is true that God's sovereignty extends to all of creation including human life, and no life could exists without His permission, and that all of us are under His control. Paul makes the point clear when, as he was preaching to the Athenians on Mars Hill, "for in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). But it is also true that all who have life physical today received it not by way of an act of creation but by an act of procreation.

This ability to procreate is a gift that God gave not only to man but to all plant and animal life. God does not recreate the flowers each spring, they are the procreation from the seed of a prior generation of flowers that withered and died in the preceding autumn.

No, Adam received life from God and we received life from Adam. We are in a very real way his sons and daughters. And being his sons and daughters we have inherited from him his nature, his sinful tendencies, his faults, his failures, both physical and spiritual, as well as his curse (Gen 3).

And the sentence that was passed upon Adam was death. We inherited all of that and much more, "as in Adam all die" (1 Cor 15). Death entered the world because of sin and so the life we received from Adam is temporary. This is our birthright, to die! All who read this should be reminded of the severity of sin, sin changed everything about Adam. To be the son of Adam is to live under the curse. To live knowing that death is real and all around. The awful truth about this old world is that apart from faith in Christ all men are lost.

In Romans 8:14-17, our Father explains our relationship to Him that was brought about by our having been born again. That's what I said. A new life. Not the old life we received from Adam, but the new life we received from Christ who is the second Adam (1 Cor 15). In these verses we learn a little of what its like to be a child of God.

VERSE 14; "For as many as are lead by the Spirit, they are the sons of God." Physical life is real. You can tell when someone is alive, why he breathes, his heart beats, the body is warm, etc. And you can tell when physical life comes to an end. But the life we now have in Christ is spiritual life. The believer has as much eternal life right now as he will have in the resurrection. He just doesn't have the body to go with it yet! This verse tells us that everyone in whom the Holy Spirit lives is God's son. But how?

VERSE 15; "For ye (the man or woman of faith) have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear." The bondage spoken of is no doubt that of the law and sin, both of which caused perpetual fear. No! "We have received the spirit of adoption." In these verses are found some key words that I want all who study with me to make note of and remember. These words are; (A) adoption, (B) heir joint-heir, (C) Abba-Father, (D) suffer, and (E) glorified.

(A) ADOPTION. Let's consider the word adoption. Hopefully every Christian understands that we are birthed into the family of God by faith in Christ. "The just shall live by faith." "Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever" (1 Pt 1:23).

Most who will read this already know about Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, and was told by the Saviour, "Nicodemus you must be born again". But here in this passage we are told about another aspect of the same event called adoption. I can think of no scenario where that a son could be both born and adopted into the same family with the same father and with the same mother. It would be totally unnecessary, but God's family is a little different from yours and mine and He has chosen to relate one aspect of salvation to us in this way. Let's learn the lesson.

(1) A child who is adopted is one who most likely has been abandoned by death, desertion, or some other unusual situation of life. Often an adopted child is a child who was unwanted by his natural parents. Now all of us in Adam were unlovable because of sin, however the message of the gospel is, "but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8).

(2) An adopted child is a child that has been brought into a brand new family. And just as a child who is adopted into an earthly family needs time, love, and learning in order that he might learn the ways of his new family, so too a child of God does not instantaneously know all that there is to know about being a Christian. He too needs time, love, and learning.

Adoption is not the same as adaptation. Adaptation as it relates to our subject, is the process of sanctification, that is the believer learning the ways of his new Father and conforming to them. After a person is saved he needs to alter his lifestyle following the lead of the Holy Spirit and live in such a way as to bring honor to his new Father and family. By so doing he adapts.

(3) An adopted child is the particular object of the father's love. You see in adoption we can understand that God choose us even before the world began (Eph 1). Our choice in the matter is whether or not to accept His Divine choice.

(4) The adopted child knows that he is loved because God didn't have to choose him.

(5) The adopted child is separated from his old life in the orphanage of sin. A complete separation that is instant would be nice. But it is not apt to happen that way. It is more likely that the adopted child (over a period of time) learns of the details of his new life. For example, what is expected of him, his speech, his conduct, his activities, and so forth. And by the way finding his place within the new family will very likely take some time. This does not conflict with the statement of the Apostle, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor 5:17). The believer is a new creature and all things are new, they are just not complete, nor will we ever truly be complete until the day we move out of the tent of flesh we are living in.

A terrible tragedy, at least of modern evangelism, is that before the adopted one learns much about his new life, he is caught up in the battle of Romans 7. And being in that battle he must have proper teaching, preaching, encouragement, and exhortation. If he does not receive such at that critical time he will very likely end up living a life after the flesh. And so Christian friends our discipling of those that come to Christ should take on an entirely new importance. The verse, "My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge" (Hos 4), is not just an Old Testament principal. Alright then on to the other words I wanted you to take note of.

(B) HEIR/JOINT-HEIR. To some who read these words of commentary what I am about to say will be old news. But I submit to you that its age does not dim the glory of its message and meaning. An heir may be the only heir and in such a case obviously inherits all. But when an estate is settled and there is more than one heir, one heir may inherit the house, another a tract of land, and so forth. There can be many heirs each inheriting a different portion of the estate. Quite often when this happens there are disagreements and hard feelings because it is impossible for each heir to have exactly the same. However in joint heirship, we are not going to inherit different slices of the heavenly pie, not even equal slices. The Bible says that each of us in Christ will inherit all. Amen!

(C) ABBA, FATHER. Authoritative works, like Vines Amplified Expository Dictionary of New Testament words and Robertsons Word Pictures in the New Testament inform us that "Abba" an Aramaic word was used by a young child in addressing their father. Corresponding to our English, daddy or papa. Its use shows an intimacy, a closeness, an affection, and dependence. And much more may be inferred by its use. It is the very word our Saviour used to address the Father in Mark 14:36, the night before the cross. And now here in Romans 8 we find that because of our new relationship to God in Christ we as a young child may cry "ABBA" FATHER.

(D) SUFFER. "Suffer with him." The book of Acts is in large part a record of how some who followed Christ suffered because of their faith. James, Peter, Paul, and the entire church at Jerusalem. Foxes Book of Martyrs provides a long list of Christians who gave their lives for their testimony of faith in Christ. That is one kind of Christian suffering, persecution, and when it comes into our lives may we endure it with the same kind of attitude that our Saviour possessed. "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross" (Heb 12). However I think it should be noted that merely living "in the body of this death" (Rom 7), just this fact alone is a kind of very real suffering for the man or woman of faith. This suffering will end in glory because though it will be, "sown in dishonor it will be raised in glory" (1 Cor 15). Amen!

(E) GLORIFIED. "Glorified together", right now we are not perfectly together. He is with us, more accurately in us and we figurivately are in Him. But we are not yet literally with Him. But that glorious day will surely come when this robe of flesh I'll drop and rise, to seize the everlasting prize, and shout while passing through the air, farewell, farewell sweet hour of prayer. Praise the Lord.