The spiritual child to the spiritual adult - milk to solid food. Eph 1:5; Gal 5:25; 1Co 3:2-3; Heb 2:10-13/Election is God’s desire for your life and predestination is God’s provision for your life. Together they are to result in a believer who knows he’s an adult son and lives as an adult son.\
Next we introduced adoption…
Eph 1:5 In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself [that’s the environment of royalty], according to the kind intention of His will,
/ the preposition eis plus the accusative noun huiothesian = “with the result of the appointment of adult sons.”\
You have freedom as a son to pursue the plan of God.
/The PPOG is the palace of the royal son. The dungeon of that palace is for the loser believer who refuses to execute the plan.\
The loser believer receives this freedom but continues to live for self and ignores this tremendous plan of predestination which is the place of manufacturing functioning adult sons.
Gal 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
We would be lying if we didn’t acknowledge that this is always a temptation since we all continue to possess an OSN.
But God has given us solutions through predestination.
Gal 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Gal 5:21 I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
There it is, a loss of inheritance through neglect of the royal palace, the PPOG.
/Things of the flesh are 16 fold – 42 which is a doubling of the earthly which is in direct contrast to God’s righteousness.\
There are several things on that list and possibly all things on that list that tempt us continually. With temptation there is not sin, but a choice – will you reside in the palace of the PPOG or will you copulate with the temptation.
/James 1:15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth [temporal] death.\
/James 1:16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.\
Arrogance and pride blinds the believer to his true options. Humility protects free will.
/James 1:17 Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.\
Our living in that palace produces paths of Righteousness. We did not work for this palace, God the Father did. We do not construct the paths of Righteousness, God the Son leads us in them. We do not power the palace, God the HS does.
In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is the product of residing in your very own palace.
Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
/9 fold – meaning 32 which is a doubling of God’s righteousness in execution.\
/The palace of the RFOG is not constructed of earthly things, but of the very righteousness of God the Father and God the Son.\
There is a fable of a man who found a penny when he was ten and was hunchbacked by the time he was fifty looking for another one. In the course of that time he found two dimes, four pennies, three nickels, and an assortment of safety pins, bent nails and other things. But he never saw a sunset and never saw anything else.
Many believers are so occupied with earthly things that they miss the things inherited by them at the right hand of God.
God has to put them on their back so that they might look up.
Occupation with earthly things leads to the deeds of the flesh mentioned in verses 19-21.
Gal 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [position]
Gal 5:25 If we live by the Spirit [and we do], let us also walk by the Spirit. [same as Eph 4:1 Walk in a manner worthy of your election.]
Gal 5:26 Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.
At the moment you believe in Christ spiritually you are a teknon or a brephos, another word for child, but this means a child on mother’s breast, in condition. Brephos is significant because as a child you are to long for the pure milk of the word of God.
But you are at the same time in union with Christ who is the Son of God, huios.
You must not remain a child in your thinking for too long. You must move on from milk (basic doctrines) to meat (advanced doctrines).
/1 Cor 3:2-3 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, 3 for you are still fleshly.\
You are a child spiritually, experientially, but positionally you are an adult son. This indicates that every believer, no matter how he fails, is still another huios of God; he is in union with Christ.
This gives the believer the freedom to apply doctrine without fear of failure. This boldness makes for a lot of success. The timid believer who is afraid to fail will generally opt out of application and resort to human defense mechanisms for solutions to life’s problems.
/The mechanics of adoption is the baptism of the Holy Spirit where every believer enters into union with Christ. Positional truth, therefore, is the mechanics of adoption.\
/1 Cor 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.\
At the moment of salvation every believer is an adult son.
/The time of adoption is the point of salvation.\
And for this we have scriptural documentation.
/John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,\
/Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.\
/Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,\
/The implications of adoption are freedom to have relationship with God and serve Him — Galatians 4:5.\
Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,
Gal 4:5 in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Gal 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"
Crying here means a shout of joy. This is the full recognition of your adoption so that through the grace of God you possess a double righteousness.
Remember that adoption as well as salvation in general gives us freedom toward God, not freedom in the human race. Therefore full time Christian service is nothing more or less than the believer free to have relationship with God — Romans 8:15.
/There is also a future aspect of adoption — Romans 8:23, ultimate sanctification = the resurrection body, minus the old sin nature, minus human good.\
/Rom 8:23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.\
Eph 1:5 In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
We continue in our exegesis of Eph 1:5.
/dia Iesou Christou – “through Jesus Christ”\ [this is translated correctly]
The cross is the means of tearing down the barrier between fallen man and perfect God.
Election, predestination, and resultant adoption could only be made a reality through Christ’s substitutionary spiritual death.
Christ satisfied the justice of God the Father so that the Father’s kind and benevolent purpose could be given to believers in the Church age.
The cross freed God the Father to treat us in the way He desired – grace!
/eis auton – “toward Himself,” of “for Himself.” This indicates the direction of the baptism of the Holy Spirit – towards God the Father.\
The Father is the author of the plan. The Father’s decree was first and foremost to bring many sons to glory; to His glory.
/His glory is always derived from His essence and so we are brought into or towards God the Father’s essence which again reveals that the Christian way of life is a relationship with God.\
We are sons. He is our Father, Father… (Abba Father). In your soul you should shout it with joy. This is praise as we’ll see in verse 6.
Heb 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
Neither Christ nor the Father had to be made perfect, but the plan authored by the Trinity in EP had to be brought to completion through the sufferings of Christ.
Again, election is the Father’s desire, but that desire cannot be fulfilled unless predestination is made a reality.
The reality of predestination could only come through the love of the Father and the Son and the HS for the human race and for each other. This love is manifest through service and laying down the life of Christ.
Heb 2:11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Heb 2:12 saying, "I will proclaim Thy name to My brethren, In the midst of the congregation I will sing Thy praise." [Christ called the Father Abba in Mark 14:36. Singing refers to joy, joy over the completion of the plan of God.]
Heb 2:13 And again, "I will put My trust in Him." And again, "Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me."
“adoption as sons through Jesus Christ towards the Father,” emphasizes the relationship that we have with the Trinity that must be exploited by us in time.
Timid believers never explore the depths of this relationship, nor the length, the breadth or the height of it.
/Phil 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,\
Eph 1:5 In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
/kata ten eudokian – “according to the benevolent purpose.” God’s purpose and will is always under the umbrella of grace.\
/tou thelematos autou – “from the source of His will.”\
/God’s will is from His own source. All of the aspects of this fantastic plan of grace for the CA believer are from His purpose without any outside influences – i.e. your particular condition at any given time.\
God’s will is never altered, even in the slightest, by your condition at any given time.
Unbelievers and reversionistic believers secretly desire the freedom of being in Christ and sons of God.
And yet it is offered to them every day. However, they don’t want it unless they can work for it, but God cannot give freedom based on the merits of a fallen creature. Freedom in life can only be attained by the grace of God. This is from His will and it is His purpose.
The reversionistic believer refuses to acknowledge that all beautiful things come from above and not from this earth, whether they are involved in the pleasures of the earth or in the religion of the earth.
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