Acknowledging our Adoption

Paul says in the fourth chapter of in his letter to the Galatians that Christ freed us from the law and revealed that we are all the adopted children of God.  The "law" referred to the Mosaic code; the lengthy regulations and rules that were required for proper Jewish belief and practice.

The meaning of Paul's statement about the law and adoption is best understood by understanding freedom from the law in the context of a statement that Paul makes in Galatians 3.13.  Here, Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, and references a text in Deuteronomy: cursed is everyone that hangs from a tree.

In Jesus' day, Israel perceived the law as a mechanism to gain God's favor; to be adopted by God and considered God's people.  Paul says that the law itself was not a curse--the problem was not the Mosaic code but Israel's perception of it and why they followed it.  In fact, Paul perceived the early Christian community as having Jewish and Gentile Christians side by side; Gentile Christians having freedom not to practice the requirements of the law and Jewish Christians having freedom to continue to practice it.

Being hung from a tree rendered someone defiled under the Mosaic law.  By being crucified on a tree, Paul argues, God freed Israel from its perception that the law was needed in order to be God's children.  Israel could never again say that the law was required to be accepted by God, because God in Jesus Himself would thereby be considered unclean.

Israel had gotten things backwards.  God did not bring the Mosaic law to Israel to create hoops for Israel to jump through in order to be adopted as God's children.  Before the law came into being, God chose Israel has His covenant people.  The law was a mechanism for Israel to be reminded of its adoption and to live in accordance with its status as God's covenant people.

We often get things backwards in the Protestant tradition as well.  We think that in order to be adopted as God's children, we too have to jump through hoops.  Too often in the Protestant tradition there is an implied theological understanding that in order to become God's people, we are required to have an emotional experience where we suddenly believe a set of abstract principles about Jesus, and then profess our belief in this set of abstract principles.  At this point, we are then adopted as God's children.

The entire human race is already adopted as God's children.  When we accept Christ as Lord, we do not become God's children.  Instead, we come to understand, acknowledge, and profess that we were always God's children.  We then begin to learn to live our lives as if we believe that we are adopted as God's children.