One thing that stands out about adoption is the conscious choice made in love to make someone or something (in the case of pets) a part of your family. To state the obvious, prior to that decision they were not a part of your family. I have heard numerous people refer to that day as ‘Gotcha Day’. In fact, some of our good friends will be celebrating this today. It is surely something to celebrate. But if you ask them or anyone else, it’s not that date which is special in of itself, but what it represents — an act of love and a transformation that occurred. In that way, it’s very similar to an anniversary or a memorial of some kind. We are taking a moment to acknowledge when something significant came to be. That’s a great thing. What is even better (in the case of gaining someone rather than losing someone), is that we can be mindful of this love-filled relationship everyday; not just on this lone date we mark on our calendars. There are a lot of parallels when it comes to our relationship with our heavenly Father. After we look at some Scripture, let’s consider some of those…
Gal 4:1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,
Gal 4:2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
Gal 4:3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
Gal 4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Gal 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Gal 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
—Galatians 4:1-7
If you have been blessed to be part of an adoption on a human level, or even if you adopted a pet, then you know the foreknowledge which went in to that decision. How much more so when it comes to God adopting us as His children. In Ephesians 1:3-14, we see the blessing in God’s plan, or more precisely His promise. In the verse prior to the passage in Galatians 4, we see that if we are Christ's, then we are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:29) That right there is a mind-boggling amount of foreknowledge, since none of us were even close to existing when God made that promise to Abraham. But that’s nothing when we consider that according to Ephesians 1:4-5 God chose us and predestined us for adoption BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. Let that sink in for a minute. We like to celebrate the time when we realize we were saved or were born again. I’m not going to tell you NOT to celebrate that moment, because we should certainly emphasize the moment when we became aware of God’s redeeming work on our behalf. However, may that moment never overshadow the fact God’s plan of redemption for mankind and each of us as individuals was PLANNED and PROMISED long before we existed or were capable of making choices. His plan was COMPLETED at the cross. Since we weren’t there before the creation of the world, and that time is undefinable anyway, we should look to the cross as THE DEFINING MOMENT in history when it became possible for us to be adopted as children of God. Now, we are simply waiting for the fullness of time, when all He has chosen will be regenerated and become aware of this saving faith.
At the risk of ‘ruining’ such a beautiful picture of God’s loving plan of redemption and adoption, I want to stress the danger of Christians emphasizing the choice of ‘accepting Christ’ or celebrating that day above all else. As I said earlier, yes, it’s important to acknowledge the day when we became conscious of being born again. Please hear that. However, if we are going to emphasize the importance of any particular choice, let it be God’s and not ours. Just like when we look at the adoption of a human being or a pet, it is the one who is adopting who ultimately made the choice, NOT the adoptee. I don’t think I will get much pushback on this, especially considering in all pet cases and most human cases the adoptee really has no say in the matter. You may feel a connection to a certain pet, or have a child who is at an age where they can express their own desire to be adopted, but ultimately the decision still has to be made by the one doing the adopting. If we know this to be true on a human to human, or human to pet level, then how much more is this true when it comes to God’s plan for the adoption of a multitude of people throughout all of time?! It is truly unbelievable to try to wrap our minds around this reality — the vastness of God’s adopting love! To claim it was ‘up to us’ or emphasize our own choice in the matter not only tries to diminish what God has done and steal some credit for ourselves, but it is also us implying something happened outside of the foreknowledge of God. When something happens without our foreknowledge we usually refer to that thing as a surprise. So God was surprised and has to react to His new adoptee like a baby being dropped off in a safe box at a fire station? Is God up there like, “Well, I see little Johnny made a decision to follow me now, guess we better make room for another, huh?” Come on, now. Miss me with that. Why would we let ANYTHING, even our own desire to follow God (which He gave us by the way, just saying…), distract us from marveling at God’s adopting love! If we are to focus in on the day when we became aware of this love and were ‘officially’ (from our perspective) adopted into the family of God, then let it be focused on the cross and the fact God said, “I gotcha.”