Of communion with Christ in privileges — Of adoption; the nature of it, the consequences of it — Peculiar privileges attending it; liberty, title, boldness, affliction — Communion with Christ hereby.
III. The third thing wherein we have communion with Christ, is grace of privilege before God; I mean, as the third head of purchased grace. The privileges we enjoy by Christ are great and innumerable; to insist on them in particular were work for a man’s whole life, not a design to be wrapped up in a few sheets. I shall take a view of them only in the head, the spring and fountain whence they all arise and flow, — this is our adoption: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God,” 1 John iii. 2. This is our great and fountain privilege. Whence is it that we are so? It is from the love of the Father. Verse 1, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!” But by whom immediately do we receive this honour? As many as believe on Christ, he gives them this power, to become the sons of God, John i. 12. Himself was appointed to be the first-born among many brethren, Rom. viii. 29; and his taking us to be brethren, Heb. ii. 11, makes us become the children of God. Now, that God is our Father, by being the Father of Christ, and we his children by being the brethren of Christ, being the head and sum of all the honour, privilege, right, and title we have, let us a little consider the nature of that act whereby we are invested with this state and title, — namely, our adoption.
Now, adoption is the authoritative translation of a believer, by Jesus Christ, from the family of the world and Satan into the family of God, with his investiture in all the privileges and advantages of that family.
To the complete adoption of any person, these five things are required:—
1. That he be actually, and of his own right, of another family than that whereinto he is adopted. He must be the son of one family or other, in his own right, as all persons are.
2. That there be a family unto which of himself he hath no right, whereinto he is to be grafted. If a man comes into a family upon a personal right, though originally at never so great a distance, that man is not adopted. If a man of a most remote consanguinity do come into the inheritance of any family by the death of the nearer heirs, though his right before were little better than nothing, yet he is a born son of that family, — he is not adopted. [In adoption] he is not to have the plea of the most remote possibility of succession.
3. That there be an authoritative, legal translation of him, by some that have power thereinto, from one family into another. It was not, by the law of old, in the power of particular persons to adopt when and whom they would. It was to be done by the authority of the sovereign power.
4. That the adopted person be freed from all the obligations that be upon him unto the family from whence he is translated; otherwise he can be no way useful or serviceable unto the family whereinto he is ingrafted. He cannot serve two masters, much less two fathers.
5. That, by virtue of his adoption, he be invested in all the rights, privileges, advantages, and title to the whole inheritance, of the family into which he is adopted, in as full and ample manner as if he had been born a son therein.
Now, all these things and circumstances do concur and are found in the adoption of believers:—
1. They are, by their own original right, of another family than that whereinto they are adopted. They are “by nature the children of wrath,” Eph. ii. 3, — sons of wrath, — of that family whose inheritance is “wrath,” — called “the power of darkness,” Col. i. 13; for from thence doth God “translate them into the kingdom of his dear Son.” This is the family of the world and of Satan, of which by nature believers are. Whatever is to be inherited in that family, — as wrath, curse, death, hell, — they have a right thereunto. Neither can they of themselves, or by themselves, get free of this family: a strong man armed keeps them in subjection. Their natural estate is a family condition, attended with all the circumstances of a family, — family duties and services, rights and titles, relations and observances. They are of the black family of sin and Satan.
2. There is another family whereinto they are to be translated, and whereunto of themselves they have neither right nor title. This is that family in heaven and earth which is called after the name of Christ, Eph. iii. 15, — the great family of God. God hath a1 house and family for his children; of whom some he maintains on the riches of his grace, and some he entertains with the fulness of his glory. This is that house whereof the Lord Christ is the great dispenser, it having pleased the Father to “gather together in one all things in him, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him,” Eph. i. 10. Herein live all the sons and daughters of God, spending largely on the riches of his grace. Unto this family of themselves they have no right nor title; they are wholly alienated from it, Eph. ii. 12, and can lay no claim to any thing in it. God driving fallen Adam out of the garden, and shutting up all ways of return with a flaming sword, ready to cut him off if he should attempt it, abundantly declares that he, and all in him, had lost all right of approaching unto God in any family relation. Corrupted, cursed nature is not vested with the least right to any thing of God. Therefore, —