Forensic Adoption

Galatians 4:6, And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

God has given you the Holy Spirit of His Son, Jesus Christ, who has opened your eyes to see God your Father. We cannot call God our Father through logic. Deductive reasoning cannot come to such a conclusion. God being our Father is antithetical to logic. Therefore, no one can “choose” God; He has chosen you.

No one chooses their parents. If we cannot choose our own parents here on earth, what makes us think we are able to choose God the Father, being dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1)? Rather, God chooses us and makes us alive (Romans 6:3-11), breathing the Spirit of His Son into us in Baptism, making us His own children. You have a heavenly Father who loves you dearly.

Perhaps the concept of God your Father is difficult to grasp because of your absent or abusive father on earth. If an abusive father or absent father (though physically present), write down all the bad qualities of your father and then on the other side any good qualities, then the qualities you wish he had. All those bad qualities do not belong to God. All those good qualities—both real and wishful—are found in God and are merely a fraction of how good God your Father is.

If your father is literally absent—you don’t know who he is, he walked out on your family, etc.—perhaps you have a father figure in your life. He could be a coach, teacher, band director, uncle, stepfather, whatever. Whether literally or figuratively, your father figure has adopted you as his own, which God your Father has also done for you—in a literal way—in Christ Jesus His Son.

Jesus is not only our Lord, but also our Brother (Matthew 12:46-50). If children of God, then we are also brothers and sisters of Christ. Just as God has forensically pronounced you justified from your sin, so He has also forensically adopted you as His son or daughter. This is our forensic adoption by the virtue of our Baptism.