Adoption and sanctification

This week's questions

What is adoption? Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.

Question 34

What is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.

Question 35

Last week's verdict left us forgiven and accepted. These are the other two gifts Question 32 named: adoption gives us a Father, and sanctification a new life. Adoption, like justification, is an ‘act’, finished when God does it; sanctification is a ‘work’ that continues for the rest of our lives. The library's introduction explains both answers with the Larger Catechism; here we follow their proof texts.

Children and heirs

The first proof text can only wonder: "Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1). Forgiveness alone could have left us pardoned strangers; God makes us his own. Those who receive Christ are given "the right to become children of God" (John 1:12), and with that right comes an inheritance:

And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ — if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Romans 8:17

Paul's word for it, huiothesia (υἱοθεσία), is a legal one: the standing of a son given to one not born to it. God sent his Son "that we might receive our adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:5), and then the Spirit of his Son, so that "you are no longer a slave, but a son" (Galatians 4:7). ‘Sons’ names the heir's standing, and daughters share it: "you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty" (2 Corinthians 6:18). The Heidelberg Catechism, of the continental Reformed churches, keeps the one Son distinct: "Christ alone is the eternal natural Son of God; but we are children of God by adoption through grace for his sake" Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 33.

Among the privileges the Westminster Confession lists are God's name upon us, the Spirit of adoption, bold access to his throne, and his pity, protection and provision; we are disciplined as by a father, and never cast off Westminster Confession 12.1. Even the discipline is a child's privilege: "God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness" (Hebrews 12:10). The English minister Matthew Henry says that "the sons of God have the Spirit to work in them the disposition of children" Matthew Henry: the Father gives his children his likeness too.

Made new, more and more

That likeness is sanctification. God chose us "to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth" (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and the Spirit's work reaches "the whole man": mind, will, desires and body. The words ‘after the image of God’ Q. 35 send us back to Question 10, where God created man ‘after his own image’: what our first parents had at creation, knowledge, righteousness and holiness, God now gives back in Christ, as the new self "is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:10). So Question 35's second proof text calls believers "to be renewed in the spirit of your minds" (Ephesians 4:23).

It has two sides. The last proof texts tell of a death and a life, the death of the old self and a walk "in newness of life" (Romans 6:4):

We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

Romans 6:6

The Heidelberg Catechism names the two sides "the dying of the old man, and the quickening of the new" Q. 88: the first is "Heartfelt sorrow for sin; causing us to hate and turn from it always more and more" Q. 89, the second "Heartfelt joy in God" Q. 90.

‘More and more’ is honest. Sanctification reaches the whole person, the Westminster Confession says, "yet imperfect in this life; there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war" 13.2, the war of flesh and Spirit in Galatians 5:17. Yet the remaining corruption does not win in the end: "the regenerate part doth overcome" 13.3.

Christians agree that God calls his people to holiness, and differ on how far it goes in this life and how it relates to justification. John Wesley, from whom the Methodist churches descend, taught Christian perfection, a heart made perfect in love, to be sought and received in this life; he did not mean being without any fault Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. The Reformed confess sanctification "imperfect in this life". The Catholic Church holds justification and sanctification together, as one renewal of the inner person by grace Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 7. The Orthodox churches of the East speak of theosis, becoming by grace "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The growth itself is taught in Holiness and perseverance and How does a Christian grow holy?; see also the glossary's adoption and sanctification.

To ponder this week

If God is your Father, how will you come to him this week; and what one sin will you put to death, and what one grace put on? Come as a child, not a hired hand. Then take Paul's two lists: "Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature" (Colossians 3:5), and "clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience" (Colossians 3:12). Choose one from each, and ask your Father for help with both.

Practice