"Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ
make him to be holy. If God ordains a man to be in Christ, then He ordains him to be a member of Christ, and there must be conformity between Head and members. The election of grace was given to Christ as His spouse, and husband and wife must be of the same kind and image. When Adam was to have a wife she must be the same specie: none of the beasts was fit to be a partner for him. God brought them all before him, but among them all "For Adam was not found a help meet for him" (Genesis 2:20), because they had not the same image and kind. So if God chooses a man in Christ—the Holy One—he must necessarily be holy, and this is the reason why our holiness is annexed to our being chosen in Him (Ephesians 1:4).
God, then, has decreed that His people shall be perfectly holy before Him, that they shall be in His presence forever, there to enjoy Him everlastingly, and delight themselves in that enjoyment, for as the Psalmist tells us "in your presence is fullness of joy." Therein is revealed to us of what consists the ineffable bliss of our eternal inheritance: it is perfect holiness, perfect love to God; this is the essence of celestial glory. If the entire apostolate had spent the whole of their remaining lifetime in an attempt to depict and describe what Heaven is, they could have done no more than enlarge upon these words: perfect holiness in God's presence, perfect love to Him, perfect enjoyment of Him, even as we are beloved by Him. This is Heaven, and this is what God has decreed to bring His people unto. This is His first design in our election: to bring us into an unblemished holiness before Him.
2. God's design in our election was that we should be His sons: "Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself according to the good pleasure of His will" (Ephesians 1:5 ASV.). Holiness is that which fits us for Heaven, for an unholy person could not possibly enjoy Heaven: were he to enter it, he would be altogether out of his native element. Holiness, then, is that which constitutes the saints fitness for their inheritance in light (Colossians 1:12). But adoption is that which gives the right to the glory of Heaven, being bestowed upon them as a dignity or
prerogative (John 1:12). As we have pointed out on other occasions, the last two words of Ephesians 1:4 belong properly to verse 5: "In love having predestined us unto the adoption." God's love unto His dear Son was so great that, having chosen us in Him, His heart went out toward us as one with Christ, and therefore did He ordain us unto this further honor and privilege. This agrees perfectly with "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (1 John 3:1).
God might have made us perfectly holy in Christ and added no further blessing to it. "You have your fruits unto holiness" says the apostle (Romans 6:22), and precious fruit that is; but he did not stop there—"and the end everlasting life:" that is added as a further fruit and privilege. In like manner, God added adoption to holiness: as the Psalmist says "the Lord will give grace and glory" (84:11). As our God, He chose us to holiness, according to that express saying "you shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). But as He became our Father in Christ, He predestined us unto the adoption of sons. Here, then, is the twofold relation which the Most High sustains to His people in and through Christ, and there is the consequent twofold blessing of our persons because of Christ. Observe how minutely this corresponds with "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).
By adoption we become God's sons in law, as by regeneration we are made His children in nature. By the new birth we become (experimentally) members of God's family; by adoption we have the legal status of sons, with all the high privileges that relationship involves: "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts" (Galatians 4:6). Adoption makes known the high prerogatives and blessings which are ours by virtue of union with Christ, the legal right which we have unto all the blessings we enjoy, both here and hereafter. As the apostle reminds us, if we are children then are we "heirs," co-heirs with Christ; yes, heirs of God (Romans 8:17)—to possess and enjoy God as Christ does. "Seems it
to you a light thing to be a king's son-in-law?" exclaimed David (1 Samuel 18:23), when it was suggested that he marry Michal: you may haply be the king's favorite and he may make you great, but to become his son-in-law is the highest honor of all. This is why we are told immediately after I John 3:1, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him" (v. 2)—like Him in our proportion: as He perfectly enjoys God, so shall we.
Let it be duly noted that it is "through Jesus Christ" we are sons and heirs of God. Christ is our pattern in election, the One to whose image we are predestined to be conformed. Christ is God's natural Son, and we become (by union with Christ) God's legal sons. "That he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29) signifies that God did set up Christ as the prototype and masterpiece, and made us to be so many little copies and models of Him. Every dignity we possess, every blessing we enjoy—save our election when God chose us in Him—we owe to Christ. He is the virtual cause of our adoption. Christ, as we have said, is God's natural Son; how, then, do we become His sons? Thus: God gave us to Christ to be married to Him, and He betrothed us to Him from everlasting, and so we become sons-in-law unto God, even as a woman comes to be a man's daughter-in-law by marrying his son. We owe our adoption to our relation unto Christ's person, and not to His atoning work. Our adoption as originally it was in predestination bestowed upon us, was not founded upon redemption or Christ's obedience, but on Christ's being God's natural Son. Our justification is indeed grounded upon Christ's obedience and sufferings: "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7). But our adoption and becoming sons-in-law to God is through Christ's being His natural Son, and we His brethren in relation to His person. "God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:9). That fellowship or communion involves our participation of His dignities and whatever else in Him we were capable of; just as a woman acquires a legal title unto all the possessions of the man she marries. As Christ
being God's natural Son was the foundation of His work possessing infinite worth, so our adoption is founded on our relation to His person, and then our justification upon His meritorious work.
We must, however, add this word of caution to what has just been pointed out: when we fell in Adam we lost all our privileges, and therefore Christ was gladly to purchase them anew; and hence it follows that adoption, and all other blessings, are the fruits of His merit so far as their actual bestowment is concerned. Thus the apostle tells us Christ became incarnate "to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Galatians 4:5)—our sins and bondage under the law and its curse interposing an obstacle against God's actual bestowment of adoption. But mark the minute accuracy of the language used: Christ's redemption is not said to procure adoption for us, but only that we might receive it. That which procured adoption was our relation to Christ as God's sons-in-law: this being God's purpose from everlasting.
Let us duly consider now the greatness of this privilege. Adam was created holy, and Luke 3:38 tells us he was "the son of God," but nowhere is it said that he was the son of God by adoption through Christ. So too in Job 38:7 the angels are called "morning stars" and "sons of God," yet we are never told they are such by adoption through Christ. They were "sons" indeed by creation, for God made them; but not sons-in-law of God by being married unto His Son, which is a grace and dignity peculiar to believers. Thus we excel the angels by our special relation to the Son of God's love: Christ nowhere calls the angels His "brethren," as He does us! This is borne out by Hebrews 12:22 where, in contrast from the angels mentioned previously, we read of "the Church of the firstborn," a title denoting superiority (Genesis 49:3): we being related to God's "Firstborn," have higher privilege of sonship than the angels have.
"A figure may perhaps help us here. A father chooses a bride for his son, as Abraham chose one of his own kin for Isaac, and gives her a goodly dowry, besides presenting her with bridal ornaments, such as