“He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,” Ephesians 1:5.
I want to start this post by looking at our creation by God.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:26.
As we see here, we were made in the image of God. What does this mean? Basically, God said, “let us make man in our image after our likeness.” In the counsel of His own will, in the triunity of the Godhead, which we cannot fully comprehend. and thus he made man as a triunity as well. God is a superior triunity. Man, made in the image of God is an inferior triunity. The superior triunity of God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the inferior triunity of man being body, soul and spirit.
God’s love for us is the reason He created mankind; He brought life to Adam and Eve, becoming the first of the human race. Then He clearly warned them that the penalty for sin was death, using a specific tree as His example.
“but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:17.
And as we see in chapter one of Ephesians, He loved mankind before He created us.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Ephesians 1:3-5,
When Adam and Eve chose to sin, they denied God’s position as their Father and thus brought themselves and all mankind, including their descendants, under God’s righteous judgment. And just like Adam and Eve, we all have deliberately rejected the authority of our Father over our lives by choosing to sin in some way.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23.
Sin is the act of going against God; who He is and His ways. And since God is the creator and giver of life, we experience death when we are separated from Him.
“So I say this, and affirm in the Lord, that you are to no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their minds, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart and they, having become callous, have given themselves up to indecent behavior for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” Ephesians 4:17-19.
Due to our sin we lost our position as children of God, because we chose not to follow Him. However, if we then decide to follow Him, things will change.
“So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” Romans 8:12-17.
Salvation is a huge event. It is not just us becoming Christians, but we are also adopted by God to be His children, becoming heirs of God’s promises through our faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation in Christ is pictured not just as a rebirth but an adoption as we saw in focus verse,
“He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Ephesians 1:5.
Jesus is the common denominator among Christians. We all relate to God on an equal basis through Jesus Christ. I have just as much access to God through Jesus as any other Christian because we all come to Christ the same way. We all, through faith, have access to God, and it doesn’t make any difference what our background is. For as far as our being in Christ,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” Galatians 3:28-29.
So, as you can see, mankind was predestined to become children of God before the creation of all things. However, because of Adam and Eve’s decision to eat from the tree God told them not to, they lost their position as God’s children, and because all mankind fell into sin, we also lost our position as His children. However, when we give ourselves to God through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God, our sins are forgiven, and we are adopted back into the family of God and will spend eternity with Him as His sons and daughters. What a beautiful picture of love we see here.
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