SONS OF GOD
PURPOSE:
To grasp the tremendous significance of adoption.
DISCUSSION:
1. Is God the Father of all people? What sort of sonship can a human being experience?
2. In what phrase does Packer sum up the whole of New Testament teaching? the whole of New Testament religion?
3. Packer says, “The revelation to the believer that God is his Father is in a sense the climax of the Bible. “How does God’s revelation of himself in the Old Testament compare with the New Testament revelation?
4. How does Packer refute the statement that the fatherhood of God “can mean nothing to those whose human father was inadequate”?
5. How has God made the meaning of his fatherhood clear? What are four essential elements of it (p. 204)?
6. What does Packer mean when he says that adoption is “the highest privilege that the gospel offers”?
7. Packer says that the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of adoption. From the Sermon on the Mount, what three things does adoption serve as the basis for? How does it provide this basis?
8. Why is the phrase adoption through propitiation, which Packer uses on page 214, such a rich summary of the gospel?
9. How does our adoption show us the greatness of God’s grace? the glory of the Christian hope? the key to understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit? the meaning and motive of “gospel holiness”? the solution to the problem of assurance?
10. Think through (or write out) a yes or no answer to the questions listed at the end of the chapter. What impressions are you left with about your own understanding of adoption and your relation to your heavenly Father?
SUMMARY:
What is adoption? Why is it important?
