‘Adoption[1] is not a discrete theological locus for Calvin[2], but undergirds Calvin’s soteriology[3] as ‘a fundamental structural category’[4] and ‘a central concept’ in his gospel[5]. The ‘sonship’ motif ‘frequently designates the idea of being a Christian’[6] as a comprehensive basis for his whole soteriology[7]. God’s loving fatherhood is ‘perhaps the most fundamental theme’ of his theological system[8].
I analyse Calvin’s Institutes, Commentaries, and Treatises[9], with secondary sources[10], to outline Calvin’s doctrine of sonship as it relates to his soteriology. I then offer an assessment.
‘Creative’[11] Sonship
At their creation angels and men were so constituted that God was their common Father.[12]
For God at the beginning constituted man, as his Son, the heir of all good things[13]
Calvin relates sonship to Adam and humanity in general. The pagans describe God as ‘the Father of men’[14]. ‘[E]verything was made chiefly for humankind, that they might recognize God as father’[15]. ‘Fatherhood’ expresses God’s creational and providential care for humanity, elect or not. God treats humanity as children by his protection, nourishment and education[16]. Recognizing God as father is the first step towards piety[17]. The pious entrust themselves to their Heavenly Father and are relieved from every care[18]. Piety recognises in creation and providence, and even within ourselves[19], the testimony that God is our Father.
‘But we ought …to contemplate God’s fatherly love towards mankind, in that he did not create Adam until he had lavished upon the universe all manner of good things… in thus assuming the responsibility of a foreseeing and diligent father of the family he shows his wonderful goodness toward us.’[20]
However, after the fall, our sonship cannot be necessarily inferred from creation[21]. Estranged from ‘the Father of Lights’, humans become blinded[22]. God’s creative fatherhood still operates, but humankind no longer recognises God’s paternity[23]. ‘In this ruin of mankind no-one now experiences God either as Father’ until Christ the Mediator reconciles us[24].
However, angels and humans are, in a qualified sense ‘God’s sons’ by virtue of creation in the image of God[25]. ‘[B]ecause Adam was made in the image of God, his posterity were always reckoned, in a certain sense, to be the children of God’[26]. All men are called sons ‘in general’[27]. Calvin deduces Adam’s sonship from his possession of the imago Dei[28].
To what extent is the imago Dei affected by the fall? There is a tension in Calvin: there is a creative sonship, but only the pious are true sons by the Spirit of adoption[29]. ‘God’s image was not totally annihilated and destroyed in him, yet it was so corrupted that whatever remains is frightful deformity’[30]. Because God’s image is the perfect excellence of human nature in pre-fall Adam, it was subsequently ‘so vitiated and almost blotted out that nothing remains …except what is …disease-ridden.’[31] The integrity of post-fall Adam’s endowed ‘image of God’ depends on his ‘full possession of right understanding, his affections being kept within the bounds of reason, and his senses tempered in right order’[32]. God’s image is borne when humans are conformed to Christ with true piety[33]. All men are called sons ‘in general’, because they draw near to God in mind, but because the image of God is almost blotted out in them, this title is properly limited to the faithful, who having the Spirit of adoption, and thus resemble their heavenly Father in righteousness[34]. Thus, humanity retains but vestiges of the humanum which distinguishes humankind from animals[35]. Yet, Calvin can still call them in a certain sense, ‘Children of God’[36].
Westhead wrongly regards ‘creative sonship’ as ‘not sonship at all’[37]. Rather, the creative sonship of humans and angels is one of Calvin’s ‘distinct degrees of adoption’[38]. ‘Christ is the Son of God by nature’, in distinction to humans and angels, who are created. Christ is not created, and thus the ‘natural’ Son[39]. Thus, ‘creative sonship’ is adoptive in that it is (a) not ‘natural’, (b) originates from the Father’s will through creation[40], and (c) is grounded on Christ’s ontological eternal Sonship prior to incarnation[41] as ‘the creature can sustain no filial relation to God apart from some connection to the Son of God’[42]. Creative sonship is thus a type of adoption. It is thus mistaken to regard ‘creative’ sonship for Calvin as ‘natural’[43]. All constituted sonship of God’s creatures is grounded on Christ’s ‘natural’ sonship as God the Son.
However, salvific sonship only comes to believers.. Those not engrafted into the only begotten Son are not God’s children[44]. God, from whom we are estranged, again begins to be our father when we return to him through faith in Christ and his cross[45]. Thus, humanity is both God’s ‘offspring’, and yet if outside Christ, outside his household, where God is only known as judge[46].
Old Testament Saints Adopted under One Covenant of Grace
While Calvin posits differences between Old and New Covenants (there is continuity and discontinuity)[47], the covenants are essentially one[48]. Any differences are ‘formal rather than substantial and do not affect the inner unity of the covenants’[49]. The saints under OT and NT share in one overarching Covenant of Grace[50]. ‘The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same’[51]. OT saints were adopted into the hope of immortality[52] and were endued with the Spirit of adoption as sons[53]. The only difference is that the Spirit is more largely and abundantly poured fourth in the kingdom of Christ[54].
Discontinuity is seen in that believers called God their father under the OT, ‘but not with such full confidence’[55]. The Old struck consciences with fear; they are released into joy by the New[56]. Under the law there is a spirit of bondage oppressing the conscience; under the gospel, there is the spirit of adoption, testifying to our salvation[57]. The fathers were certain of their adoption, but did not fully enjoy the privilege[58]. As sons of God, they were free; but were not in possession of freedom, while under the law as tutor[59].
Thus, there is a salvation-historical difference, but it is not as to the individual believer’s certainty of adoption as assurance of salvation. The OT saints always knew of God’s heavenly fatherhood, which the incarnation simply made clearer[60]. The difference is clear knowledge of the Son of God and the abundant outpouring of the Spirit. Thus, Calvin thinks of the sonship of OT saints in NT terms[61]. This explains why Calvin ‘imposes adoption on the covenant of Abraham’[62].
‘National’ or ‘Covenantal’[63] Adoption & ‘Distinct Degrees Of Adoption’
While God covenanted with Abraham and his descendants, not all Abraham’s lineage believed[64]. So, Calvin lays down a ‘national’ or ‘covenantal’ adoption, one of the ‘distinct degrees of adoption’[65]. Calvin traces this national adoption through salvation history from Abraham to Moses. It is initiated in the Abrahamic covenant but is ratified under the Mosaic covenant[66].
The adoption of Israel was national and not individual[67]. Calvin, following the language of Scripture[68], simultaneously uses the language of adoption for individuals elected to salvation, and also the covenant community of Israel, which included unbelievers[69]. Calvin posits the ‘distinct degrees of adoption’ collected from various Scriptures[70]. Abraham’s progeny are distinguished as peculiarly accepted by God, but not all were salvifically elect. Unbelievers among the Jews are still called ‘children’ (Matthew 8:12). This adoption was conferred on both Israel’s reprobate and elect[71]. By it, eternal salvation was offered to all. However, a twofold class of sons is observed. All in the Church are accounted children as the name of the Church is applicable to all: but in the innermost sanctuary of God, none others are reckoned the sons of God, than they in whom the promise is ratified by faith, this difference flowing from gratuitous election.
Adoption ‘Proper’: Pre-temporal unconditional election to adoption (Eph 1:4-5)
To sum up: by free adoption God makes those whom he will to be his sons; the intrinsic cause of this is in himself, for he is content with his own secret good pleasure[72].
For Calvin, the divine adopting act ‘proper’[73] is intimately related to pre-temporal unconditional individual election to salvation. Election is a type of incipient adoption[74], and are near synonyms[75]. For Calvin ‘adoption’ frequently refers to individual election by way of shorthand[76]. ‘God adopts some to hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death[77].’ ‘[H]e adopted some for himself for salvation, he destined others for eternal ruin’[78]. Election is called ‘that secret adoption’[79]. Foreknowledge is not bare prescience ‘but the adoption by which he had always distinguished his children from the reprobate.’[80] Eternal election, ‘illumines God’s grace by this contrast: that he does not indiscriminately adopt all into the hope of salvation but gives to some what he denies to others.’[81] ‘[W]e have been gratuitously adopted by God before we were born’, though James saw we obtain the right of adoption by gratuitous calling[82]. ‘…[F]aith is, as it were, the duplicate copy that God gives us of the original of our adoption. God has his eternal counsel, and he always reserves to himself the chief and original record of which he gives us a copy by faith.’[83] ‘[God] had adopted us before we knew him and even before the world was created’[84]. Adoption produces faith, which is a ‘singular pledge of the Father’s love, reserved for the sons whom he has adopted’[85]. ‘Free adoption is the citadel of Calvin’s faith; double predestination is a defensive outwork’ and for Calvin it was ‘the final guarantee of both humility and security[86]. Predestination restricts God’s salvific Fatherhood[87].
The relationship between adoption ‘proper’ and election is unclear. So the elect have been ‘freely adopted according to eternal election’[88]. Calvin regards adoption as the ‘very sweet fruit’[89] of election. So election leads to adoption[90]. But Calvin also regards ‘foreknowledge’ as adoption. So adoption leads to election. Regardless, election to adoption ‘proper’ is made in eternity.
Calvin configures election christologically. Sinful men can only be freely adopted ‘because Christ is the Son of God by nature’[91]. God is ‘Father’ prior to the incarnation. This is grounded on the eternal ontological relationship of the Son to the Father. But for this relationship, God would never have been called ‘Father’[92]. Just as creative sonship is founded upon Christ’s Headship[93], so also those elected to salvific sonship are chosen not in themselves, but in his Christ[94]. God is our Father only in Jesus Christ the eternal Son[95].
The fruits of Adoption ‘proper’
Both adoption ‘proper’ (election) and ‘creative’ adoption is always grounded upon his ‘natural’ eternal and ontological sonship[96]. ‘Now the cause and root of adoption is Christ; because God is not a Father to any that are not members and brethren of his only-begotten Son.’[97] This adoption ‘proper’ is fulfilled by Christ’s incarnation and mediation, and the ministry of the ‘Spirit of Adoption’.
a. Christ’s Incarnation, the pledge of adoption: necessary but not sufficient
Calvin perceives ‘the coming of Christ as the incarnation of a fatherly love that had always been active in the world’[98]. ‘But after the only-begotten Son of God was brought into the world, the heavenly fatherhood became more clearly known.’[99] ‘[I]n the incarnation God does what he has always done, only more clearly.’[100]
Calvin regards the incarnation as God’s pledge of our adoption[101]. The Son of God was Son into eternity, God’s natural son. But he also became the Son of man, truly human, and one with us as brother. The purpose of incarnation was to impart what was his to us. Because of incarnation, we are assured a future inheritance. The language of ‘pledge’ and ‘assurance’ does not indicate that incarnation creates adoption, but more fully shows it to believers.
Noteworthy is Christ’s initiative in incarnation. God’s natural son fashioned for himself a body ungrudgingly took our nature upon himself, and ‘adopted us as his brothers’[102]. Adoption is thereby reconfigured as Christ’s work. ‘Christ as much as the Father comes to occupy the role of “Adopter”.’[103] Calvin stretches the adoption motif beyond the biblical usage to highlight Christ’s initiative.
Christ adopting us as brothers in incarnation sits in tension with Calvin’s default position that adoption ‘proper’ occurs at eternal election. Calvin resolves this by asserting the incarnation was not the first manifestation of God’s fatherly love, but its pledge[104]. God has always been a kindly father, so ‘the goodness of God is said to have appeared, when he exhibited a pledge of it, and gave actual demonstration…’ in the incarnation[105]
Christ became heir as man because the Son wants to share his inheritance with us[106]. Because Adam was constituted as God’s son in creation, but lost the privileges of the good things God provided him, Christ put on our nature, and thus received heirship, so that he might restore to us what was lost.
Humans and angels can only become God’s sons because Christ is the Son of God by nature[107]. Their adoption must be founded on the eternal Son and their Head, Christ[108]. Calvin refutes Servetus, who denied Christ being the Son of God before the incarnation[109]. Calvin counters that Christ was Son of God before creation, continued so in the flesh, and grounds our sonship not in the incarnation, but in Christ’s eternal sonship. Nevertheless, Calvin sees incarnation as necessary to our adoption. In incarnation, Christ takes a bond of brotherhood with us to make us sons of God[110].
But incarnation is insufficient for our adoption. Christ was made man to make us children of God, but this does not extend to all men; for faith must intervene to engraft us into Christ’s body[111]. Only union with Christ by faith brings saving sonship. Calvin observes ‘flesh alone does not make the bond of brotherhood’[112]. While adoption is contingent on incarnation, the benefits of incarnation were diffused retrospectively and prospectively in salvation-history, so OT saints were salvifically adopted on the basis of union with Christ[113]. By stretching out his brotherly hand in incarnation, the right of fraternal alliance belongs to the whole human race[114]. But by unbelief, the ungodly have dissolved that alliance, such that none are retained as brothers except believers[115]. Incarnational union is essential, but faith-union is required.
For Calvin, faith is recognizing God’s true character[116]. Saving faith is ‘when we know that God is our merciful Father, because of reconciliation effected through Christ’[117]. Saving faith is ‘a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence towards us’[118], which consists of believers knowing themselves God’s children[119] and that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father towards us[120]. Thus, adoption and sonship is placed in the very definition of saving faith. Calvin thus builds his doctrine of sonship into his very definition of saving faith. So unbelievers cannot be salvifically God’s sons.
For Calvin, all faith has some component of assurance, and is the Spirit’s work[121]. The Spirit of adoption is not the consolation of a few but the common privilege of the saints[122]. As assurance is of the essence of faith[123], the believer’s experience of God as Father is necessary and foundational to saving faith. Without appreciating God as Father, a person is not a Christian[124] No-one is a son of God who does not know himself as such[125].
b. Christ the Mediator: the Bond, Pledge and Guarantee of Our Adoption
Christ, the bond of our adoption.[126]
Christ the pledge and guarantee of our adoption[127]
Christ is named Son in our flesh. This is a pledge of the believer’s adoption[128]. Because Christ can call God ‘Father’ in our flesh, so believers, hateful in ourselves, can obtain God’s fatherly favour through his incarnation and mediation. Christ’s mediation secures our adoption because our Father does not pity us without the intervention of the blood of his own Son[129]. ‘[B]y appeasing his Father’s wrath, Christ acquired the gift of adoption for us’[130]. ‘This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him’[131] While incarnational union is necessary but not sufficient for saving adoption, union with Christ truly renders believers adopted sons.
Because of the correlation between election and adoption, knowledge of our adoption remains hidden. We can only perceive it through Christ[132]. Apart from Christ, there is no saving knowledge of God[133]. Thus, we must turn from the hidden God to Jesus and from our ‘secret adoption’[134] to the revealed Christ. It is in Christ that the hiddenness of God’s will, the Deus absonditus, is made known[135].
c. The Spirit of Adoption, the witness, testimony and sign of adoption
but he gives the Spirit as witness to us of the same adoption[136]
The ‘Spirit of Adoption’ is the first title of the Spirit because the Spirit is ‘the witness to us of the free benevolence of God with which God the Father has embraced us in his beloved only-begotten Son to become a Father to us’[137]. As assurance is of the essence of faith, the Spirit of adoption is the common privilege of the saints[138]. He gives assurance that our sins are forgiven[139]. The testimony of the Spirit is not the cause of adoption but its sign. ‘The adoption must have preceded the testimony of adoption given by the Holy Spirit; but the effect is the sign of the cause.’[140] Adoption is a more foundational soteriological theme, consistent with adoption ‘proper’ being election to salvation.
Adoption and Salvation
Frequently, Calvin uses ‘adoption’ as shorthand or umbrella term for ‘salvation’[141]. ‘Gratuitious adoption’ is that ‘in which our salvation consists’[142]. Not merely a component of salvation, ‘adoption’ stands for the whole. Again, ‘our salvation consists in having God as our Father’[143]. The entirety of the gospel is ‘embraced in our adoption and the effecting of our salvation’[144]. Calvin describes the gospel as ‘the good news of adoption’[145]. The gospel is simply that, through Christ, ‘the children of Adam …can once more become the children of God’[146]. Nevertheless, ‘salvation’ is also caused by ‘adoption’. ‘The only cause of our salvation is adoption’[147], ‘adoption’ there being election to salvation.
Adoption and Justification
Justification is our acceptance as righteous before God, consisting of remission of sins and imputation of Christ’s righteousness[148]. Calvin uses the fatherly metaphor to summarise the benefits we receive in justification: ’being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father.’[149] Calvin links forgiveness to God’s paternal mercy[150]. Because God’s approach towards his children is as father, not judge, he justifies their works as well as their persons. The heavenly father, indulgent and compassionate, overlooks believers’ faults, and receives the imperfect works of his children simply because they are his children[151].
Because adoption can stand for ‘salvation entire’, in this sense adoption is the foundation of justification[152]. ‘[W]e are adopted to the predestination of sons of God, that we might be accepted in the Beloved.’[153] However, Trumper argues that justification is foundational to adoption[154] and ‘Calvin subsumed what we have called the adoptive act under justification’[155]. The acceptance spoken of is not exhausted by the sinner’s reconciliation to the angry judge, but it culminates in the sinner’s reception by his loving heavenly father[156]. Trumper also reasons that the very notion of adoption is tied to acceptance: ‘in writing of adoption Calvin must have had justification in view, because adoption immediately implies acceptance.’[157] So, for Trumper’s Calvin, ‘adoption is subsumed under justification’ and is ‘the climactic element of acceptance in justification’[158]. Likewise, Westhead believes that for Calvin ‘adoption and justification would hardly be separable in his mind’[159].
However, there are other explanations for Calvin’s intermingling of forensic and familial terminology’[160], such as the ‘pervasive manner in which adoption expresses union with Christ’[161], the fact that adoption is an umbrella term for all of salvation, and most especially, the relationship of election to adoption. Rather, as Griffith says, ‘adoption is too fundamental a category to be subordinated to justification’[162]. Calvin’s thorough exposition of justification in contrast with adoption arose primarily from the reformation controversy with Catholicism. By being ‘engrafted into Christ through faith, you are made a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness, a possessor of life’[163]. This is no subordination of adoption to justification. However, adoption for Calvin is a higher blessing than justification. ‘The familial imagery runs alongside the forensic imagery and finally supplants it’[164]. ‘[T]he promise, by which God adopts us to himself as his sons, holds the first place among them all’[165]. Sonship is Calvin’s ‘dominant image through which the entire life of the new self is perceived’[166].
Regeneration as restoration of God’s image, a confirmation and condition of adoption
Calvin’s doctrine of adoption brings out both forensic and vital aspects of NT teaching, distinguishing them without separation[167]. Trumper has demonstrated that for Calvin, pneumatic union with Christ consists of (1) mystical union, which is the foundation of justification, and includes the act of adoption; and (2) spiritual union, which grounds regeneration and the adoptive experience[168]. Mystical union grants Christ; spiritual union his gifts. Calvin calls ‘spiritual union’, ‘the second communion, by which Christ, dwelling in us not ineffectually, brings forth the influence of His Spirit in His manifest gifts.’[169] Calvin conflates the two nuances under the single phrase ‘union with Christ’[170].
Christians have been adopted to reverence God as Father by their obedience[171]. Whoever God receives into grace, to them he also bestows the spirit of adoption, by whose power he remakes into his own image[172]. That image is the likeness of Christ, who is the image of the Father. We are partakers of divine adoption when we resemble God as children their father; then we receive the perfection of the blessing of adoption when, being conformed to God, we prove ourselves his children[173]. Calvin teaches that by the ‘spirit of adoption’ God remakes his people in his own image, meaning sanctification[174].
Conforming to the image of Christ is the ‘one condition’ of adoption[175]. Calvin here means ‘evidential condition’. ‘Though obedience does not make us children, as the gift of adoption is gratuitous, yet it distinguishes children from aliens’[176]. Adoption in its relation to election remains unconditional, grounded on God’s pre-temporal will and Christ’s eternal sonship. But regeneration demonstrates the harmony of God’s righteousness and believers’ obedience, and thus ‘confirms’ their adoption[177]. Good works show that the Spirit of adoption has been given to us[178].
Adoption serves as a motivation for holiness: as it is no common honour to be reckoned among the sons of God, it belongs to us to take care that we do not show ourselves degenerate children’[179], shows how great a feeling of brotherly love ought to be among us[180], and thus practically help one another, praying for one another as one household[181]. Further, we must forgive one another, for ‘the Lord excludes from the number of his children’ those not forgiving their debtors[182].
Adoption and Eschatology
We must not credit ‘everlasting blessedness to works but to our adoption by God’[183]. Only those adopted as sons (meaning the elect), shall enjoy the kingdom of heaven, and that for no other reason than this adoption[184].
Calvin apprehends the ‘Now-Not Yet’ of NT eschatology, ‘but does not quite explain adoption in terms of it’[185]. Calvin sees the redemption of our bodies as the ‘climax’ of adoption, but not that it is adoption. Calvin regards our final state in resurrected glory as the hidden ‘fruit of our adoption’[186]. It is the ‘final end of our adoption’, ‘that what has in order preceded in Christ, shall at length be completed in us’[187]. Calvin fundamentally thinks of adoption in terms of election, not in terms of the eschatological redemption of our bodies. Adoption leads to and produces the redemption of our bodies. The inheritance is future, but the adoption is a present state: since God has adopted us as his children, he has at the same time ordained an inheritance for us[188].
Calvin is critical of Erasmus’ version of Romans 8:19, which renders the phrase ‘until the sons of God shall be manifest’. For Calvin, it does not mean ‘that the sons of God shall be manifested in the last day’ but rather ‘it shall be then made known how desirable and blessed their condition will be’. This fits with Calvin’s view that adoption is election. The liberation for which creation waits is that ‘the sons of God shall be wholly restored’[189].
Improperly indeed, but not without the best reason, is adoption employed here to designate the fruition of the inheritance to which we are adopted; for Paul means this, that the eternal decree of God, by which he has chosen us to himself as sons before the foundation of the world, of which he testifies to us in the gospel, the assurance of which he seals on our hearts by his Spirit, would be void, except the promised resurrection were certain, which is its consummation.[190]
This shows in what Calvin considers ‘adoption’ to truly consist. Calvin regards the ‘proper’ use of the term ‘adoption’ to apply to the divine decree before the creation of the world that certain persons should be effectually adopted, rather than the resurrection of the dead. God adopts elect individuals before the foundation of the world, brings that elect knowledge of the same by faith, while the eternal inheritance and bodily resurrection are the ‘consummation’, ‘fruit’ and ‘end’ of that adoption in eternity.
While not Calvin’s central dogma[191], the ideas of ‘adoption’, ‘sonship’ and ‘God’s fatherhood’ shape Calvin’s entire theology[192]. Packer’s criticism, that ‘adoption has been little regarded in Christian history’[193] does not apply to Calvin. Sonship was not a discrete locus for Calvin because of his reformation context, but was integral to his doctrines of predestination and faith, and thus undergirds Calvin’s whole soteriology.
Lexically, υἱοθεσία denotes adoption as the initiatory act which brings about the status of sonship[194] which consists of the socio-legal process of transfer from one family to another[195], which in the Graeco-Roman context was initiated by the paterfamilias[196]. ‘Sonship’ is a broader English term denoting the relationship of father and son and, in the case of the adopted, the consequential status, privileges and responsibilities that have accrued to them.
‘Distinct Degrees of Adoption’: ‘Creative’ and ‘National’
Calvin’s position on ‘creational sonship’ is to be contrasted with R S Candlish[197]. For Candlish, Adam was created as subject and servant, not son[198]. Neither were unfallen angels created sons, but attained it[199]. Candlish was countered by T J Crawford[200], who reasserted ‘creative-sonship’. Adam was created as Son, and that sonship in some sense continues to all his fallen progeny. Reformed theologians have generally recognised some form of non-salvific ‘creative sonship’[201] that continued despite the fall. ‘There is a sense in which all sinful men are the sons of God; there is another sense in which they are not the sons of God.’ [202] Scripture confirms Calvin’s view of creative sonship (Luke 3:38, 15:11-32; Acts 17:28-29) against Candlish. As Burke puts it, ‘creatively God may be the Father of all humankind, since all are his ‘offspring’…, but salvifically God is the Father only of those who are in Christ’[203]. Calvin also rightly identifies the non-saving ‘national’ or ‘covenant’ adoption of Israel (Rom 9:4; cf. Deut 32:6; Isa 63:16, 64:8; Jer 3:4; Mal 1:6, 2:10; John 8:37-48; Matt 8:12).
Adoption and Predestination
Paul brings the process of son-making ‘proper’, salvific adoption (υἱοθεσία), into relationship with election (Eph 1:5)[204], and in also so doing Calvin is correct. However, Calvin’s pre-temporal co-location and perhaps identification of adoption with election is contrary to the nature of adoption itself, which involves a transfer from one family and paterfamilias to another, and not merely the divine intention to do so. Further, Ephesians 1:5 does not say that predestination is adoption, or that adoption occurs pre-temporally with election, as Calvin both asserts and implies. Ephesians 1:5 simply says were are ‘predestined to adoption’ (προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν). Preposition εἰς indicates purpose. Adoption (being the actual transfer) then might occur at any point in the ordo salutis. As Burke says, ‘God planned and purposed the believer’s adoption in the past and his will was sovereignly brought to pass in time’ [205] (my emphasis). Calvin has unfortunately confounded the divine intention with the temporal socio-legal familial transfer that adoption denotes.
Calvin owns a temporal distinction between the Father’s decree and it’s application in the parallel phrase ‘chosen to be holy and blameless’ (ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους: Eph 1:4). ‘God’s electing of us was in order to call us to holiness of life’[206]. This sanctification does not occur pre-temporally. Neither does adoption. Before receiving God’s mercy, believers are ‘by nature children of wrath, even as the rest’ (Eph 2:3).
Adoption is ‘the divine goal’[207] of election. ‘God’s loving predestination has as its goal our adoption (υἱοθεσία) which lies in the horizon of our election in Christ.’[208] ‘God has marked out or predetermined a goal for ones chosen in Christ.’[209] The use of προορίσας (v. 5) instead of ἐξελέξατο (v. 4) refers ‘to the end or purpose pre-appointed for them’[210]. Likewise, Romans 8:29 does not indicate pre-temporal adoption but the goal of adoption, to be ‘conformed to the likeness of his Son’, which happens in time.
For Calvin, faith and the Spirit tend to be witness, testimony and sign, rather than instrument, of adoption. In co-locating adoption with election, Calvin has effectively asserted ‘adoption from eternity’, analogous to ‘justification from eternity’[211]. But the actual transfer constituting adoption is not from eternity, but through faith.
Sonship and Christology: Sons of God and the Son of God
Calvin correctly grounds all sonship of men or angels as derivative of the ontological trinitarian relationship of God the Father with God the Son. Christ is Monogenes Theos (John 1:1-3, 14, 18, 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9) and eternal ‘firstborn’ (Col 1:13-18; Heb 1:6). Thus, the first trinitarian person is eternally and pre-temporally ‘Father’ because of the eternal relations subsisting with the Son (John 17:5); and Christ is eternally ‘the archetype of all filiation’[212]. It is proper to conceive the eternal divine paternal and filial relations overflowing into derivative sonship, rather than that the derivative sonship producing divine ‘Fatherhood’.
Adoption, justification, and faith
From the nature of the case, adoption is a higher blessing than justification[213]. But the exact relationship between justification and adoption is debated. While Calvin places adoption ‘proper’ in the pre-temporal decree, later Reformed thinking places adoption temporally in the ordo salutis[214] and logically after justification[215]. For Turretin[216] and others[217], adoption is merely the second part of justification.
But Graeco-Roman ‘adoption’ involved a socio-legal (and thus forensic)[218] transfer from one family to another[219]. It is akin to justification, which occurs in time. However, ‘adoption’ is a distinct metaphor drawn from family life, and should be considered independently and distinctly from justification. It is mistaken to see adoption as dependent on a logically prior justification.
Paul states ‘you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’ (Πάντες γὰρ υἱοὶ θεοῦ ἐστε διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ·: Galatians 3:26). Thus, faith both justifies (Rom 3:28) and brings the ‘higher status’[220] of adoption (Gal 3:26). ‘For the way, the means, by which to arrive at this sonship is solely and simply faith’[221]. Faith is ‘the subjective means of appropriation’ of adoption[222]. Calvin himself rightly says on Galatians 3:26, ‘by faith we have obtained adoption’[223] and again, once someone becomes ‘engrafted into Christ through faith, you are made a son of God’[224]. So Calvin does acknowledge that adoption is a status appropriated by faith. Later reformed theologians concur: ‘while faith does not condition regeneration, it does condition adoption; just as while faith does not condition regeneration, it certainly does justification’[225]. Calvin’s presentation of adoption, with his emphasis on the pre-temporal decree, inadequately accounts for adoption as a legal transfer into God’s family and thus a subjectively appropriated state.
Adoption and the Spirit
Paul states that believers receive the Spirit of adoption (evla,bete pneu/ma ui`oqesi,aj: Romans 8:15). We should expect that the Spirit of adoption brings adoption, but in contrast, for Calvin the Spirit is only witness of adoption[226] but not the instrument of adoption. However, ‘[t]he grace of adoption embraces …the bestowment of the status and privilege of sons’ (my emphasis)[227]. The reception of the Spirit is a co-incident of faith (Ephesians 1:13-14). ‘[S]onship and receiving the Spirit are so intimately related that one can speak of them in either order.’[228]
Sonship and Sanctification
While adoption is a forensic and socio-legal category, ‘[w]e may not, however, rule out the significance of regeneration in connection with the sonship constituted by adoption’ [229]. ‘As many are led by the Spirit are sons of God’ (Romans 8:14), which consists of the empowerment to live a godly life[230]. Conformity to Christ’s image is the goal of adoption. ‘The entire process of sanctification, leading to the final restoration of glorification, is intended to bring to perfection our sonship...’[231] ‘The process of sanctification is, in essence, the reproduction of the family-likeness in the people of God; it involves us being transformed to be more and more like the Elder Brother’[232].
Eschatological adoption
Adoption is characterized by the ‘already-not yet’ tension. We already possess adoption as sons (Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 3:26; 4:6-7) and the Spirit of adoption[233], but we long and groan for the consummation in resurrection (Romans 8:23)[234]. Given Paul’s statement that adoption is future ‘the redemption of our bodies’ (Romans 8:23), Calvin is mistaken in regarding future resurrection as only ‘improperly’ adoption[235].
However, with Burke[236], I cannot concur in the criticisms that Calvin would have seen future resurrection as adoption if he had ‘seen more clearly the relation between the believer’s adoption and Christ’s’ and that ‘[t]here is apparently not a recognition [by Calvin] that Christ’s resurrection is presented by the NT as his adoption’[237] (emphasis Griffith’s). According to Gaffin[238], whom Griffith, Ferguson[239], Scott[240] and Garner[241] follow, the resurrection of Christ (Romans 1:3-4) is his forensic adoption by God which Christ takes as firstfruits for his entire body, who will likewise be resurrected. However, ‘adoption’ is only used of believers and never of Christ[242]. Moreover, Christ’s sonship and ours are of a different order[243]. Sonship is not native to us. ‘[T]he language of incarnation belongs to him, and the language of adoption belongs to us’[244]. ‘[Christ] does not need to be adopted from his natural state into a new relationship with God as father’[245]. ‘[S]onship is Pauline-speak to describe Christ; adoption is Pauline-speak to describe Christians’[246]. Calvin then correctly never sees Christ’s resurrection as his ‘adoption’.
For Calvin, there are ‘certain distinct degrees of adoption’[247]. The ‘creative’ sonship of humans and angels, a type of adoption, is grounded on Christ’s ‘natural’ eternal sonship, and ‘national’ adoption comprises of God’s election of the nation Israel, but neither are salvific. Salvific adoption is reserved for the elect, who before time are adopted as sons (Ephesians 1:5), which comes to fruition through faith-union with Christ effected by the Spirit. Calvin’s doctrine of faith as apprehending God as Father builds sonship at the very core of his soteriology. Christ’s incarnation is necessary but not sufficient for salvific adoption. The redemption of the body in the general resurrection is not adoption ‘proper’ but adoption’s fruit and telos. Calvin rightly uses adoption and sonship, the apex of our blessedness, as a structuring concept for his whole soteriology, and correctly brings in election as the final cause of adoption. However, his pre-temporal location of adoption cannot be sustained exegetically or from the nature of adoption itself, changes the nature of faith and the Spirit’s role in adoption from instrument to evidence, and fails to see our promised resurrection as ‘adoption’ (Rom 8:23).
[1] ‘Sonship’ is a broader term expressing the relationship of father and son, ‘adoption’ more specifically expresses the process of transfer and the resultant status: T J Burke, The Message of Sonship: BSTBT (Nottingham: IVP, 2011), 18-21, 140; T J Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor: NSBT 22 (Nottingham/Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), 40, 194; J L Girardeau, Discussion of Theological Questions (ed) G A Blackburn, (Richmond, VA: The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1905; Reprint: Harrisonburg: Sprinkle, 1986), 469.
[2] R A Webb, The Reformed Doctrine of Adoption (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), 17.
[3] Sinclair B Ferguson, ‘The Reformed Doctrine of Sonship’, in N de S Cameron and S B Ferguson (eds), Pulpit and People: Essays in Honour of William Still on his 75th Birthday (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1986) 81-88 at 82; Howard Griffith, ‘The First Title of the Spirit: Adoption in Calvin’s Soteriology’, EQ 73:2 (2001), 135-153 at 135-6.
[4] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 152.
[5] ibid, 153.
[6] Ferguson, ‘Sonship’, 82.
[7] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 136.
[8] B A Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Thought of John Calvin, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 20, 23, 27, 41, 89 fn 12; N Westhead, ‘Adoption in the Thought of John Calvin’, (1995) SBET 13:102-115 at 102.
[9] Ford Lewis Battles (trs) & J T McNeill (ed), Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: Library of Christian Classics Vol 21 (Philadelphia/London: Westminster/SCM, 1960); Calvin Translation Society, Calvin’s Commentaries: 22 Volumes (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844-56; Reprint Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979); J K S Reid (trs), Calvin: Theological Treatises: Library of Christian Classics Vol 22 (Philadelphia/London: Westminster/ SCM, 1954); H Beveridge (trs), Calvin’s Tracts and Treatises: 3 Vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958).
[10] B A Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Thought of John Calvin, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); N Westhead, ‘Adoption in the Though of John Calvin’ (1995) SBET 13:102-115; H Griffith, “‘The First Title of the Spirit”: Adoption in Calvin’s Soteriology’, (2001) EvQ 73:2, 135-154; G A Wilterdink, ‘‘The Fatherhood of God in Calvin’s Thought’’ Reformed Review 30 (Autumn 1976), 9-22, reprinted in R C Gamble (ed), Articles on Calvin and Calvinism Vol 9: Calvin’s Theology, Theology Proper, Eschatology (New York & London, 1992); T J R Trumper, An Historical Study of Adoption in the Calvinist Tradition, (PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2001), 37-214.
[11] Westhead, 103; Trumper (2001), 78, 82, 83.
[12] Institutes, II.14.5.
[13] Comm Heb 1:2 in CC, 22:34.
[14] Institutes, I.5.3.
[15] Gerrish, 42, citing Comm, Ps 115:17-18.
[16] Institutes, I.14.22.
[17] Institutes, II.6.1-4.
[18] Institutes, I.17.11.
[19] Institutes, I.5.3; Gerrish, 23; Trumper (2001), 83.
[20] Institutes, I.14.2, citing James 1:17.
[21] Institutes, II.6.1.
[22] Institutes, I.15.2.
[23] Trumper (2001), 82.
[24] Institutes, I.2.1.
[25] Trumper (2001), 79.
[26] Harm Ex Lev Nu Dt in CC, 2:103-4; Griffith, ‘First Title’, 140; Westhead, 103.
[27] Comm Acts 17:28 in CC 19:170.
[28] Trumper (2001), 80, citing CC, 2:103-4; Westhead, 103; Contra Griffith, ‘First Title’, 140; cf 152.
[29] Trumper (2001), 42, 82; Gerrish, 46 fn 115.
[30] Institutes, I.15.4.
[31] Institutes, I.15.4; Gerrish, 44.
[32] Institutes, I.15.3.
[33] Institutes, I.15.4.
[34] Comm Acts 17:28 in CC 19:170.
[35] Trumper (2001), 82.
[36] Harm Ex Lev Nu Dt in CC, 2:103-4.
[37] Westhead, 104.
[38] Comm Gen 17:7 in CC, 1:447-450.
[39] R A Peterson, ‘Toward a Systematic Theology of Adoption’, Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review 27/2 (Fall 2001), 120-131 at 122.
[40] Webb, 75-6.
[41] Institutes, II.14.5; Gerrish, 89 fn 12.
[42] Girardeau, 458.
[43] Contra Wilterdink, 12.
[44] Institutes, II.6.1.
[45] Institutes, II.6.1.
[46] Trumper (2001), 84.
[47] Trumper (2001), 99.
[48] Contra Griffith, ‘First Title’, 140.
[49] Westhead, 108.
[50] Institutes, II.10.1; Trumper (2001), 84-86.
[51] Institutes, II.10.2.
[52] ibid.
[53] Comm Rom 8:15 in CC, 19:297; Comm Gal 4:7 in CC, 21:122.
[54] Comm Rom 8:15 in CC, 19:297.
[55] Comm Rom 8:15 in CC, 19:299; Trumper (2001), 104.
[56] Institutes, II.11.9.
[57] Comm Rom 8:15 in CC, 19:298.
[58] Comm Gal 4:5 in CC 21:119.
[59] Comm Gal 4:1 in CC, 21:113.
[60] Gerrish, 89 fn 12.
[61] Westhead, 108.
[62] Trumper (2001), 87, 91.
[63] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 141.
[64] Trumper (2001), 98.
[65] Comm Gen 17:7 in CC, 1:447-450.
[66] Trumper (2001), 94.
[67] Comm Rom 9:4 in CC, 19:339.
[68] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 142.
[69] ibid.
[70] Comm Gen 17:7 in CC, 1:447-450.
[71] Institutes, III.21.7.
[72] Institutes, III.22.7.
[73] Comm Rom 8:23, in CC, 19:309.
[74] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 153.
[75] Institutes, III.22.1,4; III.6.4.
[76] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 138.
[77] Institutes, III.21.5; Trumper, (2001), 71.
[78] ‘Articles concerning Predestination’ in J K S Reid (trs), Calvin: Theological Treatises, 179.
[79] Institutes, III.24.4; cited by R A Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham: Labyrinth, 1986), 80.
[80] Comm Rom 8:29, in CC, 19:317-8.
[81] Institutes, III.21.1.
[82] Comm James 1:18 in CC, 22:292.
[83] John Calvin, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), 47; Griffith, ‘First Title’, 147.
[84] Calvin, Sermons Ephesians, 48.
[85] Institutes, III.22.10.
[86] Gerrish, 170-171.
[87] ibid, 172.
[88] Comm Eph 1:11, in CC, 21:206.
[89] Institutes, III.21.1.
[90] Comm Eph 1:5, in CC, 21:200.
[91] Institutes, II.14.5.
[92] Institutes, II.14.7; Gerrish, 59.
[93] Institutes, II.14.5.
[94] Institutes, III.24.5.
[95] Wilterdink, ‘Fatherhood’, 13.
[96] Institutes, II.14.7.
[97] Comm 2 Cor 1:20, in CC, 20:137-8; Gerrish, 89.
[98] Gerrish, 59.
[99] Institutes, II.14.5; Gerrish, 59.
[100] Gerrish, 88.
[101] Institutes, II.12.2.
[102] ibid.
[103] Westhead, 105.
[104] Gerrish, 60.
[105] Comm Titus 3:4, in CC, 21:329.
[106] Comm Heb 1:2, in CC, 22:34; Institutes, II.12.2.
[107] Institutes, II.14.5-7.
[108] Institutes, II.14.5.
[109] Institutes, II.14.6.
[110] Institutes, II.14.7.
[111] Trumper (2001), 122.
[112] Institutes, II.13.2.
[113] ‘Reply to Peter Martyr Vermigli, 8 August 1555’, cited in Trumper (2001), 117ff ; Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of Word and Sacrament, 28-29, 46, cited in Trumper (2001), 119.
[114] Trumper (2001), 121.
[115] ibid.
[116] Gerrish, 64.
[117] Institutes, III.2.2.
[118] Institutes, III.2.7.
[119] Institutes, III.2.14.
[120] Institutes, III.2.16; cf Comm John 1:12 in CC, 17:42; Comm Gal 3:26 in CC, 21:110.
[121] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 148.
[122] Comm Rom 8:15.
[123] A N S Lane, ‘John Calvin: The Witness of the Spirit’ in Faith and Ferment. Westminster Conference Papers (London, 1982), 1-17; Westhead, 106-7.
[124] Comm Gal 4:6, in CC 21:121.
[125] Comm Rom 8:16, in CC, 19:301, citing 1 John 5:19, 20.
[126] Institutes, III.6.3, cited by Westhead, 113.
[127] Institutes, III.20.37; III.24.5.
[128] Comm Matt 3:17, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in CC, 16:206.
[129] Trumper (2001), 101-2.
[130] ‘The True Method of Giving Peace, and of Reforming the Church”, Tracts, 3:249, cited in Trumper (2001), 102.
[131] Institutes, IV.17.2; II.14.6; Trumper (2001), 106-7.
[132] Institutes, III.24.5.
[133] Institutes, II.6.4.
[134] Institutes, III.24.4.
[135] Wilterdink, 19.
[136] Institutes, III.20.37.
[137] Institutes, III.1.3, citing Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6.
[138] Westhead, 107.
[139] Trumper (2001), 104.
[140] Comm Gal 4:6 in CC, 21:120.
[141] Wilterdink, 19, 20.
[142] Comm Rom 8:29 in CC, 19:318.
[143] Comm Rom 8:17 in CC, 19:301.
[144] Institutes, III.25.3.
[145] Gerrish, 89.
[146] ibid.
[147] Comm 1 John 3:1 in CC, 22:203.
[148] Institutes, III.11.2.
[149] Institutes, III.11.1, Gerrish, 60; Trumper (2001), 124-5.
[150] Comm Rom 8:15 in CC, 19:296.
[151] Institutes, III.19.5; Gerrish, 101.
[152] Trumper (2001), 131.
[153] Antidote to the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, Tracts, 3:177, as cited by Trumper (2001), 130, Trumper’s italics.
[154] Trumper (2001), 131.
[155] ibid, 137.
[156] ibid, 136.
[157] ibid, 137.
[158] ibid, 135.
[159] Westhead, 112; Griffiths, ‘First Title’, 140.
[160] Trumper (2001), 135.
[161] ibid, 137.
[162] Griffiths, ‘First Title’, 140.
[163] Institutes, III.15.6.
[164] Gerrish, 60-61.
[165] Comm 2 Cor 1:20, in CC, 20:137-8.
[166] Gerrish, 99, citing Institutes, III.15.6.
[167] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 152.
[168] Trumper (2001), 146.
[169] Trumper (2001), 147, citing ‘Letter to Martyr’ in Gorham, 351.
[170] Trumper (2001), 148.
[171] Institutes, III. 17.6; Comm 1 Peter 1:14, in CC, 22:45.
[172] Institutes, III.11.6.
[173] Comm 1 John 4:17, in CC, 22:245.
[174] Institutes, III.11.6; Comm Rom 8:14, in CC, 19:294-5; Comm Rom 8:29, in CC, 19:318.
[175] Institutes, III.6.3.
[176] Comm 1 Peter 1:14, in CC, 22:45.
[177] Institutes, III.6.1.
[178] Institutes, III.14.18.
[179] Comm 2 Cor 6:18, in CC, 20:262.
[180] Institutes, III.20.38.
[181] ibid.
[182] Institutes, III.20.45.
[183] Institutes, III.18.2
[184] ibid.
[185] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 145; Contra Westhead, 111; Trumper (2001), 205.
[186] Comm 1 John 3:2 in CC, 22:204.
[187] Comm 1 John 3:2 in CC, 22:205.
[188] Comm Rom 8:17 in CC, 19:301.
[189] Comm Rom 8:20 in CC, 19:304.
[190] Comm Rom 8:23 in CC, 19:309.
[191] Gerrish, 123.
[192] ibid.
[193] J I Packer, Knowing God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973, 2005), 258.
[194] J M Scott, Adoption as Sons of God: An Exegetical Investigation in to the Background of YIOΘEΣIA in the Pauline Corpus: WUNT2 52 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 175-6.
[195]T J Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor: NSBT 22 (Nottingham/Downers Grove: Apollos/IVP, 2006), 40-1, 69; cf. Scott, 52
[196] Burke (2006), 66-7, 71.
[197] R S Candlish, The Fatherhood of God, being the First Course of Cunningham Lectures Delivered before the New College Edinburgh in March 1864, with a Reply to Professor Crawford’s Strictures and A Notice of Other Objections (3rd Ed: Edinburgh, Adam & 503 Charles Black, 1867, cf. John Murray, Collected Writings (Edinburgh/Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1977), 2:223-234.
[198] Candlish, ‘Note A’, c.
[199] ibid.
[200] T J Crawford, The Fatherhood of God Considered in Its General and Special Aspects and Particularly in Relation to the Atonement with a Review of Recent Speculations on the Subject, (3rd Ed: Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1868).
[201] Girardeau, 428-521 at 430-3, 444-57, 471; Webb, 47, 51, 69, 71, 74, 76, 77; Ferguson (1986), 84-5.
[202]Webb, 84.
[203] Burke (2006), 89.
[204] Smail, 132.
[205] Burke, (2006), 79.
[206] Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 36.
[207] P T O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians: Pillar (Eerdmans/Apollos: Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 1999), 102.
[208] R Schnackenburg, Ephesians: A Commentary (ET Helen Heron: Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 54.
[209] Burke, (2006), 77 fn 9 citing W W Klein , The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 187.
[210] G H Graham, An Exegetical Summary of Ephesians (Dallas: SIL, 1997), 25.
[211] Critiqued by G C Berkouwer, Faith and Justification: Studies in Dogmatics (1954: Eerdmans), 143.
[212] Webb, 99.
[213] Packer, 232-3.
[214] R Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology in Historical Context (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2009), 245-6, 277-78.
[215] WCF 3.6, 12.1.
[216] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (ET George Musgrave Giger; Ed J T Dinnison: Phillipsburg, Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992-7), 16th Topic, reprinted in F Turretin, Justification (Phillipsburg, Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994), 67-72.
[217] R L Dabney, Systematic Theology: Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology Taught in Union Theological Seminary, Virginia (2nd Ed: St Louis: Presbyterian Publishing Co, 1878; Reprint: Edinburgh/Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 2002), 627; L Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1958), 515-16; A A Hoekema, Saved By Grace (Grand Rapids/Carlisle: Eerdmans/Paternoster 1989), 185-7.
[218] Burke, (2006), 27-28; J Murray, Collected Writings (Edinburgh/Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1977), 2:223-234 at 228.
[219] Burke, (2006), 40.
[220] Packer, 232-3; Murray, (1977), 2:228.
[221] H N Ridderbos, Galatians: NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 147.
[222] R K Fung, Galatians: NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 171 fn 20.
[223] Comm Gal 3:26 in CC, 21:110.
[224] Institutes, III.15.6.
[225] Girardeau, 474.
[226] Institutes, III.20.37.
[227] Murray, (1977), 2:229.
[228] R N Longenecker, Galatians: WBC (Dallas: Word, 1990), 173; John 1:12-13.
[229] Murray, (1977), 2:223-234 at 227-8.
[230] C G Kruse, Romans: Pillar (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans/Apollos, 2012), 336-7.
[231] Ferguson, (1986), 85.
[232] ibid, 86.
[233] D J Moo, The Epistle To the Romans: NICNT (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1996), 521.
[234] Ferguson, (1986), 87.
[235] Contra Westhead, 111.
[236] Burke, (2006), 104-7; Burke, (2011), 118.
[237] Griffith, ‘First Title’, 146.
[238] R Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Phillipsburg: P & R, 1987), 119, followed by Griffith, ‘First Title’, 146.
[239] Ferguson, (1986), 87.
[240] Scott, (1992), 223-244.
[241] D Garner, Adoption in Christ, PhD dissertation, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2002, 195-99.
[242] Burke, (2011), 118.
[243] T Smail, The Forgotten Father (Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1980; Repr Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2001), 132-3.
[244] ibid, 133.
[245] H W Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 197.
[246] Burke, (2006), 107.
[247] Comm Gen 17:7 in CC, 1:447.