Eli Shaw | February 19, 2014
My wife and I are blessed with, what it seems, the best kind of friends God has to offer. I could speak for days about the gratefulness I have for the friends Christ has gifted to my wife and I.
Two of those friends are Steven and Lauren Shaw. They lead the singing for almost every age group at our church (check out their music here). I have known both of them for almost ten years. They are the salt of the earth kinda people. Great in generosity, committed to God’s people, saturated in kindness, centered on Christ, and overflowing in love & laughter. And the exciting news is, God blessed them yesterday with their first son, Eli King Shaw.
Even in the first day of his newly-birthed life, Eli has already caused me to rejoice in Christ’s amazing grace and love. You see, God has given Lauren and Steven Eli via adoption. You can read their whole story here on their most wonderful blog. Upon his birth, there are 10,000 things I have thought about – God’s generosity, kindness, care, love, provision, sovereign control, etc, – but, more than anything else, on the occasion of Baby Eli’s birth, I was reminded of the high blessing of adoption we have in Christ…
“Adoption is…the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification… That justification – by which we mean God’s forgiveness of the past together with His acceptance for the future – is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question. Justification is the primary blessing, because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God’s judgment; His law condemns us; guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments afraid; we have no peace in ourselves, because we have not peace with our Maker. So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world; and this the gospel offers us before it offers us anything else…And as justification is the primary blessing, so it is the fundamental blessing, in the sense that everything else in our salvation assumes it, and rests on it – adoption included.
But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves… Justification is a forensic idea, conceived in terms of law, and viewing God as judge…Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into His family and fellowship, and establishes us as His children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the father is a greater. (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, pp. 186-188).
God has given us adoption, like that of Beautiful Baby Eli’s, to rejoice in. It is a gift from his hand. However, in addition to being a gift, it also comes as a picture. God has given us adoption to teach us of the adoption He offers to all in Jesus Christ. In grace He sent His Only Son to, by grace, make many sinners His sons. For, “When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child…“ (Galatians 4:4-6). The purpose of Christ’s cross was the sinner’s adoption.
As I rejoice in Baby Eli and his wonderful parents, I am reminded of my own adoption and the wonderful Father who has made me His own.
A Pilgrim's Friend 
Very nice. The example of this is completed in that Matthew 25 is what we are all called to and what the final judgment is based on. 6 things that exemplify in total, the sum of thing’s to come. Matthew 25:34, Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
We are to be as Christ and on behalf of Christ, those who reach out to perfect strangers/sinners and recognize Christ in them as if it was Christ himself and only through this can we truly know Christ. It is like a substitution for Christ, adopting the stranger as if it were Christ himself, loving thy enemy, doing good to those who hate us. Adoption/Substitution, goes so much further than we could ever know in this life. For what good is it when we bless those who bless us or show mercy to those we love and who love us? Christ came and died for the sinner, not the righteous. He made a way for the worst to come to him in this adoption/substitution. Ephesians 1:5 KJV
King James Version
Ephesians 1:5
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. As we should the 6 examples above.
You are correct in that Christ became sin to save us from sin, so we must embrace the sinners as described above for Christ became/adopted/substituted our sin as his own. He knew no sin until he became our sin. We will not know him until we know those mentioned above. Steven and Lauren may have never really knew Eli, if they never adopted/substituted him and made him their own as Christ made us his own. It is mutually advantages to say God gave Steven and Lauren to Eli as a gift. For we were all gifts from God as children. We want to think that our children are a gift from God to the parents, and never consider that Steven and Lauren are actually a gift from God to Eli as well. To have the best MOM and DAD to love and care for him, to raise him in the way he should go. In this family adoption is not even the issue now, but rather, this whole family is enriched and unified more now than ever. I am sure that to Christ the term adoption is only mentioned here on earth as a means to understanding the method used to make us his own. In heaven, I am sure that the term, “adoption”, will be null and void. I want to thank everybody who had a hand in the process with all the love God can give! Great words from Dana! I love thought provoking commentary! Welcome to the world my wonderful little guy. I love you and will be here as long as I can for you! My prayer is that I can watch you grow up, as long as possible. I promise I will try and take better care of myself for you so I can live long enough to see you as a man!