Last week we began talking about the cross and its importance in the life of the child of God. I shared from Galatians 1 two reasons why the cross should be so important to us, and they were that Jesus has rescued us from the present wicked age by His death on the cross and He also fulfilled God’s will on our behalf. There is a third reason found in the book of Galatians as to why the cross should be so important to us and that is that the cross makes it possible for us to be adopted into God’s family as His children. We read in Galatians 4:5+6, “to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” (NKJV). As guilty sinners, we were all under the law's demands and its curses and we were part of Satan’s family. But the privilege of our sonship has been purchased by the blood of Jesus’ cross. “Adoption” is the act of God in bringing us, who were the offspring of someone else’s family, into His family because of what Christ has done on the cross. God has purchased our eternal salvation and sonship through the blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the ancient Roman world when a person was adopted into a new family his old debts and all previous relationships were canceled. That person would become a full heir to the property and rights of their new parents. Of course, the most famous example in biblical times was the adoption of Augustus Caesar by Julius Caesar. Augustus Caesar would later become the Roman Emperor, just before the time of Christ. To be made a child is to be made an heir, to be made an heir is to have all the possession that have been purchased for us by Jesus’s wondrous death on the cross. Redemption makes us God’s servants, but adoption makes us God’s children. What an unspeakable privilege it is to be adopted into the family of God. The Holy Spirit is then given as we see in verse 6 to give us this assurance that we are part of God’s family. To cry “Abba, Father” is a term of endearment used by young children to speak to their fathers and would be equivalent to the phrase “daddy” in our culture. Because we have been placed into the family of God by the power of the cross, we have a new allegiance to the living God of the universe. By nature, we were children of wrath and disobedience, but now by God’s grace and love demonstrated in the cross of Christ we have become children of love and obedience. Because we are part of God’s family, we should have a desire to be a credit to our new household.
To understand the reasons for the cross is to understand and know the deep love and care that God has for each of us who are His children. Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 and that event changed human history. But discovering the meaning and the purpose of the cross of Jesus Christ can change our personal history and destination for all of eternity. There is no greater discovery that we can make than the discovery of God’s love expressed in His most precious gift in sending His Son to die on the cross for our sins. Remember Jesus’s words to Nicodemus in the third chapter of John’s Gospel when he says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” (3:14,15 NKJV). God desires to draw all people to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ. Have you discovered the true meaning and purpose of the cross in your life?
In the King’s service, Pastor Rich Sivo
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