Calvin’s Practical View Of Adoption: Its Privileges And Duties

By Maarten Kuivenhoven And Michael Dewalt

At the heart of John Calvin’s theology and undergirding his development of the ordo salutis is the doctrine of adoption. Many scholars note that Calvin does not treat adoption as a separate locus in his systematic theology and magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. [1] This is due in part to the fact that Calvin weaves the doctrine throughout the tapestry of God’s marvelous salvation of sinners. The doctrine of adoption is not peripheral but rather central to Calvin’s theology as noted by Sinclair Ferguson who states that “students of Calvin’s theology have too rarely recognized how important the concept of sonship was to his understanding of the Christian life.” [2]

While Timothy Trumper’s unpublished dissertation on the doctrine of adoption in the Calvinistic tradition fills a void in the study of Calvin’s theology of adoption, [3] a detailed study of the privileges and duties of adoption is nevertheless useful. This paper seeks to address a gap in the scholarship on Calvin’s development of the doctrine of adoption by examining the Reformer’s teachings on the privileges and duties of adoption.

Calvin’s doctrine of adoption is not restricted to the Institutes per se; the riches of Calvin’s view of adoption can be gleaned from his entire corpus of writings, including his commentaries and sermons. [4] Having done this, we have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of adoption was an experiential reality in Calvin’s life, and that he sought to instill its beauty and riches in those to whom he ministered. Christ’s church today receives the legacy of Calvin’s view of adoption, which speaks doctrinally and experientially to the life of the believer. Let’s turn now to Calvin’s writings on the privileges and duties that accrue to the believer through his adoption into God’s family.

The Privileges Of Adoption

Calvin offers a rich and varied tapestry of the blessing and privileges of adoption woven throughout his theology. It is helpful to organize these privileges of adoption under a trinitarian rubric: paternal privileges given especially by the Father, fraternal privileges given especially by the Son, and spiritual privileges given especially by the Holy Spirit. This framework of adoption in Calvin’s theology is succinctly summarized by Sinclair Ferguson: “But for Calvin, piety meant recognizing that our lives are nourished by God’s Fatherly care; it meant knowing oneself to be a child of God. Similarly, Calvin saw the purpose of the incarnation and atonement to be the adoption of Christians. Consequently, the ‘first title’ of the Spirit is ‘Spirit of adoption.’” [5] There are also other categories which work on a sub-level within the trinitarian rubric: covenantal privileges and eschatological privileges. [6] The privileges that the adopted children of God receive are rich and find their full expression in the redemptive and applicatory work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. [7]

In Calvin’s thought, the fountainhead of adoption and its privileges is found in God the Father. The privileges that the adopted child of God receives are the comfort of the Father’s providence and the assurance received through the Father’s electing grace. This electing grace of the Father almost becomes synonymous in Calvin’s writings with the doctrine of adoption. He does not clearly delineate between these two concepts but rather merges them to show how adoption becomes a confirmation of election. Howard Griffith observes:

It is quite clear that Calvin’s intention was to use the biblical teaching on election as Scripture does: in the service of assurance for believers. Election was dangerous and only a snare when considered abstractly. But if for the sake of the analysis of Calvin’s own thinking, we think of it first, it is fascinating to notice that Calvin repeatedly refers to election as God’s adoption of the believer. This is not just the slip of a pen: Calvin repeats it often. [8]

Adoption can be pictured as a rearview mirror, confirming the electing grace of the Father in the life of the believer as the believer traces the redemptive work of God throughout his life. The close relationship of election and adoption serves to assure the believer that he is indeed a child of God.

In his Sermons on Election and Reprobation, Calvin closely links election and adoption. “So, when our Lord engraveth his fear in our hearts by his Holy Spirit, and such an obedience towards him, as his Children ought to perform unto him, this is as if he should set upon us the seal of his election, and as if he should truly testify that he hath adopted us and that he is a Father unto us.” [9] Throughout the Institutes, he makes several references to the close relation between election and adoption where free election by the grace of God becomes the ground of the believer’s adoption. He states, “We were adopted in Christ into the eternal inheritance because in ourselves we were not capable of such great excellence.” [10] Furthermore, man cannot enable himself to merit or receive adoption because “God’s special election towers and rules over all, alone ratifying his adoption.” [11]

This assurance of election is further buttressed in his Sermons on Ephesians. Calvin writes: “When he [Paul] says that God has predestinated us by adoption, it is to show that if we be God’s children it is not through nature but through his pure grace…. For we have no such status by birth or inheritance, neither does it come of flesh and blood.” [12] This assures the believer that only by the grace of God in Jesus Christ is he adopted into the family of God and thus “they whom he calls to salvation ought not to seek the cause of it anywhere else than in this gratuitous adoption.” [13] Calvin continues speaking of the assurance that election and adoption affords the believer:

Whosoever then believes is thereby assured that God has worked in him, and faith is, as it were, the duplicate copy that God gives us of the original of our adoption…. It follows then that if we have faith, we are also adopted. For why does God gives us faith? Even because he elected us before the creation of the world. This therefore is an infallible order, that insofar as the faithful receive God’s grace and embrace his mercy, holding Jesus Christ as their Head, to obtain salvation in this way, they know assuredly that God has adopted them. [14]

Far from declaring God’s election to be cold, calculating, and deterministic, Calvin ties election and adoption together, showing the comfort and warmth that can be derived from doing so. Election becomes the ground of adoption, and the root of adoption is not found in the believer, but in God the Father.

Adoption also comforts the believer with God’s fatherly providence. Upon adoption, the believer is not left to fend for himself, but comes under the fatherly providence of God. This fatherly providence comforts and offers care in the midst of a world that claims it cares but in reality does not, and in the face of governments that claim to protect their citizens but actually do not. While not relating it to adoption specifically, Calvin demonstrates that the providence of God includes both material, or natural, as well as spiritual blessings:

…[t]hat not only does he sustain this universe (as he once founded it) by his boundless might, regulate it by his wisdom, preserve it by his goodness, and especially rule mankind by his righteousness and judgment, bear with it in his mercy, watch over it by his protection; but also that no drop will be found either of wisdom and light, or of righteousness or power or rectitude, or of genuine truth, which does not flow from him and of which he is not the cause. [15]

Furthermore, “though God is merciful to all the world, he is yet more merciful to his children…. He cares for and feeds his children, but not with more bounty than is good for them.” [16] God’s providence includes not only good things, but also the rod of correction. The unbeliever sees these things as negative, but the child of God sees it as the rod of the Father’s correction, bearing the stamp of His love.

Calvin applies the doctrine of adoption by way of contrast, demonstrating both how the doctrine of adoption functions in the life of the believer and how it provokes the unbeliever to jealousy. The wicked are subject to torments, trembling, and a lack of assurance that “God beareth a fatherly affection unto him.” [17] In addressing the believer about the privilege of being under the providence of God, Calvin counsels believers not to be lulled into sleep as a child of God, but “[l]et us learn to keep ourselves in that favor and testimony that we have, that in that he hath adopted us for his children, he will always show himself a father towards us.” [18] It is when the believer learns to keep himself in this frame of soul that “it is certain that we shall overcome all fears…God is with us…we are well assured against all evil.” [19] God’s providence includes “protecting, guiding, confirming, using, supporting, governing, mortifying, keeping, delivering, and increasing his children.” [20] Having been chosen and adopted by the Father, the believer now comes under the Father’s care and providence, receiving the title of heir and the right to a vast spiritual treasury. Calvin notes, “When a man adopts a child he chooses him to be his heir, and all the goods that he has afterwards are passed on under that title. So it is with us who are heirs of the heavenly life because God has adopted and chosen us for his children.” [21]

The greatest privilege that a child of God receives upon adoption is Christ, the Son of the Father. Christ becomes the treasure and focus of an adopted child of God with all the privileges that He gives. He is the apex, the agent, and the achiever of the believer’s adoption. As seen earlier in Calvin’s thought, election played a prominent role in the believer’s adoption, but that election is in Christ. Outside of Christ, election is not possible, nor would the adoption of children be possible.

Adoption makes the believer an heir of salvation through Christ. The adopted child of God becomes the recipient of salvation through Christ, for “the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of their own.” [22] Christ’s merits, through His obedience, death, and resurrection, are what secure the believer’s adoption. This is clear from Calvin’s writing on the purpose of why God had to become man. He had to take on our flesh to rescue us from our self- made hell, to conquer death, and to procure salvation for His people. [23] This too, serves the believer’s assurance of salvation and being heir to the Kingdom, “for the Son of God, to whom it wholly belongs, has adopted us as his brothers.” [24] This work of salvation was achieved through the Incarnation, when “ungrudgingly he took our nature upon himself to impart to us what was his, and to become both Son of God and Son of man in common with us.” [25]

In his application of the doctrine of adoption, it must be noted that Calvin was discriminatory, opening up its comforts to believers but also preserving this doctrine from those who would abuse it in unbelief. This discriminatory note can be detected when he cautions that the Incarnation must not be used to automate adoption. Just because Christ came in human flesh does not mean that all are the children of God. He writes, “When we say that Christ was made man that he might make us children of God, this expression does not extend to all men. For faith intervenes, to engraft us spiritually into the body of Christ.” [26]

The fact that the believer becomes an heir of Christ also has eschatological dimensions. Although this is present in the Pauline doctrine of adoption, Calvin also highlights the Johannine complement to it. He clearly brings out the “now/not yet” tension inherent to believers’ enjoyment of the inheritance they receive through adoption. In his Commentary on 1 John, especially 1 John 3:2, Calvin notes that the believer’s condition as an adopted child of God has not yet reached full fruition; he is subject to death, misery, and all manner of evil. Calvin counsels the believer to consider the privileges that await him in heaven, looking to the coming of Christ which sustains faith, “because the fruit of our adoption is as yet hid, for in heaven is our felicity, and we are now far away travelling on the earth.” [27] This tension is also apparent in his Commentary on Romans, in which he highlights the fact that the believer’s inheritance through adoption will be fully realized in the future. He states that “we shall partake of it in common with the only-begotten Son of God,” which requires patience and endurance in the present Christian life. [28]

Adoption frees the child of God from bondage of the law through Christ. This discussion finds a prominent place in Calvin’s treatment of adoption and the law in his Commentary on Galatians. Christ was subjected to the law for the benefit of His children. He did so freely, choosing “to become liable to keep the law, that exemption from it might be obtained for us.” [29] Calvin clearly cautions, however, that freedom from the law in Christ does not necessitate abrogation of the law as a rule for the life of the believer, an issue that will be discussed under the duties of adoption. [30] Under the Old Covenant, believers did not yet enjoy the full fruit of adoption—freedom from the bondage of the law through its ceremonies and appendages. The New Testament believer under the covenant of grace now enjoys the privilege of freedom from the law because Christ is now His righteousness. Calvin argues within a covenantal framework that “the fathers, under the Old Testament, were certain of their adoption, but did not so fully as yet enjoy their privilege.” [31] The freedom from the law that the believer now enjoys through adoption is different because this fruit of adoption is fully realized in Christ. Calvin is careful not to disown Old Testament believers as children of God when he says, “The ancients were also sons of God, and heirs through Christ, but we hold the same character in a different manner; for we have Christ present with us, and in that manner enjoy his blessings.” [32]

The character of this freedom from the law is clearly seen in his Institutes where Calvin speaks of Christ being made a curse for us (quoting Galatians 3:13 and Deuteronomy 27:26). [33] He goes on to directly connect the adoption of sons and the freedom from the law so that “we should not be borne down by an unending bondage, which would agonize our consciences with the fear of death.” [34] The freedom that the believer enjoys is freedom from conscience because Christ has been made a curse on his behalf. Furthermore, this freedom is realized in the fact that all the ceremonial laws have been abolished in Christ. [35]

Adoption makes the believer part of the “wonderful exchange” through Christ. Westhead lists this wonderful exchange as part and parcel of adoption. The substance of this exchange is best seen in Calvin’s own words in discussing the fruits of the Lord’s Supper:

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; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that, receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness. [36]

Adoption comprehends the conformity of the believer to the image of Christ. The Apostle Paul speaks of Christ as the prototype of all the sons of God: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). Calvin highlights this as one of the greatest privileges the believer enjoys as an adopted son of God: “God had so determined that all whom he has adopted should bear the image of Christ…that he might teach us that there is in Christ a living and conspicuous exemplar, which is exhibited to God’s children for imitation.” [37] Elsewhere he writes that “the final end of our adoption is, that what has in order preceded in Christ, shall at length be completed in us…. We have eyes prepared to see God.” [38] This conforming to Christ’s image will prepare the believer to behold Christ in His glory, removing impurities, weakness, and sin.

Adoption incorporates the believer into the family of God. When a child of God is adopted, his allegiances change. The devil is no longer his father; God is His Father through Jesus Christ, and he leaves the sinful family behind and joins the family of God. In his Sermons on Micah, Calvin poses the question, “For who are we, that God should honor us by taking us into his own house? For when God decided to adopt us as his children, that already constituted an honor that overshadowed all the possible honors of this world.” [39] This new family or “dwelling place of God’s children is more to be desired than anything else in the world.” [40] The church is part of the family of God and takes a prominent place in Calvin’s theology. If God is the believer’s Father, then the church is the believer’s mother—the arena in which the believer is conceived, given life, and nourished. [41] The church is where God’s children receive God’s fatherly love and the “especial witness of the spiritual life.” [42] Calvin’s doctrine of adoption shows the privilege of belonging to God’s family both on a vertical plane, with God as Father, and a horizontal plane, being joined to the church and the family of God.

The third part of the framework in which Calvin develops the doctrine of adoption is centered on the Spirit and His role in adoption. The Spirit cannot and must not be divorced from the doctrine of adoption, and Calvin develops this third section in a biblical manner, drawing out the beauty and assistance that the Spirit offers to the believer as an adopted child of God.

Adoption is witnessed and sealed by the Spirit. Calvin confirms in his Tracts that the Spirit is the witness, seal, and earnest of the believer’s adoption. [43] Scripture calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of adoption because “he is the witness to us of the free benevolence of the God with which God the Father has embraced us in his beloved only-begotten Son to become a Father to us.” [44] This witness of the Spirit of the believer’s adoption is a co-witness which takes place when the Spirit “testifies to us, that we are the children of God, he at the same time pours into our hearts such confidence, that we venture to call God our Father.” [45]The ensuing privilege of the child of God is assurance.

Thus adoption obtains assurance for the believer through the work of the Spirit. This fruit is really bound up closely with the preceding privilege of adoption—that the believer has the Spirit as his witness. They are almost inseparable because as the Spirit witnesses to the heart, the believer is assured that he is a child of God. Calvin ties these two concepts together in his comments on Romans 8:16, saying that “the Spirit of God gives us such a testimony, that when he is our guide and teacher, our spirit is made assured of the adoption of God: for our mind of its own self, without the preceding testimony of the Spirit, could not convey to us this assurance.” [46] This is corroborated in the statement that this assurance issues forth in a cry to God. [47] While adoption affords assurance of God’s electing grace in the life of the believer, the Spirit works that assurance in the heart of God’s adopted children. [48]

Adoption ensures a life of prayer by the Spirit. The believer’s life of prayer is worked by the Holy Spirit. Calvin argues that it is through Christ and His ministry of reconciliation that the believer may now come boldly before God in prayer because the veil has been torn between sinners and God.49 However, the Spirit works that boldness in the hearts of believers to go to God in prayer through Christ, and Calvin highlights the necessity of enlisting His help in prayer. [50]The Spirit assists the believer despite his weaknesses in prayer, “if we remember that God is still our Father and that we must seek refuge in him.” [51] With the witness and testimony of the Spirit with the believer’s spirit comes true prayer. This is affirmed when Calvin argues that unless the Spirit testifies in our hearts, working confidence regarding the Father’s love, “our tongues would be dumb, so that they could utter no prayers.” [52] Right prayer issues from Spirit-worked assurance. Calvin succeeds in demonstrating that this Spirit of prayer is not only present in the New Testament but also in the Old. That the ministry of the Spirit of adoption is effectual for the Old Testament saints as well is illustrated effectively in the life and prayer of the prophet Habakkuk. The prophet prays in Habakkuk 3:1-2 for God to revive His work. This is nothing else than an appeal using the “favour of adoption.” Calvin stresses that the prophet “thus confesses that there was no reason why God should forgive his people except that he had been pleased freely to adopt them and to choose them as his peculiar people.” [53] Calvin uses Habakkuk as a model for the prayer life of the adopted child of God when he says, “Now we have this in common with the ancient people, that God adopts us…. We may therefore adopt this form of prayer, which is prescribed for us by the Holy Spirit.” [54]

Not only does the Holy Spirit aid in individual prayer for the people of God based upon a particular ethnicity and language, but prayer can be offered by any person of any ethnicity or language. This is illustrated by the Spirit-indicted cry, “Abba, Father.” Calvin argues that this phrase proves that the adoption is for both the Jew and Gentile. The word Abba is Hebrew and the word Father is Greek, demonstrating that “we can call upon God in any language, as with one voice, confident that God will receive us now that we have the liberty to address him.” [55] The Spirit’s witness in prayer is an integral part of the believer’s privilege of praying with boldness since, as Griffith notes, “conviction of God’s holiness and our sin would preclude having the faith to call God ‘Father,’ apart from the witness of the Spirit of adoption in our hearts.” [56]

Adoption ensures a life of sanctification through the Spirit. Adopted believers have the Holy Spirit as their witness and seal, and the Spirit has engraved the promises of God upon their hearts, namely, that “we see and feel by experience that God has adopted us…and tells us that the assurance he has given us and daily gives us by his gospel, namely, that he will be our Father, and especially his engraving of it in our hearts by his Holy Spirit, is no deceitful thing.” [57] In adoption, Calvin sees the Spirit leading the believer onwards and upwards to a life of sanctification. He says that “we have a good and infallible pledge that God will guide us to the end, and that since he had begun to lead us into the way of salvation, he will bring us to perfection to which he calls us, because, in truth, without him we could not continue so much as a single day.” [58]

Through the Spirit’s witness and indwelling the child of God has a paraclete, a strengthener and sustainer for the life of sanctification. Calvin notes:

Wherever the Spirit is, he necessarily manifests his power and efficiency…. It hence appears that we are God’s children, that is, when his Spirit rules and governs our life…. Whatever good works are done by us, proceed from the grace of the Spirit, and that the Spirit is not obtained by our righteousness, but is freely given to us. [59]

The Spirit is freely given for the believer’s sanctification, another high privilege belonging to the child of God. The graces of sanctification are bestowed by the Spirit alone, and “whomever therefore, God receives into grace, he at the same time bestows the Spirit of adoption, by whose power he remakes them to his own image.” [60]

Calvin’s doctrine of adoption is a clear and unmistakable part of his soteriology. Although he does not develop a specific chapter on adoption in his Institutes, he develops the doctrine throughout his writings out of the beautiful experiential realities and privileges of adoption for the child of God as they are found in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The Duties That Flow From Adoption

John Calvin described adoption as “not the cause merely of a partial salvation, but bestow[ing] salvation entire.”61 Calvin saw that adoption was related to all of salvation—including predestination, election, calling, and justification. Adoption was what brought the sinner into the arms of the Father. Wilterdink states, “For Calvin, adoption into the family of God is synonymous with salvation.”62 This meant for Calvin that adoption happens when salvation occurs in the heart of the new believer. He did not separate adoption from the act of what God does in the heart of the sinner. To understand this view, it is vital to see how salvation and adoption go hand in hand. It is not possible to be saved and yet not be adopted; likewise, one cannot be adopted without being saved. Calvin saw this as being an important truth with great impact on how one is to live as a saved, adopted son of his heavenly Father.

In Calvin’s development of adoption he begins by stating that it is motivated by the Father’s electing grace in Christ. This is best seen through Calvin’s own words:

It is not from a perception of anything that we deserve, but because our heavenly Father has introduced us, through the privilege of adoption, into the body of Christ. In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of their own; for when he says that we are chosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy. [63]

Calvin saw that adoption was designed for the glory of God, in that those saved by the gospel are then to live for the glory of God in holiness, purity, and doing every deed in obedience to their heavenly Father. To Calvin, adoption was not just a blessing; he knew that the privileges given to the believer upon the act of adoption came with responsibilities. Adoption is not only a promised inheritance for believers, but also a way in which believers are to think, live, and transform their new life according to the Word of God.

Adoption calls one to live as a child of God. Calvin states at the beginning of his third sermon on the first chapter of Ephesians:

I began to show you earlier that it is not lawful for us to indulge in loose living with the excuse that God has elected us before the creation of the world, as though it were right for us to give ourselves over to all manner of evil, because we cannot perish, seeing that God has taken us for his children. For we must not put things asunder which he has coupled together. Seeing that he has chosen us to be holy and to walk in purity of life, our election must be as root that yields good fruits…. And whence comes this change but only through the grace that we spoke of, namely, that he elected and chose us for his children before we were born into the world. [64]

For Calvin, being an adopted child of God is vital to the Christian life. Becoming a Christian is not to be taken lightly. A child of God is to live like one—representing what his Father did, who his Father is, and how his Father acts. In other words, Calvin saw that believers are to represent the very image of their new heavenly Father. Upon adoption, the fruits of believers’ lives are to be holy in order to properly represent the Father. Believers are to put away the lusts of the flesh, revel in the fact that they are now the sons and daughters of the Almighty God, and, as such, want to portray their Father in whatever they do. [65]

Adoption also calls believers to live a life of suffering. In his commentary on Romans 8:17, he states:

We are co-heirs with Christ, provided, in entering on our inheritance, we follow him in the same way in which he has gone before. And he (Paul) thus made mention of Christ, because we have by his grace been adopted as his children; and that it may not be doubtful, its possession has already been conferred on Christ, whose partners we are become: but Christ came to the cross; then we must come to it in the same manner. [66]

Calvin understood that those adopted are to follow after Christ— their elder Brother—in suffering; it is a duty to suffer like Christ. Calvin’s understanding of the inheritance as adopted sons and daughters of God is that it means being like Christ in every way. The child of God is to be remade into His image and partake of His suffering.

Adoption calls believers to live a prayerful life. While dealing with Romans 8:16, Calvin says the following about the Spirit through whom we cry Abba:

For we must ever hold fast this principle,—that we do not rightly pray to God, unless we are surely persuaded in our hearts, that he is our Father, when we so call him with our lips. To this there is a corresponding part,—that our faith has no true evidence, except we call upon God. It is not then without reason that Paul, bringing us to test, shows that it then only appears how truly any one believes, when they who have embraced the promise of grace, exercise themselves in prayers. [67]

Calvin preached a sermon entitled, “Crying Out to God in the Certainty of Our Adoption,” in which he said, “[W]e know that God demands this (prayer) sacrifice of us all—that we call upon him and take refuge in him—for this is a way of proving he is our Father and the source of all good things.” [68]

It is a blessing that believers can pray and call upon their Father, but Calvin expressed how important it is to recognize that exercising prayer is not merely a blessing, but a responsibility for one living as a child of God.

Adoption calls God’s children to pursue holiness. When preaching on Ephesians 1, Calvin said, “But yet we must always bear in mind that God’s electing of us was in order to call us to holiness of life. For if he should let us alone still as wretched castaways, surely we could do nothing but all manner of wickedness according to the corruption that is in us.” [69] He went on to say:

For we are not elected to give ourselves over to permissiveness, but to show by our deeds that God has adopted us to be children and taken us into his keeping in order to dwell in us by his Holy Spirit and to unite us to himself in all perfection of righteousness. [70]

For Calvin, being adopted was not a “free ticket” into heaven; rather, it was a constant reminder—a constant responsibility—for believers that they are to pursue holiness until the day that they are united with their heavenly Father. Calvin believed that a person acts according to the family he is a part of: if he is Satan’s child and a part of this world, then he acts accordingly; but if one is a child of God, then he is to act like it, living every day in pursuit of the example that Christ has given.

Adoption further calls believers to live an indebted life. When preaching on election and adoption in a sermon on Ephesians 1, Calvin says, “Let us notice that in this place St. Paul exhorts us to acknowledge ourselves indebted to God for the virtue and goodness that is in us.” [71] Calvin proclaimed the importance of knowing that as adopted children of God, believers are always indebted to their Father for the pure grace He has given to them. Adopted children of God are given the rights to a heavenly family and salvation, and as adopted children they are now owned by the Father. Because of the great grace and blessings that this adoption gives the believer, everything— every move, every sound, every accomplishment, every second—is owned by God. This is clearly seen in Calvin’s preaching:

Now if we are so much bound to a mortal man as to maintain his honor when we are kept at his expense, what ought we to do for our God? Are we not in his house as long as we live in this world? Have we so much as one drop of water except by his goodness and generosity? Behold, God has a fatherly care over us, and yet we allow his name to be blasphemed, his majesty to be robbed and spoiled of all reverence, his Word to be torn in pieces, all order (that he has commanded) to be broken, the church (which is his wife) to be corrupted and misused, and his children to be debauched, and in the meanwhile we keep our mouths closed. I ask you, whether such silence does not sufficiently show that we are not worthy to eat one more morsel of bread, nor to be counted in the number of earthworm, lice, bugs, and all the vilest and filthiest things of the world? 

Therefore let us think well upon it, that we shall be found guilty of the despising of God’s majesty (as we see) because we do not rebuke men’s vices. That is a reason why the wicked and profane become bolder and imagine they have won all to their side, and triumph in their despising of God in that way. It comes partly as a result of our silence. [72]

Thus living an indebted life of duty and honor to the Father was living a life for, to, and in the Father’s blessing.

Adoption calls one to praise the Father. Towards the end of his sermon on Ephesians 1, Calvin speaks about faith being a fruit of election, and relates this to adoption and how all praise is due to our heavenly Father:

To be brief, it is not without reason that St. Paul says here that God’s praise shall never be glorified as it ought to be till we acknowledge his election to be the cause of all the benefits he bestows upon us, and that if he had not adopted us by his infinite mercy according to his eternal counsel, we should take part of the praise to ourselves which is due to him. [73]

Calvin truly understood—and wanted others to as well—that adoption is more than blessings and privileges alone. It is also more than duties and responsibilities. Adoption into the family of God causes the hearts of believers to burst with joy and praise for what God has done for them. According to Calvin, seeing God as the perfector of man’s salvation ought to bring forth a life that honors the Trinity constantly for the work that has been done in the believer’s heart.

Still further, adoption calls believers to live an obedient life in cross-bearing. [74] In his Institutes, Calvin writes the following about cross-bearing in the life of the adopted:

Those whom the Lord has chosen and honored with his intercourse must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled life, a life full of many and various kinds of evils: it being the will of our heavenly Father to exercise his people in this way while putting them to the proof. Having begun this course with Christ the first-born, he continues it towards all his children. [75]

He then ends the section entitled “What the Cross Is” by saying:

How powerfully should it soften the bitterness of the cross, to think that the more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ; by communion with whom our sufferings are not only blessed to us, but tend greatly to the furtherance of our salvation. [76]

Calvin saw the importance of believers’ suffering in adoption—that is, carrying their own cross and doing so in obedience, imaging their elder brother Jesus.77 Like a toddler looks to his older brother for guidance, God’s adopted focus on Christ, their Elder Brother, for guidance on living as co-heirs with Him. Calvin understood that this involved looking at what Christ had done at the cross. In Christ’s suffering, we are given an example for life.

Adoption calls believers to live a life that desires the third use of the law. It would be unthinkable to write a paper on Calvin’s view of the duties and responsibilities of adoption without making mention of his view on the third use of the law. Timothy Trumper expresses this best as he makes mention of this issue in the section of his dissertation about obedience:

Ever since God revealed himself as father to us,” says Calvin, “we must prove our ungratefulness to him if we did not in turn show ourselves as sons. (Mal. 1:6; Eph. 5:1; 1 John 3:1)78 Gratitude is therefore registered by obedience to the Father’s will. [79]

Calvin saw that the law aids the adopted in the process of sanctification. It is the duty of the sons and daughters of God to live in obedience to the law in order to continually present themselves as His children.

Calvin writes on the third use of the law in the Institutes:

The third use of the Law has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns…. For it is the best instrument for enabling them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what that will of the Lord is which they aspire to follow, and to confirm them in this knowledge; just as a servant who desires with all his soul to approve himself to his master, must still observe, and be careful to ascertain his master’s dispositions, that he may comport himself in accommodation to them. [80]

Elsewhere Calvin shows that the law helps develop obedience to the Father. [81]

Finally, adoption calls believers to live a life of humility. A life of humility is fostered by meditating and feasting upon the doctrine of adoption. In the concluding thoughts from his only sermon on adoption from Galatians 4:4-7, Calvin says:

Now let us fall before the presence of our great God, acknowledging our sins, and praying that he would make us aware of them so that we humble ourselves before him. At the same time, let us not lose courage, since he accepts us, and willingly deigns to listen to our petitions when we come to him in complete trust. May he grant us grace to overcome all problems and hindrances, and all the arguments and questions that the devil sets in our hearts, that we may know the truth of that promise, that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Thus, we all say, Almighty God, and our heavenly Father. [82]

Conclusion

The life, theology, and work of John Calvin have impacted the world in an amazing way. Woven through his commentaries, tracts, letters, sermons, and Institutes, the doctrine of adoption takes center stage in describing the beauty of salvation for sinners. The benefits, privileges, and duties of adoption are so central to Calvin’s theology and so real to him that he went to great lengths to impart this treasure of wisdom to his flock. May we receive this legacy and feast upon the gospel that Calvin loved so much, setting our eyes upon the Savior who brought us into God’s family as His adopted children.

Notes

1. Sinclair Ferguson, “The Reformed Doctrine of Sonship,” Pulpit and People, Essays in Honor of William Still, eds. Nigel M. de S. Cameron and Sinclair B. Ferguson (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1986); Howard Griffith, “‘The First Title of the Spirit’: Adoption in Calvin’s Soteriology,” Evangelical Quarterly 73 (2001): 135-53; Timothy J. R. Trumper, “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2001); Timothy J. R. Trumper, “The Metaphorical Import of Adoption: A plea for Realisation I and II: The Adoption Metaphor in Biblical Usage” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 14 (1996): 129-45; Timothy J. R. Trumper, “The Theological History of Adoption II: A Rationale,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 20 (2002): 177-202; Marijn de Kroon, The Honor of God and Human Salvation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001); Nigel Westhead, “Adoption in the Thought of John Calvin,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 13 (1995); G. A. Wilterdink, “The Fatherhood of God in Calvin’s Thought,” Reformed Review 30 (Autumn 1976): 9-22.
2. Ferguson, The Reformed Doctrine of Sonship, 81-86.
3. Trumper, “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption.”
4. John Calvin, Commentaries, 22 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005); Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960); John Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation (Audubon: Old Paths Publications, 1996); John Calvin, Sermons on Galatians (Audubon: Old Paths Publications, 1995); John Calvin, Sermons on the Book of Micah, trans. and ed. Benjamin W. Farley (Phillipsburg, Pa.: P&R Publishing, 2003); John Calvin, Sermons on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1983); John Calvin, Tracts and Treatises, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1958).
5. Sinclair Ferguson, The Reformed Doctrine of Sonship, 82.
6. For a further delineation of these categories, see Westhead, “Adoption in the Thought of John Calvin,” 102-15, and Griffith, “The First Title of the Spirit: Adoption in Calvin’s Soteriology,” 135-53.
7. This paper speaks strictly of redemptive sonship. Westhead notes that Calvin denies natural sonship and God’s universal fatherhood in the context of creation, but resoundingly affirms redemptive sonship as it finds expression in the electing and redeeming grace of God through Jesus Christ in the context of soteriology. For a further discussion, see Westhead, “Adoption in the Thought of John Calvin,” 103-104.
8. Griffith, “The First Title of the Spirit,” 138.
9. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 98-99.
10. Calvin, Institutes, 3.22.1.
11. Calvin, Institutes, 3.22.4.
12. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 39.
13. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesian, 43.
14. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesian, 47.
15. Calvin, Institutes, 1.2.1.
16. Wallace and Calvin, quoted in Griffith, “The First Title of the Spirit,” 150.
17. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 198.
18. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 199.
19. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 199.
20. Trumper, “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption,” 180.
21. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 40.
22. Calvin, Commentary on Ephesians, 21:198.
23. Calvin, Institutes, 2.12.2.
24. Calvin, Institutes, 2.12.2.
25. Calvin, Institutes, 2.12.2.
26. Calvin, Institutes, 2.13.2.
27. Calvin, Commentary on 1 John, 22:204-205.
28. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:301.
29. Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, 21:119.
30. Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, 21:119.
31. Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, 21:119.
32. Calvin, Commentary on Galatians, 21:122. This discussion takes place in Calvin’s discussion of adoption within the Old and New Covenants. He traces the biblical theological progression of adoption throughout the Old and New Testaments.
33. Calvin, Institutes, 2.7.15.
34. Calvin, Institutes, 2.7.15.
35. Calvin, Institutes, 2.7.16.
36. Calvin, Institutes, 4.17.2.
37. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:318
38. Calvin, Commentary on 1 John, 22:205-6.
39. Calvin, Sermons on the Book of Micah, 193.
40. Calvin, Sermons on the Book of Micah, 193.
41. Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.4.
42. Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.4.
43. Calvin, Tracts and Treatises, Part 3, 3:154.
44. Calvin, Institutes, 3.1.3.
45. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:299.
46. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:299.
47. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 286.
48. Calvin, Sermons on Election and Reprobation, 312.
49. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 374.
50. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 374.
51. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 374.
52. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:299.
53. Calvin, Commentary on Habakkuk, 15:138.
54. Calvin, Commentary on Habakkuk, 15:138.
55. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 381.
56. Griffith, “The First Title of the Spirit,” 151.
57. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 48.
58. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 48.
59. Calvin, Commentary on 1 John, 22:227.
60. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.6.
61. Calvin, “The True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom, and of the Reforming Church,” in Calvin’s Selected Works: Tracts, 275.
62. Wilterdink, “The Fatherhood of God in Calvin’s Thought,” 185.
63. Calvin, Commentary on Ephesians, 21:198.
64. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 35.
65. Calvin, Institutes, 2.14.5.
66. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 301-2.
67. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 299-300.
68. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 381-82.
69. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 36-37.
70. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 37.
71. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 39.
72. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 525.
73. Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 44.
74. Trumper, “An Historic Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition,” 199-202.
75. Calvin, Institutes, 3.8.1.
76. Calvin, Institutes, 3.8.1.
77. Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 318.
78. Calvin, Institutes, 3.6.3.
79. Trumper, “An Historic Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition,” 190.
80. Calvin, Institutes, 2.7.12.
81. Calvin, Institutes, 2.8.5; 3.8.9. For John Calvin’s view of obedience and the third use of the law in relation to the doctrine of Adoption, see Timothy Trumper, “An Historic Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition,” 190-202.
82. Calvin, Sermons on Galatians, 384.