{"id":6271,"date":"2021-05-25T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=6271"},"modified":"2021-03-29T15:43:40","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T20:43:40","slug":"one-family-in-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/one-family-in-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"One Family in Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGod destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.\u201d
\nEphesians 1:5-6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kinship by blood (my parents, children, siblings, cousins, etc.) and kinship by marriage (my spouse, in-laws, sisters-in-law, etc.) form the warp and woof of the basic unit of human society, the family. Around the world, every society has developed an intricate system of rules and customs to govern questions of lineage (\u201cto whom am I related?\u201d), inheritance (\u201cwho will care for my children and my possessions after I die?\u201d), marriage (\u201cwhat rights and obligations do I acquire by publicly binding myself to my partner?\u201d), and other questions.<\/p>\n

But in this sea of rules, there is an exception: adoption (from the Latin ad<\/em>– [toward] and \u2013option<\/em> [choice]). Breaking with the regular rules of kinship by blood and marriage, adoption creates a new category in which an adult chooses and confers on a child all the rights, privileges, and inheritance normally reserved for biological children. Though the adopted child has done nothing to deserve this outpouring of gracious benevolence\u2014potentially lands, title, reputation, prestige, wealth, and even the right to be sibling with the biological children\u2014the act is binding and irreversible, and the adopted child\u2019s life is forever changed.<\/p>\n

The writer to the young church at Ephesus uses this striking exception to the regular rules of human kinship as the symbol of God\u2019s gracious action to include us in God\u2019s very own family. Because of God\u2019s gracious choice, we become \u201cjoint heirs with Christ\u201d (Rom. 8:17) and \u201cheirs of the promise\u201d (Heb. 6:17) which grafts us onto the life-giving vine that is Jesus Christ. Like the adopted child, we have done nothing to deserve this gracious deed and surely, without it, we would have died.<\/p>\n

The response to this gracious gift must correspond to the graciousness of the gift itself: if God has graciously included us in the family of God, then in relation to every human being on the planet\u2014human beings of all races and ethnicities\u2014we are to live our lives as though we are family, because through Christ, in fact, we are.<\/p>\n