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THE PERFECT ADOPTION #5

SET FREE, BUT STILL FATHERLESS

If you were on Death Row, just waiting for the needle to go in your arm and the poison to flow, would getting off scot-free be the greatest news in the world? In Christian theological terms, we'd call that "justification.'" Amazingly, adoption is an even greater truth.

His name was Rolando Cruz. His home was a small cell on Death Row. He'd been convicted of killing a ten-year-old girl, and the lethal injection gurney was waiting. Then came along Dr. Lawrence Marshall, a law professor from Northwestern University. He did some research, sifted through evidence, got old transcripts re-opened. And when all was said and done, DNA tests proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that another man had actually killed the girl. After ten years on Death Row, waiting to be executed, Mr. Rolando Cruz was set free. This Dr. Marshall also managed to get a man named Gary Gauger released from Death Row after proving that he had not murdered his parents.
David Protess, another professor from the same school, Northwestern, spent a long time digging through the files of a convicted killer named Anthony Porter. For 17 years Mr. Porter had languished in prison, expecting to have the deadly mix of chemicals injected into his arm one day. He came within 48 hours of dying, but today he's a free man as well, cleared of murders he just plain and simple did not commit.
You've probably read how in Illinois, they finally put the death penalty on hold after realizing that in recent years they had had 12 executions and 12 exonerations. A fifty-fifty split, meaning that the state was getting it wrong exactly half the time — and with a human being's life in the balance. But today let's ask the question this way: What if you or I were on Death Row ourselves, but knowing that we WERE guilty? We committed the crime, the DNA is right there to nail it down, the appeals have been exhausted, and we're just waiting for the date, waiting for the chemicals to flow. And then, at the fateful moment when the straps are being tightened and we feel the pinprick of the needle in our arm, the phone rings and the governor is on the line. "Let him go free." What?! "You heard me. Let him go free. ‘Cause I said so."
Well, friend, that is precisely what the Christian doctrine of justification is all about. Guilty people going free. Condemned men and women being declared not guilty. Romans chapter 3 is one of the hallmark passages describing this miracle, and this is the fascinating Clear Word paraphrase:

"No one can be justified by keeping the law," Paul writes. "The law can't justify anyone; all it can do is tell us what sin is. But God has given us a righteousness that is apart from keeping the law, and all the Scriptures bear witness to this fact. This righteousness is found in God's own Son, and He offers it to everyone by faith in Jesus Christ — and I do mean everyone, for God is never partial. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the righteousness of God." That's verse 23, a well-known indictment. And now this: "But through His grace, we are ACQUITTED before the law because Jesus Christ paid for our sins."

Right there, the needle is pulled out of your arms, the guillotine is dismantled, and the electric chair is unplugged. The DA comes up to you and says, "Congratulations! You're free to go."
Here is the surprising thing. We've been studying this week — and we're going to stay right here next week too — the topic of "adoption." And in the book we've been using as a study resource, entitled Knowing God, by J. I. Packer, he makes this startling assertion:

"Adoption . . . is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: HIGHER EVEN THAN JUSTIFICATION."

And we say, What?! You've just gotten off of Death Row, and some Christian preacher says there's better news out there than that? Tell that to Rolando Cruz, Gary Gauger, and Anthony Porter. Tell that to Ronald Jones, who swore to lawyers that he was innocent, that DNA would exonerate him. "It's the ultimate roll of the dice," they warned him, "because if you're guilty, the DNA test will nail you right to the wall. You'll fry for certain." "I'm innocent," he said, and sure enough, after four years on Death Row the DNA results got him off. Could there be anything better in the world than justification . . . being declared not guilty by the grace of God? According to Dr. Packer, yes. To be an adopted son or daughter of God is a greater blessing, a higher glory, a more incredible gift than even this HUGE pillar of the Christian faith called justification.
He immediately hastens to assure his readers that justification is exactly that: a huge pillar. "Basic to everything else."

"As justification is the primary blessing," he writes, "so it is the fundamental blessing, in the sense that everything else in our salvation assumes it, and rests on it — adoption included."

Put it this way: if you're on that Death Row gurney, and the poison's about to flow, if it DOES flow, it really doesn't matter a whole lot if there's a kind person standing outside the gates of the penitentiary willing to adopt you. You won't be there to BE adopted! So what does Packer mean here? He explains:

"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. Some textbooks on Christian doctrine . . . treat adoption as a mere subsection of justification, but this is inadequate. The two ideas are distinct, and adoption is the more exalted. Justification is a forensic idea, conceived in terms of law, and viewing God as judge. In justification, God declares of penitent believers that they are not, and never will be, liable to the death that their sins deserve, because Jesus Christ, their substitute and sacrifice, tasted death in their place on the cross."

We always like to quote John 5:24 here, because it speaks of the permanence of this new freedom:

"Those who listen to what I'm saying," Jesus promises, "and believe that the Father has sent Me WILL HAVE everlasting life. They WILL NOT be condemned because the seed of death in them has already been replaced by the seed of life." "He has CROSSED OVER from death to life," says another version.

Why, then, is this wonderful gift not the greatest gift? Here's why, as Packer explains it:

"This free gift of acquittal and peace, won for us at the cost of Calvary, is wonderful enough, in all conscience — BUT justification does not of itself imply any intimate or deep relationship with God the judge. . . . You could have the reality of justification without any close fellowship with God resulting."

It is hard to imagine how any of us, once we grasped the powerful reality of being set free from the Death Row of spiritual condemnation, would not immediately want to move into a "sonship" or "daughter-ship" connection with God and accede to the adoption He offers us. Here's a bit more of the essay:

"But contrast this, now, [justification], with adoption. 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 — He 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."

An Associated Press story, August 15, 1999, about some of these miraculous Death Row turnarounds points out that even when "justification" kicks in and men are spared, life doesn't immediately become fantastic. Years are gone out of their lives. Some were poor going in and now poor coming out. People are suspicious, assuming they got off on a lucky DNA technicality. I mentioned that Anthony Porter, who missed death by 48 hours. He had an IQ of 51 when convicted; that's still what it is today. He has no job, no money. He lives with his mom and is lucky to have her to give him support and care. The point is this: justification or acquittal, as great a gift as it is, is relatively meaningless unless Dad is waiting for you outside the gate. And Dr. Packer once again lifts up adoption as the highest Christian gift or miracle when he writes in concluding:

"We do not fully feel the wonder of the passage from death to life which takes place in the new birth till we see it as a transition, not simply out of condemnation into acceptance, but out of bondage and destitution into the ‘safety, certainty, and enjoyment' of the family of God. This," he writes, "is the view of the great change which Paul sets out in Galatians 4:1-7, contrasting his readers' previous life of slavish legalism and superstition in religion with their present knowledge of their Creator as their Father and their pledged benefactor."

"You are no longer a slave, but a son," Paul writes, "and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." Packer concludes: "This, says Paul, is where your faith in Christ has brought you."

You see, friend, you only got justified BECAUSE God wanted to adopt you. Waiting there at the prison gate . . . is Dad. Not only did He provide the sacrifice — not DNA, but His Son's own blood — but now He waits with open arms. A car is waiting. A home. Meals. A warm bed. And an eternity of secure care, abundant love. The bars are forever gone; the prison is a distant memory. You are home.

I guess adoption really is the best gift after all.