First, He knows exactly what He is doing. He “predestines” and plans this adoption far in advance. All this arises from His own “pleasure and will.”8
Second, He prepares throughout Old Testament history. He uses Israel for lessons about adoption, and He places Israelites first in line for sonship.9
Third, He sends Jesus who speaks in family terms: “our Father,” “My brothers,” and therefore “sons of God.”10
Fourth, He gives His Son as the “ransom” that permits us to be “adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ.”11
Fifth, He calls all sinners through the Gospel, which includes the call to “repentance toward God” (Acts 20:21).12
Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:17-18). M
Sixth, Those who believe and repent are baptized. They enter Christ, and so become “sons of God.”
For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:26-27). M
Do you see the divine logic?
Jesus is the Son of God. Therefore every believer baptized into Christ becomes a son of God.
As if all this is not enough, God adds yet another step. As the seventh, it has to do with the completeness of adoption now, and the completion of our final welcome home.
Seventh, at baptism God sends His Spirit to dwell in us.13 He marks us as true sons (Ephesians 1:13-14).14 The Spirit will also raise our bodies from death, or mortality, when Christ returns.15 In that resurrection, the Spirit finalizes forever “our adoption as sons” (Romans 8:23).
9. Research subject – Israel and sonship: Exodus 4:22; Isaiah 63:16; Jeremiah 31:9; Hosea 11:1; Romans 9:4; Acts 3:25-26; 13:46
10. Matthew 5:9,45; 6:9; 12:48-49; 13:37; 28:10; Luke 6:35; 8:21; 11:11; John 20:17; Hebrews 2:11-12
11. Ephesians 1:5; Hebrews 2:9-10
12. Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20
13. Galatians 3:26-27; 4:6-7; Acts 2:38; 5:32; 1 Corinthians 12:13
14. 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Romans 8:14-17; 1 John 3:24; 4:13
15. Research subject – Final resurrection: Ephesians 4:30; Romans 8:10-11,18-23; 1 Corinthians 15:20-54; John 5:28-29; Philippians 3:21; Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 20:12-14