Within Roman law, which Paul would have been familiar with as a Roman citizen, the process of adoption was a serious undertaking. The person being legally adopted, (usually a young man) would assume all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and completely lose all rights of his old family. In the eyes of the law and of Rome itself, he was a new person. So new were they that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family or guardian were abolished as if they had never existed. Paul uses this picture of adoption and takes this idea even further by adding to it the idea of sonship. He stresses that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not just adopted into the family of God; they are born into the family of God. The old is truly gone, and in the eyes of God, and God's law, you are spiritually a new person. The Greek language has only one word for this which translates to Sonplace, which means we are placed into the unique position of sons. Paul doesn't just use one or the other to describe what happens in salvation. Paul uses both cultural ideas to emphatically make his point about the awesome transformational power of salvation. We are both adopted and born into sonship through Christ. Our old life has died, the obligations and debts of our old life have been wiped clean, and we are born again as a new person, a son or daughter of God, with a new identity and purpose.

Think about that for a moment. Paul was right when he said in verse 3 that God has truly blessed us with every spiritual blessing. These spiritual blessings Paul speaks of are far better than material blessings. These blessings are higher, better, eternal, and far more secure and valuable than earthly blessings that rust and fade with time. Humans typically see physical blessings as being more valuable, but in truth, physical blessings cannot even come close to being compared to spiritual blessings. The famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon once commented on this passage of scripture by saying this: “We are not sitting here, and groaning, and crying, and fretting, and worrying, and questioning our salvation. He has blessed us, and therefore we will bless him. If you think little of what God has done for you, you will do very little for him; but if you have a great notion of his great mercy to you, you will be greatly grateful to your gracious God... Our thanks are due to God for all temporal blessings; they are more than we deserve. But our thanks ought to go to God in thunders of hallelujahs for spiritual blessings. A new heart is better than a new coat. To feed on Christ is better than to have the best earthly food. To be an heir of God is better than being the heir of the greatest nobleman. To have God for our portion is blessed, infinitely more blessed than to own broad acres of land. God hath blessed us with spiritual blessings. These are the rarest, the richest, the most enduring of all blessings; they are priceless in value.”

What a powerful idea! Every day we should live out our lives in appreciation and gratitude for the spiritual blessings God has given to us as his children. Sadly, many Christians don't live with these thoughts of gratitude in mind. And if we have no appreciation for spiritual blessings, then we live at the level of animals. Animals live only to eat, sleep, entertain themselves, and reproduce. What a sad existence for a son or daughter of God to live with their heads hanging low, only thinking about temporal things. God has something so much more for each of us! We are made in the image of God and with that, we carry a special status and place as sons and daughters of God, who are blessed with every spiritual blessing we could ever hope to imagine. Think about that today as you go about your life. You are not just an insignificant speck floating in the vastness of space. You are not a mistake or the product of random chance. You were created on purpose and for a purpose. You have value and worth because God has deemed value and worth upon you. Lift your head and praise him for it, and don't allow your mind to fall into hopelessness, insignificance, despair, or the mundane of life.