Adopted On Purpose

“to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”

Galatians 4:5 · NKJV

Paul gives the reason behind the rescue, and it was never merely to get you out of trouble.

Redeem is a purchase word. A price was paid and someone was brought out. But Paul does not stop at release. The purpose clause is adoption, which means God was never aiming at neutral. He was aiming at family.

Adoptive parents will tell you there was nothing accidental about it. The paperwork, the home visits, the waiting, the cost. By the time the child comes home, the parents have meant that child a hundred times over. Nobody adopts on a whim, and nobody adopts planning to send the child back if the first year is hard. That is the kind of intention behind your place in God's family. He was not surprised to find you in the house. He went to great lengths to bring you there, and He meant every step of it.

Adoption in that world was deliberate and permanent, chosen rather than accidental, and it carried full inheritance. Nobody stumbles into it. God went looking, paid the price, and then wrote you into the will.

He did not only get you out. He brought you in, and He meant to.

Go deeper: The Lost Sons Was Never About the Prodigal →