Mirror Images: How Adoption Reflects the Gospel, Pt. 1

I am excited to launch the first of six mini reflections on the parallels between earthly and heavenly adoption, drawn from a brief article I wrote for a newsletter recently. These posts are not intended as an exhaustive overview of the topic, but will, I pray, serve as a launching pad for you to expand off of through your own future studies in Scripture and experiences with earthly orphans and adoptive families. Please feel free to comment with other neat parallels or connections you've discovered in your own lives as well! I always enjoy seeing how God has given us such a special glimpse into our own Heavenly adoption through our interactions with orphans here on earth.

1. Both earthly and heavenly adoption stem from an inability to help ourselves out of our plight

Orphans are some of the most vulnerable members of society, yet also some of the best reflections of who we were prior to Christ’s saving work on our behalf. Abandoned, fully dependent on others, and often not fully realizing the depth of hopeless misery that surrounds them, orphans are incapable of helping themselves out of their plights. They are victims of trafficking, corrupt governments, and poor care, too weak and young to do anything to rescue themselves. In a similar yet even more eternally significant way, we could not make restitution for or save ourselves from the sins we committed against God. Our condition was, in fact, even more extreme than an earthly orphan’s; Ephesians 2:1, for instance, tells us that we were “dead” in our trespasses. Yet “while we were still helpless” and “yet sinners,” Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-10). Just as earthly orphans greatly need more powerful and enabled governments and individuals to step in and bring hope to their hopelessness, so we desperately needed rescue through the adoptive work of God, for we had “no good” apart from Him (Psalm 16:2).