I鈥檓 not the only one who鈥檚 been reading Billings. Uche Anizor has been at it, too, and he鈥檒l soon be posting comments here on specific chapters of Billings鈥檚 book. Meanwhile, I鈥檒l add a few of my own on Billings鈥檚 foundational first chapter on union with Christ as the ground of our adoption.

In his classic Knowing God, J.I. Packer sums up the gospel memorably as 鈥渁doption through propitiation.鈥 And adoption is precisely what our union with Christ brings about. When we are united with Christ, we come to stand in Christ鈥檚 place of sonship. Indwelt by 鈥渢he Spirit of adoption鈥 (Rom 8:15), we call upon our heavenly Father. That is, we address the Father as only his children may. We begin to know the Father as only the perfect human Son can.

Billings鈥檚 chapter on adoption (chapter 1) sets the theological stage for the more practical chapters that follow. But even here, Billings challenges the comfortable assumptions many evangelicals have absorbed from culture. For example, 鈥溾 (as it鈥檚 called). If that sounds to you like a religious disease, it is: 鈥淢oralistic Therapeutic Deism.鈥 It鈥檚 the default idolatry of America, and it鈥檚 all about being good (moralistic) and fixing our lives (therapeutic) so that a benevolently hands-off God (deism) will let us into heaven when we die.

The gospel of adoption, by contrast, is about a radical change of identity. Drawing on a brilliant little thought-experiment of Kierkegaard, Billings explains that this adoption is something like an emperor, suddenly and without any warning, adopting a day-laborer. Not only is the day-laborer鈥檚 legal status changed, but he also has to take on his new identity. He didn鈥檛 earn his adoption by working really hard. (It鈥檚 not moralistic.) And he certainly can鈥檛 continue working out in the cornfields. (It鈥檚 not a matter of fixing his life as it once was.) This is what Calvin called the 鈥渄ouble grace鈥 of our union with Christ: both change of status (justification) and personal transformation (sanctification). And it comes to us through the uncomfortably intimate embrace of a holy and loving God.