"It is possible to talk about adoption in a way that obscures the necessity of the atonement, as if God had only to reach out and embrace us with fatherly love and no costly sacrifice involved. It is also possible to emphasize adoption in a way that bypasses justification with its legal categories and its concern for righteousness. Again, it is remarkable how consistently successful the evangelical tradition has been about praising adoption without detracting from these key ideas. One example will have to suffice here. J. I. Packer has called adoption “the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification.”47 Packer is aware that “this may raise eyebrows,” so he defends his view by saying that justification is the primary blessing and even the fundamental blessing of salvation. But it is not the highest blessing. “Adoption is higher,” says Packer, “because of the richer relationship with God that it involves.”48 Since he obviously does not want to denigrate justification or to propose anything novel, Packer goes on to quote from the classic work on justification by Buchanan: “According to the Scriptures, pardon, acceptance, and adoption, are distinct privileges, the one rising above the other in the order in which they have been stated. . . . The privilege of adoption presupposes pardon and acceptance, but is higher than either.”49 In fact, Packer proposes that the New Testament could be summed up in the three words “adoption through propitiation.”50 

Sanders, Fred (2010-08-31). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (pp. 164-165). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

 "We have seen, in this line of thought, that the Trinity is the gospel. More expansively said: the good news of salvation is that God, who in himself is eternally the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, has become for us the adoptive Father, the incarnate Son, and the outpoured Holy Spirit. God the Father sent the Son to do something for us and the Spirit to be something in us, to bring us into the family life of God. God, who is eternally triune in himself in the happy land of the Trinity, gives himself to us to be our salvation, giving the economy of salvation a triune shape that reveals who he is, and making the Father, Son, and Spirit present in our own lives."

Sanders, Fred (2010-08-31). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (p. 165). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

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