Adoption

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

1. The term. -The custom of adopting children is explicitly alluded to by St. Paul alone of biblical writers; he uses the word ‘adoption’ (υἱοθεσία, Vulgate adoptio filiorum , Syr. usually sîmath b e nayâ) ) five times:  Romans 8:15;  Romans 8:23;  Romans 9:4,  Galatians 4:5,  Ephesians 1:5. This Greek word is not found in classical writers (though θετὸς υἱός is used for ‘an adopted son’ by Pindar and Herodotus), and it was at one time supposed to have been coined by St. Paul; but it is common in Greek inscriptions of the Hellenistic period, and is formed in the same manner as νομοθεσία, ‘giving of the law,’ ‘legislation’ ( Romans 9:4; also in Plato, etc.), and ὁροθεσία, ‘bounds,’ lit.[Note: literally, literature.]‘fixing of bounds’ ( Acts 17:26). It is translated ‘adoption’ in Rom., but ‘adoption of sons’ in Gal., ‘adoption as sons’ (Revised Version; Authorized Version‘adoption of children’) in Ephesians, The classical Greek word for ‘to adopt’ is εἰσποιεῖσθαι, whence εἰσποίησις, ‘adoption.’

2. The custom. -St. Paul in these passages is alluding to a Greek and Roman rather than to a Hebrew custom. Its object, at any rate in its earliest stages, was to prevent the dying out of a family, by the adopting into it of one who did not by nature belong to it, so that he became in all respects its representative and carried on the race. But, though the preventing of the extinction of a family was thought important by the Israelites, and though adoption was a legal custom among the Babylonians (Box, in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics i. 114), it was not in use among the Hebrews. With them childlessness was to some extent met by the levirate, or in the patriarchal period by polygamy (cf.  Genesis 16:1 ff), or at a later date by divorce. The few instances of adoption in the OT ( e.g. Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter, Esther by Mordecai) exhibit a different reason for the act from that stated above, and are the result of foreign surroundings and influence. On the other hand, the custom was very common among both Greeks and Romans. It was at first largely connected with the desire that the family worship of dead ancestors should not cease-a cultus which could be continued only through males (Wood-house, in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics i. 107 and 111). In Greece it dates from the 8th cent. b.c. It was afterwards used as a form of will-making. If a man had a legitimate son, he could not make a will; but, if he had no legitimate son, he often adopted one that he might secure the inheritance to him rather than to relatives, who would otherwise be heirs. The adopted son at once left his own family and became a member of that of his adopter, losing all rights as his father’s son. If he was adopted while his adopter was still living, and sons were afterwards born to the latter, he ranked equally with them; he could not be disinherited against his will. Roman adoption was founded on the same general ideas; it was called arrogatio if the person adopted was sui juris , but adoptio if he was under his own father’s potestas (Wood-house, loc. cit .). In the latter case he came under the adopter’s potestas as if he were his son by nature.

It appears, then, that St. Paul in the five passages named above is taking up an entirely non-Jewish position; so much so that some have doubted whether a Jew, even after he had become a Christian, could have written Epistles which contained such statements (cf. Ramsay, Galatians , p. 342). This, however, is one of the many instances of the influence of Greek and Roman ideas on St. Paul. W. M. Ramsay has endeavoured to show that, in so far as these differed from one another in the matter under discussion, it is to Greek custom rather than to ‘the Roman law of adoption in its original and primitive form’ that the Apostle refers in dealing with  Galatians 3:6 ff., but that he uses a metaphor dependent on Roman law when writing to the Romans in  Romans 4:11 ( ib. pp. 339, 343; see also articleHeir). But this has been disputed.

3. St. Paul’s metaphor of adoption. -The Apostle applies the metaphor to the relation of both Jews and Christians to the Father. ( a ) Somewhat emphatically he applies it to the Jews in  Romans 9:4. The adoption, the glory [the visible presence of God], the covenants [often repeated], the giving of the Law, the service [of the Temple]. the promises, the fathers, all belonged to the Israelites, ‘my kinsmen according to the flesh,’ of whom is Christ concerning the flesh-a passage showing the intense Jewish feeling of St. Paul, combined with the broader outlook due to his Graeco-Roman surroundings (see above, § 2 ). Here the sonship of Israel, for which see  Exodus 4:22 (‘Israel, my son, my first-born’).  Deuteronomy 14:1;  Deuteronomy 32:6;  Deuteronomy 32:19 f.,  Psalms 68:5;  Psalms 103:13,  Jeremiah 31:9,  Hosea 11:1,  Malachi 2:10, etc., is described as ‘adoption.’ It is noteworthy that the adoption is before the Incarnation, although it could only be ‘in Christ.’ Lightfoot (on  Galatians 4:5) observes that before Christ’s coming men were potentially sons, though actually they were only slaves ( Galatians 4:3). Athanasius argues that, since before the Incarnation the Jews were sons [by adoption], and since no one could be a son except through our Lord [cf.  John 14:6,  Galatians 3:26,  Ephesians 1:5, and see below, § 5 ], therefore He was a Son before He became incarnate ( Orat. c. Arian . i. 39, iv. 23, 29).

( b ) But more frequently St. Paul applies the metaphor of adoption to Christians. ‘Sonship in the completest sense could not he proclaimed before the manifestation of the Divine Son in the flesh’ (Robinson, Eph. , p. 27f.). We Christians ‘received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, for ‘we are children of God’ ( Romans 8:15 f.). It was not till the fullness (τὸ πλήρωμα-for the word see Robinson, pp. 42, 255) of the time came that God sent forth His Son that we might receive adoption ( Galatians 4:4 f.). In its highest sense adoption could not be received under the Law, but only under the Gospel. The context in these passages shows that the Spirit leads us to the Father by making us realize our sonship; He teaches us how to pray, and puts into our mouth the words ‘Abba, Father’ (cf. κρᾶσον  Galatians 4:6 with κρἀσομεν  Romans 8:15). We notice that St. Paul, though addressing those who were not by any means all Jewish Christians, but many of whom, being Gentiles, had come directly into the Church, yet seems at first sight to speak as if Christ’s coming was only to give adoption to those whom, being under the Law, He redeemed. But, as Lightfoot remarks ( Com. in loc .), the phrase used is τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον, not ὑπὸ τὸν νόμον; the reference is not only to those who were under the Mosaic Law, but to all subject to any system of positive ordinances (so perhaps in  1 Corinthians 9:20). The phrase ‘redeem …’ is thought to reflect the Roman idea that the adopter purchased a son from the father by nature; adoption was effected before a praetor and five witnesses, by a simulated sale.

( c ) Just as the adoption of Jews was inferior to that of Christians, so that of Christians is not yet fully realized. Adoption is spoken of in  Romans 8:23 as something in the future. It is the redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις) of out body, and we are still waiting for it; it can be completely attained only at the general resurrection. The thought closely resembles that of  1 John 3:2; we are now the children of God, but ‘if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him’; the sonship will then be perfected.

4. Equivalents in other parts of NT. -Although no NT writer but St. Paul uses the word ‘adoption,’ the idea is found elsewhere, even if expressed differently. Thus in  John 1:12 f. those who ‘receive’ the Word and believe on His name are said to be given by Him the right to become children of God. On this passage Athanasius remarks ( Orat. c. Arian . ii. 59) that the word ‘become’ shows an adoptive, not a natural, sonship; we are first said to be made ( Genesis 1:26), and afterwards, on receiving the grace of the Spirit, to be begotten . As Westcott observes ( Com., in loc .), ‘this right is not inherent in man, but “given” by God to him. A shadow of it existed in the relation of Israel to God.’ This passage is closely parallel to  Galatians 3:26, where we are said to be all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. So in  1 John 3:1, it is a mark of the love bestowed upon us by the Father that we should be called children of God [the name bestowed by a definite act-κληθῶμεν, aorist]; and (the Apostle adds) ‘such we are.’ The promise of  Revelation 21:7 to ‘him that overcometh’ equally implies adoption, not natural sonship: ‘I will be his God, and he shall be my son’; and so (but less explicitly) do the sayings in  Hebrews 2:10;  Hebrews 12:9 that Jesus ‘brings many sons unto glory’ (see below, § 5 ), and that God deals with us ‘as with sons.’ The figure of adoption appears as a ‘re-begetting’ in  1 Peter 1:3;  1 Peter 1:23; we are begotten again unto a living hope by ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ by means of the resurrection of Jesus (see below, § 5 ), and therefore call on Him as Father ( 1 Peter 1:17). And, indeed, our Lord’s teaching implies adoption, inasmuch as, while He revealed God as Father of all men, He yet uniformly (see next section) differentiates His own Sonship from that of all others.

5. A Son by nature implied by the metaphor. -The use by St. Paul of the figure of adoption in the case of Jews and Christians leads us by a natural consequence to the doctrine that our Lord is the Son of God by nature. In the same context the Apostle speaks of Jesus as God’s ‘own Son’ (τὀν ἑαυτοῦ νἱόν), sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, therefore pre-existent ( Romans 8:3; cf.  Romans 8:32 τοῦ ἱδίου υἱαῦ). In  Galatians 4:4 f. he says that God sent forth His Son (τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ) … that we might receive adoption; Jesus did not receive it, because He was God’s own Son. And so our Lord explicitly in  John 20:17 makes a clear distinction between His own sonship (by nature) and our sonship (by adoption, by grace): ‘my Father and your Father,’ ‘my Cod and your God.’ He never speaks of God as ‘our Father,’ though He taught His disciples to do so. Athanasius cites the ordinary usage of our Lord in speaking of ‘My Father’ (it is so very frequently in all the Gospels, and in  Revelation 2:27;  Revelation 3:5; cf. also  Mark 8:38) as a proof that He is ‘Son, or rather that Son, by reason of whom the rest are made sons’ ( Orat. c. Arian . iv. 21f.). The same thing follows from the language of those NT writers who use phrases equivalent to those of St. Paul. If Christians become children of God ( John 1:12; see § 4 above), Christ is the Only-begotten Son of God, who was sent into the world that we might be saved, or live, through Him ( John 3:16-18,  1 John 4:9). If we are the sons brought to glory by Jesus ( Hebrews 2:10). He is emphatically ‘a Son over [God’s] house’ ( Hebrews 3:6 Revised Version margin; cf.  Numbers 12:7). St. Peter speaks of God as the Father of Jesus in the very verse in which he speaks of our being begotten again by Him ( 1 Peter 1:3, see § 4 above). It is this distinction between an adoptive and a natural sonship which gives point to the title ‘Only-begotten’ ( q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ); had Jesus been only one out of many sons, sons in the same sense, this title would be meaningless (for endeavours to evacuate its significance see Pearson, On the Creed 5, articleii. notes 52, 53). The distinction of  John 20:17 is maintained throughout the NT. As Augustine says ( Exp. [Note: Expositor.] Ep. ad Gal . [4:5] § 30, ed. Ben. iii. pt. 2, col. 960), St. Paul ‘speaks of adoption, that we may clearly understand the only-begotten ( unicum ) Son of God. For we are sons of God by His lovingkindness and the favour ( dignitate ) of His mercy; He is Son by nature who is one with the Father ( qui hoc est quod Pater ).’

6. Adoption and baptism. -We may in conclusion consider at what period of our lives we are adopted by God as His sons. In one sense it was an act of God in eternity; we were foreordained unto adoption ( Ephesians 1:5). But in another sense St. Paul speaks of it as a definite act at some definite moment of our lives: ‘ Ye received (ἐλάβετε: aorist, not perfect) the spirit of adoption’ ( Romans 8:15). This points to the adoption being given on the admission of the person to the Christian body, in his baptism. And so Sanday-Headlam paraphrase  Romans 8:15 thus: ‘When you were first baptized, and the communication of the Holy Spirit sealed your admission into the Christian fold,’ etc. We may compare  Acts 19:2 Revised Version; ‘Did ye receive (ἐλάβετε) the Holy Ghost when ye believed (πιστεύσαντες)?’-a passage in which the tenses ‘describe neither a gradual process nor a reception at some interval after believing’ but a definite gift at a definite moment’ (Rackham, Com., in loc .; cf. Swete, Holy Spirit in NT , 1909, pp. 204, 342), The aorists can mean nothing else. In the case of the ‘potential’ adoption of the Jews (to borrow Lightfoot’s phrase), it is the expression of the covenant between God and His people, and therefore must be ascribed to the moment of entering into the covenant at circumcision, the analogue of baptism. Yet in neither case is the adoption fully realized till the future (above, § 3 ( c )). In view of what has been said, we can understand how ‘adoption’ came in later times to be an equivalent term for ‘baptism.’ Thus Payne Smith ( Thesaur. Syr. , Oxford, 1879-1901, ii. 2564) quotes a Syriac phrase to the effect that ‘the baptism of John was of water unto repentance, but the baptism of our Lord [ i.e. that ordained by Him] is of water and fire unto adoption.’ And in the later Christian writers υἱοθεσία became a synonym for ‘baptism’ (Suicer, Thes .3, 1846, s.v. ).

Literature.-Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos, passim (the general subject or this magnificent work is the Sonship of Christ); J. Pearson, On the Creed (ed. Burton, Oxford, 1864), articlei. p. 49, articleii. note 57, p. 250; W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Com. on the Galatians , London, 1899, § xxxi.; G. H. Box, in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics , article‘Adoption (Semitic)’; W. J. Woodhouse, ib. , articles ‘Adoption (Greek)’ and ‘Adoption (Roman)’; J. S. Candlish, in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article‘Adoption’; H. G. Wood, in Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible , article‘Adoption.’ See also J. B. Lightfoot, Com. on Galatians (1st ed., 1865, many subsequent edd.); Sanday-Headlam, Com. on Romans (1st ed., 1895); J. Armitage Robinson, Com. on Ephesians (1st ed., 1903).

A. J. Maclean.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

1. An act whereby any person receives another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him his heir.

2. Spiritual adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.

3. Glorious, is that in which the saints, being raised from the dead, are at the last day solemnly owned to be the children of God, and enter into the full possession of that inheritance provided for them,  Romans 7:19;  Romans 7:23 .

Adoption is a word taken from the civil law, and was much in use among the Romans in the apostles' time; when it was a custom for persons who had no children of their own, and were possessed of an estate, to prevent its being divided, or descending to strangers, to make choice of such who were agreeable to them, and beloved by them, whom they took into this political relation of children; obliging them to take their name upon them, and to pay respect to them as though they were their natural parents, and engaging to deal with them as though they had been so; and accordingly to give them a right to their estates, as an inheritance. This new relation, founded in a mutual consent, is a bond of affection; and the privilege arising from thence is, that he who is in this sense a father, takes care of and provides for the person whom he adopts, as though he were his son by nature; and therefore civilian call it an act of legitimation, imitating nature, or supplying the place of it.

It is easy, then, to conceive the propriety of the term as used by the apostle in reference to this act, though it must be confessed there is some difference between civil and spiritual adoption. Civil adoption was allowed of and provided for the relief and comfort of those who had no children; but in spiritual adoption this reason does not appear. The Almighty was under no obligation to do this; for he had innumerable spirits whom he had created, besides his own Son, who had all the perfections of the divine nature, who was the object of his delight, and who is styled the heir of all things,  Hebrews 1:3 . When men adopt, it is on account of some excellency in the persons who are adopted; thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses because he was exceeding fair,  Acts 7:20-21; and Mordecai adopted Esther because she was his uncle's daughter, and exceeding fair,  Esther 2:7 : but man has nothing in him that merits the divine act,   Ezekiel 16:5 . In civil adoption, though the name of a son be given, the nature of a son may not; this relation may not necessarily be attended with any change of disposition or temper.

But in spiritual adoption we are made partakers of the divine nature, and a temper or disposition given us becoming the relationship we bear,  Jeremiah 3:19 . Much has been said as to the time of adoption. Some place it before regeneration, because it is supposed that we must be in the family before we can be partakers of the blessings of it. But it is difficult to conceive of one before the other; for although adoption may seem to precede regeneration in order of nature, yet not of time; they may be distinguished, but cannot be separated. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, "  John 1:12 . There is no adoption, says the great Charnock, without regeneration. "Adoption, " says the same author, "is not a mere relation; the privilege and the image of the sons of God go together. A state of adoption is never without a separation from defilement,  2 Corinthians 6:17-18 . The new name in adoption is never given till the new creature be formed. 'As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,  Romans 8:14 . Yet these are to be distinguished. Regeneration, as a physical act, gives us a likeness to God in our nature; adoption, as a legal act, gives us a right to an inheritance.

Regeneration makes us formally his sons, by conveying a principle,  1 Peter 1:23; adoption makes us relatively his sons, by conveying a power,  John 1:12 . By the one we are instated in the divine affection; by the other we are partakers of the divine nature." The privileges of adoption are every way great and extensive.

1. It implies great honour. They have God's name put upon them, and are described as "his people, called by his name, " 2Ch 7:24;  Ephesians 3:15 . They are no longer slaves to sin and the world; but, emancipated from its dreadful bondage, are raised to dignity and honour,  Galatians 4:7 :   1 John 3:1;  1 John 2:1-29

2. Inexhaustible provision and riches. They inherit all things,  Revelation 21:7 . All the blessings of a temporal kind that are for their good shall be given them.  Psalms 84:11 . All the blessings of grace are treasured up in Jesus Christ for them,  Ephesians 1:3 . All the blessings of glory shall be enjoyed by them,  Colossians 1:27 . "All things are yours, " says the apostle, "whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, "  1 Corinthians 3:22

3. Divine protection. "In the fear of the Lord in strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge, "  Proverbs 14:26 . As the master of a family is engaged to defend and secure all under his roof, and committed to his care, so Jesus Christ is engaged to protect and defend his people. "They shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings and quiet resting places, "  Isaiah 32:18 .  Hebrews 1:14

4. Unspeakable felicity. They enjoy the most intimate communion with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. They have access to his throne at all times, and under all circumstances. They see divine wisdom regulating every affair, and rendering every thing subservient to their good.  Hebrews 12:6-11 . The laws, the liberties, the privileges, the relations, the provisions, and the security of this family are all sources of happiness; but especially the presence, the approbation, and the goodness of God, as the governor thereof, afford joy unspeakable and full of glory,  1 Peter 1:8 .  Proverbs 3:17;  Hebrews 4:1-16

5. Eternal glory. In some cases, civil adoption might be made null and void, as among the Romans, when against the right of the pontifex, and without the decree of the college; but spiritual adoption, as it is divine as to its origin, so it is perpetual as to its duration. "the Son abideth in the house for ever, "  John 8:35 . "The inheritance of the saints is incorruptible, undefiled, and never fadeth away, "  1 Peter 1:4 . "Now are ye the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, "  1 John 3:2 . In the present state we are as children at school; but in heaven we shall be as children at home, where we shall always behold the face of our heavenly Father, for ever celebrating his praises, admiring his perfections, and enjoying his presence. "So shall we be ever with the Lord."  1 Thessalonians 4:17 .

The evidences of adoption are,

1. Renunciation of all former dependencies. When a child is adopted, he relinquishes the object of his past confidence, and submits himself to the will and pleasure of the adopter; so they who are brought into the family of God, will evidence it by giving up every other object so far as it interferes with the will and glory of their heavenly Father. "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?"  Hosea 14:8 . "Other lords have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name."  Isaiah 26:13;  Matthew 13:45-46;  Philippians 3:8 .

2. Affection. This may not always apply to civil adoption, but it always does to spiritual. The children of God feel a regard for him above every other object. His own excellency, his unspeakable goodness to them, his promises of future blessings, are all grounds of the strongest love. "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee."  Psalms 73:25 . "Thou art my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in thee."  Lamentations 3:24 .  Luke 7:47 .  Psalms 18:1 .

3. Access to God with a holy boldness. They who are the children by adoption are supposed to have the same liberty of access as those who are partakers of the blessings of spiritual adoption will prove it, by a reverential, yet familiar address to the Father of spirits: they will confess their unworthiness, acknowledge their dependence, and implore the mercy and favour of God. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."  Galatians 4:6 . "Through Jesus Christ we have access by one Spirit unto the Father."  Ephesians 2:18 . Having such a privilege, they "come boldly to the throne of grace, that they may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."  Hebrews 4:16 .

4. Obedience. Those who are adopted into a family must obey the laws of that family; so believers prove themselves adopted by their obedience to the word and ordinances of God. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."  John 15:14 . "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked."  1 John 2:1-29;  1 John 4:5 .

5. Patient yet joyful expectation of the inheritance. In civil adoption, indeed, an inheritance is not always certain; but in spiritual adoption it is. "To them who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life."  Romans 2:7 . "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:18 .  Romans 6:23 .  Hebrews 11:26-27 . From the consideration of the whole of this doctrine, we may learn that adoption is an act of free grace through Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 1:5 . Applied to believers by the Holy Spirit,  Galatians 4:6 .  Romans 8:15-16 . A blessing of the greatest importance,  1 John 3:1 , and lays us under an inviolable obligation of submission.  Hebrews 12:9; imitation,  Ephesians 5:1; and dependence,  Matthew 6:32 .

See Ridgley's and Gill's Body of Div. art. Adoption; Charnock's Works, vol. 2: p. 32-72; Flavel's Works, vol. 2: p. 601; Brown's System of Nat. and Rev. Religion, p. 442; Witsii Econ. Fed, o, 165,

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

The taking of one as a son who is not so by birth.

(I.) Natural: As Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses; Mordecai Esther; Abraham Eliezer (as a slave is often in the East adopted as son) ( Genesis 15:2-3); Sarai the son to be born by Hagar, whom she gave to her husband; Leah and Rachel the children to be born of Zilpah and Bilhah, their handmaids respectively, whom they gave to Jacob their husband. The handmaid at the birth brought forth the child on the knees of the adoptive mother ( Genesis 30:3); an act representative of the complete appropriation of the sons as equal in rights to those by the legitimate wife. Jacob adopted as his own Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, on the same footing as Reuben and Simeon, his two elder sons ( Genesis 48:5). Thereby he was able to give Joseph his favorite son more than his single share, with his brothers, of the paternal heritage. The tribes thus were 13, only that Levi had no land division; or Ephraim and Manasseh were regarded as two halves making up but one whole tribe.

In 1 Chronicles 2, Machir gives his daughter to Hezron of Judah; she bore Segub, father of Jair. Jair inherited 23 cities of Gilead in right of his grandmother. Though of Judah by his grandfather, he is ( Numbers 32:41) counted as of Manasseh on account of his inheritance through his grandmother. So Mary, being daughter of Heli, and Joseph her husband being adopted by him on marrying his daughter, an heiress (as appears from her going to Bethlehem to be registered in her pregnancy), Joseph is called in Luke's genealogy son of Heli. By the Roman law of adoption, which required a due legal form, the adopted child was entitled to the father's name, possessions, and family sacred rights, as his heir at law. The father also was entitled to his son's property, and was his absolute owner. Gratuitous love was the ground of the selection generally. Often a slave was adopted as a son. Even when not so, the son adopted was bought from the natural father. A son and heir often adopted brothers, admitting them to share his own privileges; this explains beautifully  John 8:36, compare  Hebrews 2:11; or else the usage alluded to is that of the son, on coming into the inheritance, setting free the slaves born in the house. The Jews, though not having exactly the same customs, were familiar with the Roman usage's.

(II.) National: as God adopted Israel ( Romans 9:4;  Deuteronomy 7:6;  Exodus 4:22-23;  Hosea 11:1); compare  Jeremiah 3:19, "How shall I put thee among the children (Greek huiothesia ) ... thou shalt call Me, my Father." The wonder expressed is, how shall one so long estranged from God as Israel has been be restored to the privileges of adoption? The answer is, by God's pouring out on them hereafter the Spirit of adoption crying to God, "Father" ( Isaiah 63:16;  Isaiah 64:8;  Hosea 3:4-5;  Zechariah 12:10).

(III.) Spiritual and individual. An act of God's sovereign grace, originating in God's eternal counsel of love ( Ephesians 1:4-5;  Jeremiah 31:3); actually imparted by God's uniting His people by faith to Christ ( John 1:12-13;  Romans 8:14-16;  Galatians 3:26;  Galatians 4:4-5). The slave once forbidden to say father to the master, being adopted, can use that endearing appellation as a free man. God is their Father, because Christ's Father ( John 20:17). Sealed by the Holy Spirit, the earnest of the future inheritance ( Ephesians 1:13). Producing the filial cry of prayer in all, Jew and Gentile alike (See ABBA) ( Galatians 4:6); and the fruit of the Spirit, conformity to Christ ( Romans 8:29), and renewal in the image of our Father ( Colossians 3:10). Its privileges are God's special love and favor ( 1 John 3:1;  Ephesians 5:1); union with God, so perfect hereafter that it shall correspond to the ineffable mutual union of the Father and Son ( John 17:23;  John 17:26); access to God with filial boldness ( Matthew 6:8-9;  Romans 8:15;  Romans 8:26-27), not slavish fear such as the law generated ( Galatians 4:1-7;  John 4:17-18;  John 5:14); fatherly correction ( Hebrews 12:5-8); provision and protection ( Matthew 6:31-33;  Matthew 10:29-30); heavenly inheritance ( 1 Peter 1:3-4;  Revelation 21:7).

The "adoption" is used for its full manifestation in the resurrection of the believer with a body like Christ's glorious body ( Romans 8:23). Christ was Son even in His humiliation; but He was only "declared (definitively in the Greek) the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead" ( Romans 1:4), "the first begotten from the dead" ( Revelation 1:5). Hence Paul refers, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee" ( Psalms 2:7) to the day of His resurrection. Not that He then first became Son, but His sonship was then openly vindicated by the Father's raising Him from the dead ( Acts 13:33). So our "adoption" is still waited for, in the sense of its open manifestation ( Romans 8:11;  Romans 8:19;  1 John 3:2). It is now a reality, but as yet a hidden reality. Our regeneration is now true ( Titus 3:5), but its full glories await Christ's coming to raise His saints. The first resurrection shall be the saints' manifested regeneration ( Matthew 19:28). They have three birthdays: the natural, the spiritual, the glorified. Sonship and the first resurrection are similarly connected ( Luke 20:36;  1 Peter 1:3). By creation Adam ( Luke 3:38) and all men ( Acts 17:28-29) are sons of God; by adoption only believers ( 1 Corinthians 12:3). The tests are in  1 John 3:9;  1 John 4:4;  1 John 4:6;  1 John 5:1;  1 John 5:4;  1 John 5:18-21.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

An act by which one takes another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him his heir. The Greeks and Romans had many regulations concerning adoption. It does not appear that adoption, properly so called, was formerly in use among, the Jews. Moses makes no mention of it in his laws; and the case of Jacob's two grandsons,  Genesis 48:14 , seems rather a substitution.

2. Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God's free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inheritance of heaven. This appears not so much a distinct act of God, as involved in, and necessarily flowing from, our justification; so that at least the one always implies the other. Nor is there any good ground to suppose that in the New Testament the term adoption is used with any reference to the civil practice of adoption by the Greeks, Romans, or other Heathens, and therefore it is not judicious to illustrate the texts in which the word occurs by their formalities. The Apostles in using the term appear to have had before them the simple view, that our sins had deprived us of our sonship, the favour of God, and the right to the inheritance of eternal life; but that, upon our return to God, and reconciliation with him, our forfeited privileges, were not only restored, but greatly heightened through the paternal kindness of God. They could scarcely be forgetful of the affecting parable of the prodigal son; and it is under the same view that St. Paul quotes from the Old Testament, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

Adoption, then, is that act by which we who were alienated, and enemies, and disinherited, are made the sons of God, and heirs of his eternal glory. "If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ;" where it is to be remarked, that it is not in our own right, nor in the right of any work done in us, or which we ourselves do, though it should be an evangelical work, that we become heirs; but jointly with Christ, and in his right.

3. To this state belong, freedom from a servile spirit, for we are not servants but sons; the special love and care of God our heavenly Father; a filial confidence in him; free access to him at all times and in all circumstances; a title to the heavenly inheritance; and the Spirit of adoption, or the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption, which is the foundation of all the comfort we can derive from those privileges, as it is the only means by which we can know that they are ours.

4. The last mentioned great privilege of adoption merits special attention. It consists in the reward witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit to the sonship of believers, from which flows a comfortable persuasion or conviction of our present acceptance with God, and the hope of our future and eternal glory. This is taught in several passages of Scripture:—

 Romans 8:15-16 , "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." In this passage it is to be remarked,

1. That the Holy Spirit takes away" fear," a servile dread of God as offended.

2. That the "Spirit of God" here mentioned, is not the personified spirit or genius of the Gospel, as some would have it, but "the Spirit itself," or himself, and hence he is called in the Galatians, "the Spirit of his Son," which cannot mean the genius of the Gospel.

3. That he inspires a filial confidence in God, as our Father, which is opposed to "the fear" produced by the" spirit of bondage."

4. That he excites this filial confidence, and enables us to call God our Father, by witnessing, bearing testimony with our spirit, "that we are the children of God."

 Galatians 4:4-6 , "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Here also are to be noted,

1. The means of our redemption from under (the curse of) the law,—

the incarnation and sufferings of Christ.

2. That the adoption of sons follows upon our actual redemption from that curse, or, in other words, upon our pardon.

3. That upon our being pardoned, the "Spirit of the Son" is "sent forth into our hearts," producing the same effect as that mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, viz. filial confidence in God,—"crying, Abba, Father." To these texts are to be added all those passages, so numerous in the New Testament, which express the confidence and the joy of Christians; their friendship with God; their confident access to him as their God; their entire union and delightful intercourse with him in

spirit.

This has been generally termed the doctrine of assurance, and, perhaps, the expressions of St. Paul, "the full assurance of faith," and "the full assurance of hope," may warrant the use of the word. But as there is a current and generally understood sense of this term, implying that the assurance of our present acceptance and sonship implies an assurance of our final perseverance, and of an indefeasible title to heaven; the phrase, a comfortable persuasion, or conviction of our justification and adoption, arising out of the Spirit's inward and direct testimony, is to be preferred.

There is, also, another reason for the sparing and cautious use of the term assurance, which is, that it seems to imply, though not necessarily, the absence of all doubt, and shuts out all those lower degrees of persuasion which may exist in the experience of Christians. For, our faith may not at first, or at all times, be equally strong, and the testimony of the Spirit may have its degrees of clearness. Nevertheless, the fulness of this attainment is to be pressed upon every one: "Let us draw near," says St. Paul to all Christians, with full assurance of faith."

It may serve, also, to remove an objection sometimes made to the doctrine, and to correct an error which sometimes pervades the statement of it, to observe that this assurance, persuasion, or conviction, whichever term be adopted, is not of the essence of justifying faith; that is, justifying faith does not consist in the assurance that I am now forgiven, through Christ. This would be obviously contradictory. For we must believe before we can be justified; much more before we can be assured, in any degree, that we are justified:—this persuasion, therefore, follows justification, and is one of its results. But though we must not only distinguish, but separate, this persuasion of our acceptance from the faith which justifies, we must not separate it, but only distinguish it, from justification itself. With that come in as concomitants, adoption, the "Spirit of adoption," and regeneration.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Esther 2:15

Old Testament References to adoption are rather rare in the Old Testament. Other practices related to ensuring descendants were more common, and the desire to maintain the family line of the natural parents was strong.

The practices of polygamy (multiple wives—see  Genesis 29:1;  Deuteronomy 21:15-17 ) and concubinage (socially accepted cohabitation without marriage—see  Genesis 16:2;  Genesis 30:3 ) served as means of ensuring descendants in Old Testament times. Levirate marriage ( Deuteronomy 25:5-10; see  Mark 12:19 ) provided offspring even for the deceased. Thus, adoption was not widespread.

The Old Testament examples of Moses ( Exodus 2:10 ) and Esther ( Esther 2:7 ,Esther 2:7, 2:15 ) took place in foreign cultures and may reflect those settings more than the Hebrew practice. Some Old Testament traditions approach the idea that Israel's relationship with God was that of an adopted child ( Exodus 4:22;  Deuteronomy 14:2;  Hosea 11:1 ), though the idea is never stated explicitly (compare  Romans 9:4 ).

New Testament The New Testament frequently speaks of believers as God's children ( Luke 20:36;  Romans 9:26;  Galatians 3:26 ). Thus, believers are affirmed in a special and intimate relationship with God.

At the same time, the New Testament emphasizes Jesus' unique relationship to God as the “only begotten Son” ( John 1:18;  John 3:16 ). He called God His “Abba” ( Mark 14:36 ). In light of this truth, the relationship of believers to God is clearly derivative and secondary. Thus, adoption provided a means of describing the believers' relationship with God while maintaining the uniqueness of Jesus as the Son.

Paul is the only New Testament writer to employ the word adoption . He used the term to describe the status persons receive from God when they have been redeemed by Jesus Christ ( Galatians 4:3-7 ). In belonging to Christ believers become Abraham's offspring and heirs with him of God's promise. Believers are chosen in Christ and predestined to this adoption by God's gracious will ( Ephesians 1:3-6 ).

Adoption symbolized for Paul God's love and grace in accepting believers as His children, intimate members of His family. Adoption occurs through the work of God's Spirit, giving believers power to overcome fleshly temptations and live the life in the Spirit ( Romans 8:14-15 ). This drives out the fear sinners experience in the presence of the holy God and provides power to pray trustingly to God as our “Abba,” or “Daddy.” See  Romans 8:15-16 ). This means the believer has all rights of inheritance and will join Jesus, “the only begotten Son” ( John 3:16 ) in inheriting the glory of eternal life with God, but it does not mean the believer can escape the suffering and persecution the world dishes out to God's people ( Romans 8:17-18 ). The adoption process will be finalized when God restores all creation, giving His children resurrection bodies ( Romans 8:23 ). Adoption has always been God's way of operating with His people ( Hosea 11:1 ), for only spiritual birth, not natural birth, has determined who belonged to the covenant people ( Romans 9:1 ). Even Jews under God's law had to be redeemed by God's Son to be adopted sons ( Galatians 4:4-6 ).

God's children are revealed in their being led by the Spirit and in their putting to death the deeds of the body ( Romans 8:13-14 ). Paul recognized here an unfinished quality in the experience, for believers struggle in their weaknesses and groan for freedom from the slavery of sin. Their adoption is based on hope and can only be finalized in the redemption of the body ( Romans 8:23-26 ). Until that time believers are in the process of being conformed to the image of the Son with the help of the Spirit and with the assurance of their glorification ( Romans 8:26-30 ).

Adoption did not surprise God or His people. Adoption in Christ is the way God chose to create His family even before He created the world ( Ephesians 1:4-5 ).

Adoption distinguishes the sonship of believers from the sonship of Christ. Christ is the only Son of God by nature, being part of the divine Trinity. To apply adoption to Christ is heresy. Believers have no natural right to claim to be God's children. Physical birth never has and never will guarantee membership in God's family. Only God's election in grace, Christ's work in redemption, and the Spirit's work in the life of the believer bring adoption and make one a child of God.

Michael Fink

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

ADOPTION . The term ‘adoption’ is found five times in St. Paul’s letters (  Romans 8:15;   Romans 8:22;   Romans 9:4 ,   Galatians 4:5 ,   Ephesians 1:5 ), and not elsewhere in the NT. In   Romans 9:4 reference is made to the favoured position of the Jews as the chosen people. To them belonged the adoption, the position of sons (  Exodus 4:22 ). In the remaining passages St. Paul uses the word to describe the privileges of the Christian as opposed to the unbeliever. He is trying, as a rule, to bring home to Gentile readers the great change wrought by the coming of Christ. Though W. M. Ramsay has attempted to identify peculiarities of Syro-Greek law in   Galatians 4:1-31 , and though it is true that ‘no word is more common in Greek inscriptions of Hellenistic times: the idea like the word is native Greek,’ yet St. Paul’s use of the term seems to be based on Roman law. See Hastings’ ERE, s.v.

Adoption in Roman law could be effected by a modified form of the method of sale known as mancipation. ‘The Roman Mancipation required the presence, first, of all of the parties, the vendor and the vendee.… There were also no less than five witnesses; and an anomalous personage, the libripens , who brought with him a pair of scales to weigh the uncoined copper money of Rome. Certain formal gestures were made and sentences pronounced. The (purchaser) simulated the payment of a price by striking the scales with a piece of money, and the (vendor) ratified what had been done in a set form of words’ (Maine, Ancient Law , vi.). The witnesses were necessary, especially in the age before written documents, to vouch for the regularity of the procedure, and to ensure the genuineness of the transaction.

Some of the details of the procedure are said to be reflected in the language of St. Paul. ‘To redeem those under the law’ ( Galatians 4:5 ) suggests that God’s action in sending His Son to buy out mankind from slavery to the Law, may be illustrated by the adopting parent’s purchase of a son from his natural father.

Again, Dr. W. E. Ball ( Contemp. Rev. , 1891) has pointed out that the work of the Spirit (  Romans 8:16 ) is parallel to the place of the five witnesses in the process of adoption. The reality of God’s adoption is assured by the Spirit’s witness. Dr. Ball brings out the general force of the metaphor thus. Any one who was made a son by adoption, severed all his former ties. Even his debts appear to have been cancelled. ‘The adopted person became in the eyes of the law a new creature. He was born again into a new family. By the aid of this figure, the Gentile convert was enabled to realize in a vivid manner the fatherhood of God, brotherhood of the faithful, the obliteration of past penalties, the right to the mystic inheritance.’ The figure of adoption describes clearly the effect of God’s revelation of Himself as Father.

St. Paul speaks of adoption, as both present ( Romans 8:15 ) and future (  Romans 8:23 ). With Pfleiderer we must distinguish three moments in adoption. It involves here and now, freedom from the Law, and the possession of the spirit of adoption which enables us to address God as our Father. Adoption will be completed by the redemption of our body, the inheritance with Christ in glory. ‘Believers have this blessing (adoption) already, but only in an inward relation and as Divine right, with which, however, the objective and real state does not yet correspond’ (Meyer on   Romans 8:23 ). With St. Paul’s view of adoption now and adoption hereafter compare   1 John 3:2 . In   Ephesians 1:5 adoption seems to mean that conforming to the character of Christ which begins here and is to he perfected in the future.

That the word ‘adoption’ does not represent believers as children of God by nature, is undeniable. But it would be a mistake to press the term as giving a complete account of St. Paul’s views of the relations of God to man. Roman law afforded St. Paul illustrations rather than theories. It is not clear whether in  Romans 8:15 he conceives the spirit of sonship which cries ‘Abba, Father.’ to be received in baptism or at conversion, or on the other hand to be the natural cry of the human heart. But in any case, he has found the love of God in Christ, and the change in his life is such that the complete change produced in a man’s condition by adoption is only a pale reflex of the Apostle’s experience. See, further, Inheritance.

H. G. Wood.

Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology

Act of leaving one's natural family and entering into the privileges and responsibilities of another. In the Bible, adoption is one of several family-related terms used to describe the process of salvation and its subsequent benefits. God is a father who graciously adopts believers in Christ into his spiritual family and grants them all the privileges of heirship. Salvation is much more than forgiveness of sins and deliverance from condemnation; it is also a position of great blessing. Believers are children of God.

Old Testament Legal adoption was not prescribed in Jewish law or practiced by the Israelites. In fact, the term "adoption" does not occur in the Old Testament. While there are several possible allusions to adoption, such as Moses (  Exodus 2:10 ), Genubath ( 1 Kings 11:20 ), and Esther ( Esther 2:7 ), the incidents recorded take place in foreign societies (Egyptian and Persian) and there is no evidence that legal adoptions were enacted.

The adoption metaphor was not lost to Israel, however. God declares that he is the Father of the nation Israel, whom he loves as his child ( Isaiah 1:2;  Hosea 11:1 ). He tells Pharaoh, "Israel is my firstborn son" ( Exodus 4:22 ). More specifically, he says to David (and the Messiah), "You are my son; today I have become your Father" ( Psalm 2:7 ); and of David's descendant, "I will be his father, and he will be my son" ( 2 Samuel 7:14 ). Although not precisely adoption passages, the instances of declared sonship in the Old Testament provide a theological foundation for Israel's designation as the children of God.

New Testament The New Testament cultural environment was much different from that of the Old since elaborate laws and ceremonies for adoption were part of both Greek and Roman society. To people with this background, the adoption metaphor in the New Testament was particularly meaningful.

The Greek word for adoption ( huiothesia [   Romans 9:4 ). The remaining four references describe how New Testament believers become children of God through his gracious choice. The full scope of God's work of salvationpast, present, and futureis seen in adoption.

The believer's adoption as a child of God was determined by God from eternity: God "predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ" ( Ephesians 1:5 ). This adoption is not the result of any merit on the part of the believer, but solely the outworking of God's love and grace ( Ephesians 1:5,7 ).

The present reality of the believer's adoption into the family of God is release from the slavery of sin and the law and a new position as a free heir of God. Entering into salvation brings the rights and privileges of free sonship: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'" ( Romans 8:15 ). Paul tells the Galatians that Christians were redeemed from the law so that they might receive adoption as sons. As a result the Holy Spirit comes into the believer's heart crying, "Abba, Father" ( Galatians 4:5 ). The intimacy of a relationship with God the Father in contrast to the ownership of slavery is a remarkable feature of salvation.

Like many aspects of salvation, there is an eschatological component of adoption. Believers "wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" ( Romans 8:23 ). The full revelation of the believer's adoption is freedom from the corruption present in the world. Being a member of God's family includes the ultimate privilege of being like him ( 1 John 3:2 ) and being conformed to the glorious body of Christ ( Philippians 3:21 ). This is part of the promised inheritance for all God's children ( Romans 8:16-17 ).

William E. Brown

See also Names Of Christians

Bibliography . G. Braumann, NIDNTT, 1:287-90; A. H. Leitch, ZPEB, 1:63-65; F. Lyall, Slaves, Citizens, Sons: Legal Metaphors in the Epistles .

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

A number of different words are used in the Bible to picture God’s gracious act of saving repentant sinners and giving them a new and living relationship with him. For example, it is an act of regeneration (new birth), for it gives spiritual life to those who are dead in sins (see REGENERATION). It is an act of justification, for it makes sinners right with God on account of Christ’s atoning death on their behalf (see JUSTIFICATION). It is also an act of adoption, for it makes believers children of God.

New status

The picture of adoption comes from a practice that was well known to people of Bible times. If a wealthy man had no descendants, he could carefully choose some trustworthy person to be his son. This adopted person then had the status of a responsible adult son, who would become the next head of the family, receive the family inheritance and carry on the family name ( Genesis 15:2-3).

When the Bible uses adoption as a picture of what God has done, the emphasis is on the status and dignity he places on those whom he brings into this close relationship with himself. Old Testament Israel is a good example of this gracious act of God; for he chose Israel from among all the peoples of the world and made the nation his son ( Exodus 4:22;  Deuteronomy 14:1;  Hosea 11:1;  Romans 9:4).

Christians as God’s sons

The New Testament develops the idea of adoption more fully, showing that God makes repentant sinners his sons. He brings them into such a close relationship with himself that they can speak to him as sons to a Father ( Romans 8:15;  Galatians 4:6).

There is no conflict between the pictures of new birth and adoption. New birth shows that God gives life to those who are spiritually dead; adoption shows that God makes believers his special possession and gives them the full status of mature adult sons ( Romans 8:15;  Galatians 3:23-26;  Galatians 4:1-7;  Ephesians 1:5;  1 John 3:1). This is possible only through the death of Jesus Christ, and it is true only of those who have faith in him ( Galatians 3:26;  Galatians 4:4-5).

As sons of God, believers enjoy the spiritual privilege of access to God ( Romans 8:15-16) and inherit here and now his spiritual blessings ( Romans 8:17;  Galatians 4:7). They can look forward to the full and unhindered enjoyment of these blessings at the return of Jesus Christ ( Romans 8:23;  1 John 3:2). (See also FATHER.)

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Is an act by which a person takes a stranger into his family, acknowledges him for his child, and constitutes him heir of his estate. Jacob's adoption of his two grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh,  Genesis 48:5 , was a kind of substitution, whereby he intended that these his grandson should have each his lot in Israel, as if they had been his own sons: "Ephraim and Manasseh are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine." As he give no inheritance to their father Joseph, the effect of this adoption was simply the doubling of their inheritance.

But Scripture afford instances of another kind of adoption-that of a father having a daughter only, and adopting her children. Thus,  1 Chronicles 2:21 , Machir, grandson of Joseph, and father of Gilead,  Numbers 26:29 , gave his daughter to Hezron, "who took her; and was a son of sixty years," sixty years of age, "and she bare hi Segub; and Segub begat Jair, who had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead,"  Joshua 13:30   1 Kings 4:13 . However, as well he as his posterity, instead of being reckoned to the family of Judah, as they would have been by their paternal descent from Hezron, is reckoned as sons of Machir, the father of Gilead. Nay, more, it appears,  Numbers 32:41 , that this Jair, who was in fact the son of Segub, the son of Segub, the son of Hezron, the son of Judah, is expressly called "Jair, the son of Manasseh," because his maternal great-grandfather was Machir to the son of Manasseh. In like manner we read that Mordecai adopted Esther, his niece; he took her to himself to be a daughter,  Esther 2:7 . So the daughter of Pharaoh adopted Moses; and he became her son,  Exodus 2:10 . So we read,  Ruth 4:17 , that Naomi had a son-a son is born to Naomi; when indeed it was the son of Ruth.

At the present day, adoption is not uncommon in the East, where it is made before a public officer with legal forms.

In the New Testament, adoption denotes that act of God's free grace by which, on being justified through faith, we are received into the family of God, and made heirs of the inheritance of heaven. It is "in Christ," and through his atoning merits, that believers "receive the adoption of sons,"  Galatians 4:4,5 . Some of the privileges of this state are, deliverance from a fearful and servile spirit; the special love and care of our heavenly Father; conformity to his image; a filial confidence in him; free access to him at all times; the witness of the Holy Spirit, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father;" and the title to our heavenly home,  Romans 8:14-17   Ephesians 1:4,5 .

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

This forms a most interesting word in Scripture, in the use that is made of it, in allusion to the state of adoption and grace, into which true believers are received by their union with Christ. They are said to be predestinated to the adoption of children. ( Ephesians 1:5) And the purpose for which Christ is said to be made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law was, that they might receive the adoption of sons. ( Galatians 4:4-5) The word adoption is borrowed from a custom well known among the Romans, under whose government Judea became a province, who adopted the children of strangers and acknowledged them for their own, when they themselves were childless. But though the term is applied to believers, from being openly adopted and acknowledged in the family of Christ, yet strictly and properly speaking, this is not done, because they were not of the family of Christ before; for in fact they always were; but it is done in a way of publickly confessing and acknowledging it. The Holy Ghost by the apostle is express to this purpose, when he saith, "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, where by ye cry Abba! Father!" ( Galatians 4:6) And all the Scriptures are express to confirm this most unquestionable truth. ( Isaiah 44:3; Isa 59:21;  Ezekiel 37:5-14;  Zechariah 14:1-21) It is most blessed, when we consider the privileges of adoption, and know in ourselves that we are made, though grace, the happy partakers of it. By adoption, the children of God in Christ are brought out of the spirit of bondage into the glorious liberry of the sons of God. They are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Hence they are regenerated, illuminated; justified, sanctified, and made partakers of grace here, to be made partakers of glory hereafter. Sweetly the Spirit witnesseth to their spirits, that they are the children of God. "And if children, saith the apostle, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ: if be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." ( Romans 8:16-17)

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The word is υἱοθεσία,the adoption of sons, or the placing of persons in the position of sons, with all the privileges attaching thereto. Examples of this in a natural way are seen in the O.T. in Moses being an adopted son of the daughter of Pharaoh,  Exodus 2:10 , and Esther being adopted by her cousin Mordecai,  Esther 2:7 . In a higher sense Israel was the adopted son of God. Moses was instructed to say to Pharaoh, "Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, even my firstborn."  Exodus 4:22 : cf. also   Deuteronomy 14:1;  Isaiah 43:6 . So that Paul, when enumerating the privileges of Israel, could say that to them pertained the 'adoption.'  Romans 9:4 . In a much higher sense, since redemption has been wrought, those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are in the new creation sons by adoption, and the Spirit of God's Son is given them so that they can call God Abba Father, and not only be sons but know and enjoy the relationship with all its blessed privileges.  Galatians 4:5,6 . The Christian receives the spirit of adoption, the Holy Ghost bearing witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. Not that he enters into the full blessedness of being God's son until the future; for we who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption — the redemption of our body.  Romans 8:15-23 . All this is certain as to believers, for having been chosen in Christ Jesus they have been predestinated unto adoption by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.  Ephesians 1:4,5 .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

• Natural. Thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses ( Exodus 2:10 ), and Mordecai Esther ( Esther 2:7 ).
• National. God adopted Israel ( Exodus 4:22;  Deuteronomy 7:6;  Hosea 11:1;  Romans 9:4 ).
• Spiritual. An act of God's grace by which he brings men into the number of his redeemed family, and makes them partakers of all the blessings he has provided for them. Adoption represents the new relations into which the believer is introduced by justification, and the privileges connected therewith, viz., an interest in God's peculiar love ( John 17:23;  Romans 5:5-8 ), a spiritual nature (2Peter 1:4;  John 1:13 ), the possession of a spirit becoming children of God (1Peter 1:14;  2 John 4;  Romans 8:15-21;  Galatians 5:1;  Hebrews 2:15 ), present protection, consolation, supplies ( Luke 12:27-32;  John 14:18; 1Corinthians 3:21-23;  2 Corinthians 1:4 ), fatherly chastisements ( Hebrews 12:5-11 ), and a future glorious inheritance ( Romans 8:17,23;  James 2:5;  Philippians 3:21 ).

King James Dictionary

ADOP'TION, n. L. adoptio.

1. The act of adopting, or the state of being adopted the taking and treating of a stranger as one's own child. 2. The receiving as one's own, what is new or not natural. 3. God's taking the sinful children of men into his favor and protection.

Adoption of arms, an ancient ceremony of presenting arms to one for his merit or valor, which laid the person under an obligation to defend the giver.

Adoption by baptism is the spiritual affinity which is contracted by god-fathers and god-children, in the ceremony of baptism. It was introduced into the Greek church, and afterwards among the ancient Franks. This affinity was supposed to entitle the god-child to a share of the god-father's estate.

Adoption by hair was performed by cutting off the hair of a person and giving it to the adoptive father. Thus Pope John VIII adopted Boson, king of Arles.

Adoption by matrimony is the taking the children of a wife or husband, by a former marriage, into the condition of natural children. This is a practice peculiar to the Germans but is not so properly adoption as adfiliation.

Adoption by testament is the appointing of a person to be heir, by will, or condition of his taking the name, arms, &c. of the adopter.

In Europe, adoption is used for many kinds of admission to a more intimate relation, and is nearly equivalent to reception as, the admission of persons into hospitals, or monasteries, or of one society into another.

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

1: υἱοθεσία (Strong'S #5206 — Noun Feminine — huiothesia — hwee-oth-es-ee'-ah )

from huios, "a son," and thesis, "a placing," akin to tithemi, "to place," signifies the place and condition of a son given to one to whom it does not naturally belong. The word is used by the Apostle Paul only.

 Romans 8:15 Galatians 4:5  Ephesians 1:5  Romans 8:23  Romans 9:4  Exodus 4:12 Hosea 11:1 Deuteronomy 14:1 Jeremiah 31:9

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Adoption. An expression used by St. Paul in reference to the present and prospective privileges of Christians.  Romans 8:15;  Romans 8:23;  Galatians 4:5;  Ephesians 1:5. He probably alludes to the Roman custom by which a person not having children of his own might adopt as his son one born of other parents. The relationship was to all intents and purposes the same as existed between a natural father and son. The term is used figuratively to show the close relationship to God of the Christian.  Galatians 4:4-5;  Romans 8:14-17. He is received into God's family from the world, and becomes a child and heir of God.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Adoption,  Galatians 4:5, is an act by which one is received into a man's family as his own child, and becomes entitled to the peculiar privileges of that connection, as rally and completely as a child by birth.  Exodus 2:10 and  Esther 2:7. In the figurative use of the term by the sacred writers it implies that relation which we sustain to God, when, by his grace, we are converted from sin to holiness. The spirit of adoption is received, and we are made the children (or sons) and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) The act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.

(2): (n.) The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.

(3): (n.) Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(υἱοθεσία ,  Romans 8:15;  Romans 8:23;  Romans 9:4 :  Galatians 4:5;  Ephesians 1:5), the placing as a son of one who is not so by birth or naturally.

I. Literal. — The practice of adoption had its origin in the natural desire for male offspring, the operation of which is less marked in those countries where the equalizing influences of high civilization lessen the peculiar privileges of the paternal character, and where the security and the well- observed laws by which estates descend and property is transmitted withdraw one of the principal inducements to the practice, but was peculiarly prevalent in the patriarchal period. The law of Moses, by settling the relations of families and the rules of descent, and by formally establishing the Levirate law, appears to have put some check upon this custom. The allusions in the New Testament are mostly to practices of adoption which then existed, but not confined to the Romans. In the East the practice has always been common, especially among the Semitic races, although the additional and peculiar stimulus which the Hebrews derived from the hope of giving birth to the Messiah was inapplicable to cases of adoption. But, as the arrangements of society became more complicated, some restrictions were imposed upon the power of adoption, and certain public forms were made necessary to legalize the act: precisely what these were, in different ages, among the Hebrews, we are mostly left to gather from the analogous practices of other Eastern nations. For the practice had ceased to be common among the Jews — by the time the sources of information became more open; and the culpable facility of divorce, in later times rendered unnecessary those adoptions which might have arisen, and in earlier times did arise, from the sterility of a wife. Adoption was confined to sons; the case of Esther affords the only example of the adoption of a female; for the Jews certainly were not behind any Oriental nation in the feeling expressed in the Chinese proverb, "He is happiest in daughters who has only sons" (Mem. sur les Chinois, 10, 149).

1. The first instances of adoption which occur in Scripture are less the acts of men than of women, who, being themselves barren, give their female slaves to their husbands, with the view of adopting the children they may bear. Thus Sarah gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham; and the son who was born, Ishmael, appears to have been considered as her son as well as Abraham’ s until Isaac was born. In like manner Rachel, having no children, gave her handmaid Bilhah to her husband, who had by her Dan and Naphtali ( Genesis 30:5-9); on which his other wife, Leah, although she had sons of her own, yet fearing that she had left off bearing, claimed the right of giving her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, that she might thus increase their number; and by this means she had Gad and Asher ( Genesis 30:9 -

1). In this way the child was the son of the husband, and, the mother being the property of the wife, the progeny must be her property also; and the act of more particular appropriation seems to have been that, at the time of birth, the handmaid brought forth her child "upon the knees of the adoptive mother" ( Genesis 30:3). In this case the vicarious bearing of the handmaid for the mistress was as complete as possible; and the sons were regarded as fully equal in right of heritage with those by the legitimate wife. This privilege could not, however, be conferred by the adoption of the wife, but by the natural relation of such sons to the husband. Sarah’ s case proves that a mistress retained her power, as such, over a female slave whom she had thus vicariously employed, and over the progeny of that slave, even though by her own husband ( Genesis 21:10).

Still earlier Abraham appears to have adopted a house-born slave, his faithful and devoted steward Eliezer, as a son ( Genesis 15:2) — a practice still very common in the East. A boy is often purchased young, adopted by his master, brought up in his faith, and educated as his son; or if the owner has a daughter, he adopts him through a marriage with that daughter, and the family which springs from this union is counted as descended from him. But house-born slaves are usually preferred, as these have never had any home but their master’ s house, are considered members of his family, and are generally the most faithful of his adherents. This practice was very common among the Romans, and is more than once referred, to by Paul ( Romans 8:15;  1 Corinthians 2:12); the transition from the condition of a slave to that of a son, and the privilege of applying the tender name of "father" to the former "master," affording a beautiful illustration of the change which takes place from the bondage of the law to the freedom and privileges of the Christian state.

As in most cases the adopted son was considered dead to the family from which he sprung, the separation of natural ties and connections was avoided by this preference of slaves, who were mostly foreigners or of foreign descent. For the same reason the Chinese make their adoptions from children in the hospitals who have been abandoned by their parents (Mem. sur les Chinois, 6, 325). The Tartars prefer to adopt their near relatives-nephews or cousins, or, failing them, a Tartar of their own banner (ib. 4, 136). In like manner Jacob adopted his own grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh to be counted as his sons ( Genesis 48:6). The object of this remarkable adoption was, that, whereas Joseph himself could only have one share of his father’ s heritage along with his brothers, the adoption of his two sons enabled Jacob, through them, to bestow two portions upon his favorite son. The adoption of Moses by Pharaoh’ s daughter ( Exodus 2:1-10) is an incident rather than a practice; but it recalls what has just been stated respecting the adoption of outcast children by the Chinese.

A man who had only a daughter often married her to a freed slave, and the children were counted as those of the woman’ s father, or the husband himself is adopted as a son. Thus Sheshan, of the tribe of Judah, gave his daughter to Jarha, an Egyptian slave (whom, as the Targum premises, he no doubt liberated on that occasion): the posterity of the marriage are not, however, reckoned to Jarha, the husband of the woman, but to her father, Sheshan, and as his descendants they take their heritage and station in Israel ( 1 Chronicles 2:34 sq.). So Machir (grandson of Joseph) gave his daughter in marriage to Hezron, of the tribe of Judah. She gave birth to Segub, — who was the father of Jair (q.v.). This Jair possessed twenty- three cities in the land of Gilead, which came to him in right of his grandmother, the daughter of Machir; and he acquired other towns in the same quarter, which made up his possessions to threescore towns or villages ( 1 Chronicles 2:21-24;  Joshua 13:9; 1 Kings 4-13). Now this Jair, though of the tribe of Judah by his grandfather, is, in  Numbers 32:41, counted as of Manasseh, because through his grandmother he inherited the property, and was the lineal representative of Machir, the son of Manasseh. This case illustrates the difference between the pedigree of Christ as given by Matthew and that in Luke — the former being the pedigree through Joseph, his supposed father, and the latter through his mother, Mary. This opinion, (See Genealogy) supposes that Mary was the daughter of Heli, and that Joseph is called his son ( Luke 3:23) because he was adopted by Heli when he married his daughter, who was an heiress, as has been presumed from the fact of her going to Bethlehem to be registered when in the last stage of pregnancy. Her heirship, however, is not essential to this relation, and her journey may rather have been in order to continue under the protection of her husband during such a period of suspicion.

By the time of Christ the Jews had, through various channels, become well acquainted with the more remarkable customs of the Greeks and Romans, as is apparent particularly from the epistles of Paul. In  John 8:36, "If the son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed," is supposed by Grotius and other commentators to refer to a custom in some of the cities of Greece and elsewhere, called ἀδελφοθεσία , whereby the son and heir was permitted to adopt brothers and admit them to the same rights which he himself enjoyed. But it seems more likely that the reference was to the more familiar Roman custom, by which the son, after his father’ s death, often made free such as were born slaves in. his house (Theophil. Antecensor, Institut. Imp. Justinian. 1, 6, 5). In  Romans 8:23, νἱοθεσίαν ἀπεκδεχόμενοι, "anxiously waiting for the adoption," the former word appears to be used in a sense different from that which it bears in  Romans 8:15, and to signify the consummation of the act there mentioned, in which point of view it is conceived to apply to the twofold ceremony among the Romans. The one was the private act between the parties; and if the person to be adopted was not already the slave of the adopter, this private transaction involved the purchase of him from his parents when practicable. In this manner Caius and Lucius were purchased from their father Agrippa before their adoption by Augustus. The other was the public acknowledgment of that act on the part of the adopter, when the adopted person was solemnly avowed and declared to be his son. The peculiar force and propriety of such an allusion in an epistle to the Romans must be very evident. In  Galatians 4:5-6, there is a very clear allusion to the privilege of adopted slaves to address their former master by the endearing title of Abba, or father. Selden has shown that slaves were not allowed to use this word in addressing the master of the family to which they belonged, nor the corresponding title of Mama, mother, when speaking to the mistress of it (De Succ, in Bona Defunct. secund. Hebr. c. 4).

2. The Roman custom of adoption, by which a person, not having children of his own, might adopt as his son one born of other, parents, was a formal act, effected either by the process named adrogatio, when the person to be adopted was independent of his parent, or by adoptio, specifically so called, when in the power of his parent. The effect of it was that the adopted child was entitled to the name and sacra privata of his new father, and ranked as his heir at law; while the father, on his part, was entitled to the property of the son, and exercised toward him all the rights and privileges of a father. In short, the relationship was to all intents and purposes the same as existed between a natural father and son. (See Smith’ s Dict. of Class. Antiq. s.v. Adoption.)

3. The custom of adoption is still frequent in the East. Lady Montague says (Letter 42), "There is one custom peculiar to their country, I mean adoption, very common among the Turks, and yet more among the Greeks and Armenians. Not having it in their power to give their estate to a friend or distant relation, to avoid its falling into the grand seignior’ s treasury, when they are not likely to have any children of their own, they choose some pretty child of either sex among the meanest people, and carry the child and its parents before the cadi, and there declare they receive it for their heir. The parents at the same time renounce all future claim to it; a writing is drawn and witnessed, and a child thus adopted cannot be disinherited. Yet I have seen some common beggars that have refused to part with their children in this manner to some of the richest among the Greeks (so powerful is the instinctive affection that is natural to parents); though the adopting fathers are generally very tender to those children of their souls, as they call them. Methinks it is much more reasonable to make happy and rich an infant whom I educate after my own manner, brought up (in the Turkish phrase) upon my knees, and who has learned to look upon me with a filial respect, than to give an estate to a creature without merit or relation to me."

Among the Mohammedans the ceremony of adoption is sometimes performed by causing the adopted to pass through the shirt of the person who adopts him. Hence, to adopt is among the Turks expressed by saying "to draw any one through one’ s shirt;" and they call an adopted son Akhret Ogli, the son of another life, because he was not begotten in this (D’ Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. 43). Something like this is observable among the Hebrews: Elijah adopts Elisha by throwing his mantle over him ( 1 Kings 19:19); and when Elijah was carried off in a fiery chariot, his mantle, which he let fall, was taken up by Elisha, his disciple, his spiritual son, and adopted successor in the office of prophet ( 2 Kings 2:15). It should be remarked, also, that Elisha asks not merely to be adopted (for that he had been already), but to be treated as the elder son, to have a double portion (the elder son’ s prerogative) of the spirit conferred upon him. (See Investiture).

There is another method of ratifying the act of adoption, however, which is worthy of notice, as it tends to illustrate some passages in the sacred writings. The following is from Pitts: "I was bought by an old bachelor; I wanted nothing with him; meat, drink, and clothes, and money, I had enough. After I had lived with him about a year, he made his pilgrimage to Mecca, and carried me with him; but before we came to Alexandria, he was taken sick, and thinking verily he should die, having a woven girdle about his middle, under his sash (which they usually wear), in which was much gold, and also my letter of freedom (which he intended to give me when at Mecca), he took it off, and bid me put it on about me, and took my girdle, and put it on himself. My patron would speak, on occasion, in my behalf, saying, My SON will never run away. He seldom called me any thing but son, and bought a Dutch boy to do the work of the house, who attended upon me, and obeyed my orders as much as his. I often saw several bags of his money, a great part of which he said he would leave me." This circumstance seems to illustrate the conduct of Moses, who clothed Eleazar in Aaron’ s sacred vestments when that high-priest was about to be gathered to his fathers; indicating thereby that Eleazar succeeded in the functions of the priesthood, and was, as it were, adopted to exercise that dignity. The Lord told Shebna, captain of the temple, that he would deprive him of his honorable station, and substitute Eliakim, son of Hilkiah ( Isaiah 22:21): "I will clothe him with thy robe, saith the Lord, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand." And Paul in several places says, that Christians "put on the Lord Jesus; that they put on the new man," to denote their adoption as sons of God ( Romans 13:14;  Galatians 3:27;  Ephesians 4:24;  Colossians 3:10; comp.  John 1:12;  1 John 3:2). (See Son). When Jonathan made a covenant with David, he stripped himself of his girdle and his robe and put them upon his friend ( 1 Samuel 18:3).

II. Figurative. — Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God’ s free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inheritance of heaven.

1. In the New Testament, adoption appears not so much a distinct act of God, as involved in, and necessarily flowing from, our justification; so that at least the one always implies the other. Nor is there any good ground to suppose that in the New Testament the term adoption is used with special reference to the civil practice of adoption by the Greeks, Romans, or other heathens, and, therefore, these formalities are illustrative only so far as they confirm the usages among the Jews likewise. The apostles, in using the term, appear rather to have had before them the simple view, that our sins had deprived us of our sonship, the favor of God, and the right to the inheritance of eternal life; but that, upon our return to God, and reconciliation with him, our forfeited privileges were not only restored, but greatly heightened through the paternal kindness of God. They could scarcely be forgetful of the affecting parable of the prodigal son; and it is under the same view that Paul quotes from the Old Testament, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" ( 2 Corinthians 6:18).

(1.) Adoption, then, is that act by which we who were alienated, and enemies, and disinherited, are made the sons of God and heirs of his eternal glory. "If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" ( Romans 8:17); where it is to be remarked that it is not in our own right, nor in the right of any work done in us, or which we ourselves do, though it should be an evangelical work, that we become heirs; but jointly with Christ, and in his right.

(2.) To this state belong, freedom from a servile spirit, for we are not servants, but sons; the special love and care of God, our Heavenly Father; a filial confidence in him; free access to him at all times and in all circumstances; a title to the heavenly inheritance; and the spirit of adoption, or the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption, which is the foundation of all the comfort we can derive from those privileges, as it is the only means by which we can know that they are ours.

(3.) The last-mentioned great privilege of adoption merits special attention. It consists in the inward witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit to the sonship of believers, from which flows a comfortable persuasion or conviction of our present acceptance with God, and the hope of our future and eternal glory. This is taught in several passages of Scripture:

[1.]  Romans 8:15-16, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." In this passage it is to be remarked,

(a.) That the Holy Spirit takes away "fear," a servile dread of God as offended.

(b.) That the "Spirit of God" here mentioned is not the personified spirit or genius of the Gospel, as some would have it, but "the Spirit itself," or himself; and hence he is called ( Galatians 4:6) "the Spirit of his Son," which cannot mean the genius of the Gospel.

(c.) That he inspires a filial confidence in God, as our Father, which is opposed to "the fear" produced by the "spirit of bondage." (d.) That he excites this filial confidence, and enables us to call God our Father, by witnessing, bearing testimony with our spirit, ‘"that we are the children of God."

[2.]  Galatians 4:4-6, "But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Here, also, are to be noted,

(a.) The means of our redemption from under (the curse of) the law, the incarnation and sufferings of Christ.

(b.) That the adoption of sons follows upon our actual redemption from that curse, or, in other words, upon our pardon.

(c.) That upon our being pardoned, the "Spirit of the Son" is "sent forth into our hearts," producing the same effect as that mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, viz., filial confidence in God, "crying, Abba, Father."

[3.] To these texts are to be added all those passages, so numerous in the New Testament, which express the confidence and the joy of Christians, their friendship with God, their confident access to him as their God, their entire union and delightful intercourse with him in spirit. (See Watson, Institutes, 2, 269; Dwight, Theology, vol. 3.)

2. In the early fathers, adoption seems to have been regarded as the effect of baptism. The Romanist theologians generally do not treat of adoption as a separate theological topic, nor, indeed, does their system admit it. According to the old Lutheran theology (Apol. 4, 140; Form. Conc. 4, 631; Gessner, 118; Hutter, loc. 12), adoption takes place at the same time with regeneration and justification, justification giving to the sinner the right of adoption, and regeneration putting him in the possession and enjoyment of this right. The certainty of one’ s adoption, and of the inheritance warranted by it, are counted among the attributes of the new birth. Pietism (q.v.) caused an approximation of the Lutheran theology to that of the Reformed Church, which, from the beginning, had distinguished more strictly between regeneration and adoption. The expressions of the Reformed theologians differed, however, greatly. Usually they represented adoption as the effect or as the fruit of justification. Sometimes, however, as co-ordinate, but always as subsequent to regeneration. Rationalism (q.v.) threw aside the biblical conception of adoption as well as that of regeneration. Bretschneider explains it as the firm hope of a moral man for everlasting bliss after this life. Schleiermacher speaks of adoption as a constitutive element of justification, but explains it, on the whole, as identical with the putting on of a new man, and regards it as a phase in the phenomenology of the Christian consciousness. Lange (Christliche Dogmatik, § 97) regards the new birth as the transformation of the individual life into a divine human life, and finds it in the union of justification and faith. Adoption, as the result of the new birth, appears to him as a substantial relation with God and an individualized image of God according to his image in Christ. Gider, in Herzog’ s Real-Encyklopadie, thinks that the words of the Bible conceal treasures which theological science has not yet fully succeeded in bringing to light, and that adoption must be brought into an organic connection not only with justification, but with the new birth — the latter not to be taken merely in a psychological, but in a deeper mystical sense. (See Assurance); (See Children Of God).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

a -dop´shun ( υἱοθεσία , huiothesı́a , "placing as a son"):

I. The General Legal Idea

1. In the Old Testament

2. Greek

3. Roman

II. Paul's Doctrine

1. In Galatians as Liberty

2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt

III. The Christian Experience

1. In Relation to Justification

2. In Relation to Sanctification

3. In Relation to Regeneration

IV. As God's Act

1. Divine Fatherhood

2. Its Cosmic Range

This term appears first in New Testament, and only in the epistles of Paul ( Galatians 4:5;  Romans 8:15 ,  Romans 8:23;  Romans 9:4;  Ephesians 1:5 ) who may have coined it out of a familiar Greek phrase of identical meaning. It indicated generally the legal process by which a man might bring into his family, and endow with the status and privileges of a son, one who was not by nature his son or of his kindred.

I. The General Legal Idea

The custom prevailed among Greeks, Romans and other ancient peoples, but it does not appear in Jewish law.

1. In the Old Testament

Three cases of adoption are mentioned: of Moses ( Exodus 2:10 ), Genubath ( 1 Kings 11:20 ) and Esther ( Esther 2:7 ,  Esther 2:15 ), but it is remarkable that they all occur outside of Palestine - in Egypt and Persia, where the practice of adoption prevailed. Likewise the idea appears in the New Testament only in the epistles of Paul, which were addressed to churches outside Palestine. The motive and initiative of adoption always lay with the adoptive father, who thus supplied his lack of natural offspring and satisfied the claims of affection and religion, and the desire to exercise paternal authority or to perpetuate his family. The process and conditions of adoption varied with different peoples. Among oriental nations it was extended to slaves (as Moses) who thereby gained their freedom, but in Greece and Rome it was, with rare exceptions, limited to citizens.

2. Greek

In Greece a man might during his lifetime, or by will, to take effect after his death, adopt any male citizen into the privileges of his son, but with the invariable condition that the adopted son accepted the legal obligations and religious duties of a real son.

3. Roman

In Rome the unique nature of paternal authority ( patria potestas ), by which a son was held in his father's power, almost as a slave was owned by his master, gave a peculiar character to the process of adoption. For the adoption of a person free from paternal authority ( sui juris ), the process and effect were practically the same in Rome as in Greece ( adrogatio ). In a more specific sense, adoption proper ( adoptio ) was the process by which a person was transferred from his natural father's power into that of his adoptive father, and it consisted in a fictitious sale of the son, and his surrender by the natural to the adoptive father.

II. Paul's Doctrine

As a Roman citizen the apostle would naturally know of the Roman custom, but in the cosmopolitan city of Tarsus, and again on his travels, he would become equally familiar with the corresponding customs of other nations. He employed the idea metaphorically much in the manner of Christ's parables, and, as in their case, there is danger of pressing the analogy too far in its details. It is not clear that he had any specific form of adoption in mind when illustrating his teaching by the general idea. Under this figure he teaches that God, by the manifestation of His grace in Christ, brings men into the relation of sons to Himself, and communicates to them the experience of sonship.

1. In Galatians as Liberty

In Galatians, Paul emphasizes especially the liberty enjoyed by those who live by faith, in contrast to the bondage under which men are held, who guide their lives by legal ceremonies and ordinances, as the Galatians were prone to do ( Galatians 5:1 ). The contrast between law and faith is first set forth on the field of history, as a contrast between both the pre-Christian and the Christian economies ( Galatians 3:23 ,  Galatians 3:24 ), although in another passage he carries the idea of adoption back into the covenant relation of God with Israel ( Romans 9:4 ). But here the historical antithesis is reproduced in the contrast between men who now choose to live under law and those who live by faith. Three figures seem to commingle in the description of man's condition under legal bondage - that of a slave, that of a minor under guardians appointed by his father's will, and that of a Roman son under the patria potestas ( Galatians 4:1-3 ). The process of liberation is first of all one of redemption or buying out (Greek exagorásēi ) ( Galatians 4:5 ). This term in itself applies equally well to the slave who is redeemed from bondage, and the Roman son whose adoptive father buys him out of the authority of his natural father. But in the latter case the condition of the son is not materially altered by the process: he only exchanges one paternal authority for another. If Paul for a moment thought of the process in terms of ordinary Roman adoption, the resulting condition of the son he conceives in terms of the more free and gracious Greek or Jewish family life. Or he may have thought of the rarer case of adoption from conditions of slavery into the status of sonship. The redemption is only a precondition of adoption, which follows upon faith, and is accompanied by the sending of "the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father," and then all bondage is done away ( Galatians 4:5-7 ).

2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt

In  Romans 8:12-17 the idea of obligation or debt is coupled with that of liberty. Man is thought of as at one time under the authority and power of the flesh (  Romans 8:5 ), but when the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell in him, he is no longer a debtor to the flesh but to the Spirit ( Romans 8:12 ,  Romans 8:13 ), and debt or obligation to the Spirit is itself liberty. As in Galatians, man thus passes from a state of bondage into a state of sonship which is also a state of liberty. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these (and these only) are sons of God" ( Romans 8:14 ). The spirit of adoption or sonship stands in diametrical opposition to the spirit of bondage ( Romans 8:15 ). And the Spirit to which we are debtors and by which we are led, at once awakens and confirms the experience of sonship within us ( Romans 8:16 ). In both places, Paul conveys under this figure, the idea of man as passing from a state of alienation from God and of bondage under law and sin, into that relation with God of mutual confidence and love, of unity of thought and will, which should characterize the ideal family, and in which all restraint, compulsion and fear have passed away.

III. The Christian Experience

As a fact of Christian experience, the adoption is the recognition and affirmation by man of his sonship toward God. It follows upon faith in Christ, by which man becomes so united with Christ that his filial spirit enters into him, and takes possession of his consciousness, so that he knows and greets God as Christ does (compare  Mark 14:36 ).

1. In Relation to Justification

It is an aspect of the same experience that Paul describes elsewhere, under another legal metaphor, as justification by faith. According to the latter, God declares the sinner righteous and treats him as such, admits into to the experience of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace ( Romans 5:1 ). In all this the relation of father and son is undoubtedly involved, but in adoption it is emphatically expressed. It is not only that the prodigal son is welcomed home, glad to confess that he is not worthy to be called a son, and willing to be made as one of the hired servants, but he is embraced and restored to be a son as before. The point of each metaphor is, that justification is the act of a merciful Judge setting the prisoner free, but adoption is the act of a generous father, taking a son to his bosom and endowing him with liberty, favor and a heritage.

2. In Relation to Sanctification

Besides, justification is the beginning of a process which needs for its completion a progressive course of sanctification by the aid of the Holy Spirit, but adoption is coextensive with sanctification. The sons of God are those led by the Spirit of God ( Romans 8:14 ); and the same spirit of God gives the experience of sonship. Sanctification describes the process of general cleansing and growth as an abstract process, but adoption includes it as a concrete relation to God, as loyalty, obedience, and fellowship with an ever-loving Father.

3. In Relation to Regeneration

Some have identified adoption with regeneration, and therefore many Fathers and Roman Catholic theologians have identified it with baptismal regeneration, thereby excluding the essential fact of conscious sonship. The new birth and adoption are certainly aspects of the same totality of experience, but they belong to different systems of thought, and to identify them is to invite confusion. The new birth defines especially the origin and moral quality of the Christian experience as an abstract fact, but adoption expresses a concrete relation of man to God. Nor does Paul here raise the question of man's natural and original condition. It is pressing the analogy too far to infer from this doctrine of adoption that man is by nature not God's son. It would contradict Paul's teaching elsewhere (e.g.  Acts 17:28 ), and he should not be convicted of inconsistency on the application of a metaphor. He conceives man outside Christ as morally an alien and a stranger from God, and the change wrought by faith in Christ makes him morally a son and conscious of his sonship; but naturally he is always a potential son because God is always a real father.

IV. As God's Act

Adoption as God's act is an eternal process of His gracious love, for He "fore-ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" ( Ephesians 1:5 ).

1. Divine Fatherhood

The motive and impulse of Fatherhood which result in adoption were eternally real and active in God. In some sense He had bestowed the adoption upon Israel ( Romans 9:4 ). "Israel is my son, my first-born" ( Exodus 4:22; compare  Deuteronomy 14:1;  Deuteronomy 32:6;  Jeremiah 31:9;  Hosea 11:1 ). God could not reveal Himself at all without revealing something of His Fatherhood, but the whole revelation was as yet partial and prophetic. When "God sent forth his Son" to redeem them that were under the law," it became possible for men to receive the adoption; for to those who are willing to receive it, He sent the Spirit of the eternal Son to testify in their hearts that they are sons of God, and to give them confidence and utterance to enable them to call God their Father ( Galatians 4:5 ,  Galatians 4:6;  Romans 8:15 ).

2. Its Cosmic Range

But this experience also is incomplete, and looks forward to a fuller adoption in the response, not only of man's spirit, but of the whole creation, including man's body, to the Fatherhood of God ( Romans 8:23 ). Every filial spirit now groans, because it finds itself imprisoned in a body subjected to vanity, but it awaits a redemption of the body, perhaps in the resurrection, or in some final consummation, when the whole material creation shall be transformed into a fitting environment for the sons of God, the creation itself delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God ( Romans 8:21 ). Then will adoption be complete, when man's whole personality shall be in harmony with the spirit of sonship, and the whole universe favorable to its perseverance in a state of blessedness. See Children Of God .

Literature

Lightfoot, Galatians  ; Sanday, Romans  ; Lidgett, Fatherhood of God  ; Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

The Old Testament does not contain any word equivalent to this; but the act occurs in various forms. The New Testament has the word often ( Romans 8:15;  Romans 8:23;  Romans 9:4;  Galatians 4:5;  Ephesians 1:5); but no example of the act occurs. The term signifies the placing as a son of one who is not so by birth.

The practice of adoption had its origin in the desire for male offspring among those who have, in the ordinary course, been denied that blessing, or have been deprived of it by circumstances. This feeling is common to our nature; but its operation is less marked in those countries where the equalizing influences of high civilization lessen the peculiar privileges of the paternal character, and where the security and the well-observed laws by which estates descend and property is transmitted, withdraw one of the principal inducements to the practice. And thus most of the instances in the Bible occur in the patriarchal period. The law of Moses, by settling the relations of families and the rules of descent, and by formally establishing the Levirate law, which in some sort secured a representative posterity even to a man who died without children, appears to have put some check upon this custom. The allusions in the New Testament are mostly to practices of adoption which then existed among the Greeks and Romans, and rather to the latter than to the former; for among the more highly civilized Greeks adoption was less frequent than among the Romans. In the East the practice has always been common, especially among the Semitic races, in whom the love of offspring has at all times been strongly manifested.

It is scarcely necessary to say that adoption was confined to sons. The whole Bible history affords no example of the adoption of a female.

The first instances of adoption which occur in Scripture are less the acts of men than of women, who, being themselves barren, gave their female slaves to their husbands, with the view of adopting the children they might bear. Thus Sarah gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham; and the son that was born, Ishmael, appears to have been considered as her son as well as Abraham's, until Isaac was born. In like manner Rachel, having no children, gave her handmaid Bilhah to her husband, who had by her Dan and Naphtali ( Genesis 30:5-9); on which his other wife, Leah, although she had sons of her own, yet fearing that she had left off bearing, claimed the right of giving her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, that she might thus increase their number; and by this means she had Gad and Asher ( Genesis 30:9-13). In this way the greatest possible approximation to a natural relation was produced. The child was the son of the husband, and, the mother being the property of the wife, the progeny must be her property also; and the act of more particular appropriation seems to have been that, at the time of birth, the handmaid brought forth her child 'upon the knees of the adoptive mother' ( Genesis 30:3). A curious fact is elicited by the peculiar circumstances in Sarah's case, which were almost the only circumstances that could have arisen to try the question, whether a mistress retained her power, as such, over a female slave whom she had thus vicariously employed, and over the progeny of that slave, even though by her own husband. The answer is given, rather startlingly, in the affirmative in the words of Sarah, who, when the birth of Isaac had wholly changed her feelings and position, and when she was exasperated by the offensive conduct of Hagar and her son, addressed her husband thus, 'Cast forth this bond-woman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac' ( Genesis 21:10).

A previous instance of adoption in the history of Abraham, when as yet he had no children, appears to be discoverable in his saying, 'One born in my house is mine heir.' This unquestionably denotes a house-born slave, as distinguished from one bought with money. Abraham had several such; and the one to whom he is supposed here to refer is his faithful and devoted steward Eliezer. This, therefore, is a case in which a slave was adopted as a son—a practice still very common in the East. A boy is often purchased young, adopted by his master, brought up in his faith, and educated as his son; or if the owner has a daughter, he adopts him through a marriage with that daughter, and the family which springs from this union is counted as descended from him. But house-born slaves are usually preferred, as these have never had any home but their master's house, are considered members of his family, and are generally the most faithful of his adherents. This practice of slave adoption was very common among the Romans; and, as such, is more than once referred to by St. Paul ( Romans 8:15;  Galatians 4:5-6), the transition from the condition of a slave to that of a son, and the privilege of applying the tender name of 'Father' to the former 'Master,' affording a beautiful illustration of the change which takes place from the bondage of the law to the freedom and privileges of the Christian state.

As in most cases the adopted son was to be considered dead to the family from which he sprung, the separation of natural ties and connections was avoided by this preference of slaves, who were mostly foreigners or of foreign descent. For the same reason the Chinese make their adoptions from children in the hospitals, who have been abandoned by their parents. The Tartars are the only people we know who prefer to adopt their near relatives—nephews or cousins, or, failing them, a Tartar of their own banner. The only Scriptural example of this kind is that in which Jacob adopted his own grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh to be counted as his sons ( Genesis 48:6). The object of this remarkable adoption was, that whereas Joseph himself could only have one share of his father's heritage along with his brothers, the adoption of his two sons enabled Jacob, through them, to bestow two portions upon his favorite son. The adoption of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter ( Exodus 2:1-10) is an incident rather than a practice; but it recalls what has just been stated respecting the adoption of outcast children by the Chinese. In  1 Chronicles 2:34, etc. there is an instance recorded of a daughter being married to a free slave, and the children being counted as those of the woman's father. The same chapter gives another instance. Machir (grandson of Joseph) gives his daughter in marriage to Hezron, of the tribe of Judah. She gave birth to Segub, who was the father of Jair. Jair possessed twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead, which came to him in right of his grandmother, the daughter of Machir; and he acquired other towns in the same quarter, which made up his possessions to three-score towns or villages ( 1 Chronicles 2:21-24;  Joshua 13:30;  1 Kings 4:13). Now this Jair, though of the tribe of Judah by his grandfather, is, in  Numbers 32:41, counted as of Manasseh, for the obvious reason which the comparison of these texts suggests, that, through his grandmother, he inherited the property, and was the lineal representative of Machir, the son of Manasseh.