Bible Dictionary: Adoption

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Smith's Bible Dictionary

Adoption

an expression used by St. Paul in reference to the present and prospective privileges of Christians. (Romans 8:15,23; 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.

ATS Bible Dictionary

Adoption

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.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

The giving to any one the name and place and privileges of a son who is not a son by birth.

(1.) Natural. Thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses (Exodus 2:10), and Mordecai Esther (Esther 2:7).

(2.) National. God adopted Israel (Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 7:6; Hosea 11:1; Romans 9:4).

(3.) 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 (2 Peter 1:4; John 1:13), the possession of a spirit becoming children of God (1 Peter 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; 1 Corinthians 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).

Webster's Revised Unabridged 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.) Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.

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

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

ADOPTION

a-dop'-shun (huiothesia, "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, 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, 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, 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 exagorasei) (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, 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, 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.

SeeCHILDREN OF GOD.

LITERATURE:

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

T. Rees

Greek

5206. huiothesia -- adoption
... adoption. Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine Transliteration: huiothesia Phonetic Spelling:
(hwee-oth-es-ee'-ah) Short Definition: adoption Definition: adoption, as ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/5206.htm - 7k

5207. huios -- a son
... a son, descendent. 5207 -- properly, a (by birth or adoption); (figuratively)
anyone sharing the as their Father. For the believer ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/5207.htm - 8k

1058. Gallion -- Gallio, proconsul of Asia
... Gallion Phonetic Spelling: (gal-lee'-own) Short Definition: Gallio Definition: Gallio,
Lucius Iunius Gallio, who received this name by adoption into another ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/1058.htm - 6k

Topical Bible Verses

Ephesians 1:5
Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Topicalbible.org

1 John 3:1
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.
Topicalbible.org

Ephesians 3:6
That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
Topicalbible.org

Hebrews 2:13
And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.
Topicalbible.org

Hebrews 2:10
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Topicalbible.org

Hebrews 12:9
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
Topicalbible.org

Library

Adoption
... 6. The application of redemption 4. Adoption. ... Having spoken of the great points
of faith and justification, we come next to adoption. ...
//christianbookshelf.org/watson/a body of divinity/4 adoption.htm

What is Adoption?
... Question 34: What is adoption? A34: Adoption is an act of God's free grace,
whereby we are received into the number, and have a ...
/.../the westminster shorter catechism/question 34 0 0 what is adoption.htm

Whether Adoption is Rightly Defined?
... OF LEGAL RELATIONSHIP, WHICH IS BY ADOPTION (THREE ARTICLES) Whether adoption
is rightly defined? Objection 1: It would seem that ...
/.../aquinas/summa theologica/whether adoption is rightly defined.htm

The Testimony of Divine Adoption
... The Testimony of Divine Adoption. How happy are the new-born race, Partakers
of adopting grace! How pure the bliss they share! Hid ...
/.../the testimony of divine adoption.htm

Adoption, 1 John 3 1 &C. Gal. 4 6
... Hymns. Book 1. Hymn 1:64. Adoption, 1 John 3. 1 &c. Gal. 4. 6. 1 Behold
what wondrous grace The Father hath bestow'd On sinners ...
/.../watts/hymns and spiritual songs/hymn 0 086111111 adoption 1 john.htm

The Form is Adoption, as Sons, through Jesus Christ...
... THESIS 11 The form is adoption, as sons, through Jesus Christ� ... Predestination is
unto adoption, therefore adoption is not the form of predestination. ...
/.../arminius/the works of james arminius vol 3/thesis 11 the form is.htm

Of Legal Relationship, which is by Adoption (Three Articles)
... OF LEGAL RELATIONSHIP, WHICH IS BY ADOPTION (THREE ARTICLES). We must now consider
legal relationship which is by adoption. ... (1) What is adoption? ...
/.../aquinas/summa theologica/of legal relationship which is.htm

Of Adoption as Befitting to Christ (Four Articles)
... OF ADOPTION AS BEFITTING TO CHRIST (FOUR ARTICLES). We must now come to consider
whether adoption befits Christ: and under this head ...
/.../christianbookshelf.org/aquinas/summa theologica/of adoption as befitting to.htm

Life at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life.
... Prolegomena. Sketch of the Life and Works of Saint Basil. III."Life
at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life. When ...
/.../basil/basil letters and select works/iii life at caesarea baptism and.htm

Adoption. 1 John 3:1Ff; Gal. 4:06
... HYMNS AND SPIRITUAL SONGS IN THREE BOOKS. HYMN 64 Adoption. 1 John 3:1ff; Gal.
4:6. SM Adoption.1 John 3:1ff; Gal.4:6. Behold what wondrous grace. ...
/.../watts/the psalms and hymns of isaac watts/hymn 64 adoption 1 john.htm

Thesaurus

Adoption (5 Occurrences)
...Adoption represents the new relations into which the believer is introduced by
justification, and the privileges connected therewith, viz., an interest in ...
/a/adoption.htm - 23k

Adopted (10 Occurrences)
... 1. (imp. & pp) of Adopt. 2. (a.) Taken by adoption; taken up as one's own; as, an
adopted son, citizen, country, word. Multi-Version Concordance ...
/a/adopted.htm - 9k

Church (110 Occurrences)
... Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia. CHURCH. church: I. PRE-CHRISTIAN HISTORY OF THE
TERM II. ITS ADOPTION BY JESUS III. ... II. Its Adoption by Jesus. ...
/c/church.htm - 89k

Knee (12 Occurrences)
... child receives its first care. Three times in Genesis the knees appear
in connection with primitive adoption customs. In 30:3 a ...
/k/knee.htm - 12k

Kneel (10 Occurrences)
... child receives its first care. Three times in Genesis the knees appear
in connection with primitive adoption customs. In 30:3 a ...
/k/kneel.htm - 11k

Parousia
... Consequently, the adoption by the Greek-speaking Christians of a word that already
contained full regal and even Divine concepts was perfectly natural. ...
/p/parousia.htm - 36k

Sacraments
... It is in the writings of Tertullian (end of 2nd and beginning of 3rd century) that
we find the first evidence of the adoption of the word as a technical term ...
/s/sacraments.htm - 19k

Trumpets (52 Occurrences)
... This need not mean that the observance of the 1st (or 10th) of Tishri was late,
but only that the final adoption of the day into Israel's official calendar ...
/t/trumpets.htm - 32k

Nero
... His name was originally Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus but after his adoption into
the Claudian gens by the emperor Claudius, he became Nero Claudius Caesar ...
/n/nero.htm - 41k

Feast (209 Occurrences)
... This need not mean that the observance of the 1st (or 10th) of Tishri was late,
but only that the final adoption of the day into Israel's official calendar ...
/f/feast.htm - 47k

Bible Concordance

Adoption (5 Occurrences)

Romans 8:15 For you didn't receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, " Abba! Father!"
(WEB KJV ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS)

Romans 8:23 Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.
(WEB KJV ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV)

Romans 9:4 who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises;
(WEB KJV ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS NIV)

Galatians 4:5 that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of children.
(WEB KJV ASV WBS YLT NAS RSV)

Ephesians 1:5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,
(WEB KJV ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS)

Subtopics

Adoption

Adoption is According to Promise

Adoption is by Faith

Adoption is of God's Grace

Adoption is Through Christ

Adoption is to be Pleaded in Prayer

Adoption of Esther

Adoption of Gentiles, Predicted

Adoption of Joseph's Sons

Adoption of Moses

Adoption: A Privilege of Saints