What is adoption?

Question 07027.

Adoption as sons is, to my mind, the warmest word in the whole vocabulary of salvation, and it is the one most often skated over. Justification tells me my legal position has changed. Redemption tells me my bondage has ended. Regeneration tells me my nature has been renewed. Adoption tells me something further and, in relational terms, something greater: I have been brought into the family and given the standing of a son in the house of God, with everything that belonging carries with it.

Paul uses a specific term for this, and he did not pick it out of the air. When he writes about adoption as sons he is reaching for an institution his readers knew from daily life in the Roman world, and the details of that institution are exactly what make the doctrine so reassuring. It is worth taking the time to understand it, because a great deal of Christian insecurity would evaporate if we did.

The word Paul chose

The Greek is huiothesia, built from the words for son and placing. It means the placing of someone as a son. It is not a term for bringing a baby into a home, which is what the English word adoption tends to conjure up for us. It describes the legal act by which a person, often an adult, was formally given the full standing of a son in a new family, with all the rights, name and inheritance that came with it.

In Roman law this was a serious business. The adopted son’s previous debts were cancelled, his old family relationships were legally dissolved, and he became the heir of his new father with a claim that could not be revoked by later-born natural children. Witnesses were required precisely so that the transaction could never be disputed afterwards. The whole arrangement was designed to be permanent and unchallengeable, which is a rather important background detail when we come to what Paul does with it.

So when Paul speaks of adoption as sons he is not offering a sentimental picture of God being kind to strays. He is describing a legal act with irreversible consequences, deliberately chosen because it says something about permanence that no other image could say quite as well.

Where Scripture teaches it

The main texts are Romans 8, Galatians 4 and Ephesians 1. Paul writes that God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Redemption is the purchase; adoption is the purpose. He bought us out in order to bring us in, and the second is the point of the first.

In Ephesians the same idea appears at the very opening of the letter, where Paul says that God predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:5). The phrase to Himself is easy to read past. God did not adopt us for our benefit alone, or to solve a problem, but because it pleased Him to have us near.

Romans 8 then supplies the experiential side. You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. That cry is not learned technique; it is family instinct.

Adoption is not the same as regeneration

These two get muddled constantly, and keeping them apart is a great help pastorally. Regeneration is about nature: God gives new life, so that the believer is born of God and possesses a life he did not have before. Adoption is about standing: God confers position, so that the believer holds a place in the family that he had no natural right to occupy.

You can see why both are needed. New birth without adoption would give me life but leave my position uncertain. Adoption without new birth would give me a title with no capacity to enjoy it. God does both at once, and the result is a person who is genuinely His child by birth and genuinely His son by placement. For the other side of that coin, see what regeneration is.

The New Testament happily uses both pictures within a few verses of each other, which tells us they are complementary rather than competing. We are born into the family and we are placed in the family, and the two together leave nothing wanting.

What adoption as sons gives the believer

It gives a name. To be called children of God is not a figure of speech but a description of what we are, as John says with obvious astonishment in his first letter. The name settles the question of identity, which is the question our generation is most confused about and least able to answer for itself.

It gives access. The Aramaic word Abba on the lips of a believer is the language of the family kitchen rather than the throne room, and Paul uses it deliberately. The same Father who must be approached with reverence may be approached at any hour without an appointment. I find that combination of majesty and nearness is what keeps prayer from becoming either flippant or frozen.

And it gives an inheritance. If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). The believer’s future is not a modest pension but a shared inheritance with the Son Himself. Whatever your present circumstances look like, that is your actual financial position.

The part that is still to come

Paul does something unexpected in Romans 8. Having said that we have already received the Spirit of adoption, he then says that we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So which is it, already or not yet? Both, and the tension is intentional.

The legal act is complete and the family standing is settled. What has not yet arrived is the public unveiling and the transformed body that goes with it. At present the sons of God are largely unrecognised, often unimpressive, and frequently unwell. Creation itself, Paul says, is waiting on tiptoe for the revealing of the sons of God, because the whole created order is bound up with their unveiling.

That future dimension of adoption as sons is a great comfort when the present looks unimpressive. The document has been signed; the ceremony has not yet taken place.

Why this steadies a shaky Christian

A servant’s position depends on his usefulness. A son’s position depends on his father’s word. If my relationship with God is fundamentally that of an employee, then every poor week is a threat to my job security, and I will live either exhausted or in denial. If it is that of an adopted son, then my failures are family matters to be dealt with inside the house rather than grounds for dismissal.

This is where the Roman background pays off. An adoption that could be undone would give no comfort at all. The point of the picture is that it cannot be undone, which is precisely why Paul reaches for it when he wants to reassure people who are frightened. Security is not a doctrine I hold at arm’s length; it is the practical outworking of what God has already declared about my position. See eternal security.

The Spirit’s own testimony sits alongside this. He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, which means the assurance is not something I have to generate by working myself into a confident mood. It is given from outside. More on that in the Spirit and assurance.

Discipline belongs to sonship too

Hebrews takes the family picture in a direction we tend to avoid. The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives. Then comes the sentence that turns our instincts upside down: if you are left without discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

In other words, the correction is evidence of the relationship rather than a threat to it. A father who never corrects a child is not being gentle; he is being absent. When God deals firmly with me, He is treating me as family, and the discomfort is the proof rather than the problem.

I have found this helps people who are going through a hard providence and have concluded that God must have turned against them. Very often the reverse is the case, and what looks like abandonment is the attention of a Father who intends to finish what He started.

So, now what?

Let this reframe how you pray. You are not petitioning a distant official; you are speaking to a Father who placed you in His family at cost to Himself and cannot be persuaded to reverse it. Try starting your prayers this week with Abba rather than with your list, and notice what it does to the rest of the conversation.

And if you are prone to relating to God as an employer, ask why. Somewhere the truth of adoption as sons has not travelled the distance from your head to your heart. Read Romans 8:14-17 every day for a fortnight and let the family language settle. What would change in you if you truly believed the house was yours to live in rather than to visit?

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!

Romans 8:14-15 (ESV)