Francis Lyall*

Introduction 

            The New Testament uses many similes, metaphors and other figures of speech.[1]  These are ways of thinking of profound truths, and are given to us so that we can both comprehend and appreciate certain matters.  They are not to be taken as precisely accurate technical explanations, but draw on known ideas so as to allow an understanding and a grasp of theological truth.  They are ‘as if’ statements.[2]  For example, in Heb. 12:1 we are exhorted to run the race setting aside everything that would hinder us – compare athletic meetings every summer – but how many of us strip off and run?  ‘Adoption’ is one such figure of speech, and is a very clear legal analogue communicating valuable truths.  It has produced sundry theological musings,[3] and appears compactly in some Reformation confessions of faith, but these latter conceal something rather strange. 

The Confessions[4]

            While dealing with Predestination, the Thirteenth Chapter of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England of 1571 says that by predestination Christians are made sons of God by adoption.  The Canons of Dordt of 1618, Article Seven ‘On Election’, states inter alia that God predestined those ‘whom he adopted as his children through Jesus Christ’.  The fullest treatment, however, is in Chapter Twelve of the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 which states ‘Of Adoption’:

            All those that are justified, God vouchsafeth, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption: by which they are taken into the number, and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God; have his name put upon them; receive the Spirit of adoption; have access to the throne of grace with boldness; are enabled to cry, Abba, Father; are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by his as by a father; yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption, and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.[5]

The source

            There are many places in the New Testament in which the author uses the language of law to put across the message.[6]  Slavery, freedmen, citizenship, earnest (arrha), marriage and inheritance all provide images: adoption is one among many.  The strangeness of the Reformation confessions is that at the time that they were being drafted there was no contemporary law of adoption to provide meaning for the concept of adoption they refer to, and there had not in law been a concept of adoption for centuries.[7]  What was relied on was the use of the word in the New Testament, as that was understood by their drafters.  We do not know what that understanding was,[8] but later theologians have written about ‘adoption’, using ideas of their own times, not always illuminatingly.

            That is not good enough.  Any attempt to read modern ideas into the concept of adoption hides the depths of the truth the analogy contains.  Modern adoption is not adoption as known in New Testament times.  Properly, to appreciate what was being said, we need to understand the legal notion that is being drawn upon by the writer.  We have also to consider the likelihood that the author himself knew both what he was talking about and how the recipients of his letters would understand the concept.

            To take the latter point first: ‘adoption’ is a term employed only by Paul among the New Testament writers. Paul uses it five times: three times in Romans, Romans 8:15, 8:23 and 9:4, and once each in Ephesians 1:5 and in Galatians 4:5.  In Rom. 8: 15, Eph. 1: 5 and Gal. 4:5 the adoption metaphor points to the selection of believers as members of God’s family and under the guidance and authority of the Father.  In Rom. 9:4 the place of the Jews as the chosen people is underlined.  Last, the allusion in Rom. 8: 23 to waiting for the adoption refers to the final transformation, when we will totally pass from our former state into something wholly new.

In terms of Paul’s audience, those in Rome would certainly have known Roman law.  It was the law ruling in their community.  There is reason also to believe that those in Ephesus, a major city in Asia Minor, though not itself a Roman colony, would have sufficient knowledge to decode the imagery.  The churches in Galatia, if they were Derbe and Lystra, would also have known the idea, and if Galatians was written to churches in North Galatia, these were even more Romanised.  Apart from some sort of personal knowledge, adoption was the way in which the Imperial family was perpetuating itself and so would have been known to non-Romans throughout the Empire.[9]  As for the writer, Paul himself was born a Roman citizen (Acts 22:28), and therefore both a subject of and able to use Roman Law.  That was the basis of his appeal to Caesar (Acts 25: 10-12). He was also legal trained – a lawyer – and therefore his knowledge of law (whether Jewish or Roman) and use of its terms would have been more informed than that of an ordinary person.[10]  In short, on these grounds alone it seems most likely that one should look to Roman Law to round out the concept of ‘adoption’ in the New Testament. 

            But what of other possibilities?  Was Jewish law, Greek law or any other a contender for the origin of Paul’s words?  Within the Roman Empire there were many laws, not just Roman law.  One was subject to the law of one’s province or nationality, or even of one’s home city.  Whether within any given community one could rely on these other laws for protection depended on whether that law was recognised and was permitted its own system of enforcement.[11] Roman law was the superior law, would take precedence for those entitled to its protection, and was therefore highly valued by its citizens, and an object of envy to others.[12]  But, as said, other laws existed within the Empire and might be thought to provide some basis for Paul’s language. However, for adoption, the long and the short of the matter is that Jewish law did not have a concept of adoption.[13]  In Greek law adoption was not common and was used as a testamentary device – you ‘adopted’ by will the person whom you wanted to inherit your estate.[14]  In the Near East, Babylonian law used adoption as a way to place a son for apprenticeship purposes, he returning to your family when he had served his time and learned his trade.[15]  None of these provide as satisfactory as full meaning for ‘adoption’ as does Roman law.

            Accordingly I refer ‘adoption’ as used by Paul to Roman law as its origin and therefore explore its meaning within that context. 

The meaning

            In all legal systems that have the concept, adoption involves a change of formal legal relationship between people.[16]  As a matter of law someone leaves his or her family and becomes part of another family – in law one can only be part of one family at a time. Adoption is therefore an element of Family Law, and involves fundamental personal relationships.  It also is a matter of status.[17]

            In Roman law, assuming that you were a citizen and not a slave, there were different possibilities as to family status.[18] You were either sui iuris, that is independent and not controlled as a matter of law by another. As such you might be single, but if you were married or had lawful children you were yourself a head of a family – a paterfamilias,[19] - with others subservient to your authority.  If you were under the family authority -- under the potestas (power) -- of a paterfamilias, you were alieni iuris (sc. under the law of another).  Different adoption procedures applied in the two fundamental cases; adrogatio of someone sui iuris, and adoptio of someone alieni iuris.  Over the centuries both procedures mutated.  For our purposes what is important is what they were and their effects in New Testament times.[20]

            Adrogatio was in a sense of greater significance in the social structure of the community.  For Romans the paterfamilias was extremely important.  As the head of the family he was responsible for the family cult, performing the ritual worship of the family gods, and in particular of the genius or tutelary spirit of the family.  The adoption of the paterfamilias of another family therefore involved the termination of his family cult.  This was obviously a serious step involving religion and therefore originally there was a preliminary inquiry by the pontiffs into the motives and desirability of the adoption.  If they approved the matter went to an official body of citizens[21] in a procedure chaired by the pontifex maximus.  If the assembly approved the adoptee denounced his family cult – the detestatio sacrorum.  The adoptee (and all those of whom he was formerly the paterfamilias) was then placed under the authority of the new paterfamilias.  By analogy, becoming a Christian can be thought of as being called by one’s new ‘Father’ to deny and depart from the gods that one previously worshipped and become part of a new family.[22]

            Adoptio was the adoption of someone who was part of, but was not the head of, another family – someone who was alieni iuris.  Here only the person being adopted was involved, not his children or wife if any, and what happened was that the new ‘Father’ asserted his right as a paterfamilias, the adoptee having gone through a fictitious sale procedure by his former paterfamilias.[23]  The analogy of one’s being ‘bought by the blood of Christ’ is obvious.

            In both adrogatio and adoptio all of the adoptee’s legal ties with his former family were terminated, and he was placed under the full authority of his new Father.  Adoption therefore has significance for us not in its detail but in the concept of someone originally not part of particular family leaves his or her former family and becomes part of that new family and comes under the authority of its paterfamilias.  The authority of the pater was absolute in private law.[24]  The pater had powers of discipline, up to death. The paterfamilias owned the ‘property’ of all members of his family, and so on.  Although the pater could give monies to a son or daughter to trade with, he ultimately benefited or lost by their transactions.  He could arrange marriages, and even divorces.  On the other hand he had duties to look after all those in his family, supporting them financially and otherwise. Indeed in the matter of responsibility, things went further.  For example, if a son injured another person it was the pater that was responsible in damages.

            All these elements contribute to the assurance that the Christian can have in appreciating his salvation as becoming one of the sons or daughters of the Father, making one able to call him ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom. 8:15[25]). 

            But some may query whether there is not in all this the threat that an adopted child,[26] under the potestas of the heavenly Father, could have that status revoked or lost by the Father either by him freeing that son, making him sui iuris, by allowing his adoption by another, or even by selling him as a slave?  Later Roman law did restrict what an adopter might do – usually in relation to matters of succession -- but in New Testament times that had not happened.  So it must be agreed that the analogy of adoption is not cast-iron.  My personal response to this point is that it is always an error to push analogies too far.  Analogies are given to allow us to grasp and believe truth, not to provide blueprints. There is no biblical evidence that God does cast off his children.[27]  ‘Abba, Father’ may be difficult for those whose relationship with their human father has been imperfect.  My father was killed in the Second World War when I was only one year old, and I only began to see what the fatherhood of God really meant when I became a father myself.  So, for those troubled I would say, hold on to your ‘adoption’.  It will mean more as time goes on.  You may lack the referents fully to appreciate what this metaphor implies.  Indeed, I suppose some may never do so.  Nonetheless, grapple with it.  Extraordinarily, for I do not believe that the Westminster divines knew Roman Law, their summation of the biblical teaching is an accurate reflection of the Roman law of New Testament times.  It indicates ways to grasp how, in Christ, having been one of a different family, one becomes one of the family which has God as its paterfamilias.  Whether one likes to think of oneself prior to conversion as independent (sui iuris) or under the authority of another (alieni iuris to Satan) adoption indicates the security inherent on now through adoption by him having God as our Father.  To him we owe obedience, and from him we gain everlasting privileges.  But it all goes further than that bald statement: in the very best sense, by adoption we become sons and daughters of God, joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8: 17).  Families are societies, not groups of individuals bound together only by rights, duties and rules.   

Footnotes