Study
Adoption
Soteriology · Doctrinal study

Adoption

How former enemies become sons and daughters of God, what the Father gives His children, and why He will never let them go.

Theologica Editorial15 min read
Why It Matters

What Manner of Love

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God (1 John 3:1). John writes like a man who cannot get over it. The God who made the universe lets former rebels call Him Father.

God could have pardoned us and left it there. A judge can clear a guilty man and send him out the door. He does not take him home. God does. He takes His enemies, buys them with the blood of His Son, and seats them at His table as sons and daughters.

We believe no one enters God's family by natural birth. Every person is God's creation, and every person bears His image. But we come into this world as sinners, by nature the children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Everyone in God's family is there by adoption, through faith in Jesus Christ.

DefinitionAdoption

God's gracious act of placing every believer into His family as a son or daughter, with all the rights of a child and heir. It happens the moment a sinner trusts Christ, it can never be undone, and it will be completed when our bodies are redeemed.

Three Pictures, One Salvation

Justification changes your standing. Regeneration changes your nature. Adoption changes your family.

Loading the rest of this article

Further reading

For Deeper Study

  • Adopted into God's Family: Exploring a Pauline MetaphorAmazon Trevor J. BurkeA careful evangelical study of Paul's word for adoption, in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. For serious readers.
  • Knowing GodAmazon J. I. PackerA modern classic by a Reformed Anglican. His chapter “Sons of God” is one of the warmest treatments of adoption in print. We differ with him on election.
  • Children of the Living GodAmazon Sinclair B. FergusonA short, pastoral book on what it means to be God's child, by a Reformed pastor and teacher.
  • Adopted for LifeAmazon Russell D. MooreA Baptist ethicist and adoptive father on how the Gospel shapes the way families and churches care for orphans. A help to adoptive families.
  • Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.

As an Amazon Associate, Theologica earns from qualifying purchases.

Continue exploring

Justification

God declares the believing sinner righteous, forgiving all his sins and crediting to him the righteousness of Christ, on the ground of Christ's blood and through faith alone.

Open Doctrine