A PORTRAIT OF ADOPTION
by Patrick McClure
When I first met my wife nearly 20 years ago, I didn’t know many people who were adopted. Since then, just in our circle of friends, we have seen a rise in the number of adoptions. There are couples who have struggled with infertility, longing to give a loving home to a child. Other couples, living in foreign countries, have shown compassion for disabled children who likely would never be adopted in their culture. More recently, we have seen couples, with several children of their own, opening their homes to children from difficult situations. At least one such adoption was the result of a family’s compassionate decision to start fostering children in their home. And it is truly a picture of our globalized culture; although these couples are all American citizens, their adoptees hail from at least eight different nationalities. These adoptions all have one thing in common: these children were adopted because a family wanted to give a loving, safe home to a child whose future wasn’t sure. Regardless of the specific circumstances, adoption is a positive solution to a negative situation.
It is easy to assume through our 21st-century lens that adoption has always been a loving transaction that seeks to find a happy ending, both for the childless couple who longs to have a young one to love, and for the homeless child who just wants someone to love him or her. History shows, however, that until relatively recently, adoption was centered primarily on those who were adopting, and wasn’t typically motivated by love. While there are recorded cases of the adoption of orphans and foundlings in ancient times, adoption usually dealt with answering the problem of childlessness as it related to the transfer of property. In other words, if a family was going to pass on their name, goods, or lands, they needed an heir. In fact, if a family adopted such an heir and later went on to have a natural son, that child became rightful heir.
The Old Testament is strangely silent about adoption. The Law itself does not stipulate any adoption procedures. Scholars point to the practices of polygamy, surrogacy, and levirate marriages as alternatives to the problem of childlessness. There are, however, a few instances where adoption, formal or not, seems to have taken place. The most common examples are Jacob adopting his two grandsons (Genesis 48:5, 6), Moses’ adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2:10; Acts 7:21), and Esther’s adoption by Mordecai (Esther 2:7, 15). Also, while passages such as Jeremiah 3:19 and 31:9 may not represent clear-cut adoption procedures, it is evident God was declaring His adoption of Israel. Clearly, the apostle Paul understood it this way when he described “the adoption” as a benefit bestowed on Israel by God, along with “the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises” (Romans 9:4).
The apostle Paul is the only New Testament writer to speak directly of adoption, and does so only five times (Romans 8:23; 9:4; Galatians. 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). Also, in each of these instances, he is not referring to literal adoption cases, but rather applying the picture of adoption to a spiritual truth. There is some debate as to whether he had Jewish or Roman adoption in mind when he spoke of this, and the truth is there are attractive parallels in both worlds. Unlike Old Testament literature, which spoke more indirectly about adoption, Roman law had specific regulations regarding adoption. Whether the adoptee was under a parent’s power or not, Roman adoption removed the adoptee from the previous state, relinquishing their former life, so to speak, in order to enter into a new state under a new father’s authority. As an adopted son, this child, though an heir, often was under the authority of other household members and even slaves until such time as the father appointed him of age, with all the power and responsibility it entailed.
The apostle’s usage of the picture of adoption is quite interesting in that it describes something similar to the adoption procedures he and his audience were acquainted with (Jewish and Roman, at least), but also differed greatly in certain key points. If one organizes the five adoption passages in their chronological order, they provide a panoramic view of God’s plan through the ages to offer believers the adoption of sons. (Chronological refers to the time of the event described, not the order of the books.)
The first passage is a glimpse into a moment before time itself was created. While Paul doesn’t elaborate on the picture of adoption in Ephesians 1:5, one thing is left abundantly clear: it has been part of God’s plan since before creation. Without digressing into the stickier debates surrounding this passage, it is self-evident the picture of adoption “to himself” is part of a loving plan He established before the foundation of the world, by which we can be, in Christ, presented holy and blameless before our Father, “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (verses 4-6).
As history begins unfolding, we can trace hints and shadows of this part of God’s plan woven into the fabric of the redemption story. This is why Paul’s reference to “the adoption” in Romans 9:4 offers the New Testament reader deeper insight regarding God’s relationship with Israel. Looking back with new eyes, we can see something we might have missed: as with so many other doctrines, God’s adoption of Israel can be seen foreshadowing the believer’s adoption into God’s family.
In many ways, Romans 8:15 is a timeless passage, since it speaks to the constant, present comfort of every believer. It refers to a past point in the life of each believer, that moment when he or she accepted God’s salvation by faith in Christ alone, and received the “spirit of adoption” versus the “spirit of bondage.” The believer is free from fear under slavery, because now he is a son, with full rights as co-heir with Jesus, the son of God.
The references to adoption even go so far as to point to the future, when believers will be glorified. Again, as a comfort for this present time of suffering, Paul refers to adoption as connected to the fulfillment of the promise of eternal life in glory in Romans 8:23. John beautifully describes this tension between our current present adoption and its future glorious fulfillment when he writes, “Beloved, now are we 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).
The final adoption passage (Galatians 4:1-7) actually fits into the middle of the chronology described above; it is the pivotal moment to which all of God’s redemptive plan points. This is where adoption meets Christmas. Here Paul offers the fullest description of the doctrine of adoption, and he connects it to the work of Jesus Christ on earth. Possibly alluding to Roman adoption, the apostle reminds the reader that, before salvation, the believer was a slave to sin. Then, in fulfilling everything planned since before the foundation of the world, and guaranteeing everything promised after the world’s end, “when the fulness of time had come,” (verse 4) in such a humble and nearly unnoticed way, the son who makes us sons was born. He was born of a woman and under the law in order to redeem those who were under law, and give them full rights as sons of God. Again the Roman adoption can be seen here, presenting the believer as an adoptee, being removed from his former sinful state and placed into a new relationship under the headship of his adopted Father.
Perhaps what is most amazing about Paul’s usage of the picture of adoption is how different God’s adoption of believers really is from any form of adoption mankind has developed, whether in ancient or modern times. In other words, the illustration is powerful both in how what God has accomplished in Christ resembles human adoption, and in how it is, oh, so much more than that.
God’s adoption is motivated by His love, not His need for heirs. Put simply, a being who doesn’t die doesn’t need heirs, so why is God adopting anyone? As discussed previously, for much of human history, adoption was largely aimed at solving the problem of men dying without descendants to carry on the family name or inherit the family property and land. God’s adoption doesn’t have to make provisions for that; He isn’t going to pass off the scene in order for us to inherit. Unlike earthly inheritance, which is only obtained and enjoyed in this brief lifetime because of a father’s absence, God promises His adopted children an inheritance to be enjoyed with eternal life in the Father’s presence.
God’s adoption must be for our benefit, because He is not childless. As mentioned, a number of families in present times are adopting despite having natural children. The goal is to help a child who needs it, not to answer childlessness. God does not adopt because He is lacking children, but because He loves people. He already has a son, an heir, His only begotten. What does that mean for us? God isn’t following the pattern of ancient adoptions, which answered the legal needs of the adopter. In love He establishes the pattern for modern Christian adoptions: He is answering the desperate need of the destitute and the fatherless for a Father.
God’s only son was born into our family so we could be born into his. The birth of Jesus was the crucial moment in which God took on flesh and dwelt among us. His sinless life, his blameless sacrifice on our behalf, and his resurrection all began with this incredible moment we celebrate at Christmas. Every step he took in obedience to the Father fulfilled the righteous requirements we could not accomplish so that by grace, through faith we could become the sons of God (Galatians 3:26). We don’t often connect Christmas and adoption, but the wording of Galatians 4:3-5 should serve as a reminder that when we observe the birth of Jesus, we are observing the crucial moment when in the fulness of time, God turned our desperate story around with a glorious and hopeful solution.
____________________
by Ann Janel McClure
I am adopted. This expression has described part of who I am for as long as I can remember. My parents never hid this knowledge from me. From the very beginning, they let me know I was wanted, chosen, and special. If my mother had her way, she would have had a dozen children, but troubled pregnancies that almost cost her life, made that dream impossible. That’s when adoption became a real option.
My parents first adopted a little toddler. After adopting him and then having their one and only biological child, my father was approached by the adoption agency asking if they would be interested in adopting another child. He thought my mother needed a daughter and said they would be interested in adopting a baby girl. So it was that, months later, on a hot July morning, as the family sat down to their pancake breakfast, the phone rang. When my mother picked it up, a voice on the other end said there was a baby girl waiting for her family to come get her. Breakfast was abandoned and the trip to the adoption agency quickly made. It was there that, straight from the hospital, I was placed into my parents’ arms and completed their family. My parents were thrilled. They had three precious children, gifts from God!
I grew up knowing my parents had chosen me. I also knew a young unwed mother who couldn’t properly take care of me had chosen to give me life and give me up so I could be raised in a godly home with two parents. As a child of the late 1970s, I understood my biological mother could have made a much “easier” choice, a legal choice to end my life. Instead, she left home, lived in a home for unwed mothers, and chose to place me for adoption. I know it was God working in my life from the very beginning that took an unpleasant situation and turned it into a beautiful life story — an adoption story!
Patrick and Ann Janel McClure are BBFI missionaries to Brazil. They are both graduates of BBC and were approved as missionaries in 2003.