Merriam Webster defines adopt as “to take (someone or something) by choice into a relationship.”1“Definition of ADOPT,” www.merriam-webster.com (Merriam-Webster, Inc.), accessed September 15, 2023, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adopt Though the term “adopt” or “adoption” is only used six times in the (ESV) Bible, it is a theme which is woven through scripture from beginning to end. Primarily, it refers to God’s choice to bring a specific group of people into a loving relationship with himself through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Throughout the Old and New Testaments there are many examples of this overarching picture of adoption that involve God’s character and plan being played out. Often God’s adopted children reject his fatherhood, but he remains committed to restoring the relationship. Then, there are stories of individuals who are placed in adoptive-type relationships outside of what might be considered the natural or expected order of things. Understanding the stories of these individuals can reveal the many facets and layers of the larger picture of how God has chosen to adopt a people for his own treasured possession (Deut. 7:6)
Big Pictures of Adoption in the Old Testament
One of the first big pictures that scripture paints of the adoptive theme is right in Genesis 1. God created humanity to be in relationship with him; it was a choice to initiate a relationship where none previously existed. God, in his completely fulfilled, joyful, intra-Trinitarian “family”, wanted others to be a part of that family.2Michael Heiser, What Does God Want? (Blind Spot Press, 2018), 8-9. When Adam fell, his relationship and the potential relationship with all of humanity was severed, though the rest of scripture reveals how the outcast children would be adopted back into the family.
The next big picture comes through God’s adopted people – Israel, the children of Abraham (more on Abraham later). Moses declares God’s words in Deuteronomy 7:6-7, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” This choice to bring a people into a special relationship was adoptive. God had no natural obligation to bring this particular people back to himself out of all the many unfaithful nations since Adam. He chose this nation to begin to reveal his larger purpose of adopting many people from the entire world. However, like Adam, the nation of Israel would go on to break the relationship.
Continuing through Scripture, there are numerous laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy that instruct Israel to provide for the fatherless, those orphans who need to be adopted. This reflects the character of God, who is “a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families (Ps. 68:5-6, NIV). God, the perfect father, is intent on bringing people into his family and doing what is necessary to keep them there.
God’s character is further revealed in Ezekiel. Referring to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, often representative of the nation as a whole, the prophet describes a vivid picture from God’s perspective:
And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born. “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ (Ezekiel 16:4-6)
In this grim scene, God is portrayed as rescuing an abandoned child in the middle of a field that had been left in a bloody puddle of afterbirth, adopting it, and ensuring that the babe who was certain to die is now sure to live. Unfortunately, this child (Jerusalem/Israel) in the next scene of Ezekiel is ungratefully rejecting the relationship with the Father who rescued her from such a desperate circumstance. By the end of the chapter, after hardships and judgment, God declares that because of his covenant love for his adopted child, he will atone for her sins to restore right relations between them.
Smaller Old Testament Pictures
The pictures of individuals experiencing adoptive relationships are myriad, especially within those who were already chosen by God to be Israelites. Abraham is chosen out of all the people on earth to be the father of nations (Genesis 12), but particularly of God’s adopted covenant nation of Israel. Moses is adopted into the royal family of Egypt in order to further God’s covenant to keep Israel as his family (Exodus 2). Aaron had his own sons who would inherit the priesthood from him, but Moses, who also had sons, essentially adopted Joshua to lead Israel after his death (Deuteronomy 31). Samuel was as a son to Eli (1 Sam. 3:16), though adopted, not natural. The continuation of Elijah’s work through Elisha is like that of Moses and Joshua – a non-biological son continues and furthers the work of his spiritual father.
There are also many outsiders who it would seem should not be included in the family, but God chooses to adopt them anyway. Rahab, who should have been killed along with the rest of Jericho, is adopted into Israel through faith (Joshua 6:25; Hebrews 11:31). Ruth, the Moabite, commits to becoming part of the family when she stays with Naomi after her husband dies. This is confirmed by God when Boaz says, “And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you” (Ruth 3:12-13a). God not only brings her into the family but includes her in the lineage of two of the most important members of his family in scripture – Jesus and David (Matthew 1:1-16).
Big Pictures of Adoption in the New Testament
Though Christ came to accomplish the full and complete restoration of God’s family, his own words regarding this relationship still veil some of the depth of God’s full purpose. He does teach his disciples to pray to God as Father (Matthew 6:9). He also reveals the orphan-rescuing character that God showed in the Old Testament when he promises the Holy Spirit, saying “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). At another point Jesus alludes to some of the family ideal that will be present in his kingdom in Mark 10:29-30: “Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”
However, the clearest revelation of God’s eternal purposes in adoption are found in Paul’s letters. In Galatians 4:4-7 he says, “But when the fullness of time had come, 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. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
He adds to that Ephesians 1:4-5, which says “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,” Paul also reiterates this theme in Romans 8, where he discusses how our spiritual adoption now previews our physical adoption when we receive resurrected bodies like Christ’s.
Before he created anything, God knew that his family relationship to humanity would be broken, and he set in motion a plan through his only son to adopt these orphaned, abandoned, father-rejecting people back into his family. He has put his own Spirit into his children, making them willing members of his family who can never again be separated from him.
Smaller New Testament Pictures
In the New Testament, as in the Old, the relationships between many of the individuals help to paint the picture of an adoptive family with people who would not naturally be part of the same biological family. Paul speaking to the Thessalonians talks of how “like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (2 Thessalonians 2:11b-12). When writing to Philemon Paul says, “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment” (Philemon 10). He refers to Timothy as “my beloved and faithful child in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:17). None of these relationships are biological, in fact, Paul had no biological children, but his adoptive fatherhood reveals the character of God and his purposes for his people.
Conclusion
In one of the final letters in the New Testament, John articulates the idea that God had in mind from the beginning:
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:1-2).
God, so full of love in himself, deeply desired to pour out that love to a human family. The history of his adoptive work in bringing us into that family is full of rebellion and rejection, but God committed to accomplishing his purpose in bringing these people into intimate relationship with him. His revelation throughout history added progressively to that idea. When Christ came to redeem the children of God through his death and resurrection, the totality of God’s purpose became clear. God’s adoptive purpose had been accomplished. For now, while God’s family awaits the culmination of adoption in dwelling with him in his restored creation, those who are in Christ are adopted children, fully part of his family. His children have an expectant hope that looks forward to a guaranteed eternal blessing of joyous life in that relationship of unsurpassed love.
Seth Hampton is a pastoral resident at Emmanuel Community Church where he serves in worship ministry, men’s ministry, and teaching middle school Sunday School. He works as a music teacher in Northern Tioga School District in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Megan, have five children, Josiah, Gideon, Aniela, Talitha, and Naomi. Outside of school and church he enjoys hunting, fishing, and homesteading (to feed the hungry children!).
