Adoption

Definition and Meaning

Adoption is the act of legally taking a person who is not a blood relative as one's own child. In Christian theology, the term refers to the grace by which sinners are received into the family of God through Jesus Christ. In Korean it is also called "being adopted" or "God's adopting." Adoption includes both an intimate relationship in which believers call God Father and the status of heirs who inherit the kingdom of God. Christ is the Son of God by nature, whereas believers receive the status of sons by grace, and the term also serves to distinguish between these two kinds of sonship.

Biblical and Historical Background

The Greek word huiothesia, translated "adoption," appears in the New Testament only in the letters of Paul: Romans 8:15, 8:23, 9:4, Galatians 4:5, and Ephesians 1:5. The New Korean Revised Version renders the word variously as "spirit of adoption," "to be adopted," and "the status of sons." Romans 8:15 states that believers who have received the Spirit of adoption cry, "Abba, Father." Romans 8:23 links the completion of adoption with the future redemption of the body, that is, the resurrection.

Scholars differ on the source from which Paul drew this concept. One view locates its background in the adoption practices of contemporary Greco-Roman society. Another gives greater weight to the Old Testament tradition of sonship, as expressed in "Israel is my son, even my firstborn" (Exodus 4:22).

After the Reformation, the Reformed tradition systematized adoption as one stage of salvation. The seventeenth-century Westminster Confession of Faith devotes all of Chapter 12 to adoption, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism addresses it in Question 34.

Practice in the Korean Church

In Korean preaching and Christian education, the expression "children of God" is used far more often than the word "adoption," and John 1:12 is frequently cited in this connection. The emphasis varies somewhat by denominational tradition.

• Presbyterian: Following the Shorter Catechism, Presbyterians teach adoption as a grace distinct from justification. Whereas justification is a legal declaration of righteousness, adoption is explained as becoming a member of God's family. This teaching is covered as a topic within soteriology in catechumen and baptismal instruction.
• Methodist and Holiness: In keeping with the tradition of Wesleyan theology, these churches emphasize the verse "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). On this basis, they often explain adoption in connection with the assurance of salvation.
• Pentecostal: Pentecostal churches tend to emphasize the experience of calling God Father in the Holy Spirit.
• Anglican and Lutheran: These churches include in their baptismal rites the confession that one becomes a child of God through baptism.
• Baptist: Baptists hold that one becomes a child of God through faith and understand baptism by immersion as a rite of publicly confessing this.

In traditional Korean society, adoption commonly meant taking in a son to continue the family line. For this reason, preachers sometimes use the word as an illustration of grace that is given irrespective of lineage or merit.