…but ye have received the Spirit of adoption,
Why are we adopted? We say that we are born again (I Pet 1:23), so why aren’t we the natural sons of God? Does this mean that we have received second-best? When a child is adopted, it is the parent who chooses the child, the child does not choose the parent. But we have chosen God through our belief in His Son. Instead, God is trying to tell us something about our sonship and about God as our Father.
Our culture sees the natural child as the best child, and the adopted child as second best. But the Bible was not written in our times or in our culture. Adoption was almost completely unknown in Hebrew culture. A Hebrew man could marry more than one wife, so usually had opportunity to have several sons to inherit. But in the Greek and Roman customs, a man might not have a legal son to inherit; so adoption became a legal means for a man to adopt a son who would inherit all that he owned.
Children in the Roman world were under the authority of their father. This law, called Patria Potestas, gave the father authority over his children. But there was one significant difference between a natural child and an adopted child. A natural child could be disowned or rejected. But once a son was adopted, the father could never reject him. So when Paul says that we are God’s adopted children, he is telling us that we a re permanently, completely God’s, and that God will never reject us. I glad that I’m adopted.
