During the Sunday School hour we were working through Romans 8 and breezed past this verse,
Romans 8:15 (KJV) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.I interrupted and tried to get the class to pause and consider adoption. It didn’t work. I got patted on the head and they moved on.
Any time I come across the word “adoption” in the Bible it makes me stop and consider what it meant in that day. We have a tendency to believe that past cultures think the same way we do. For that matter we tend to do the same with modern cultures. In some cases it is dangerous. In this case I think we miss a lot of the richness.
Adoption in the Roman Empire of Paul’s day was considered a higher level of family than natural birth. In Rome, if you were not happy with the way your children were turning out, you would go out and adopt someone you thought worthy of being your heir. That would put your children aside because they were less significant. Sometimes the push to adopt was the result of women being reluctant to have children themselves. Roman culture had a lot in common with modern women who value their own physical beauty over having children. So you would adopt.
When you adopted you did not go out looking for an outcast or settle for second best. The modern concept of adopting handicapped children or disadvantaged teens would have been a strange concept. You did not adopt for the benefit of the child but for your purposes and goals. Keep that in mind when you consider that Paul is saying we are adopted.
The gentiles were the focus of this adoption. They were brought in from outside the family of Israel. They were made children with the right of addressing God with the familiar rather than the formal. That is what the “Abba” was all about. We like to say that we are not worthy of salvation and that is true but this would seem to indicate that God sees something in us that is not in the unadopted. It could be something as simple as a willingness to believe in Jesus. It could be that you have unique qualities like the Apostle Paul when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus.
However you want to look at it accept that being adopted into God’s family makes you special in His eyes. You are not ranked as superior to your brothers and sisters in Christ but you are elevated to the class of family.
homo unius libri
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