Category:Adoption

A*dop"tion, n. Etym: [L. adoptio, allied to adoptare to adopt: cf. F. adoption.]

1. The act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.

2. Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.

3. The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions. Jer. Taylor.

--- ---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Adoption - The giving to any one the name and place and privileges of a son who is not a son by birth.

(1.) Natural. Thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses (Exodus 2:10), and Mordecai Esther (Esther 2:7).

(2.) National. God adopted Israel (Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 7:6; Hosea 11:1; Romans 9:4).

(3.) Spiritual. An act of God's grace by which he brings men into the number of his redeemed family, and makes them partakers of all the blessings he has provided for them. Adoption represents the new relations into which the believer is introduced by justification, and the privileges connected therewith, viz., an interest in God's peculiar love (John 17:23; Romans 5:5), a spiritual nature (2 Peter 1:4; John 1:13), the possession of a spirit becoming children of God (1 Peter 1:14; 2 John 1:4; Romans 8:15; Galatians 5:1; Hebrews 2:15), present protection, consolation, supplies (Luke 12:27; John 14:18, Colossians 3:21; 2 Corinthians 1:4), fatherly chastisements (Hebrews 12:5), and a future glorious inheritance (Romans 8:17; Romans 8:23; James 2:5; Philippians 3:21).