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ADOPTION

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 3.

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ADOPTION.

By Arthur T. Pierson

I USED to stumble at that word "adoption." People adopt children when they have none of their own by nature; but as the Lord begets children in His own likeness by the natural process of regeneration, He does not need to adopt them. Adoption here does not mean taking into the family a child that is not born into the family, but is somebody else's child.
"Adoption" means here attaining "majority." In the Latin language the word "adoption" referred to the declaration of a son's majority. When a young man attained a legal age, his father took him into the forum, and from the bema, or the platform, said to the citizens, "This is my son; he has now come to full age; he inherits my name, my property, my social position." Then he took off the toga praetexta—the boy toga or coat—and put on the toga virilis,—the manly toga, the coat of a man; he invested him in the presence of the citizens, with the sign of full manhood, and said, "This is my son."
Paul seems to refer to this: "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. . . . The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, . . . waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." In your minority you are but children; when you come to your majority, you are full-grown sons.
There is a day of revelation coming, of manifestation, when God shall take you as His child and set you on the forum of the universe, and He shall, before the universe, say, "Bear witness, this is My son; in Christ he is the joint-heir of My name, of My nature, of My dignity, of My possession, of My throne." And then we shall lay aside the body of our humiliation, the toga that we wore when we were minors, and put on the body of our glory, which is the garment we shall wear when we get to our majority; and this new investment of the redeemed son of God in the presence of the universe is ADOPTION.—A. T. Pierson.