From Orphan to Heir

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The idea of an orphan being adopted is a storyline we love — even in the most unusual of places:

Tarzan and Mowgli
Daddy Warbucks take on Annie
Pappa Elf takes on Buddy
Harry Potter — Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia — was truly adopted by Hogwarts
Luke Skywalker — Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru
Frodo — Bilbo
Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy — the Professor… Aslan… called sons of Adam and daughters of Eve
Dorothy Gale — Aunt Em and Uncle Henry… “There is no place like home”

It’s a story line we love because we all strongly sense our lostness… our homlessness in this world. Even with bio parents who love and care for us, our souls long for a deeper sonship… we wonder who will take us on and take us in?

records the tender and tough moment when God removes Adam and Eve from the Garden...
Genesis 3:21–24 NIV
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:21–23 NIV
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
While DISOWNING doesn’t seem or feel like what is happening here… something significant has unfolded as humanity is ushered to the door of “home” as the Father says, “You can’t be here or come back here any more.”
And then places a heavenly soldier with a flaming sword at the front/back/side door…
While DISOWNING doesn’t seem or feel like what is happening here… something significant has unfolded as humanity is ushered to the door of “home” as the Father says, “You can’t be here or come back here any more

“We aren’t in Kansas anymore.”

What we learn as the story unfolds...

The treason of disbelief and disobedience… sin… and the Lord’s commitment to bring all of his creation back into a full relationship with the Lord.
God sends the Lord’s “only begotten” son for the purpose of being able to fully adopt all of us as sons and daughters of God.

Five uses of the key Greek word for adoption — all used by Paul.

Three are found in Romans (8.15, 8.23, 9.4) — lets look at them.
Romans 8:14–25 NIV
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:14-
Romans 9:1–5 NIV
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
Ephesians 1:3–10 NIV
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Galatians 4:1–7 NIV
1 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Gal 4:

A few key observations here:

Paul uses this term “adopted as sons/daughters only in letters to communities under Roman rule.
Paul himself was a Roman citizen and would have been familiar with Rome’s laws and customs.

So, it is reasonable to assume that when Paul uses the term adoption as a Roman citizen to communities/churches under Roman rule, there is some sort of parallel Paul is drawing. So… what is known about how Rome understood and practiced adoption?

As the head of the household the paterfamilias was the one primarily responsible for maintaining peace and concord within his own family. In all matters the paterfamilias’s authority (potestas) was absolute; indeed, the authority of the household head institutionalized in the potestas and exercised by the paterfamilias was so binding in the domus that it was not until he had died that married children were free to form a household of their own. Stephen Joubert (1995: 215) states in regard to the father’s influence in the family, ‘The paterfamilias’ lifelong power over his slaves, adopted children and biological children formed the backbone of Roman society; it was a palladium of Romanism.’ The hierarchical structure of the familia, however, does not mean that ancient fathers were incapable of demonstrating affection towards their offspring.

Generally speaking, the Roman familia comprised a husband, wife and their dependents (natural children, slaves [freedmen, freedwomen]) and their offspring. Thus the Roman familia was much bigger and wider than our twenty-first-century Western understanding of the term ‘family’ (the nuclear family). Additionally, the familia embraced those who were sons by reason of having been adopted. As we have observed, the family was of fundamental importance to Roman society, so much so that when it was under threat of extinction, adoption was a lifeline for a ‘family in danger of dying out’ (Crook 1967: 135). This was usually due to the paterfamilias’s inability to have offspring of his own or because his own children had failed to live to adulthood; and so that he might have an heir, recourse was made to adopting a son from another family.

Adoption was a well-known practice in the ancient world and was not only of great importance in Roman law and society but was also a ‘treasured status’ (Finger 1993: 48). This is because adoption was not only a safeguard against the demise of a family but also provided new opportunities for the adoptee that would otherwise not have existed. Unlike twenty-first-century Western society, where children are the subjects of adoption, in ancient Roman society the subjects of adoption were already adults, by which time, according to Beryl Rawson, ‘the chances of survival were greater and the adopting father could see what he was getting as a son and heir’ (1986: 12; Williams 1999: 82 n. 130).

In the Roman world, adoption was primarily for grown men to fully enter and be adopted by another Roman family to preserve that family which included the blessing that all of the family’s rights, privileges, and resources were theirs forever… they became FULL Heirs.

As we read Paul’s writings on adoption, we see him continually appealing to this Roman reality… that when adoption happens into God’s family, God entrusts the adopted with the full inheritance of being an heir.

Annie gets the mansion
Buddy gets the book deal
Harry Potter rules Hogwarts
Luke Skywalker restores balance
Frodo gets Bag End
Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy get Narnia
Dorothy gets the farm house
Revelation 21:1–7 NIV
1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
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