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ADOPTION
28
`Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if
children, then heirs' (Rom. 8:15-17).
It is not so much the Holy Spirit addressing Himself here to the human spirit in confirmation, but rather the joint
witness of the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the believer to the same blessed fact.
Closely associated with the law of adoption was that of the Roman will. The Praetorian will was put into
writing, and fastened with the seals of seven witnesses (cf. Rev. 5 and 6). There is probably a reference to this type
of will in Ephesians:
`In Whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory' (Eph. 1:13,14).
W. E. Ball translates the latter part of the passage: `Until the ransoming accomplished by the act of taking
possession (of the inheritance)':
`When a slave was appointed heir, although expressly emancipated by the will which gave him the inheritance,
his freedom commenced not upon the making of the will, nor even immediately upon the death of the testator,
but from the moment when he took certain legal steps, which were described as "entering upon the inheritance".
This is "the ransoming accomplished by act of taking possession". In the last words of the passage - "to the
praise of His glory", there is an allusion to a well-known Roman custom. The emancipated slaves who attended
the funeral of their emancipator were the praise of his glory. Testamentary emancipation was so fashionable a
form of posthumous ostentation, the desire to be followed to the grave by a crowd of freedmen wearing the "cap
of liberty" was so strong, that very shortly before the time when St. Paul wrote, the legislature had expressly
limited the number of slaves that an owner might manumit by will'.
No modern writer has greater first hand knowledge of this term than Sir William Ramsay, and in order to
acquaint ourselves with its usage in Galatia, we will first of all quote from Sir William's A Historical Commentary
on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.
`The idea that they who follow the principle of faith are sons of Abraham, whatever family they belong to by
nature, would certainly be understood by the Galatians as referring to the legal process called adoption,
huiothesia.
`Adoption was a kind of embryo will; the adopted son became the owner of the property, and the property could
pass to a person that was naturally outside the family only through his being adopted. The adoption was a sort of
will-making; and this ancient form of will was irrevocable and public. The terms "son" and "heir" are
interchangeable.
`An illustration from the ordinary fact of society, as it existed in the Galatian cities, is here stated: "I speak after
the manner of men". The will (diatheke) of a human being is irrevocable when once duly executed. But, if Paul
is speaking about a will, how can he say, after it is once made, it is irrevocable?'
`Such irrevocability was a characteristic feature of Greek law, according to which an heir outside the family
must be adopted into the family; and the adoption was the will-making. The testator, after adopting his heir,
could not subsequently take away from him his share of the inheritance or impose new conditions on his
succession. The Roman-Syrian Law Book will illustrate this passage of the Epistle. It actually lays down the
principle that a man can never put away an adopted son, and that he cannot put away a real son without good
ground. It is remarkable that the adopted son should have a stronger position than the son by birth; yet it is so.
The expression in Galatians 3, verse 15, "When it hath been confirmed" must also be observed. Every will had to
be passed through the Record Office of the city. It was not regarded in the Greek law as a purely private
document. It must be deposited in the Record Office'.
Here it will be seen that one may be `adopted', or made the heir, without being at the same time a true child, but
in the case of the Scriptural usage of adoption there is no idea that the believer is only an `adopted' child for the
testimony of the Word is explicit on the point, making it clear that adoption is something added:
`The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God' (Rom. 8:16).