Originally posted by checkbaiter
Superficial? Then why does the bible say "adopted"?
The less common English rendering of
huiothesia is
sonship.
Huio means
son.
thesia means
to place or
to set or
to put .
Huiothesia - means son - place of or "the place of a son". And
"sonship" is less common the rendering than
adoption.
Some well meaning Christian teacher prefer
adoption and even press the benefits of that more judicial aspect of people being brought into God's family. That might help some.
So to press it dogmatically that
adoption is wrong, might be discouraging some Christians who have been helped by that explanation.
However, we hope a day comes when they go on to see that to only speak of the legal aspect of joining God's family is to truncate too much of the real significance of us being SONS of God by BIRTH. And as fully matured sons in life we inherit
"the place of a son".
The book published by InterVarsity entitled
Adopted into God's Family - Exploring a Pauline Metaphor by Trevor Burke is an example of a Christian teacher of late to emphasize the term "adoption" for all he can to help believers.
You may have heard me say in the past - that any interpretation that causes men to have a warmer heart towards the Lord Jesus is at least "safe" even if it is not that good.
Someone may be blessed by exploring "adopted". I thank God that they were blessed and felt secure in God's love by that kind of exposition. But I would one day help such to see that the so-called "metaphor" is actually more real than any law court could enact.
In latter posts I will make a case for the more organic aspect. You see Paul does say that the spirit is life because of righteousness
(Romans 8:10) . Because we have been legally justified by faith in Christ our innermost being is divine zoe life. And that makes us children of God being born of God.
"But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the [human] spirit is life because of righteousness." (Rom 8:10)
So I will write some more on the LIFE relationship which has its legal BASE in our being judicially justified by God.