What the Bible means by 'adoption' (it isn't what you think)
Dillon McCurdy · September 9, 2026 · 6 min read
Through Romans, part 13 · Romans 8:23; Ephesians 1:3–14
"Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits — we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:23)
Read that slowly and something should stand out. Paul is writing to believers — people who have the Spirit — and he says they are waiting for adoption. Ephesians 1:5 says God "predestined us to be adopted." Predestined to something still ahead. And Ephesians 1:13–14 says the Spirit is "the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession." Something has been paid; something is still coming.
We are born, not adopted
When we hear "adoption," we picture a family legally taking in a child who wasn't born to them. That's a beautiful thing — but it isn't the picture Paul is using, and it isn't how we entered God's family. We are spiritually born into the family of God. Jesus told Nicodemus, "Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" — born from above, born of the Spirit (John 3:3–8). A believer is a natural-born child of God, brought to life by His Spirit. That's why the New Testament talks about God's "seed" in us (1 John 3:9) and calls us "sons of God" (John 1:12–13). Nobody adopts a child they gave birth to.
The old song has it right: "Born of the Spirit with life from above, into God's family divine; justified fully through Calvary's love — O what a standing is mine."
So what is adoption?
To a Greek or Roman reader in the first century, the word Paul uses — huiothesia, literally "placing as a son" — would have brought to mind a specific ceremony: the toga virilis. At around fourteen, a boy went through a coming-of-age rite with the adult men of his family. Speeches were made, offerings were given, and the boy stood in the center, took off the garment of a child, and was clothed in the toga of a man. From that moment he had adult privileges and responsibilities — he could do business in his own name, own property, marry, vote. He wasn't yet mature enough to use all of it well, but the seriousness of his new standing was impressed on him, and he was expected to grow into it.
That's adoption in the Bible: not being brought into the family, but a son already in the family being placed into full standing and full inheritance.
When is it?
Romans 8:23 tells us: adoption is "the redemption of our bodies." Our adoption is our glorification — the day we receive glorified bodies and are fully conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:14 says the same thing from the other side: the Spirit is the earnest money "until the redemption of the possession."
But we've already received the first installment. When we were saved, God gave us the Holy Spirit, and the Bible calls Him the down payment and the firstfruits of what's coming. It's the beginning, not the whole. The harvest is still ahead.
Three things to hold onto
First, we have an eternal inheritance in heaven, and we hope for it — which in the Bible means we have an absolute expectation of it. Second, we were born into the family of God the moment we were saved, and the adoption — the full placing as sons, the glorified body — takes place at glorification. Third, this passage is about sanctification and glorification, not justification. We aren't waiting to find out whether we're God's children. We're His children now, groaning a little in bodies that still get sick and still sin, waiting for the day He clothes us in the robe of a grown son.
Everything in this post belongs to sons. The down payment, the inheritance, the robe, the day He clothes you — that's all family language, and you have to be in the family for any of it to mean a thing. Being raised near the door isn't the same as walking through it, right? You get in one way. Jesus died for your sin, He rose on the third day, and He receives everybody who comes to Him trusting Him alone. Come today, and the Spirit becomes your earnest money tonight. The rest is just a matter of time.
If you're already His, you're groaning in a body that still gets sick and still sins, and you're waiting on the harvest. So live like somebody who's waiting on something. Here's the one thing for this week: take the situation that isn't getting better — the diagnosis, the aging parent, the body that won't cooperate — and instead of only asking God to make it stop, thank Him out loud for the day He redeems it. Once a day. Same time. It won't change the situation. It'll change how you carry it.