The term adoption here invites exploration of the concept. Paul’s emphasis might be more on the status of being God’s child than on how this occurs, but clearly Paul’s term applies to adoption. We should also remember that the chief point of the adoption analogy is an alien person entering a new family as an heir; Paul used similarities with adoption in his analogy, but it is precarious to press every detail in any analogy.
Scholars debate whether Greek or Roman adoption practice is more relevant to the passage. Because Galatia was in the eastern part of the empire, most Galatians would have been more aware of Greek practice (and perhaps local traditions now lost to us). But citizens of Pisidian Antioch and Lystra, two of the three or four named cities where south Galtian churches flourished, may have also been familiar with Roman practice; they were, after all, Roman colonies. Moreover, most knowledgeable urban dwellers in the empire could not help but be somewhat familiar with Roman adoption, because not a single emperor in the contemporary Julio-Claudian dynasty had been the genetic son of his predecessor.
Roman adoption was meant to pass on the family name and property. Roman adoption mostly ended a person’s connections with the prior family, canceled all former debts, transferred all the adoptee’s assets to the adopter, and made the adoptee his heir. (A person who wished to remain part of the birth family could refuse to be adopted.) An adoptee was legally of the same status as a child by birth, apart from some exceptional circumstances or matters. It was not uncommon to adopt relatives; one could also adopt someone who was already named one’s heir. Whereas birth was simply by chance, adoption allowed for the selection of the best heir.
Roman adoption emulated slave emancipation, an image certainly relevant in this context (Gal. 4:1, 3, 5). A Roman father was head of his household, with significant legal authority over sons as well as slaves. He could free his children from his authority in a manner analogous to the freeing of his slaves. In the adoption ceremony the original father would fictively “sell” the adoptee three times, thereby legally freeing the son from his household; on the third selling, the adopter could fictively “redeem” the adoptee, making him his own son. This applied, however, to a fictive bondage only. By the time of the late Roman Republic, an adopted freedperson owed continuing obligations to the former slaveholder, an element not envisioned in Paul’s use of the image.
This content is by Craig Keener, but is edited and posted by Defenders Media.
For more on the book of Galatians, please check out Galatians: A Commentary.
