The Spirit Of AdoptionSample

Let me tell you how adoption worked in the time-period in which Paul wrote about it to the Church at Ephesus. A Roman adoption was a very formal event. It was difficult because in the Roman law there was this rule called patria potestas, the father's power. That's Latin. And the father's power meant that he had absolute power over the family.

He had absolute right to dispose of his children in the early stages of the Roman Empire, kill his children if he wanted, absolute control over them. In regard to a Roman son, he never came of age in the sense that he ever had any independence from his father's power. No matter how old he was, no matter if he was married, he was always under the absolute power of his father. If you were a son or a daughter, you were under absolute possession, absolute control by your father. 

This made adoption very difficult because if you found a son that you wanted, because you could use him in your business, in your estate, in your family, for the well-being of your family's future, how are you going to get the other father to let him go? If he's a noble enough son for you to want him so much, how is that going to happen? Well, some negotiations were involved in that. He had to formally pass out of the patria potestas of the man to whom he was born and pass into the patria potestas of the adoptive father. 

Two very interesting steps had to be followed. Step number one was called mancipatio, from which we get the English word “emancipation”. Mancipatio was carried out by a symbolic sale. A symbolic sale, actually, in which scales and pieces of copper were used, and three times a little ceremony went on. Three times there was a symbolic sale.

Here the boy, and the money were placed on the scale. First time, the father would then take him back and say, “No, no.” And then he would do it again, and the money would be put on the scale, and he would take him back again.  And this was to demonstrate reluctance and to communicate that he wasn't just throwing this child away—this son away. Third time, however, he didn't take him back, and he was emancipated from the patria potestas of his birth or biological father. 

Then there followed a ceremony called vindicatio. The adopting father would go to the praetor, who would be the Roman official or magistrate, present a legal case for the transference of the son from one family to the next. When it was all complete, adoption was complete. Very formal.

Remember: YOUR ADOPTION INTO THE FAMILY OF GOD IS A LEGALLY BINDING COMMITMENT ON THE PART OF GOD TO BE YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER!