THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
of God, because this love is superhuman, divine, and because faith conquers for itself the power of divine omnipotence. This life of adoption, according to its whole character, can only originate by a birth from above which, according to Luther, takes place since adoption, as vouchsafed by Christ, produces faith and with it new life. Luther also traces back the new life to a problematic effect of the Spirit, like the working of the impersonal powers of nature, which God according to his predestination adds to the word of Christ in the inner life.
During the period of orthodoxy in Germany
trust in God on the part of his children was regarded
as natural religion. Pietism subor-
9. Later dinated adoption to regeneration.
German In theology as influenced by Hegel,
Theology, childlike union with God after the
example of mysticism was traced
back to an inner self-manifestation of the absolute
spirit. It was Ritschl who renewed the specific
ideas of Luther. J. Gottschick.
At the present time two ideas of adoption are advocated: (1) Resting back on Calvin, it is held that the primary relation of God to man was that of Creator and Governor. Man is son of God, not by virtue of anything in his conic Two stitution as a creature of God, nor Views Held on account of a natural relation to at Present, him as subject of the divine government, but solely by reason of gracious adoption. The only essential sonship is that of Christ primarily as the eternal Son, and secondarily as his humanity shares this prerogative through union with the divine nature. Through adoption the elect in Christ become partakers of Christ's sonship. Adoption is grounded neither in justification nor in regeneration, but in God's free and sovereign grace alone. Through justification the legal and judicial disabilities caused by sin are removed; through regeneration the nature is changed so as to become filial. Thus a basis is laid for the distinction between the state of adoption and the spirit of adoption (R. S. Candlish, The Fatherhood of God, London, 1870; J. Macpherson, Christian Dogmatics, Edinburgh, 1898). (2) According to the other view, man's filial relation to God is archetypal and inalienable. Adoption, in order to be real, necessarily involves the essential and universal Fatherhood of God and the natural and inherent sonship of man to God. By becoming partaker of the spirit of Christ, who, as Son, realized the filial ideal of the race, one passes out of natural into gracious sonship; that is, is adopted into the ethical and spiritual family of God, and so enters upon his ideal filial relation to God and his brotherly relation to men (A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, New York, 1893; J. S. Lidgett, The Fatherhood of God, pp. 20-21, Edinburgh, 1902; James Orr, Progress of Dogma, pp. 325-327, New York, 1902). C. A. B.
Bibliography: J. Gerhard, Loci Theologici, iv. 311, 374, vii. 219-222, ix. 296-297, Berlin, 1866-75; R. L. Dabney, Syllabus of . Systematic and Polemic Theology, pp. 627 eqq., St. Louis, 1878; B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New Testament, §§17, 20-21, 45, 71, 83, 100, 118, 150, Edinburgh, 1882-83; W Bousset, Jesu Predigt in ihrem
Gegensatz zum Judentum, pp. 41-42, Gottingen, 1 892; H. Shultz, Old Testament Theology, ii. 254 sqq., Edinburgh, 1892; R. A. Lipsius, Lehrbuch der evangelisch-proteatantischen Dogmatik, pp. 126-129, 584-596, 653-703, Brunswick, 1893; J. MeL. Campbell, Nature of the Atonement, pp. 298 sqq., London, 1895; A. Titius, Die neutestamentliche Lehre von der Seligkeit, i. 103-104, ii. 27-28, 138- 139, 266-267, Tubingen, 1895-1900; W. Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, i. 60-70, 241, 310, ii. 418-419, 480, Edinburgh, 1896; E. Hatch, Greek Ideas and Usages, their Influence upon the Christian Church, London, 1897; R. V. Foster, Systematic Theology, p. 679, Nashville, 1898; H. Cremer, Die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, pp. 71-78, 224-233, 247-248, 265-266, 369-370, Gutersloh, 1899; A. Ritschl, Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 75, 96, 507, 534, 603, New York, 1900.