Adoptionism
Outside historic orthodoxy
The teaching that Jesus was an ordinary man whom God adopted as his Son, usually at his baptism or resurrection, rather than the eternal Son who became man.
Also called: adoptionist, dynamic monarchianism
What it means
Adoptionism teaches that Jesus began as a man like any other, unusually righteous, and that God adopted him as his Son, filling him with divine power. Most forms place this adoption at his baptism, when the Spirit descended on him; others place it at his resurrection. Jesus became divine, or became God's Son, rather than being God's eternal Son.
The idea appeared in the second and third centuries, in groups that wanted to protect the oneness of God and could not accept that a man could be God. It has returned in various forms, including modern teaching that treats Jesus as a man uniquely open to God, a model of what any of us could become.
The church rejected adoptionism because Scripture teaches that the Son existed with the Father before creation, that he "came down from heaven," and that the one born of Mary was already God's Son. The baptism and resurrection declared and displayed who he was; they did not make him so.
What Scripture says
The Word was with God in the beginning and was God.
Jesus speaks of the glory he had with the Father before the world existed.
The angel tells Mary that the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Jesus says he has come down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent him.
Jesus was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection, already being God's Son.
What is wrong with it
Scripture says the Son existed before he was born, shared the Father's glory before the world began, and came down from heaven. At his conception, not his baptism, he is called holy and the Son of God. The voice at his baptism announced the Father's delight in the Son he already was.
How it undermines the truth
It undermines the deity of Christ and the incarnation itself. If Jesus became God's Son by adoption, then God did not come to us in the flesh; a man rose toward God instead. That reverses the gospel, in which God's love is shown by sending his own Son. It also undermines the Trinity, since an adopted Son was not eternally with the Father.
How it can harm a church
Adoptionist teaching tends to turn Jesus into an example of human potential rather than the Savior of helpless sinners. Members are encouraged to imitate his openness to God and to hope they might be raised up as he was, rather than to trust him as the eternal Son who came to save them.
This page describes a teaching, not the faith of any person who holds it.
Where it comes up
Confessions: Nicene Creed; Chalcedonian Definition; WCF 8.2; LBCF 1689 8.2
Related terms
Christological heresiesOutside historic orthodoxy
Teachings about Christ that deny his full deity, his full humanity, or the union of the two in one person.
Hypostatic unionHistoric orthodoxy
In Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God took a full human nature, so that he is one person who is truly God and truly man.
ArianismOutside historic orthodoxy
The ancient teaching that the Son of God is the first and greatest created being, not eternal and not fully God.
Non-TrinitarianismOutside historic orthodoxy
Any teaching that denies the one God exists eternally as three persons, usually by denying that the Son or the Spirit is fully God.