Baptist Catechism of 1693 · Question 37

What is adoption?

Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.

1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Romans 8:14-17 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Source: The Baptist Catechism (Keach’s Catechism)
Translation: Original English, spelling lightly modernized; Scripture proofs: King James Version
Published: 1693; text of the 1695 fifth edition
Original URL: baptistcatechism.org/
Copyright: Public domain.
License: Public domain
Attribution: Public domain: published before 1931. Text taken from baptistcatechism.org, which uses the oldest known copy (the 1695 fifth edition). The other online text I found (reformedreader.org) is the Spurgeon-era version, a different wording, so it could not be used to check this one. Not yet proofread against a scanned original. Scripture proof texts are the King James Version, from the public-domain Project Gutenberg edition, added with tools/add_kjv.py. A few references could not be matched to verses (whole-chapter references such as ‘Genesis 1 throughout’, and typing slips in the source) and are shown without text.

Please visit the original source for the full work.

Cite as The Baptist Catechism (Keach’s Catechism). 1693; text of the 1695 fifth edition. https://baptistcatechism.org/