Adoptionism

The Story

Sometime around 190 AD, a leather-worker from Byzantium named Theodotus arrived in Rome with an unusual theology. Jesus of Nazareth, Theodotus taught, was a righteous man — perhaps the most righteous man who had ever lived — upon whom the Holy Spirit descended at his baptism in the Jordan. At that moment, God adopted Jesus as his Son. Jesus was not eternally divine. He was not born as God incarnate. He was a human being whom God elevated, empowered, and claimed as his own. This was not a demotion of Jesus in Theodotus’s eyes — it was a celebration of what God could do through a faithful human life.

Pope Victor I excommunicated Theodotus around 198 AD, but the idea did not die with him. A generation later, Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch from approximately 260 to 272, taught a more sophisticated version — or at least, his opponents said he did. What Paul actually believed is difficult to reconstruct because none of his own writings survive; we have only the hostile accounts of those who deposed him. According to his accusers, Paul held that the Logos (divine Word) was not a distinct person but an attribute of God the Father — like wisdom is an attribute of a wise person — and that this Logos “dwelt in” Jesus in a unique way, while Jesus remained fundamentally human. A synod at Antioch in 268 deposed Paul, though it took military intervention by Emperor Aurelian to actually remove him from the bishop’s residence. Paul’s condemnation became a reference point: the Council of Nicaea (325) treated adoptionist Christology as already settled, and the creed’s insistence that the Son was “begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father” was partly aimed at closing the door adoptionism had tried to open.

The idea resurfaced dramatically in eighth-century Spain. Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo, and Felix, bishop of Urgell, taught that Christ “according to the flesh” was the adopted Son of God, while “according to the divinity” he was the natural Son. This Spanish adoptionism was condemned at the Council of Frankfurt in 794, with Charlemagne himself presiding and Alcuin of York writing the theological refutation. Felix was brought to Aachen, recanted, and spent the rest of his life under ecclesiastical supervision. Yet the basic adoptionist instinct — that Jesus earned or was granted his divine status rather than possessing it eternally — has proven remarkably persistent.

What the Council Actually Said

The Council of Nicaea (325) defined the Son as:

“Begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance (homoousios) with the Father.”

The Council of Frankfurt (794) condemned the Spanish adoptionists specifically:

“The heresy of Felix and Elipandus, who assert that Christ according to the flesh is the adopted Son of God, is to be utterly rejected and anathematized.”

The earlier Synod of Antioch (268) against Paul of Samosata declared that those who say the Son of God was a mere man are to be excommunicated.

It is worth noting that the fully developed doctrine these councils defended — “one essence (homoousios) in three coequal persons” — was itself a post-biblical development, worked out over the second to fourth centuries and fixed at Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381). The New Testament never states it in those terms. The councils understood themselves to be drawing out the implication of the texts; adoptionists and others contested that the implication was there at all.

Why You Might Accidentally Believe This

Adoptionism may be the most natural Christology for modern Western people. The idea that Jesus was a great human being whom God chose, empowered, and exalted maps neatly onto democratic values, meritocratic assumptions, and the Enlightenment’s discomfort with metaphysical claims. It is the default Christology of many liberal Protestant traditions, even when they would not use the word “adoptionism.” Whenever someone says Jesus was “the most God-conscious person who ever lived” or that he “perfectly embodied God’s will,” they are articulating a version of adoptionism with updated vocabulary.

It is also the instinctive reading of many who come to the Gospels fresh. Mark’s Gospel, the earliest we have, begins not with a birth narrative or a pre-existence hymn but with Jesus’s baptism — the moment when the Spirit descends and a voice from heaven says “You are my beloved Son.” Read without the lens of later creedal development, it sounds exactly like an adoption scene.

The Strongest Case For This View

Adoptionism takes the humanity of Jesus with complete seriousness and avoids the philosophical puzzles of incarnation. How can an infinite being become finite? How can an eternal being enter time? How can a being who is by definition impassible suffer? Adoptionism sidesteps all of these by simply saying: Jesus was human, and God worked through him in an extraordinary way. This also preserves strict monotheism — there is one God, the Father, and no second divine being confuses the picture.

The earliest christological formulas in the New Testament arguably support it. Romans 1:3-4, widely regarded as a pre-Pauline creed, says Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” The word “declared” (horisthentos) can also be translated “appointed” — suggesting that sonship was conferred at the resurrection. Acts 2:36 has Peter saying, “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Made him. The language is adoptionist on its face.

The Strongest Case Against

The councils condemned adoptionism because, in the Trinitarian reading, it severs the link between God and humanity that makes salvation possible. The Trinitarian argument runs: if Jesus is merely a human being whom God elevated, then the incarnation did not happen — God did not actually enter human nature. And if God did not enter human nature, then the patristic logic of salvation collapses: it is God’s union with humanity, not merely God’s approval of a human, that heals the breach between Creator and creation. On this account an adopted Christ can be an inspiring example, but he cannot be what Athanasius called the bridge between God and the world. (The adoptionist and Biblical Unitarian counter: God the Father saves through the faithfulness of his exalted Son — the bridge is God’s action, not the Son’s metaphysical nature. See Acts 4:12 within the framework of “God raised him,” and 1 Timothy 2:5: “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” with Hebrews 10:12 picturing the priestly work of that man.)

There is also a textual problem for the simplest form of adoptionism. The New Testament contains passages that adoptionism, taken straightforwardly, struggles to accommodate: John 1:1-3 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”), the Philippians 2:6-7 hymn (Christ “was in the form of God” before emptying himself), and Colossians 1:15-17 (all things created “through him and for him”). Trinitarians read these as describing a figure who exists before his human life and whose identity is not constituted by a moment of adoption — and the strength of the anti-adoptionist case rests heavily on this reading. Biblical Unitarians read the same passages differently, as the language of God’s eternal Word, wisdom, and plan, or of the new creation begun in the risen Messiah, rather than a second divine person who pre-existed. Either way, any position that takes these texts seriously must give an account of them, and the bare “Jesus became Son only at his baptism” of early adoptionism is the position they press hardest against.

What the New Testament Actually Says

The honest answer is that the New Testament contains both adoptionist-sounding and pre-existence-sounding strands, and scholars have debated their relationship for over a century. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) show relatively little interest in pre-existence. Mark’s baptism scene, Luke’s “today I have begotten you” (Acts 13:33, quoting Psalm 2), and the general pattern of Jesus becoming something through his death and resurrection are read by many as tilting adoptionist.

John, Paul, and Hebrews are read by Trinitarians as tilting the other direction. John 1:1-18, John 8:58 (“Before Abraham was, I am”), John 17:5 (“the glory I had with you before the world existed”), Philippians 2:5-11, and Hebrews 1:2-3 (the Son as the “radiance of the glory of God” through whom the world was made) are taken by Trinitarians to describe a being who exists prior to and independent of his human life. Biblical Unitarians read the very same passages as the exaltation and unique status of a genuinely human Messiah — the one whom God foreknew, raised, and appointed Lord over all creation, to be honoured as the Father is honoured (John 5:23, Philippians 2:9-11) — and read the “pre-existence” language as God’s eternal purpose rather than a literally pre-existing second divine person. The texts themselves underdetermine which reading is correct, which is why the debate has lasted.

The tension between these strands is not a problem to be solved by the reader’s preference but a feature of the canonical witness as different communities have received it. The councils resolved it in favour of pre-existence and eternal Sonship. Whether that resolution faithfully synthesises the texts or privileges one strand over another remains a live question in New Testament scholarship.

It is also worth noting that the binary of adoptionism versus Nicene pre-existence is not exhaustive. Biblical unitarians hold a position that is neither: the Father alone is God; the Son is God’s Messiah, begotten by God’s power, foreknown before creation, and exalted to God’s right hand — but not a pre-existing divine person who descended from heaven. This position takes the “low” Christology texts of Acts and Romans at face value while reading the “high” texts of John and Colossians as language about God’s eternal plan and purpose rather than a literal second divine being. It was arguably closer to what Paul of Samosata actually held, though reconstructing his views from the accounts of his enemies requires considerable caution.

Further Reading

• What Is Arianism, Simply Explained? — Arianism and adoptionism overlap significantly in their denial of eternal Sonship
• Nestorianism — A related tendency to separate the divine and human in Christ
• What Did Early Christians Actually Believe? — The diversity of pre-Nicene Christologies