Adoption, Galatians 4:5, is an act by which one is received into a man's family as his own child, and becomes entitled to the peculiar privileges of that connection, as rally and completely as a child by birth. Exodus 2:10 and Esther 2:7. In the figurative use of the term by the sacred writers it implies that relation which we sustain to God, when, by his grace, we are converted from sin to holiness. The spirit of adoption is received, and we are made the children (or sons) and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.