A friend recently asked me if Hebrews 1.1-4 is "adoptionist". Adoptionism is an early Christian heresy which states that Jesus was not fully God and fully human during his entire Earthly life. Rather God "adopted" Jesus as the Son of God at his Baptism, when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus and filled him with Divinity. Jesus was then "un-adopted" on the Cross, when he died and gave that Divine Spirit back to the Father. This idea raises serious questions for Incarnational and Trinitarian theology. For instance, God does not become fully and truly human from the womb to the tomb in the Adoptionist scheme.
Rather, God kind of "joy rides" Jesus of Nazareth for the "good" parts of his life, treating him like a Divine puppet, and then abandoning him at the time of greatest need on the cross. If this is the case, then not all of human life is redeemed and integrated into the life of God, just the "adult part" of life, until life gets hard as we near death. That is not full salvation for humans. And for God, it is not full empathy nor full solidarity with the human situation. For the Incarnation to be real and meaningful, it must include the entire human life, from the womb to the tomb and beyond. Thus, for these and many other reasons, the Church has rightfully rejected Adoptionism.
