Jesus, a human being, was chosen by God to be elevated to divine sonship, either at His baptism or after the resurrection.
A belief, universally held within the earliest Christian movement, and still active in the 2nd and 3rd century CE, that Jesus was a normal human being, a prophet, who was born as any other human, and is not a deity. God later gave him supernatural powers at his baptism when God chose Jesus as his " adopted" son. Adoptionism was declared a heresy b a number of early church councils.
Technically, an eighth century doctrine originating with Spanish theologians who taught that the man Jesus was adopted into the Sonship by an act of God. In general, any belief that Jesus was a man who was elevated to divinity at some point in his life.
A second century C.E. Christian heresy which held that Jesus was not the eternal son of God with God from the beginning of time, but was rather "adopted" by God as divine either at birth or at his baptism. Because this belief is about the nature of Christ, it is a Christological heresy (see Christology).
The idea that Jesus was a man who was adopted into the Godhead by the descent of the Holy Spirit at his baptism.
The heretical view that Jesus was "adopted" as the Son of God at some point during his ministry (usually his baptism), as opposed to the orthodox teaching that Jesus was Son of God by nature from the moment of his conception.
Adoptionism or adoptianism is an attempt to explain how Jesus is related God (that is, it was one option that arose in the Trinitarian controversies of the early church). Adoptionism arose among early Christians seeking to reconcile the claims that Jesus was the son of God with the radical monotheism of Judaism. Adoptionism states that Jesus was born fully human, and he became divine at a later point in his life (usually held to be at his baptism), at which point he became the adopted son of God.
