The Adoption of the Gentiles

I. Who Are the Gentiles?

Throughout scripture, the word "Gentile" means, in its most literal sense, "a nation" or "those of the nations" — any people not of the house of Israel by lineage. In the Book of Mormon and modern revelation, the term carries a specific prophetic weight: the Gentiles are the peoples of Europe and the nations they fathered, through whom the gospel, the Bible, and the Restoration itself were carried in the last days.

Yet being Gentile by lineage is not, in scripture, a permanent state. The Lord's promise from the beginning was that in Abraham's seed all nations of the earth would be blessed — and the mechanism of that blessing is adoption. The Gentile who hearkens unto Christ is no longer called a Gentile in the covenant sense; he is "numbered among the house of Israel."

II. The Olive Tree — The Governing Allegory

Two scriptural witnesses use the same image: the tame olive tree whose natural branches have been broken off, and wild branches grafted in. Paul in Romans 11 teaches this to the Gentile Christians at Rome; Zenos/Jacob in Jacob 5 teaches it on the plates of Nephi. Both are describing the same covenant mechanism.

III. The Two Tracks: Seed by Lineage and Seed by Adoption

Paul is emphatic that "they are not all Israel, which are of Israel" (Romans 9:6). Lineage alone does not save; covenant with the God of Abraham does. Likewise, Abraham's seed is not limited to those born of his body. The book of Abraham reveals the doctrine plainly:

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.”

There are therefore two tracks into the covenant: by literal lineage (the seed of the body) and by adoption through the ordinances (the seed of the Priesthood). Both are equally legitimate. One is not a lesser form of the other.

IV. The Times of the Gentiles

The "times of the Gentiles" is Christ's own phrase (Luke 21:24) — the period in which the gospel leaves the Jew and is carried by the Gentile nations until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. The Restoration of the gospel in the last days came through a Gentile nation precisely because it fell within this period.

V. The Mechanism of Adoption

Adoption is not a metaphor in scripture — it is an ordinance. The Gentile becomes Israel through the same covenant path that an Israelite takes: faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the temple ordinances by which one is sealed into the family of Abraham.

• Faith in the Lamb of God — the entry condition (1 Nephi 14:1).
• Repentance — turning from the doctrines and traditions of the Gentile nations.
• Baptism — the covenant ordinance that places the soul into the body of Christ (Galatians 3:27–29).
• The Holy Ghost — the confirming gift that witnesses adoption and sanctifies the adopted.
• Temple sealing — the ordinance that binds the adopted into the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“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.”

VI. Responsibilities of the Adopted

The Gentile who is grafted into the covenant receives the blessings of Abraham — but he also inherits the covenantal duties of Abraham. He is bound to bless all the families of the earth, to carry the gospel to his own kindred and to the remnant of Jacob. Adoption is not a destination; it is a commissioning.