What is the adoption that believers are waiting for?
The adoption believers await is the redemption of the body—the full deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It includes the redemption of soul, body, and spirit, bringing all three into the eternal state. Creation itself groans and travails until this completion.
Les explains that the whole creation was subjected to the curse, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected it in hope. When God dropped the curse on the planet and the human race, He immediately made a plan of redemption to bring back to Himself everything He had lost. The creature itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Until then, the whole creation groans and travails in pain together. Not only creation, but believers also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption—that is, the redemption of soul, body, and spirit, according to II Thessalonians 5. All three will be in the eternal state.