Slaves to Sons
Galatians 3:23-4:7
What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father… If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
~ J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Main Idea: Though once slaves, we have been adopted by the Father, redeemed in the Son, and filled with the Spirit.
I. A New Identity (3:23-28)
The jurisdiction and administration of the law as a “guardian” has ended at the coming of Christ. Now, God’s people experience union and incorporation into Christ, receiving “sonship” through faith. Paul identifies three massive barriers that exist between humanity (racial, social, and gender) that are now subordinate to being “one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). These social and biological distinctions are not eliminated or irrelevant, but they are put in their proper place.
Many take offense at using the masculine word ‘sons’ to refer to all Christians, male and female. Some would prefer to translate v. 26 ‘you are all children of God.’ But if we are too quick to correct the biblical language, we miss the revolutionary nature of what Paul is saying. In most ancient cultures, daughters could not inherit property. Therefore, ‘son’ meant “legal heir,” which was a status forbidden to women. But the gospel tells us that we are all sons of God in Christ. We are all heirs. Similarly, the Bible describes all Christians together, including men, as the ‘bride of Christ’ (Rev. 21:2) … Men are part of his Son’s bride; and women are His sons, His heirs. If we don’t let Paul call Christian women ‘sons of God,’ we miss how radical and how wonderful a claim this is.
~ Tim Keller, Galatians For You
Our union with Christ is pictured and signified through being plunged into Christ in baptism (cf. Rom. 6:3-6, Col. 2:12) and being “clothed” in Christ (cf. Eph. 4:24, Col. 3:10).
II. A New Inheritance (3:29-4:5)
All who are in Christ are “heirs’ according to the promise given to Abraham. Issues of inheritance deal with past, present, and future realities.
A. Our Past (3:29-4:3)
B. Our Present (4:4-5)
Despite our desperation situation, God, in his divine sovereignty, was always working out his plan for our redemption: at the “fullness of time” (cf. Mk. 1:15, Eph. 1:10), he “sent forth his Son” to “redeem” us from our enslavement “under the law” so that we might receive “adoption as sons.” He did this by taking the “curse of the law” upon himself (3:13) so he could liberate us from bondage.
Adoption, by its very nature, is an art of free kindness to the person adopted… God adopts us out of free love, not because our character and record show us worthy to bear his name, but despite the fact that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God’s family; the idea of his loving and exalting us sinners as he loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus sounds ludicrous and wild – yet that, and nothing less than that – is what our adoption means.
~ J.I. Packer, Knowing God
C. Our Future (3:29)
As all the promises of God find their “yes and amen” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20), these promises are now rightfully also ours through our union with Christ (Rom. 8:16-17, Eph. 1:3). All that belongs to Christ also belongs to us who are in Christ.
III. A New Intimacy (4:6-7)
God has not only “sent forth his Son” to secure the position of our adoption, but he has also “sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (4:6) in order that we might experience the privileges of adoption.
John 14:16, 18: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever… I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
The Spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us: not just heard, but seen; not just seen, but felt; not just felt, but enjoyed. The Spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about Jesus’ heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience. It is one thing, as a child, to be told your father loves you. You believe him. You take him at his word. But it is another thing, unutterably more real, to be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms. It’s one thing to hear he loves you; it’s another thing to feel his love. That is the glorious work of the Spirit.
~ Dane Ortlund, Gentle & Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
Rather than being held captive by the law, the indwelling Holy Spirit has given us intimate access to the Father. No Jewish person dared address God as ‘Abba’ until the coming of Christ (Mk. 14:36), and we now have this same access to cry out in our desperation to our Heavenly Father (cf. Rom. 8:15).
