The Book of Galatians #15
Galatians 4:1-11
In verse 26 of chapter 3 Paul makes this declaration that we are “sons of God” through faith in Jesus Christ. That is in contrast to being “tutored” under the law. All of that is about the basis of our relationship. Then in chapter four he turns a corner and begins to talk about our behavior and conduct as the children of God.
It is important to make that distinction or else we fall into the error of teaching a works-based salvation. So the first 11 verses of chapter 4 that’s what we are dealing with: the behavior of a child of God.
Paul follows the same theme by contrasting a son with a servant. Being a servant is to illustrate trying to live by the law and being a son is to illustrate the joy of grace. Really, he's offering people the choice of being a slave to the law of living like a son.
And his conclusion is, “If you're in Christ, why don't you act like it?"
And he really just comes back to the same information. In fact, you begin to wonder "Why do you keep saying this Paul? We got it!" I think it is to underscore the significance of this doctrine. It’s can’t be over-emphasized. So he just keeps driving it home.
So let’s look at what Paul has to say about sonship. He gives five categories.
First of all, let's look at
1. The Preparation for Sonship
verse 1
Paul uses the analogy of human physical growth as his illustration. He is comparing an infant son with a mature son. Now remember, he’s still dealing with the before and after of the Christian and his analogy is that an infant son is like a person under the law, and the mature son is like a person under grace who has been saved by faith.
In the ancient world, people had a very specific point in time when a child ceased to be an infant and became a mature son. For example, in the Jewish world, when a boy had passed his 12thbirthday (and that's still true), on the very first Sabbath after his 12thbirthday, the father would take the son to the synagogue. There he became bar mitzvah, which means 'a son of the law.'
That means up until that time, the father was responsible for his son’s behavior, but now that boy is responsible for himself for obedience to the law of God. In fact, at a bar mitzvah, the father would say “Blessed be Thou, O God, who has taken from me the responsibility of this boy.” And the boy prayed this prayer: O my God, and God of my fathers, on this solemn and sacred day which marks my passage from boyhood to manhood, I humbly raise my eyes unto Thee and declare with sincerity and truth that, henceforth, I will keep Thy commandments and undertake to bear the responsibility of my actions toward Thee.
Customs like that are not exclusive to Judaism. It was true in Greek and Roman cultures as well.
In fact, under Roman law, the family made a big deal out of passing from childhood to adulthood by having a public declaration. At that time, a girl would take all of her dolls and a boy would take all of his toys, and they would offer those childish things as a sacrifice to Apollo. That's where Paul gets his analogy, "When I became a man, I put away childish things." That was Roman custom.
With that in the background, notice verse 1.
Imagine a child who is the heir to a massive estate. The estate has tremendous wealth, and the position has tremendous power, and one day it will be his. In fact, it is already his by promise.
But he's just a child, a little infant. You wouldn't turn it over to him. He may be the legal heir, he may be the master and owner of everything, but Paul says, "He is no better than a servant." He has to take orders. He can't give them as long as he's a child. He is heir by right, but not heir in fact.
Then in verse 2 he talks about how the family would assign certain slaves, certain servants, to take care of the children. In essence they told the children what to do and where to go and how to behave. So as long as he's a child, he's no different than a slave. He takes orders from governors and tutors just like any slave does. In fact, he took orders from slaves, because the governors and tutors would be of the slave category.
Until, and I like this (verse 2b), "the time appointed by the father." Each father had the right to fix the day when the child became a mature son. When that day came, he ceased to be under the power of the tutors and governors, and was mature and inherited what was his. Now, notice how Paul takes that analogy and turns it right around into the spiritual dimension in
verse 3.
In other words, we were servants under the law, in bondage under the elements of the world, until the Father's fixed time when we were freed and became mature sons.
Before Christ came into the world, Jews were under the bondage of the written law. Gentiles also were under the bondage of the law of conscience. So all men were like children. There was a potential inheritance, a coming salvation, an available promise, but they were not yet mature sons to inherit it.
That’s still true today. Every man today that is living without Jesus Christ is living as subject to God's law. He is nothing but a slave to that law. The only thing that will make him a mature son is when he comes, in faith, to Christ. Just as a child is subject to rules and regulations, so, before the light of the Gospel dawned and we became mature sons, we were also in bondage. And that “we” includes all of humanity.
So first of all, man is like an infant, but he has a potential of inheritance. In fact, the promise was granted through Abraham to all those who would accept Jesus Christ when he came.
The promise was granted to be in Christ; it was potentially available. But as long as men lived before Christ, before He came, they were in a kind of infancy, unable to receive the promise. When Christ arrived, they became in Christ and everything was theirs in Christ. That's what he's saying. So there you have the preparation for sonship.
Secondly, let's look at
2. The Realization of Sonship
verses 4-5
Here we move from getting ready for it to its happening. Just as a father set the time for his infant to become a mature son, so God did the same.
At just the right time, Christ came. And what happened when Christ came? All those people who had been living under the bondage of the legal system were freed and received their inheritance.
The Jews in the Old Testament really never did receive the fulfillment of the promise. They died, as Hebrews says not seeing the promise. Jesus didn’t come before they passed, therefore they didn’t see the completion of the promise of God. It doesn’t mean they didn’t receive it or it wasn’t true; they just didn’t live to see it come to pass.
But when Christ did come, man was freed, and those who were infants, no better than servants, became sons.
I like that phrase 'in the fullness of time.' God never does anything off-schedule; He never hurries because He doesn't have to. He's always on schedule. The time was right.
When the law had accomplished what God wanted it to accomplish, Christ came. That means the time was right religiously. For instance, everything was right in Israel for the coming of the Messiah.
The one besetting sin Israel constantly dealt with was idolatry. But once they came back from the Babylonian captivity, they never were idolatrous again. Idolatry was cleaned out, and Israel had turned from idols.
In addition to that, it was after the Babylonian captivity that Ezra had put together the Old Testament, all the scrolls, so they had the Word of the Old Testament. It was after the Babylonian captivity that synagogues came into vogue, so there were places where Jews were gathered in all the cities around all of that part of the world. It was a perfect setting for the Gospel.
The people only worshipped the true God; they were meeting in local assemblies, and Paul took tremendous advantage of those on his mission journeys. The canon of the text of the Old Testament had been completed and was in their hands, so there was something from which to jump in terms of teaching the truth of God. So religiously, things were right and God knew it.
It was right culturally as well. Alexander had made it a Greek world and everywhere Greek was spoken, so there was a common language.
The Gospel was therefore easily accessible in a brief period of time without struggling with language barriers. Alexander the Great set that all up, under the control of God.
It was right politically, because Rome had taken over the world and instituted what was called the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. There was peace all over the world so that there was the possibility of free movement with the Gospel, and in addition to that, the Romans had built wonderful roads for all the missionaries to travel on. It was God's time for the slaves under the law to be made sons. The only one who could free them was Christ, and it was time for Him to come.
And notice Paul isn’t satisfied to just talk about God sending His son. He goes further than that. We have some great phrases here in verses 4-5.
First, “God sent forth his son." Jesus Christ is the son of God. That needs to be understood. Some think God is God and Jesus is a created son. No, Jesus is God. The term 'son' has nothing to do with His essence, it has nothing to do with His nature as God, it has only to do with His role of submission in incarnation.
He is a son in incarnation. He is not an eternal son. Jesus is not eternally subject to the Father; He was subject to the Father when He came to earth and submitted Himself. You see, in Philippians 2 it says, "He thought it not something to hold onto to be equal with God, but He gave that up and took a place of submission in incarnation," for the purpose He Himself (God) had designed.
And notice he says, "God sent forth his son." God didn't send Christ as pure God with nothing else. He was made of a woman. He was not only 100% God who took on the form of a son in submission, but He was 100% man, made of a woman.
in order for Jesus to save us, He had to be God and He had to be man. You say, "Why?"
First of all, He had to be God in order to give His sacrifice infinite value. In order to have the power to deliver us out of the realm of darkness, in order to have the power to smash Satan, in order to have the power to dominate death and bring us to God's Kingdom, He had to be God.
He also had to be man. You see, He had to be man because it was man who sinned and it was man who had to pay. It was man who had to render his life to God as a sacrifice. It was man who had to satisfy the penalty, so He had to be man. I'll put it this way. He had to be God to have the power of salvation, but He had to be man to have the privilege of substitution.
Notice also, it says in verse 4 that He was made under the law. What does that mean? It means He was responsible to God's law like every other man; He was responsible to the revelation of God. He was a Jew, so He was responsible to the written revelation.
And you know something? He pulled it off! He kept it absolutely perfectly. He never violated the law at all. He satisfied the law's demand in perfection. Why does Paul say this? He wants to show you that Christ is the perfect redeemer.
He had to be God, He had to be man, and He had to be perfect (verse 5) in order to redeem those that were under the law. He had to be all those things. So the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, and the perfect righteousness of Christ qualified Him to redeem us. If He had not been righteous, it wouldn't have done any good for His righteousness to be imputed to us.
He wouldn't have had any, and we wouldn't have gotten any. He had to be God, He had to be man, He had to be righteous. Everything He had to be, Paul says He was. It's a great verse.
Consequently, He was able to redeem those under the law. The word for redeem is so beautiful; it's the picture of a man going into a slave market, bargaining with the guy, buying the slave, taking him out of the market, and setting him free. That's redeeming. The infant sons under the law were no better off than slave market slaves until Christ came, bought their freedom, and announced they were sons, not slaves.
Then look at the end of verse 5.
Adoption equals status. That's the idea. No longer in bondage to the law, no longer in bondage to the flesh, men are now freed to receive their inheritance in Christ as sons. .
We’ll stop there.
