THE BOOK OF GALATIANS – CHAPTER 4:1-7 - MESSAGE 11 – THE TRANSFORMATION – SLAVES; SONS; HEIRS; JOINT HEIRS WITH CHRIST
Just to recap briefly. Paul had to write to the Galatians, quite annoyed that the Christians there had been deceived by false teachers claiming that the keeping of the Law must be added to their faith. In this letter Paul was developing reasons why it by faith alone that one stands in Christ. He has been explaining the promises given to Abraham and the superiority of those over the Law.
Now we look at that from a different angle as Paul develops this position of justification through faith alone and not though Law.
[A]. THE HEIR IN WAITING
{{Galatians 4:1 “Now I say, as long as the HEIR is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything,”}}
Until the set or declared day, there is no difference between the heir and slave. The kids may play together, the heir and the slave, on the estate just like a group of children until such a time when the positions are defined. The royal prince and the royal kitchen hand just to give an example. When the day comes all will change. In the ancient world there were no schools as we know them but guardians and teachers, even one on one for certain life cultures. The Greeks and Romans had pedagogues for their children’ instruction. Under the Law up until the cross the keepers of the Law were like children bound by world simplicities.
[B]. HELD IN BONDAGE BY THE WORLD
{{Galatians 4:2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father,
Galatians 4:3 so also we, while we were children, were HELD IN BONDAGE under the elemental things of the world,”}}
We are speaking about the heir here as a child. His time has not yet come so as verse 1 says, there is no difference in all the kids together. However there are watchful eyes over the child making sure the son is safe and progressing towards maturity.
In a special sense that is how we are now in the world. We are heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ but each of us has a date set by the Father when we come into our inheritance. It may be through the door of death when the person is instantly translated from this earthly existence into the presence of the Son of God in glory – {{2Corinthians 5:7-8 “for we walk by faith, not by sight - we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be ABSENT FROM THE BODY AND TO BE AT HOME WITH THE LORD.”}} OR it will come in the Rapture – {{1Corinthians 15:54 but when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY.”}}
What a glorious inheritance we have, set by God, actually redeemed by God through the cross. No matter what pain you might be going through, the physical suffering and endurance, you have a royal inheritance with the King of glory and when He calls you home He will be there to welcome you into His glorious presence – {{Titus 3:5-7 “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that being justified by His grace WE MIGHT BE MADE HEIRS according to the hope of eternal life.”}}
In Galatians 4:3 Paul says we were held in bondage by the world and this means the world had an unbreakable hold on us (while unsaved). When we look at the faces of people in the street or in a gathering who are unsaved we can think, “All these people are in bondage.” That is not harsh or judgmental; it is merely what the bible says. Sin has such a hold it does not want to release that person and that is the bondage. Some people are in very great bondage such as those who are considered irredeemable drunkards or those who are demon possessed and we read of those in the Gospels. However the blood of Christ breaks every bondage.
[C]. BORN UNDER THE LAW TO REDEEM THOSE UNDER THE LAW TO ADOPTION TO SONSHIP
{{Galatians 4:4 but [[when the fullness of the time came,]] [[God sent forth His Son,]] [[born of a woman,]] [[born under the Law,]]
Galatians 4:5 in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”}}
Now we enter into a very precious area especially for the Jews of Jesus’ time and in the first century. The Jews today do not keep the Law strictly because there is no sacrifice. There are adherents to the Law especially by the very Orthodox Jews. Nevertheless those who keep the Law were in the Saviour’s mind when He came, but whether it is Jew or Gentile, all are sinners who have fallen short of the righteousness of God and are thereby condemned, but the gospel of grace reaches out to all unsaved.
In the first century the two verses above had greater meaning then to the Jews than they do today because of reference to the Law before the Roman conquest of Israel. I want to break up the parts of the verses –
[1]. “WHEN THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME CAME” – {{Psalm 40:7-8 Then I said, “BEHOLD, I COME. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God. YOUR LAW IS WITHIN MY HEART.”}} {{Isaiah 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “HERE AM I. SEND ME!”}} The expectation of the Messiah was a righteous expectation among the devout Jews who rightly believed that Messiah would come to set up His Kingdom as the prophetic scriptures outline. This anticipation was increasing after the Maccabees leading into the time of Herod the Great as we have in this example – {{Luke 2:25 “Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout, LOOKING FOR THE CONSOLATION OF ISRAEL, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.”}}
The fullness of time arrived with the angelic proclamation to Mary – {{Luke 1:31 “and behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.”}} That is where I would place it though others may see it differently. Well, the time did arrive and Christ’s time had come.
[2]. “GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON” – {{John 3:16-17 “for God so loved the world that HE GAVE His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, for God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.”}} Sometimes it is a bit hard to understand the divisions in the Trinity but they are harmonious in the bible. We speak of God sending His Son and at the same time of the Son coming into the world such as John mentions, “I have come that they may have life and have the more abundant life.” There are skeptics who would try to make this into a conflict but they need to be ignored.
There is no such thing as the will of the Father and another will of the Son. There is not that division in the Trinity. That would be the concept of two people in the one boat. The will of the Father is the same as the will of the Son. Before someone might try to criticise me, when the Lord was here on earth, He was subjected to the Father’s will. I know that! But the will of the Father and the Son were 100% harmonious, and if we want to delve into that any more then you make complications for yourself. Some people want to nit-pick.
The Father sent; the Son came.
[3]. “BORN OF A WOMAN” – {{Luke 2:6-7 “It came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth and she gave birth to her first-born son, and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”}} The evangelist Luke is the most comprehensive of the time of the Saviour’s birth. I really like Luke’s writings because they are logical and sequential. He was a careful man. YES, the Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures but He used the writers’ individual personalities to give the distinct styles to scripture. Luke was very exact as he, himself, took trouble to tell us – {{Luke 1:3-4 “it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything CAREFULLY FROM THE BEGINNING, to write it out for you IN CONSECUTIVE ORDER, most excellent Theophilus so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”}}
The Christmas story is well known, and among Christians, so too is the Old Testament prophecy about the birth of Messiah – {{Isaiah 7:14-15 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, A VIRGIN WILL BE WITH CHILD AND BEAR A SON, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, as also the place of His birth.”}} – {{Micah 5:2 “but as for you, BETHLEHEM Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.”}}
For some, the expression “born of a woman” might seem redundant but it is not. The verse speaks of a very special woman as in this – {{Luke 1:42 and she cried out with a loud voice and said, “BLESSED AMONG WOMEN are you, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”}} Incidentally the term used is “blessed among women” and not as many hold to, “blessed over women”. Mary was a handmaiden of the Lord chosen to be the mother of Jesus and is in heaven today as one of the redeemed among all others, not as Queen of Heaven as a certain denomination expounds.
[4]. “BORN UNDER THE LAW” – The Law was still in operation for the Jews. It had not yet been fulfilled and therefore had not been superseded. The Law had its claim on the Lord but could not condemn Him! It had to declare Him righteous. The old covenant was still in operation so all had to be done exactly as the Law required such as circumcision and purification and the Feasts and the Sabbath.
The book of Romans follows a similar line as Galatians in the examination of the Law. Romans points out carefully that the Law was not at fault when it came to establishing righteousness. It laid out God’s standard where the full keeping of the Law would grant a righteous declaration to the keeper, but only with the exact, full keeping of the Law. That was an impossibility for fallen man because the flesh was always contrary to God’s holy standard, so instead of justifying the keeper of the Law, it condemned the one adhering to the Law.
To condemn the Law keeper was no help whatever to the Jew unless, at the same time, God put in place a “means of escape” and that was the list of sacrificial offerings for sin, both for the individual and for the nation. As in the very first Passover, “When I see the blood I will pass over you,” so the sacrifices availed for sin because of the failure to keep the Law.
As Paul pointed out in an earlier message, the Law was our tutor until maturity was reached; that maturity being the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God whose death would fulfill all the Old Testament sacrifices and made the way for all mankind to be justified before a holy God by faith. That now brings us into the next section.
[5]. “IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT REDEEM THOSE WHO WERE UNDER THE LAW” – In the first instance the Lord had to lift the burden of bondage and slavery by His own death. This was done through redemption, through His shed blood as the antitype of all animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. The gospel was to go to the Jew first then to the half Jews, the Samaritans, then to the Gentiles. Paul sweeps over this here – {{Romans 1:16 “for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,”}}
It was always the Jew first because Jesus came to redeem those under the Law. Christ came to Israel and His ministry was not to Gentiles. He moved among His own people, the Jews, and came to redeem them. We know of course that Christ’s sacrifice was to be efficacious for the whole world but in the first instance Jesus came to redeem the Jews under the Law.
In speaking of Israel’s future redemption and restoration, Paul wrote this – {{Romans 11:11 “I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be, but by their transgression SALVATION HAS COME TO THE GENTILES, to make them jealous.”}} That is a big area I won’t touch on today, but by Israel’s fall the Gentiles came into salvation.
Redemption is a very precious subject that occupies a lot of Old Testament thought. The word itself is simple enough in English usage, the Merriam Webster Dictionary – [[ To buy back: REPURCHASE; to get or win back; to free from what distresses or harms: such as to free from captivity by payment of ransom; to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental; to release from blame or debt : CLEAR; to free from the consequences of sin; to change for the better: REFORM REPAIR, RESTORE. ]]
What the Law meant to the Jews is what is being explored in Galatians. Now Paul is precise in declaring that Christ’s death in redemption has freed the Jews from the Law.
[6]. “THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE ADOPTION AS SONS” – Paul used the pronoun “we” because he is speaking on behalf of the Jews (he was one). It is wrong for us to claim that Christ delivered us from the Law because we were never under the Law, being Gentiles. However the adoption to sons applies to all those who are redeemed, Jew and Gentile. We will come back to these matters of sonship and adoption shortly.
There will not be time today to delve into verses 6 and 7 but we will explore that thoroughly next time. It is a big subject and must not be rushed. However we look at a couple of thoughts from that now.
{{Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father!”
Galatians 4:7 Therefore you are no longer a SLAVE, but a SON, and if a son, then an HEIR through God.}}
In Galatians we have passed from slaves under the Law to sons, adoption and heirs. That will be for next time but for today, it is verse 6 more in focus. Firstly the Galatians are sons, given that privilege through redemption. Because they are sons, God has given the Holy Spirit. Having the Holy Spirit, He livens our heart with “ABBA, FATHER”.
[D]. THE CONCLUSION FOR TODAY
So then, what is Abba Father? To end this message, I found a delightful quote from a former missionary to China over a hundred years ago who wrote some thoughts on Galatians. Here is G. C. Willis –
[[ Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. It is a word that is made with the lips only so that a very little child who has not gotten any teeth yet, could say it. Almost every language has the same sort of name for father and mother, as in English very small children say papa mama, mummy, those words made by the lips only. Even so is Abba. This tells us of the welcome God gives to even the smallest and youngest, and weakest believer. He may not know how to pray, but God has given to such a one as this, the Spirit of his Son, and he can look up to heaven and cry “Abba.” No one but a child has the right to this word. This is the word that our Lord Himself has made so dear to the heart of every true child of God, as we stand by with bowed heads and bowed hearts, and hear Him cry on that dark night in the Garden of Gethsemane, {{“He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me, yet not what I will, but what You will.”}} (Mark 14:36)
We only find this precious word three times in the new Testament; first our Lord Himself uses it; and then in Romans 8:15 where the Chinese new Testament so beautifully says, “You have not received the heart of a slave again to fear but you have received the heart of a son, so that we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Finally we find this same sweet word here in our chapter in Galatians. Some men tell us that in the words “Abba, Father,” the second name Father, is only a translation of Abba, but I think it is much more than that. Our hearts understand these things are better than our heads, but dear Christian, perhaps you have looked up to heaven and cried, “Abba, Father!” If you have done this, then you will understand; and if you have never uttered this cry from your heart, then no words of man can make it plain to you.
Three times in the first three five verses of our Epistle, Paul speaks of God as the Father. It is a mark of the child that he knows the Father - 1John 2:13 - and so from the beginning of the Epistle, Paul would remind them that they are sons, not slaves or servants.
It is the spirit of God in our hearts, the Spirit of his Son within us that utters this cry “Abba, Father.” Nothing can ever imitate this cry. Only the Holy Spirit Himself can cry thus in our hearts. This cry as we have already pointed out, is the proof that He dwells within us. “So,” the Apostle adds, “you are no longer a slave but a son.” That cry “Abba, Father,” is proof that we are not under any law but we are now sons of God, but if a son, then an heir through God.
We are not the sort of heir that the first verse of our chapter describes, who differs nothing from a slave. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Such is the place to which God brought us when he bought us out from under the Law and the law of sin. ]]
