Adoption As Sons
Galatians 4:1-11 · Vern Peterman · Aug 26, 2007
Galatians (2007), No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926037433741

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As we move into this passage, I have to confess something to you. And at this point, you're hoping it isn't something devastating, right? No, it's just this passage here, this is one I've been excited to be able to bring before you. I would have to say for years, there's just some really neat stuff in it. And so let's go ahead and move on into it. So what's Paul going to tell us in these verses here? What's he thinking? Here's what's going on.

Paul's going to tell us in here that placing oneself under, and I'm going to put it this way, principle of law, not just law of Moses, but any principle of law at all, is certain bondage and enslavement. Anybody here like to be enslaved and under bondage? If you like that, perfect. Principle of law will do it every time.

The other thing that he's going to tell us in this passage is God is the one who has taken the action. He is the one who has taken the action to send his Son into the world. This is what we traditionally observe around Christmas time, the sending of the Son. God took the action. God is the one who took the initiative. Secondly, though, sent His Spirit into our hearts. Every person who believes. And we're going to see that message here in this passage here. Paul is going to tell us that the timing of sending his son came at just the right time. Just the right time. Have you ever been concerned about the timing of something? Ever had that happen? Matter of fact, my guess is if you're concerned, it probably has to do with timing. Almost guaranteed, right? Timing of things can concern us a lot. I think one of the things we can look at is the Lord in his infinite wisdom chose the right time.

And Paul's going to make that clear in this passage here. He's also going to give us a clear communication on this point. Staying under the law is the spiritual equal of staying or remaining a child. It is a firm, solid commitment to being frozen solid in spiritual immaturity. That's another point he'll make here.

Additionally, the one who believes in Christ, and I would have to say this is the part that I am most excited to be able to bring to you this morning, has mind-bogglingly awesome privilege and a huge, phenomenal opportunity for intimacy with the Lord. So much so that staying under the law makes no sense at all. Staying under any principle of law makes no sense at all. Oh, one more thing.

We're going to see something else in this passage, and that is you're going to see the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all three persons of the Godhead of the Trinity, as it's sometimes called, all three persons of the Godhead involved in your life as a believer. Isn't it amazing to think Here I'm just one person, here on planet Earth for a time, and all three persons of the Godhead are not just incidentally or superficially involved, but deeply involved in your daily life. Alright, now, first three verses here in the passage, let's take a look at them. These verses are going to be setting up a point of comparison between the principle of law and the principle of grace, living under principle of law or living under the principle of grace.

And we have, over the last months, been giving a handout, a supplemental handout, available on the cabinet on the right as you exit the room. And you're going to find three pieces of paper out there, so take whatever of the three you feel is useful. But there's one that has this law versus grace principle handout.

And if you don't have a copy of that, we'd like for you to have one. You can also find it on the church website. As you load up hollyhillsbiblechurch.org, just click on materials and one more click on the document by that title and you're there. You can print one out for yourself.

The one that is the person who is under this principle of law, that is specifically in this case the law of Moses, is like a child and like a slave. What does he mean by that? Paul made comparisons in several places, and this is one of them, to the idea that there is in our walk in the Lord the possibility of being like a child, in a negative sense of being immature, or growing in the Lord. And in such passages, he pictured spiritual maturity as God's intended outcome. God has in mind that we mature spiritually. And you think about that.

You know, every one of our kids, I was just excited out of my mind for each one of them. And it occupied my attention, and I was thrilled with each one of them to be born. And yet, as much as that's exciting, and as much as having a little infant was a wonderful thing, after 10 years goes by, you'd be disturbed if they stayed the same way, wouldn't you? With any of them. Maturing is something that is normal. And spiritually, it is God's intent that we mature as well. Last week's passage, we looked at Galatians 3, 24, and 25, and the message that was brought out by Paul was this.

The slave tutor, that is, there was a person who was assigned to one student to take them to school, to take them back home, make sure that they learned the lesson for the day, and even carried all their equipment. That slave tutor was to prepare that student for adult life, whatever that involved. And Paul made the point that living under the law is compared to that, and it prepared people for Christ. He also made the point we're no longer under a tutor. In this week's passage, we're going to see something similar. We're going to see this.

The child who is an heir, as Gene read for us here, the child who is an heir is under guardians and managers, including the slave tutor, until Big word, until. And that until is until the date set by the father. Until that time, the guardians and managers are very much like slave masters. And the child is a little different from a slave, even though he may be inheriting everything. And so the point he makes in this passage here is the law, including all the sacrifices that the Jews had to go through, was something to prepare them for, but they were still under that law until Christ. The big word, until. Now, we've got a question here. What's the we in this verse 3? What's the we in verse 3? Who is that?

The Gentiles weren't directly under the law of Moses. That's exactly his point here in Galatians, at a minimum. But Paul said, we, he wrote as a Jew. As a Jew, he himself was under this law, grew up under it. So he included himself in that. So the we is directly Jews and the whole nation of Israel brought up to that point. The law of Moses was directly given to them.

But, we as believers, we who believe have been identified with Christ, have we not? Identified with him in his death. And we also, under principle of law, were brought up to that place at the cross. And then what happened at the cross? The cross separated from that principle, separated us from the principle of law. So to that extent, we are also included in this we.

Now, I've got a word in here, elemental. This word here that shows up in this verse 3 and also in verse 9, refers to things that are for little Children. Babies and children. Baby stuff. Little kid stuff. Paul said that the law is the spiritual equivalent of ABCs and 123s. The law is the baby rattle. The law is the baby rattle of the spiritual life. It's not fitting to adulthood. You would be rather concerned if I came up with several baby rattles up here. And instead of holding the clicker, was rattling those things. Aside from being distracting, right? Okay. Let's look at verses 4 and 5. What is he saying there?

This is one of the few references to Christ born of Mary after we get past the Gospels. As a matter of fact, Acts chapter 1 is the last time that Mary is mentioned by name. So this is a reference to Mary only as born of a woman. But the focus here is not to talk about Christ's birth other than that was a very momentous and carefully chosen timing and event. But the focus is upon God's Son. The focus is upon Jesus Christ. He is the one, singular, the one who releases and redeems us from under the law. As we look at this here, What's his point?

The point is that in the Greek and Roman world, the father of the children would set the time for, okay, now you're out from underneath those managers. You're out from underneath the slave tutors. Now you're out from underneath all these people who are telling you what to do. And at this time, now you can receive things. The father set the time. Now, he pictured here this coming out from the direction of these managers and guardians and the father's set time and being released to actually having the inheritance that was always theirs, but they weren't ready for it yet.

He put that as a comparison point to coming out of slavery, being bought out. And he compared this to using this word, redeeming. The word that he used for redeem is to buy out from the marketplace. Not just to buy as a slave, to have as a slave, but to buy out of the slave marketplace altogether. Redeem. That's his point. Never to show up on the auction block again.

How about this phrase, adoption assents? Now we need to talk about that. Here's why. In our culture, when we think of adoption, what do you think of? We think of little babies. We think of little kids. We tend to think of someone who is underage when we think of adoption. That's what immediately comes to mind.

But that was not the case in the culture of New Testament times. And particularly not for this phrase that he used here. Adoption of sons was something that was used for adults. And it was to have an heir. It is particularly brought into place so that the Roman emperor could have an heir in his place. And the Roman emperor would go through this adoption procedure that Paul refers to with an adult. Not a child, but an adult. And it was in order that that adult selected by the emperor would have an heir.

Now, two things about it we need to tell you before stepping farther. And one is, this was something that was witnessed by seven people. And I mean, that's a lot. Seven people had to witness this. This was also voted on and approved by the entire Roman Senate. So it was for high-level purpose. It was witnessed far more abundantly in terms of the number of witnesses than anything else we can think of or imagine. And then it was approved at the very highest levels.

And Augustus Caesar, who was the Caesar during the birth of Christ, was one. And then the next one right in line, Tiberius Caesar, the one who was Caesar right after him and up until just about the time that Paul became a believer. So those two emperors in line basically for decades and for quite a number of years were part of this adoption as sons process.

There is a movie that was produced years and years ago. I think you can probably still get it. A classic movie, Ben-Hur, based on the novel by Lew Wallace. I bring that up because Judah Ben-Hur, who was a Jewish slave in the novel, rescued this Roman general, Quintus Aureus, and so then as the movie proceeds, Judah Ben-Hur gets in this famous chariot race.

And then what we find though is there is this adoption of sons process that takes place. Judah Ben-Hur went from being a slave down under the galley area in the ship and being in chains and darkness, to having unrivaled wealth and power and influence in the Roman Empire. And notice with the pomp that goes along with it, high recognition and high import to that adoption.

The word that you have translated, adoption of sons, or in the King James, adoption of sons, is a word that means sun position. I'm not talking about that thing that glows in the sky, but this is sun as in father and son, okay? Sun position is what it's talking about. If there ever was a statement of our position in Christ, this is it. This is it.

It's also mentioned in Ephesians 5, which was another church that was in a city with lots of Roman influence. There was a Roman governor there and 3,000 Roman soldiers in Ephesus. It's also, of course, mentioned, guess where else? In the book of Romans, chapter 8. What makes this unique and what makes it special, this adopted son And I think this is why Paul chose to use this term. This adopted son had a far better position than even a natural-born son. Far better.

This full heir, this person who would take the throne and inherit everything else. And by the way, that process was irreversible. There wasn't anything in place to take that out. And that's also to be remembered. Our salvation. and including the benefits are guaranteed. It's not going to go whoops.

We're unadopted. That son was severed from any prior sonship. The relationship that we had spiritually before is severed. Our connection, our incredible connection, a connection of spiritual power is to the Lord. Now, there are four particular consequences. One is the adopted son lost any rights he had under the old family.

That's right. Just cut off from the old family and gain more rights than a legitimate natural born son. But the history that that person who was adopted had was in the new position that he had, his old history was wiped out. The second thing, he became an heir to his father's estate even if other natural born sons were brought in afterwards. The adoption of sons guaranteed whatever benefits you get, and boy there are a great many, can't be touched, can't be lost. Isn't that wonderful? You think of that. When Paul uses this word, he uses it very intentionally. He wants us to recognize this is phenomenal position. This is amazing blessing. The other thing that was true of those who were adopted through the process here in the Roman law, any debts any debts of any magnitude were entirely wiped out as if they never existed. Yeah, never existed.

And isn't that what Christ did for us? When Christ was there on the cross, he finished it up with, it is finished. It's done. Completely. The debts were all wiped out. What's more, The criminal record, if any, of that person, and it didn't matter what it was or how serious it was, the criminal record of that person who was adopted was completely wiped out. As if it had never occurred. And isn't that also what Christ did?

Our offenses against the Lord. Completely paid for. We, as we've seen before, we have, amazingly, the Lord's own history. We have the Lord's righteousness. Criminal record, wiped out. So the adopted son was literally and absolutely, legally, and in the highest extent possible, the son of his new father. having even greater value, place, position, and permanence than any natural-born son.

The bottom line is, as you look at this, Paul is telling them it can't possibly get any better than this. This is wonderful good news. We have presented this chart here in months and weeks past and we have an additional copy among the handouts there to take a look at. I bring it up here for the last time for this reason.

This is the last time the adoption of sons or any of the other points are brought up in the book of Galatians. But what does this say? The person who has adoption of sons is fully forgiven, is fully redeemed. The ransom price is fully paid. There's nothing outstanding. Justification is not a lot of really good excuses, but it is being declared righteous by God. And just as the person who is adopted as a son under this Roman law would indicate, that person is declared righteous. It doesn't matter what they did before. It's the criminal record. Any debt's wiped out. The adoption of sons, amazing privilege. Amazing privilege. Forgiveness, redemption, justification, being declared righteous. Adoption of sons. So that's available on the supplement as well. Let's take a look at verses 6 and 7.

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Here we have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all involved in our lives. This is a wonderful start at revealing the phenomenal blessings that we have in Christ. The handout that we have still some available on the cabinet as you exit the room here lists those wonderful blessings that we have that tells us who we are in Christ, Here is the Holy Spirit sent by the Father and the Son. So it is the Spirit of or from the Son, here, is sent into our hearts. That is a wonderful thing for us to count upon. The ministries of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Numerous things are listed. We've previously made available a listing of the ministries that Hal Malloy put together some years back. There's 21 different ministries of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

21. And that's just for starters. So that's just one thing.

We have the promised, continued, universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, in our hearts. That is a tremendous thing for us to be able to count upon. Because every single one of us, if you're a believer here this morning, has all these ministries of the Holy Spirit in your hearts and in your lives every minute, every day, until you go home to see the Lord face to face. That is a tremendous blessing that he introduces here. But the thing that comes out is those who believe, and he says we're sons, we have this adoption of sons, and we are therefore heirs, we have this full inheritance, have with that a massive mountain of spiritual benefits.

Huge mountain of spiritual benefits. In Ephesians he calls it unfathomable blessings. Unfathomable. The New Testament epistles, as you look through the New Testament, lays those out. Who we are in Christ. What God has done. What is given us and is untouchable. Can't be reversed. We can't even blow it about that. Not even me. Then we look at this crying Abba Father. This Abba Father in verse 6 is a contrast from life under the law. Under the law, the best you can do is our Father.

As close as you can get. As a matter of fact, in the Gospels, you read where Jesus says, My Father. In Jewish thinking, that was just shocking for Jesus to say, to claim a personal relationship. Look what Paul tells these believers. It's Abba, Father, and that has the equivalent in the Greek language or in the culture of Papa. Papa. It's an expression of intimacy. It's an expression not of great formality and distance, but an expression of closeness.

Now, we don't study God's Word, not here, or anywhere else, to just pack our heads, to be a sort of a Christian head where we pack our heads just full of Christian information and Christian data. Why? God's Word is laid out to have an impact, to have an impact on our lives, so that we might understand our relationship with the Lord and our fellowship with the Lord, which by the way are two different things.

We'll talk about that. We are intended by God to have intimacy with a father. Intimacy. And he compares that to the intimacy of a child with a father. Now let's take a look at this. I said earlier here there's relationship and there's fellowship. Why two different words? And what's the difference? Relationship is our ongoing standing with God. and places us as receivers of all the ministries as we've seen of the three persons of the Godhead. Relationship is about our eternal position in Christ.

Let me give an instance here, okay? Nancy and I got married, let's see, this November, it'll be 34 years ago, okay? We have had for almost 34 years now the relationship of husband and wife. Now, how is that different from fellowship? Let's take a look at that. Fellowship is the moment by moment, the day by day, personal enjoyment of the relationship. Nancy and I could be husband and wife as a relationship, but not enjoy that as fellowship. See the difference? The relationship is established. The relationship is there.

The fellowship is what's going on right now. How are we doing at the moment? And so the fellowship has to do not with our eternal position, our relationship, but our daily condition, the right now. Do we have fellowship today? Do we live out the relationship that we have this moment? That's fellowship. Now, we want to take a look at the no-longers of Galatians. I don't see anybody confused enough. Now, let's take a look.

The no-longers, and there's three no-longers, you have them on page 3 of your handout, in the book of Galatians, and we looked at one in Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live. Christ does the living from inside. Christ does the living in my life by faith.

That's Galatians 2.20.

Galatians 3.25 that we saw last week.

We're no longer under a tutor. No longer. Notice that this no longer is putting the emphasis on the change. It was like this. Now it's like this. No longer under the law. No longer under this slave tutor that calls the shots and hangs in there with me every single moment. No longer under the law. And then, finally, in this passage here, therefore you are no longer a slave, no longer held under, under the law, the law which tells you what to do and tells you where to go every single moment of every single day. No longer that, but a son, a son who is an heir through God. What is that? Through God's doing, through God's accomplishment. Let's take a look at verses 8 and 9 next here.

Paul knew here that the believers in Galatia, a lot of them of course coming from pagan backgrounds, a lot of them having maybe some familiarity with Judaism, were slaves to the phony pagan gods. Yeah, they were slaves to the pagan gods. They did things because that's what the pagan gods said that they had to do. The pagan gods called the shots for everything in their lives. They didn't know God, the God, the God of Scripture. All they knew was the pagan gods that, in fact, Paul says are demons behind the idols. So we've got a question here. Paul wrote, and it's clear at the end of verse 9, we've got a question mark. Paul wrote that he was baffled. He begins asking questions. What does he mean by that?

He says, these believers, certainly at one time they didn't know God, but now they do. He says, he was there. He knows that they believed, right? He knows he was right there when a great many of them turned to the Lord. And he saw changes in their life. As a matter of fact, he even appointed some elders. He knew enough of their lives to say, I know that you know the Lord. And I know that the Lord knows you. Why after that would you turn back to these ABC 123 things? The things that you've been released from. The things that symbolize immaturity. Why would you turn back to that?

You see, what he's saying is this is backwards. This is backwards. It's just not right. This is backwards. This is not the way it's supposed to be. It just isn't. That's his point. That's his point. He says this is not right. He says this is not the way things are supposed to be. It's not the way it's supposed to go. This is backwards. It just is not right. He is puzzled. He is baffled. Because it doesn't make any sense. Any more than any of the other pictures I've just shown you. Right?

He says it makes no sense for you, having come to know the Lord, to fall back into this place that looks like you don't. It makes no sense at all. You who have such opportunity for intimacy that you can run to the lap of the Father and say, What sense does it make for you to fall back in these things? Coming to know the God who reveals himself in the pages of scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ, so we have the written word and we have the living word, is pictured as being known by him as well as knowing him.

Now, verses 10 and 11. I want you to look at something here. See those? You see them? If you see those right there, then you're observing days and months and seasons and years, aren't you? I'm joking. Okay. Nobody laughed. I don't know what's wrong here. Okay.

Paul picked up one key indicator of their apparent reversion. And what was that? He says, you guys are going back to the Law of Moses, observing all the different things. that controlled your lives. Friday afternoon comes down and you're rushing to get ready for the Sabbath. You've got annual feasts. You've got all these things that you're looking at. There's specific months to look at. The Jews were on a lunar calendar and it was a loony thing to be in. These things he was puzzled by. He couldn't understand it.

The Jews had certainly the seven feasts of the Law of Moses in addition to observing the Sabbath. And then also remember they had every seventh year they had to let, you know, the land rest and they had to let the debts go and the slaves go and all these things.

Then in addition to that there were even more quite likely referred to by tradition. Hanukkah was one from between the Old and New Testament times. It's only recorded in John chapter 10. That was one that was added. The other one was Purim. And there were other days and months and seasons and years added to it. So, we have a question before us here. The question is this.

Why would Paul fear for them? Doesn't that seem like a strange thing? Why is he afraid for them? that perhaps he'd labored in vain over them. Didn't he just tell them that they had the adoption of sons, which is something you can't lose? Didn't he just tell them they've been justified and it's permanent? Didn't he just tell them they've been crucified with Christ and stated in absolute permanent terms? So what's he afraid of? What's the problem here? Weren't these people saved? Did Paul fear that they were going to somehow lose their salvation? That he just told them was guaranteed? What could it be meaning here? What's his intent?

All right. Turns out in Colossians, Paul used this word for labor towards the end of the passage that you have on page four of your handout there. And what did he do? In verse 28 of Colossians chapter 1 he says, we proclaim him admonishing and then three times he says every man, and by the way that's not just masculine, so every single person, three times he teaches and admonishes them. With all wisdom, for what purpose, to what end? That they be complete.

That word means mature in Christ. Spiritual maturity is at issue. Spiritual maturity is at stake. And this word for this purpose, also I labor, that word for labor is the same one we see here in this Galatians passage. And it means to labor to exhaustion. Isn't that something? Paul labored to exhaustion. Oh, and by the way, according to the Lord's power, he labored to exhaustion. And by the Lord's work in him. But he labored to exhaustion. So when he tells them here, that he's concerned that perhaps I have labored to exhaustion over you for nothing. His concern is not that they're going to lose their salvation. Is Christ going to be uncrucified for them? No. That won't happen. Are they going to be unadopted? No. That won't happen. Unjustified? Nah. Not that.

What's his concern? He said, I work to the point of exhaustion for your benefit. so that you would grow spiritually. My concern is that spiritual growth will stop, stop dead, because you're under law instead of grace." It wasn't for himself. He wasn't thinking, oh, woe is Paul. But his concern was certainly for them, that they would lose the value that he and Barnabas had invested in them. that rather than growing spiritually, which was exactly what he wanted to happen in their lives, that they would just stop dead in their tracks in terms of spiritual maturity, not growing up at all. They would be stuck in this path of spiritual infancy. That's his concern.

We have here several pages of Expanded and Explained. I'll forego that here this morning unless you read that on your own time and your own opportunity. But I would like to bring us back to a couple of points here that Paul's made. And one is he has introduced several points of our position in Christ. He said in the passage we looked at last week that we have Christ's righteousness, that we have been baptized, that is immersed into Christ so as to be permanently changed.

We've been told here we're no longer under these guardians. We are full heirs. We have the adoption of sons, incredible privilege, approved at the highest levels, irreversible. It just doesn't get any better than that. That's his point. Spiritually speaking, we have been blessed mind-blowingly.

We have in the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul put it in Ephesians 1.3, every spiritual blessing, none missing, in the heavenly places, can't touch it, in Christ Jesus. He doesn't get any better than that. Where we are at in Him, it just doesn't get any better than that. Furthermore, he's introduced here in this passage, it's the Lord's intent that we have intimacy with the Father.

A familiarity that has us in our hearts running, Papa! And having that intimacy with Him. Ever been through a period of time in your life where you know you've blown it and you feel like, oh boy, it's going to be days if not weeks before I can get back in fellowship with the Lord. Ever feel that?

That's not what God says. we have the opportunity to run into his arms at any moment and every time. And as a matter of fact, the Lord desires and explicitly intends that that be our continuing relationship with him. If at any time it's otherwise, we can immediately run into the throne room of God, the God of heaven, and say, Papa, and tell him everything. and let Him know it all. Let Him know our heart. And share intimacy with Him. That's His intent. That is exactly what He had in mind. What He has in mind. From now into eternity. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that great? It's beyond belief wonderful.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank You. As we look at this, The privilege that we have with you, approved many times over at such high levels. Approved because you want us to have relationship and inheritance that blows our minds not only now, but on into eternity. Intimacy and wealth of grace that has us gasping. For every second we're on this earth, on into every timeless moment of eternity. That's just awesome. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, Amen.