Leaving The Old Year Behind
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I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Intro
Intro
First message of the New Year,
New Year -> New hope -> New Beginnings (resolutions) -> move away from the patterns and practices of the old year
But the temptation and the ease to lapse into the habits of the old year
Strava - Jan 12 point of failure
just 8% successfully achieve new year goals
This passage part of Galatians written to the churches in the region of Galatia. New believers, mostly Gentiles, being influenced by false teachers to add features of Judaism, circumcision, feast and sabbath observance etc as being necessary for keeping the faith in addition to the grace of being justified in Jesus Christ through his work on the cross
The false teachers have made inroads and Paul is forced to urgently inform and warn them of the great mistake they are about to make in abandoning true Christian faith with the false teachings of the intruders
What is the connection with the New Year? Notice in the passage we just read the multiple indications of time as in the time past and the time that is now
Specifically, Paul says those in Christ belong to a new age, a new year, and those before Christ and those who still do not believe in Christ belong to an old age. So those who belong to the new age, when tempted to fall back into the patterns and practices of the old age, are like those of us whose resolutions melt away in the face of temptation
Thereby losing the advantages of the new age and falling back into the weaknesses and disadvantages of the old age
What is described here is (“I mean” 4:1) an expansion of
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Here Paul shows how the law of Moses only served to point those who followed it (Jews) to its ultimate fulfillment in Christ
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. —HECTOR BERLIOZ, quoted in Almanach des lettres françaises
But the law was also a teacher, which separated us from true freedom which is an intimate relationship with God (“sons of God”)
And true freedom means moving away from the categories that defined us and gave us worth before Christ (Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female) and finding that all of those who are in Christ have equal access and equal favor from God through Christ
An ultimately those who are of faith in CHrist, those who belong to the new age, have inherited Abraham’s promise ()
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Justification through faith, being made right with God, not based on merit (for that would be impossible) but through God’s initiative in Christ for those who put their faith in Christ and his saving work on the cross, that is the promise. And it is a promise given to all people, Jews and Gentiles, and those who are children of the promise, sons and daughters of God, belong to the new age, a age of freedom and intimate relationship with God
So Paul asks why then do you want to fall back into the old age and break your resolution to live as people of faith?
And chapter 4 is an explanation of this principle but given in the context of the whole world (Jew and Gentiles) and given in the context of Christians who can look back to their life before Christ (especially Gentiles to their old pagan practices and ‘fearful’ religion) and look to their current privileges in Christ
Three points
Our bondage in the old age
Our freedom in the new age
Paul’s appeal to not throw away our freedom for bondage
Our Bondage In The Old Age
Our Bondage In The Old Age
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Here Paul recasts the lack of freedom in the old age with the analogy of a child who is in line to inherit great wealth but cannot control or spend any of that wealth freely until he becomes an adult
The precise legal background of this analogy cannot be determined; for eg there is no precedent that a child when becoming an adult does not inherit the wealth in roman law
But that was not Paul’s point, it was to highlight the lack of freedom that a child has until he becomes an adult even if he were to think that I am somehow the owner of all this great property
For the Galatian Christians, many of whom came from pagan backgrounds, and even for Jews, this rang true with regards to their spiritual/religious past. They would have felt they were God fearing and wanted to attain God’s favor but they always had to depend on and go to priests and do rituals and were never satisfied or confident that they were truly God fearing or had God’s favor. In a sense, they were infants (child) with no legal rights to approach God on their own, but always had to depend on someone else (priests/guardians and managers). In that sense, how were they different to slaves, who didnt have legal rights and could not make decisions on their own and did not own anything?
But in v3, Paul further elaborates who were in bondage to in our past
In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
- elementary, as in ABC’s, learning the alphabet. in a sense true of the law
but “of the world” - fundamental components of universe - earth, air, fire, water
focused on material things, enslaved to the chasing of things found in this world
so also
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Pagan background, god of wealth, learning, fertility. These are things but they have been made gods unlike the true God who is the creator and ruler of all the Universe
People worship what they value and so those enslaved to the material find a way to worship those things, and define their lives by their success or failure in attaining those things, thereby moving away from the true God
And that would be true of Jew and Gentile, the Jews also preoccupied with the physical, circumcision, rules concerning food, festivals on the calendar. The Gentiles with wealth and success and fertility
Both define themselves in enslavement not to the things of God but to the things of this world
Our Freedom In The New Age
Our Freedom In The New Age
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Fullness of time: the exact measure of time under the initiative of God
Why fullness? Many theories (roman empire, roads, languages) but primarily it is the initiative and secret will of God who is the creator of time and is not bound by the changing winds of time where he is a participant and impacted by time. Rather he controls and changes history as he pleases to accomplish his purposes
In the beginning there is God
: God creates time (sun, moon starts etc for signs, seasons, days and years)
: time becomes a marker of the curse (you shall toil all the days of your life, you shall return to the dust).
Human beings history of measuring time because we are bound by it
But God views time as a roll. And at that exact point, more than 2000 years ago, he intervened in history to bring about the new age
And how did he accomplish that?
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
sent forth His son: Jesus Christ, God sent, He was preexistent, glorious from before the beginning of time
But he sent his Son into time ; born of woman ()
“Man who is born of a woman
is few of days and full of trouble.
We dont know how the incarnation of Jesus functions with relation to time (hypostatic union) but the Bible says that he did not take any shortcuts to the experience of humanity under time
He was a baby, he grew up normally, he obeyed his parents and lived under their command and obedience, he felt hunger at morn and noon and evening, he had to sleep at night to rest his body, he went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights and felt every second of that time period impacting his body, having to stay alert to ward off the dangers of the wild, living 33 years under the bombardment of the impact of time and all temptations that come with it and the human experience yet not succumbing to it because he was without sin and yet he knows how it feels. Hence
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Born under the law - he was born a Jew, circumcised on the 8th day, reading the Scriptures, attending the synagogue, fulfilling all the demands of the law
In that sense, he not only knows what it means to be in time but also under the guardianship/manager ship of the law. He willingly submitted to the requirements of the law although he did not have to; because he is God and he was the writer of the Law and he had every advantage that comes from that and his only instinct was to obey His Father freely. And yet he was born under the law, willingly laying aside his advantage. Why?
The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Epistle to the Galatians (i) From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)
He entered into the prison-house where his people were held in bondage so as to set them free. It is implied that he himself was not enslaved to the bondage in which they were held, and while Paul does not say so here explicitly, the reason must be that he remained free from sin—while ὑπὸ νόμον, he was nevertheless not ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν). He himself had no need of slave-attendant, guardian or steward, and he came to bring his people to the point where they too could dispense with their services.
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
So God entered time, put himself under the guardianship of the law, and then perfectly abided by all the things in the law, and yet he who was without sin died on the cross so that we might be redeemed from the bondage of the law and of every other bondage of this world
So his perfect death after his perfect life, as our substitute, as the perfect man who did what we could not do, paid the price to redeem us from bondage
But more than that, he redeemed us from bondage so that we might receive our full right as sons and daughters of God. Adoption. So we are no longer infants but we have entered into our inheritance and are now free because we have received the promise, which is we are justified before God, free to approach God, free to define our identity not as slaves of the world but children of God
No longer bound by the chasing winds of this and that because we are fearful of time but we are free to live our lives because we have been promises an eternity with God
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
One great privilege of sonship: the Holy Spirit lives in us so that we can relate to God the Father in the intimacy that is not natural to us humans but is natural within the eternal perfect relationship of the Trinity. The Spirit enables us to call God Abba, truly call God Father, a cry of the heart that is intimate not possible with the detachment of mere religion where we are still separate from God
Truly Sons and daughters, no longer slaves
the emotional reaction to the knowledge that truly God is your father
And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
That request was not to be for our sake, so that today, that same intimacy, same vulnerability that comes from the conviction of knowing that God is our father can be ours.
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Don’t throw away your Freedom
Don’t throw away your Freedom
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Pauls appeal and amazement
You knew your bondage of the old age, when you lived in fear of so called evil spirits, when your religion was just marking dates on the calendar, fearful that missing a ritual would lead to punishment, when you were so afraid of the passing of time that your identity came in wealth and material blessings, when you were afraid to approach God and could only do so through priests
You know how that feels, you know the anxieties and worries that pervaded your heart, you know that you felt like slaves to religion, you know that you were not satisfied in whatever identity you had created for yourself
Now you are no longer slaves, but sons of God. How can you listen to those who would come and say , put aside this freedom, you need to do something else to find security and peace, you need to once again enslave yourself to the elements of this world?
The Galatians had already perhaps started following the Judaistic calendar of feasts and rituals and Paul is perplexed. Didn't Christ fulfill the law so that you could be free from the law so that your acceptance with God is not based on your conformance to the law but the perfect intimacy that is the gift of justification by faith in Christ by the grace of God? And you are putting up barriers to God that Christ abolished?
Easy to think of this as just pertaining to legalism. And certainly in this context it does
But even in a culture, where religion is not so prominent, we can still be enslaved to the elemental principles of finding self-worth apart from God, finding security apart from God whether that be in wealth or career or relationship and the fear of time, the fear of missing out
Isnt that the root of many of our anxieties and worries, the reason why we drift away from God because we have once again become enamored and enslaved by the things of this world
This New Year, lets take the opportunity to remind each other and ourselves, the great privilege we have in being people of the new era in Christ, where we are no longer slaves, but free in God, to call Him Abba father, to be called sons and daughters of God, to be defined and identified not by the categories of this world but by our relationship with Christ, the testimony of the indwelling Spirit, to bring our every need and fear into his presence and to rest assured that he will take care of us and that he is always faithful and that our scope of time is not the 70-80 years on this earth but eternity in the presence of God
Let us not lapse back into the patterns and practices of the old age, chasing after every wind and spirit of this world, that did not satisfy us but just left us more defeated, more tired, more in enslavement than the perfect freedom that comes from being in Christ
The New International Version Chapter 13
14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,p and the love of God,q and the fellowship of the Holy Spiritr be with you all.
