Free as Sons

Galatians 3:26–4:7 CSB

26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. 27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise. 1 Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. 2 Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

Salvation Outlined in Galatians

We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

In chapter 1 we saw that we don’t have to work to earn God’s favor.

That is legalism, and it is what Paul is addressing throughout the letter to the Galatian church.

Legalism = working in our own power, according to our own rules, to earn God’s favor.

That is not the Gospel

In chapter 2 we see Paul confront living lives of hypocrisy. Living lives that don’t match up to the Gospel message.

If we do trust and decide to follow Jesus, our lives will reflect His teachings as we continue to be conformed to His image.

In chapter 3 Paul covers 2,000 years of Old Testament history. Getting us from Abraham to Moses to Jesus. This is a story that places Jesus Christ at the center of all of history.

The promises and law that we looked at were there pointing to Jesus. Jesus fulfills the laws of Moses and he completes the promises given to Abraham.

This is why salvation only comes through Jesus Christ.

Justification: We are right before God the judge.

We see the idea of justification written throughout the first few chapters of the letter to the Galatian church.

It is central for the church. Everything hinges on this.

Martin Luther went as far to say that “on this doctrine the church stands or falls”.

Our righteousness doesn’t have to be earned because Christ has earned it for us.

He is our righteousness.

“Our righteousness is in heaven, and our standing before God is not based on the righteousness we can ‘work up’ every day, but based solely on the righteousness of the One who sits at God’s right hand.” David Platt

Adoption Process

Last week we talked about foster care and the Law being like the foster system.

Guardianship.

Today we talk about adoption.

Justification is not the end of the Gospel. In fact it might not even be the greatest truth of the Gospel - J.I. Packer

That idea will make some of us squirm in our seats. But here me out. Better yet, hear J.I. Packer out when he says this:

Adoption: We are loved by God the Father.

J.I. Packer - “Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification. The may cause raising of eyebrows, for justification is the gift of God on which since Luthers evangelicals have laid the greatest stress, and we are accustomed to say, almost without thinking, that free justification is God’s supreme blessing to us sinners. Nonetheless, careful thought will show the truth of the statement we have just made.

That justification–by which we mean God’s forgiveness of the past together with his acceptance for the future–is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question. Justification is the primary blessing, because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God’s judgement; his law condemns us, guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments afraid; we have no peace in ourselves because we have no peace with our Maker. So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world; and this the gospel offers us before it offers us anything else.

…But this is not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher, because of the richer relationship with God that it involves. (Knowing God, 206-207)

The doctrine of Justification makes us right before God.

The doctrine of Adoption shows us that we are loved by God the Father.

Justification is like a courtroom judge saying from the bench that “you are not guilty”

Adoption is that same judge coming down from the bench and taking off the chains and saying now you come home with me because you are my son / daughter.

Paul tells us of this transformation in

Galatians 3:26 CSB

26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.

Justification in the crudest form says you are not guilty and blessings as you go and live your life.

Adoption says that have a home and a family that loves you and will take care of you.

Does this make sense why adoption would be the greatest privilege that we could receive from God?

When asked “what is a Christian?” Packer answered this way

“The riches answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.”

Our Adoptive Father

Paul sums up everything we have seen so far in Galatians 3:26 - for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.

Notice Paul uses the singular word sons and not a sons and daughters combo.

Paul is not trying to be sexist here.

He’s actually speaking to the cultural understanding about sonship in order to show the depth of what God is doing here.

Galatians 3:28 - says that there are no longer male or female, we are all one in Christ.

There is no separation.

Paul is actually very counter cultural in his views.

So what is Paul doing here?

During his day the family inheritance would go to a son and not a daughter. In the greater culture, Jewish, Greek, and Roman, sons were really treated like slaves until they reached a certain age and then they would be given the status of heir and he would take on the responsibilities of manhood. He would officially pass from servant to son.

“Paul takes the illustration of what happens when someone receives the full rights of a son in adoption, and he uses it to describe what God does in our lives by grace through faith in Christ.” - David Platt

There are two things that God does to adopt us as sons and daughters.

He sent his son so that we could receive the position of sons.

Galatians 4:4–5 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And he sent his spirit so that we might experience the privileges of sonship.

Galatians 4:6 CSB

6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

God sent His Son so that we might receive the position of sons.

Adoption requires someone who comes at the right time.

Pastor David Platt says this in his commentary:

It was the right time theologically -

The promises of Abraham had been given.

The Mosaic Law had been put in place.

Over 300 prophecies had been given pointing to the Messiah to come.

“Christmas didn’t just happen. It was the culmination of a plan devised in the eternal counsel of God before the creation of the world.”

It was the right time religiously -

The religions of the day had brought the culture to a new low.

There was a spiritual hunger both in the roman world and the Jewish world.

The Jews had been longing for their messiah and the rest of the world was looking for truth.

It was the right time culturally -

The Greek language had become common and practically universal which allowed for the spread of the Gospel.

It was the right time politically -

Pax Romana or Roman Peace was the word of the day.

Rome had conquered pretty much the known world, and had instituted laws and road systems that virtually tied everyone together.

The Roman Roads were the internet of the day! The Gospel message of Jesus Christ was able to spread in a more powerful way than any other time in their history.

Adoption requires someone who possesses the right qualifications.

In order to qualify to adopt you have to go through the right procedures and processes. There are screenings and tests, interviews and references to be given. All of this to test the “quality” of the family who will be taking the child in.

Jesus was the only one who had the qualifications to be adopted into God’s family.

Jesus is fully divine -

God sent His son, the one who is God. God didn’t create Jesus. Jesus was part of the divine trinity from eternity past to eternity future. Jesus, the divine one, is the only one who could bear the wrath of God. And so we see God saying to humanity there is a problem here and I myself will be the solution.

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Colossians 1:15–20 CSB

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. 18 He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Jesus is fully human -

born of a woman in a human body. Jesus was able to experience everything that we experience by coming down to our level. Jesus is the savior that we can relate to. All other religions start in the high places. We have to reach that. Jesus goes to the low place and reaches us.

Galatians 4:4 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

Philippians 2:5–11 CSB

5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We see this in Christmas. Jesus born as a baby, laid in a dingy manger, visited by the poorest of the poor. A king with no fanfare and no royal parades. God who came to us.

Jesus is fully righteous -

Born of a woman and born under the law.

Galatians 4:4 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

Jesus grew up in a Jewish home, following jewish rules. He would have gone to a Jewish synagogue. And he fulfilled the law.

Jesus is perfectly righteous to to redeem us so that we could be righteous.

Adoption requires someone who has the right resolve.

He determined to redeem us -

Ephesians 1:3–5 CSB

3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Just as adoptive parents take initiative to pursue a path to bring a child into their home God set out a path to bring you and I into his home.

We often glamorize this. It’s a big deal to bring a child in who needs a home. To make someone feel wanted and loved. Our family has participated in the court hearings where a foster kid was being adopted into a home. It’s a party, it’s exciting, it’s a day of celebration. It’s not like any other hour in a courtroom.

But the people who are being brought into God’s family are not innocent little children just needing a home.

Ephesians 2 says that people who are adopted are objects of wrath who follow the rulers of the world.

Russell Moore (an adoptive parent himself) - “Imagine for a moment that you’re adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you’re told that this 12-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things, and attempting repeatedly to skin animals alive. He “acts out sexually,” the social worker says, although she doesn’t really fill you in on what that means. She continues with a little family history. This boy’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended their own lives. Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn’t you watch nervously as he played with your other children? Would you watch him nervously as he looks at the knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on TV with your daughter, with the lights out?” 

How would you respond? Well then he identifies the problematic 12yr old.

Russell Moore - “Well he’s you. And he’s me. That’s what the Gospel is telling us.”

God sent His Spirit so that we might experience the privileges of sonship.

When you adopt a child he or she takes on a new position in the family. And the story doesn’t stop there.

The status of adopted son or daughter is based on what a judge says in the courtroom.

Experiencing be a son or daughter is lived out for the rest of their lives. It’s very clear in the adoption proceedings that this is a permanent thing.

The judge stresses the importance of this, this is a turning point a new beginning that lasts for the rest of your lives.

The decision to bow out is offered before the ruling is made.

A decision is made and then a new life results from that decision.

And that new life as sons and daughters as parents with new children starts a journey.

This is the way it is with God. We have a new status with him when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. But there is more than just a new status, we have a new life. Coming to Christ changes who we are.

We live with a new identify before God.

Galatians 3:27 CSB

27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.

We are baptized into Christ.

The Judiazers of the day said this is what it looks like to be in God’s family. Paul says, we have a different picture of this. To be baptised means to follow in his death and resurrection. Paul in a way is saying that baptism has replaced the imagery of circumcision as the identifying marker of being a Christian.

This is why we still do baptisms. It symbolizes our new life in Christ. It certainly isn’t a factor in our salvation, but it is a sign to those around us that we have fully commited to Christ.

We are clothed with Christ.

In the OT culture when you passed from childhood into manhood and received your full rights as a son you would literally put on different clothes.

In the same way our old self that came through Adam is removed and discarded when we become new by faith in Jesus Christ.

We are united in Christ.

Galatians 3:28 CSB

28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Barriers that separate us back in that day as well as today.

Racial barriers

Social barriers

Gender barriers

When we come to Christ we don’t drop these distinctions, they just don’t separate us like they used to.

This is the language in the last book of the Bible - Revelation - every tribe and nation will gather and be united under Christ. The things that separate us will no longer cause division. It starts now in the world that we live in. Think about going to another country and visiting other believers in Jesus. There is a natural connection there. There is commonality.

We each belong to Christ.

Galatians 3:29 CSB

29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

Here Paul shows us the same unity we have even back through the line of OT saints. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. on and on. Finally, we all belong to Christ. They looked forward and we look back.

And because of that we:

We enjoy intimacy with God.

We were once held captive by God’s law. But now we are captivated by God’s love.

Galatians 4:3–6 CSB

3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world. 4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”

We are guaranteed an inheritance from God.

Paul keeps building his argument.

We have an eternal Father.

Just like the adoptive father who has fully accepted the child into his home.

We are secure in the love of God the Father.

We have an eternal family.

Romans 8:17 CSB

17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

We have an eternal home.

Complete adoption into a new home. It’s not temporary like foster care. This is a permanent thing.

This is the reason for the advent season.

This is the Christ candle.

Luke 2:8–20 CSB

8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors! 15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. 17 After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.

Advent Reading

The fullness of time had come. For thousands upon thousands of years, God’s people waited for the coming of the greater son of David, the Messiah-King of Israel. The promised Prince of Peace. And now, their prophets’ wildest, God-wrought dreams finally materialized as angel choirs announced, The King is here! Born this very day.

In the Messiah’s arrival, we marvel at—but expect—an angel of the Lord to proclaim it. We gape at—but expect—a whole army of angels to burst into praise. We might even expect this proclamation to ring through royal halls or in the temple—anywhere other than some obscure field near Bethlehem . . . to shepherds.

Their garments’ animal stench, their ignoble social position, and the dirt lodged beneath their fingernails didn’t disqualify these shepherds from receiving the word of the Lord. After all, this good news of great joy was for “all the people” (Luke 2:10) and, we read later, especially for “the poor” (4:18).

And what did the angel say would be the sign of this exceedingly good news? Look for the Messiah’s poverty: He’ll be lying in a manger. A feeding trough. He’ll smell like you, blessed shepherds. In humble circumstances. Pushed to the margins. Indeed, “blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (6:20).

And blessed are we too when, like the shepherds, we receive this good news and hurry to meet Jesus for ourselves. Isn’t that how we began with Christ? We didn’t understand all he is, all he’s done, and how all of that is meant to radically transform us. We just knew we needed to see him, to meet him. And when we did, how could we keep from proclaiming the good news, “glorifying and praising God,” for all we had heard and seen (2:20)?

This rhythm—hear the gospel, hurry to meet with Jesus, then proclaim the gospel and praise God—isn’t this also how we continue in the faith? Isn’t this the recipe for worship that fuels our endurance? Isn’t this the soil where hope blooms?

The kingdom of God is filled with stories like these: lowly shepherds who become esteemed heralds of salvation; tax collectors and prostitutes who become friends of God; the foolish and weak who shame the wise and strong. Even our hope himself—“the Messiah, the Lord” (2:11) who once lay in a feeding trough.

This is the time that we remember Jesus’ birth, we remember the glorious gift that he has given us, and we look forward to the glorious completion of the work that only he can do.

This is the result of what Christ has offered us through his life, death, and resurrection.

Before we light this candle we have to talk about the danger of sitting on this mountain.

We said a couple of weeks ago Paul is pointing to three mountains that we need to climb in his argument for this church. The mountain of Abraham’s faith. The mountain of the Law of Moses. And now the mountain of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

We also said that there was great joy in each of these mountains but also a danger.

What in the world would be the danger of sitting on the mountain of salvation and grace?

Jesus said this himself -

Luke 14:27 CSB

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

The danger is that when we turn our eyes to Jesus it means a complete life transformation.

We turn our eyes away from the promises that this world give and turn our total attention to the promises that God has provided.

And so without the danger of total submission we can’t experience the joy of total security.

Both in this present life and the life after death.

This is why we place our hope in who we have placed our hope in.

Other religions say: I messed up, my dad is going to kill me. Christianity says: I messed up, I need to call my dad.

Light the Candle

If you haven’t placed your trust in Jesus Christ alone, fully, completely this is the day.

Jesus has reached out to you.

Jesus has offered this gift for you.

If you have been sitting on the fence of grace no really embracing it, not really seeing Jesus as your full Savior.

The one who is going to bring transformation to your life, today is the day to make that jump.

To repent of a cold life and embrace the light of Jesus.

This is the Christmas miracle!