From Slaves to Sons Now Heirs
Galatians 4:1-7
One of the benefits (and difficulties) of going through a book of the Bible verse-by-verse is that it forces us to cover passages and subjects we would otherwise skip or ignore. On the surface, there seem to be passages of Scripture that are more relevant than others. We’re drawn to things that have immediate application to our lives. We want things to be obvious and practical… right now. There’s something natural about those desires. But it’s the teacher’s job to dig deep into the Word of God using the best available tools… and by using those tools, to bring the ancient black and white text into brilliant Technicolor for the modern listener. It’s one of the hardest parts of writing a sermon… and one of the greatest triumphs is when someone says at the end “I get it!”
In the book of Galatians—where we’ve been for several weeks—Paul uses various cultural illustrations and analogies. He uses these images to demonstrate the supremacy of the gospel over the law as a means of being justified by God. He compares the old life to the new; the dead to the living, the slave to the free. The point is to make us see what God is offering and to want it more than anything offered by the world or by man-made religion.
In Galatians 4:1-7, he uses the illustration of a minor son compared to a slave in a patrician Roman household. The image was clear to the Galatians, but we need some help to understand what he’s talking about. And by going through an obscure passage like this, we’ll touch on issues that we need to touch… issues which non-expositors would never address from God’s Word. And that extra touch gives us a great advantage where we see a fuller revelation of God’s merciful hand in our lives.
Up to this point in Galatians, Paul has been scolding the church for leaving the simplicity of the gospel for a return to the Law of Moses for justification. Paul has been talking about what it means to be a son of Abraham and a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ. But why did God give the Law in the first place? Some people accused him of teaching that the Law played no part in God’s plan, but he never went that far. He corrected this error by saying the Law played a wonderful role in God’s plan, the role of a tutor to lead us to Jesus Christ. These Galatians had started to go wrong on Christ. And as John R.W. Stott said: “If the church goes wrong on Christ, it goes wrong on everything.” Let’s turn to Galatians 4:1-7 and see how the apostle Paul gets them back on the right track… and by reading this, how we might stay on the right track.
In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of God’s Word. The Galatians were rhetorically asking: What are you saying Paul? Verse 1 answers…
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba , Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
[Prayer] In this passage from Galatians 4, we’re going to see a picture of how God redeems us. This picture is cast in terms of a Roman child who is subject to guardians. This child’s position is about the same as being a slave as far as rights and privileges go.
Look at verses 1-3: “What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.” In these verses, Paul makes the point that…
I. Before we have Jesus, we are no different from slaves, even though chosen by God (1-3).
None of us are born free. We are all slaves to something even from birth. For the Hebrews, the master was the Mosaic Law; but for all of us, with or without the Law, we are born slaves of sin. This gives us an innate sense of guilt and dread for the future. Try as we may to fix our own problem through penance and religious observance, the problem still remains. We come to learn that our wills are not free, but bound in a sin nature… dead in trespasses and sins.
Paul illustrates this point by referring to the history of Israel. Under the Law of Moses, ethnic Israel lived as “slaves” to the basic principles of the Law. Think of a teenager in a well-to-do family. They have everything they need with the exception of freedom. They want to have credit cards, but they get an allowance; they want to drive, but they have to be taxied by mom and dad until they get a license. They want to stay out, but they have a curfew. They are minors. But one day (if all goes well) the family wealth will be under their control. They will have freedom and responsibility. The rules are intended to preserve them to that point.
So it was for the nation of Israel under the Law. They were bound and chastened by its precepts. But God was using the Law to cultivate a chosen people for Himself. A remnant of ethnic Israel would inherit the promises made to Abraham. Abraham believed the promises by faith. This is the difference between ethnic Israel and true spiritual Israel. The church is not the same as Israel and Israel is not the same as the church. Only the spiritual remnant of Israel (a small group within ethnic Israel) who trusted God’s promises, like Abraham, would inherit the fullness of the promises and become an example of a believer, which is a gathering the NT calls the church.
This promise was the gospel. This was the gospel that was announced to Abraham that made him rejoice to “see” the day of Jesus coming. So the gospel was announced and celebrated before the Law was ever given. But only the faithful saw it and rejoiced. This faithful group—the remnant —were the chosen among God’s ethnic covenant people and yet they were no different from slaves under the rules and regulations of the Law. This the way it was for all of us before Jesus called us to Himself. Before we knew Jesus, we were no different from slaves, even though chosen by God. But as Romans 8:30 says, those who are chosen are eventually called and those who are called are justified and those who are justified are glorified. Paul is so sure of this future fact that he expresses it in the present tense! This leads us to verses 4 through 6 which teaches us…
II. When Jesus redeems us, He makes us sons of God through His Spirit (4-6).
Listen to verse four: 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba , Father.”
When Jesus came, the gospel lifted the curfew. The Law had served its tutorial purpose. It’s like when the teenager is trusted as an adult: you get the driver’s license, you get the credit card, you make decisions and you live with the consequences… all because you were trained by the law. But wait a minute. This freedom in Christ is not a license to act wild. This is not freedom to sin. This is freedom to act like a mature believer who lives to please and glorify his or her Savior. Jesus has made us sons of God through His Spirit. God the Father sent Christ the Son to identify with us under the law and in bondage to sin. The word translated “under” in verse 4 is the same word translated “subject to” in verse 2. In other words, Jesus subjected Himself—or placed Himself under—the will of the Father until the time set by His Father for redemption.
After Jesus came in the fullness of time, the Law had done its work and served its purpose. When Jesus came and subsequently filled all believers with the Holy Spirit, He wrote the inner Law of God on our hearts. We read the Word of God as Christians and the Holy Spirit within us says: “This is the way, walk in it.” So the Law was fulfilled by the finished work of Jesus Christ.
The Law of Moses was like training wheels on a bike. The training wheels serve a purpose to keep the beginner from falling. They teach the beginning cyclist how to apply the basic principles of riding a bike. But no one in the Tour de France uses training wheels on their bike. They’re all professionals. They have something better to keep them from falling; they have balance and experience. But the legalists would tell these balanced cyclists: “You grew up with training wheels and you should keep using the training wheels because that’s they way we’ve always done it!” Yeah, right!
When Jesus came to bring the gospel to us, He took our training wheels off so we could ride with freedom, with the wind blowing on our faces; He gives us balance to keep us from falling and He’s there even when we wipe out and get hurt. But the Law has served its purpose and must yield to a higher standard; and that standard is the gospel standard of King Jesus.
Jesus was born under the law to redeem those under the law. Jesus became like we are that through faith we might become like He is. He took our sin so that we might receive His righteousness. He took our shame that we might inherit His glory. This is an amazing transaction! He did this so that we could have the full rights as sons, according to verse 5.
If you have Jesus, then you are sons of God. To be classified as a son doesn’t change your gender if you’re a woman; it changes your legal status. Son-ship means you have a legal stake in the inheritance of the Father. Men and women, boys and girls, all are classified as sons through faith in Jesus Christ. This is a legal classification. Verse 6 says… Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba , Father.”
It is God’s Spirit within you that allows you to know the Father intimately in prayer. You call Him Father because of the Spirit’s witness with your own spirit. Faith alone makes this possible. Faith alone lets you know God deeply and personally. The terms “Abba, Father” are informal and personal in nature. “Abba” is one of the first words a baby learns in the Aramaic tongue.
Perhaps you’ve been a Christian for many years, but you’ve lost that sense of closeness to the Father… that sense that calls Him Abba, Father. Perhaps one of the reasons we have this passage in Galatians is to call us back to that intimacy again. He’s still there for you. He wants you to enjoy His presence far more than you can imagine. He’s ready for you to return to Him; to drop all the broken toys of this world and come back to your Father who loves you and has an inheritance which is far better than anything that’s keeping you from Him right now.
Because of your faith in Jesus, you are classified as a son. That leads to the summary statement in verse 7 which puts it all together.
III. Every son of God has an inheritance from the Father’s abundance (7).
Verse 7 says, “7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
The more you understand what it’s like to be distant from God and filthy with the mire of sin, the more comforting these words of life will be when you read them in verse 7. It says you are no longer a slave; you are a son. And if you are a son, then you’re an heir through God.
One of the most memorable stories Jesus ever told was about a son who demanded his inheritance early and went off to squander the money in prodigal living in the far country. But when the money ran out, he was reduced to feeding pigs and even their slop looked better than what he had. So he thought to himself, I’ll go back to my father and say “I’m not worthy to be your son; make me a hired hand and I will work as your slave.” But when he was still a great distance away, the father saw his son approaching the house and ran to embrace him. The loving and forgiving father embraced his dirty, filthy, but repentant son. He would never consider making his son into a slave. “Bring him the robe, put a ring on his finger, and kill the fatted calf.”
As far as the father was concerned, his son had already spent enough time living as a slave to his wayward sinful nature. He had been emancipated through repentance. Now it was time to celebrate his contrition and return. He was a son, not a slave… and because he was a son, he was still an heir of his father.
In verse 7, this is what God is saying to you who love Jesus more than life itself. No more slavery! Now you’re a son through faith in Jesus, and if you’re a son, then you’re an heir of all that Jesus has earned on your behalf. Because Jesus did all things well, we can hear the Father say, “Bring him the robe. Wrap my Son’s robe around her too. Put a ring on his finger, and adorn her with my Son’s treasures as well. And kill the fatted calf because the party must now begin.”
Every son of God has an inheritance from the Father’s rich abundance. Don’t you ever forget that!
Let’s pray.
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
2003