“But when the fullness of the time came, God
sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might
redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as
sons. Because you are sons, God has sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a
son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” (Gal. 4:4-7, NASB)
Imagine
yourself as a slave or an indentured servant.
You would be enslaved to someone else with no hope of being set
free. There is a purchase price, that if
paid, ownership could transfer to another.
However, you would still be a slave.
If you could somehow pay the price, you could set yourself free. There is no hope of that happening; after
all, you are a slave and cannot own anything.
Now imagine
someone very wealthy coming along and paying that purchase price. Now that the ownership has been transferred
to your new master, your new master says, “You are now free!” Wouldn’t that be good news? That would be amazing news!
Let’s not stop
there. Now imagine your new master going
further and saying, “I want to adopt you as my child.” What?!
It is remarkable enough to be bought from slavery and set free, it is
something all together more marvelous for that former slave to be adopted as a
child. Now that you are adopted into
this wealthy family, you are an heir.
You have all the benefits of being in this new family. You have gone from being a slave to being an
owner.
This is the
word picture Paul was painting for the believers in the churches of
Galatia. He wanted them to understand
that they were slaves to sin and were unrighteousness creatures
needing to be guided and maintained by a law system, but no longer. He wanted them to understand that they are
now joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17) with the full benefits of being
children of God.
Paul continued
to say that God has put His Spirit in their hearts. So, God redeemed or purchased the slave, made
them a child, and then put His Life into that child. All three aspects are extremely
important. However, the third aspect is
the most important because it is the ultimate goal of God. Putting His Life into the creature is what
God desired more than anything. Before
the creature can have God’s Life, it must first be a child, before that
creature can be a child, it must be purchased out of slavery.
You may be
thinking, “Why did God have to purchase anyone out of slavery? Why didn’t He just create a new race of
“free” creatures to make his children?”
I don’t really know the complete answer to those questions, but I do
know that God chose to redeem Adam’s race.
He did not give up on Adam’s children, but demonstrated His love for
them through Christ. This is good news
for us because we are all from Adam. We
are all Adam’s race.
Without a
complete understanding of what Paul is saying to these Galatian believers, we
(as the contemporary church) can spin off into an incomplete awareness of who
we are as believers.
If we stop at
just being redeemed, that can lead to a continued slave mentality. At best we may recognize that we have a new
master, but we may find ourselves trying to please the new master through
self-effort. This can lead to a constant
sense of failure because I can’t be “good enough” that gnaws at us day and night. Or it can lead to just the opposite, a sense
of pride that says, “Look at what I can do!”
The Bible does use the slave imagery in describing a believer (Rom.
6:18,22; 1 Cor. 7:22; Eph. 6:6; 1 Pet. 2:16), but even in those passages there
is the implication of freedom.
If we see
ourselves only as redeemed and set free, we may attempt to get our needs met
through our old “slave” ways. This
incomplete understanding of who we are leads to believing that we are still
sinners to the core. Our mantra could
become, “we are just forgiven sinners!”
If that is the case, then our hope (at best) is future and not
present. Nothing has changed except for
our destination (heaven instead of hell).
Let’s add the
next layer: being adopted as a child and becoming an heir. At this point we can see that our identity
has changed from slave to child. We
begin to see our rights as a child of the King.
However, if we stop at this point, we can build a belief system based on
what we perceive to be Godly behaviors and then judge ourselves
accordingly. We also judge those around
us. We think or say things like, “If
they were really a Christian, they wouldn’t ________.” Or “they would ________.” This way of thinking causes us to compare and
contrast. Everyone may have a different
understanding of what it looks like to be a Christian.
We need the
full understanding of what God has done.
He has redeemed us from being slaves to sin and set us free from the
bondage of living under the law. He has
made us His children and we have become joint heirs with Jesus. The best news is, however, we have been given
His Life. None of us can live the
Christian life without God’s Life.
Because we have been made alive through Christ, we can cry out from the
deepest part of our being, “Abba, Father!”
This is the
heart of God for us. This is true
freedom and true life. Enjoy Him
forever!
