Who are you? How would you describe yourself? By your career? By your race? By your last name? By your sport? By your personality? Who are you?
Today’s sermon is titled “I Am.” Don’t confuse this with the name of God, and don’t panic as though I’m trying to equate us with God, who alone is THE “I AM.” No, what I’m doing today is driving home to you who you are in Christ. And the angle I’m coming from is how you look at yourself. How do you answer the question “Who are you?” How would you finish the sentence “I am _______?” My ambition today is to make clear 5 things for you today. I want you to know in your bones the following 5 truths so that you can say, “I am 1) Justified, 2) No longer a child, 3) a Child of God, 4) baptized into Christ, 5) clothed with Christ
I AM JUSTIFIED (24)
I want you to know that you are justified. You can say to yourselves, “I am justified.” Verse 24, “So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.” In 2:16 Paul was stressing justification by faith also, “We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
The word justification in the Greek means “to declare righteous.” The same word is translated in English as “just” or “righteous.” So you can say to yourselves, “I am righteous.” The word is taken from courts of law. It means that in the eyes of the law a person is righteous. The opposite of justified is “condemn,” which means “to pronounce as guilty.” So a person who is not guilty before God is someone who is justified.
This justification is not earned. It is not a declaration of how well we have met a standard. It is a gift. It is given despite how far we fall short of the standard. It is a given not on the basis of awarding our great performance, but rather God gives us the status of justness and righteousness on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ. The moment we decide to accept Christ is the moment God decides to see us as justified.
I AM NO LONGER A CHILD (23-25, 4:1-3a)
There is a small terracotta figurine that is well-known to students of ancient Greece and Rome. It is called “Paidagogos and two boys.” Its a figurine with a plump, bearded old man in a robe standing with a supervisory look over two young boys who are next to him. They look “in his care.” Anyone in the ancient world would have known exactly what it depicted if they saw it. It was very common in the ancient world for families to assign a slave to boys at 6 years old to be their guardian. This guardian was their daily chaperone and never left their side – escorting them to and from school or the gymnasium. He was responsible for protecting the boys from the evil influences of society. This is because being their guardian meant his assignment was to be their moral supervisor charged with their moral formation. In this role, he had all authority over the boys to use very strict and severe punishment. In Plato’s “Lysis,” Socrates talks with a boy who has a guardian and is pointing out to him all the ways this guardian has authority over him. Even though the guardian is a slave and the boy is part of the family, the guardian is in charge of him and can punish him to teach him. Chrysostom, the early church father, said this guardian slave’s job was to “rid the youth from all vice, making him fit to receive instruction from his Preceptor” – which was the professional academic instructor, teaching the child rhetoric, grammar, logic, mathematics, etc. The moral training was the job of the guardian and it was to make the child cooperate with the intellectual training provided by the Preceptor. This guardian slave would function as a chaperone, protector, moral teacher and supervisor, until the boy reached 16 or 17 years old. Then it was over. His role would cease and the child would no longer be under the supervision of the slave who was his guardian his whole childhood.
Following the Law as a Christian would be to set aside the grace of God (2:21), to return to a life of living in the flesh (3:3), to reject living by faith (3:12), go back to being locked up under the control of sin (3:22), return to being locked up (3:23), turn back to a guardianship like a child (3:24-25), go back to a slave status (4:3, 7), put ourselves back under the elemental spiritual forces of the world (4:3), or the weak and miserable forces (4:9), return to the burden of the yoke of slavery (5:1), make Christ of no value to you (5:2), alienated from Christ (5:4) and fallen away from grace (5:4).
The Greek word for this guardian in the ancient world was “paidagogos.” It is the same word and the very concept Paul uses here in Galatians to describe the role of the Law in history. It served as a guardian over Israel. And just like ancient slave guardians were temporary, so too was the purpose of the Law to be temporary. It came, it served its purpose, and it ended. Going back to follow the Law once you have turned to Christ is like a grown man returning to the supervision of the slave who was his guardian. It would be like a grown man moving back home, living by Mom and Dad’s rules, obeying a curfew, having chores assigned to you, limiting your screen time, parental locks on your devices, bed times, and so on. Paul’s point is the same: the time of guardianship is over now that the Gospel has come. Now that the Gospel is here, the guardianship of the Law is over.
Our sermon title today is simple: the guardian and the gospel. Paul’s focus on verses 23-25 is God’s movement of history from the previous stage of the Law to the current stage of the Gospel. The Law was a guardian before Christ came, and now that Christ has come the Law’s guardianship is over. By faith in Jesus Christ a person is out from under the supervision of the Law.
APPLICATION: Christ came. Now you have to come. He came to you by coming into this world. Now you have to come to Him
APPLICATION: Be justified today. Verse 24 is clear: justification is by faith. To be clear – it is by faith in Jesus Christ.
I AM A CHILD OF GOD (26, 4:4-7)
I want you to know that you who believe in Jesus Christ that you are children of God. Look at verse 26…..then look at 4:4-7….
There are several thoughts going on here. On the one hand we are now no longer “young children” but by coming to faith in Christ we are considered grown up children of God. Yet, the other analogy Paul is using here is the difference between slaves in the household and children. He says before, under the law, Jews were slaves, not children in the household. But having come to Christ Jewish believers became children of God in His household, adopted as children, and as His children, now they are heirs. The status within the house changed from slave to child. Under law they were slaves, but in Christ they are now children.
There was a time when you were not children of God. In John 8, Jesus told the Jewish leaders who opposed Him, “You belong to your father, the devil.” They were children of the devil. They didn’t follow God ways but Satan’s. They didn’t resemble God, but they did resemble Satan. They didn’t have God in their hearts, but Satan.
To be a child of someone has two aspects to it. One is to be “from” someone, to be of their substance you might say. You are your parents’ child because you have their blood, their genes. But to be someone’s child has another aspect to it, and that means to act like someone. It means to follow their ways, to consciously take on their values, their views, their behavior. The Apostle John called believers his “children” in his letters, not because they were his physical children, but they were his followers, learning the commandments of Jesus from him. Jesus said there was a false prophetess Jezebel in the churches at Thyatira and she had “children,” referring to her followers, not biological children.
Becoming a child of God is not by physical birth. It is a spiritual birth that happens when you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. John 1:12-13 is a great example of this truth…turn there with me….You have been given the right to become a child of God because you believe in Jesus Christ – meaning you ARE a child of God because of your faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
See also how John clearly states that becoming a child of God has nothing to do with natural and physical characteristics. This was particularly aimed at Jews who believed they were children of God on the basis that they were physical descendents of Abraham. John is refuting that – it is not based on natural human descent he says. Paul also says this in Romans 9:7, “Nor because they [Jews/Israelites] are his descendents [physically] are they all Abraham’s children [spiritually].” Natural descent does not determine whether you’re a child of God. Faith and only faith does.
APPLICATION: Your parents’ faith will not save you. Your parents may have been God’s children but that does not mean that you are. Their belief doesn’t count as your belief. You must believe for yourself. Then you will be a child of God.
I AM BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST (27)
Next I want you to know you are baptized into Christ. Look at verse 27, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ….”
Baptism means to be immersed into something, to be submerged into something. It refers to physical things like dipping dishes into water to cleanse or submerging your hands to cleanse them (as in the traditions of the elders in Mark 7:4). It also refers to putting your whole body into the water like when people were baptized by John the Baptist, or Jesus was baptized or the Ethiopian.
From that you can easily see how it also has the idea of being identified with something or someone. The Israelites were “baptized” into Moses according to 1 Corinthians 10:2, meaning the nation was identified with Moses and the divine Law that came through him.
What Paul is referring to here is not physical water baptism, but a spiritual reality referred to as baptism. This is the spiritual reality of you being united to Christ so that you are now “in Christ.” You have been placed into, immersed, submerged – indicating that your entire identity and life is now defined by this unity you have with Christ. In 2:21 it says Christ is in you, here it says you are in Christ. Just like Jesus said the Father was in Him and He was in the Father. These are spiritual truths of a union created by faith in Jesus Christ. First Corinthians 12:12 says tells us the role of the Spirit in this spiritual baptism: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit to form one body.”
Some people confuse this with water baptism, but it is not. I have a very reputable commentator on my desk who believes this verse refers to water baptism – but he is wrong. This guy is brilliant, but on this I’m convinced he’s wrong.
This baptism is a work the Holy Spirit does when you put your faith in Jesus Christ. Look at verse 26 and 27 together to see that it is “faith” that is connected with this baptism, “You are all children of God through faith, for you were all baptized into Christ….” Paul says faith causes us to become children of God, and that faith is also what this baptism into Christ is. By faith we are “in Christ” immediately when we have faith. We do not become “in Christ” when we are water baptized. We are instantly “placed into” Christ when we put our faith IN Him. We receive the Holy Spirit and are baptized with the Spirit when we put our faith in Jesus, not when we are water baptized.
The context of this entire section is all the results of faith, what becomes of us when we put our faith in Christ. We are justified, we are set free from the law, we are children of God, we are clothed with Christ, we are heirs, we are Abraham’s seed, we are partakers of the promise to Abraham – all by faith. Not one single work we do outside of the one act of faith in Jesus Christ makes any of this real for us. Only faith.
I AM CLOTHED WITH CHRIST (27)
Here we find our last “I am” for today. I am clothed with Christ. Each one of you believers in Jesus Christ are clothed with Jesus Christ. Look at verse 27 again, “For aloof you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
Lots of times in the Bible the idea of “clothing” yourself is a metaphor for how you look spiritually. Just like our clothing makes us appear a certain way, there is a way in which we also appear spiritually. Most of the time in the Bible it refers to how you act, like Colossians 3:12 when it says as God’s dearly loved children we should clothe ourselves with kindness, compassion, gentleness and patience. Even more directly related is Romans 13:14, turn there with me…… You can see how clothing yourself means to act in a certain way so as to present a certain appearance. Give the appearance of Jesus Christ in how you live. Give the appearance of godly virtues like kindness, compassion, etc by how you act.
Paul’s point here is that ever since he gave them the Gospel and they believed it, the Galatians were positioned IN CHRIST (baptized into Him) by faith, and ever since then they have also begun to clothe themselves with Christ by living according to the righteous teachings Paul commanded. So Paul is pointing them to their new standing and their new way of living righteously in Christ and he is doing it to reinforce in their minds how they see themselves. They must see themselves as those who are all these wonderful things because of their faith. God has made all of them to be justified, set free, children of God, baptized into Christ, united to Christ, and clothed with Christ all because of faith. Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, all share these same blessings equally on the same basis of faith. Their status socially, economically, racially, has no bearing on their status in Christ.
APPLICATION: Get clothed with Christ. In ancient Roman society, when a boy reached his mid teenage years he would no longer be under the supervision of his guardian. And a ceremony would take place where the young man would officially lay aside his childhood items and his father would give him a new robe, called the “Toga of Manhood.” This toga would be a symbol of his new adulthood and his entrance into full citizenship and civic life in Rome. The psychological effect would be powerful where the young man would now see himself as a man in society and go forward living out and living up to this new status.
By putting our faith in Jesus Christ God has “clothed” us with Jesus Christ. We have been given a whole new spiritual status by God and before God. The psychological effect should be powerful on us. We have gained entrance into the society of the redeemed, we have become full citizens of the kingdom of God, we are now fully identified with the King of kings Jesus Christ – our Savior. Now we should go forward living out from this new identity and living up to this new status.
CONCLUSION
EFC – you ARE justified. You are set free. You are a child of God. You are baptized into Christ. You are clothed with Christ.
I tell you this so that you say to yourselves, “I am! I am justified. I am set free. I am a child of God. I am baptized into Christ. I am clothed with Christ.”