Last month I died and came back to life. That is, according to the Social Security Administration. Ha ha, you thought I went all TV preacher didn’t you?! I received a call from someone I have an account with and they asked me, “Are you alive?” I said “Yes, very much so. Why?” They said, “Because we received a notice that you died on June 5th.” I said, “Well if I did, it doesn’t feel too different than being alive. It’s way different than I expected.” So I went to the SSA and got it straightened out and a few days later they called and welcomed me back from the dead. Behold, I was dead, and now I am alive. I was categorized as dead, then I was recategorized as alive.
When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are recategorized too. We are no longer considered by God to be many things we used to be. But now that we have come to Christ, God considers us to be something – many things actually – entirely different. We were under wrath, now we’ve received mercy. We were dead, now we are alive. We were alienated, now we are close to God. We were condemned, now we are justified. We were “in our sin” now we are “in Christ.” We were unholy, now we are holy. We were of the world, now we are of God. We used to belong to this world, now we belong to the kingdom to come. The devil used to be our father, now God is our father.
And here in Galatians 4 Paul says to the Galatians they were slaves to the Mosaic Law, now their set free. They were slaves, but now they’re sons. They were outside the family of God, now they are inside. They were adopted. When they adopted Christ as their Savior, God adopted them as His sons. Today’s sermon is titled “Gospel Adoption.” God sent His Son to make us sons. God’s son came “born” of a woman, so that we could be adopted as sons by Him. The only way to to become part of God’s family, and not remain a slave to sin, the world, the law, and your flesh any longer, is by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. Lets go through 3 headings today: 1) Sons Are Not Slaves, 2) The Spirit Of Sonship, and 3) The Resurrection of Sons
SONS ARE NOT SLAVES
Adoption in the Greek means “to place among the sons.” I love that. It means that a person who was not a son is taken and given a place among the sons. They are now one of the sons.
There is both a Roman and a Jewish backdrop for adoption. Paul is the only one who talks about adoption like this in the New Testament. But it makes sense, because just as Paul was both a Jew and a Roman citizen, in a way therefore he was a “bridge” between Jews and Gentiles, even called the Apostle to the Gentiles, it is fitting then that he should talk about adoption because adoption has a unique historical backdrop for Jews on one hand and Romans on the other.
In ancient Rome if a father wanted to adopt a boy to be his son, one of his slaves perhaps, it was a big deal. In court a ceremony took place where the biological father sold his son to the adopting father, then bought him back. Then he repeated the sale, and again bought him back. Finally a third time he ceremonially sold his son to the adoptive father, and did not buy him back. At this point his legal authority over his son was broken, and the adoptive father would then make a legal claim to authority over the son. From that moment on the adopted son’s former life was completely erased: all debts, all social obligations, former family ties – they were all completely cancelled. From that moment on the adopted son had a brand new identity, legally he was considered a brand new person, and had a new name. As an adopted son, he was not a 2nd class son to other biological sons, but his status as a son was equal to biological sons – he was regarded as if he were biological.
We are adopted into God’s family, we are placed among the sons of God. We have been purchased out of slavery (“redeemed”) and now have a place in God’s household among his sons – as a son. Now that we believe in Christ, our former life is completely cancelled and nothing from our former life has any claim on us, we have a brand new identity, we are given a new name, a new family.
Adoption was a familiar concept in Jewish history as well. Romans 9:4 says about the nation of Israel, “Theirs is the adoption to sonship…” The nation says in Isaiah 63:16, “You Oh Lord are our Father…” Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 14:1, “You are the children of the Lord your God…” God said in Jeremiah 31:9, “I am Israel’s father…” Just like Christian adoption, Israel’s adoption as a nation is connected to redemption. Redemption means to be released from slavery and set free by someone paying a price. Israel was in slavery to Egypt, and God miraculously delivered Israel from slavery to that nation and brought her into freedom.
APPLICATION: The trajectory is the same: from slavery to sonship. From slavery in Egypt to being sons of God in their own land. The same trajectory in Christ: a person goes from being a slave to the law to being a son of God through faith in Christ.
APPLICATION: You are son, not slaves. You are not under bondage anymore, but you are adopted. You have been redeemed, you have been bought, a price for your freedom has been paid. That payment was not the blood of animals, nor was it gold or cash – it was the blood of the glorious Son of God, Jesus Christ.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: Sons are not slaves and slaves are not sons. Paul is making a sharp contrast here: he says they had gone from being slaves to now being sons.They were redeemed from slavery to the law (v5) and made sons. Verse 7 says, “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child…” These are two mutually exclusive categories – sons are not slaves and slaves are not sons. Slaves to the Law of Moses are not sons of God, and sons of God are not slaves to the Law of Moses.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: If you are a son, do not live in slavery. If you are a slave, then put your faith in Christ and step into freedom.
THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP
Being adopted by God means we have been given His Holy Spirit. Look at verse 6, “Because you are His sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
God sent His Son, verse 4 says. Then God sent His Spirit. God sent His Son to us, for us. Now God sends His Spirit to us, to live in us. We believe in the Son, and we receive the Spirit. We believe in Christ, and that is how we receive the Holy Spirit. Paul asked in 3:2, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by believing what you heard?”
APPLICATION: If you have Christ then you have the Holy Spirit. There is no second blessing, there is no baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is no trying to speak in tongues so you can get “the rest” of the the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit on one condition and one condition only: that you believe on the name of Jesus Christ.
Notice that Paul says the Spirit of sonship. Those who are the sons of God have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of sonship. There is no such thing as a son of God who does not have the Spirit of God. A man may have church, may be baptized, may serve, may take communion, may live morally, may be an upstanding guy, may serve at church – but if that man does not have the Holy Spirit then He does not belong to God. Romans 8:9 says, “And if a man does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to Christ.” In that same chapter, Romans 8:15-16, it says, “The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry Abba.” Here Romans 8 parallels Galatians 4 so closely: redemption, adoption, the Spirit, children of God and heirs. (That’s interesting – in Romans it says the Spirit brought about your sonship, whereas in Galatians Paul said it the other way around: because you are God’s sons He sent His Spirit into your hearts. You want to know what it means? It means that whoever is a son of God has the Spirit of God and whether one precedes the other or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of sonship, and whoever does not have Him inside of them does not belong to Christ). Verse 16 emphasizes further our status as sons, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” So there is an internal witness, where within our own hearts, where the Holy Spirit has been sent, He tells us we are children of God.
CONCLUSION: The Resurrection of Sons
I love this point. Its not in Paul’s words here, but it is in other writings. Romans 8:23 says, “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” We are told in Galatians and even earlier in Romans 8 that we already are adopted as God’s sons. Yet this verse says adoption is something we are still waiting for. What gives? It means we already are “owned” by God, but all that God has planned for us has not yet happened. Those who are adopted as sons, will be raised up as sons – bringing our adoption to the fullness God has always planned. Those who have a place among the sons, will have a place in the resurrection to come!
Why? Think theology here: Jesus was raised up. The Son of God was raised up. The sons therefore must be raised up. He was raised up in an eternal glorious body, we must put aside these corrupted bodies and take up our new bodies that we are told are like His. Its all about being like Jesus Christ. The fullness, the completion, the finish line of being like Jesus will be our resurrection. And like Paul says here, we eagerly await it!
APPLICATION: Eagerly await your adoption to sonship – your new body.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: patiently endure whatever this current body is putting you through. In time it will be set aside, and a marvelously glorious body fit for eternity with God will be yours. Now is only a little while, but then is forever.