In this session Paul compares the position and privileges of a child to those of a servant, with the figures of child and servant representing life under the law and the figures of adult and son representing life in Christ.
To hear an audio recording of the session click the YouTube link at the end of the notes.
During the time Paul was writing to the Galatians, the people of God were wrestling with many of the same issues we deal with today. Social, racial and economic tensions wreaked havoc on people from disadvantaged parts of society. Entire groups of the population faced relentless discrimination based on race and continually struggled for equality. Financial disparity created social struggles, leading to politicians vying for popular approval with seeming vacuous promises. Society was a mess. Sound familiar? Historian and philosopher Friedrich Engels observed, “All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of development.”
The life and teachings of Jesus flies in the face of virtually every cultural and historical conflict. The message of salvation and the gospel is not in favor of one people group or sector of society. 1 Timothy 2:4 reminds us that God, “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
In the passage that I just read, we encounter a truth that rocked the world in the time of the early church and has continued to shape the response of Christians to the gospel for the millennia since. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Imagine how controversial that would have sounded in a civilization under foreign occupation. This was a society that openly endorsed slavery and viewed women as lesser humans and unworthy of citizenship. In many aspects, the phrase, “You all are one in Christ Jesus,” is as radical now as it was two thousand years ago. As you read through the passage for today, meditate on what it means that in Christ we are all one. How would it change our world, our neighborhood and our homes if we truly lived this truth?
Reflect:
How would it change our world, our neighborhood and our homes if we truly lived out the truth that we are all one “in Christ Jesus?”
THE CONTEXT
Continuing his basic argument that salvation is not gained by human merit but solely by God’s sovereign grace through faith, Paul further developed the analogy of a child becoming an adult.
Galatians 3:23-26 NKJV But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
In the text we are going to read today Paul compares the position and privileges of a child to those of a servant, with the figures of child and servant representing life under the law and the figures of adult and son representing life in Christ. Both Paul’s Jewish and Gentile readers readily understood this imagery, since the Jews, Greeks, and Romans all had a ceremony to celebrate a person’s coming of age.
For Jews it’s a Bar mitzvah for boys and a bat mitzvah for girls. For a boy it’s 13 and for a girl it’s 12. After those rituals the children are responsible for their own actions. There were similar ceremonies for Romans and Greeks.
While salvation is the free gift of God, it brings with it serious responsibility. God requires believers to live holy lives because they are children of a holy God.
I Peter 1:13-16 NKJV Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
Leviticus 11:44 NKJV For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
This obligation to the unchanging moral and spiritual principles that forever reflect the nature of God, however, does not include the rituals and ceremonies unique to Israel under Mosaic Law, as the Judaizers falsely claimed.
The central truths of what we are going to read today are that life under law is meant by God to be preparation for His children, and that trust in His grace brings realization of that relationship.
We don't have to obey the law completely to be saved we want to be obedient because God saved in spite of ourselves and our sinful nature.
Adoption: In using the figure of adoption, Paul explains the believer’s intimate and permanent relationship to God as a beloved child. Adoption is the action by which a husband and wife decide to take a boy or girl who isn't their physical offspring into their family as their own child. My sister is adopted. Adoption is full of the ideas of love, grace, compassion, and intimate relationship. An adopted child has all the rights and privileges of a member of the family.
Before salvation people are by nature children of the devil,
John 8:42-44 NKJV Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
The only way they can become God’s children is by spiritual adoption and a new birth by the Spirit.
John 3:3, 6-8 NKJV Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
God confirms the believer’s eternal relation to Him as His child, testifying that we are each led, given access to God, and granted inner assurance by His own Holy Spirit.
Heirs:
God has provided an incomprehensible wealth of riches for those who love His Son. The treasures He has prepared are infinite.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field” (Matt. 13:44). The apostle
Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah when he says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him” (1Cor. 2:9). The good news is, if we love the Son of God, we inherit all the riches of the Father. If we believe in Christ, we have treasure beyond imagination.
Unpack Galatians 4:1-11
Galatians 4:1-7 NKJV Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
child (v. 1)—The Greek word refers to a child too young to talk; a minor, spiritually and intellectually immature and not ready for the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood. A child at that age and maturity level, especially a child of a person with some means (remember Paul is using this as an analogy between was law and grace), had a guardian usually a slave, entrusted with the care of under-age boys, and a “steward” who managed property for the boys until they came of age. They also had a tutor who we talked about last week,
Galatians 3:24 NKJV Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
The “tutor” would escort the children to and from school and watch over their behavior at home. Tutors were often strict disciplinarians, causing those under their care to yearn for the day when they would be free from their tutor’s custody. The law, our tutor, was escorting us to Christ by showing us our sins.
Between the guardian, steward and tutor they had almost complete charge of the child—so that, for all practical purposes, a child under their care did not differ much from a slave.
Paul had said before faith in Christ we were kept under guard by the law with the law being our tutor.
Galatians 3:23-26 NKJV But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
So we were like children.
In verse three
Galatians 4:3 NKJV Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
He says that we were in bondage to the elements of the world.
“Elements” is from a Greek word meaning “rank,” and it is best to see it here as a reference to the basic elements and rituals of human religion. Paul sees both Jewish and Gentile religions as elemental because they are merely human, never rising to the level of the divine.
Both Jewish religion and Gentile religion centered on human-made systems of works; they were filled with laws and ceremonies to be performed so as to achieve divine acceptance. Paul saw this as immature, like behaviors of children under bondage to a guardian.
But, God when the time was right when the exact religious, cultural, and political conditions, demanded by His perfect plan were in place, Jesus came into the world.
It was like a father setting the coming out ceremony when his child came of age and was released from the guardians, stewards, and tutors.
God sent His Son at the perfect time in order to bring all those who believe out from under bondage to the law
John 17:20-25 NKJV “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me.
That the Father sent Jesus into the world implies Jesus’s preexistence as the eternal second member of the Trinity. The fact that Jesus was born of a woman emphasizes Jesus’s full humanity, not merely His virgin birth.
Jesus had to be fully God for His sacrifice to be of the infinite worth needed to atone for sin, but He also had to be fully man so He could take upon Himself the penalty of sin as the substitute for human beings.
Like all human beings, Jesus was obligated to obey God’s law. Unlike anyone else, however, He perfectly obeyed that law.
I John 3:4-5 NKJV Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
His sinlessness made Him the unblemished perfect sacrifice for sins, He “fulfilled all righteousness” because He perfectly obeyed God in everything. That perfect righteousness is what is imputed to those who believe in Him.
So Jesus was able to redeem or buy the freedom of those under the law, those children under the authority of guardians, stewards and tutors, those guilty sinners who were under the demands and curse of the law, and in need of a savior.
Galatians 3:13-14 NKJV Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Because of our faith we are heirs of Abraham and sons of God,
Galatians 3:26-29 NKJV For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Back to
Galatians 4:6 NKJV And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
Abba is an Aramaic term of endearment, used by young children to speak to their fathers; the equivalent of the word “Daddy”
It is the Holy Spirit’s work to confirm to believers their adoption as God’s children. Assurance of salvation is a gracious work of the Holy Spirit and does not come from any human source.
Ephesians 1:13-14 NKJV In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
Galatians 4:8-11 NKJV But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
Before coming to saving faith in Christ, no unsaved person knows God. When Paul says that “you served those which by nature are not gods”, he was referring to the Greco-Roman pantheon of nonexistent deities. These were the gods that the Galatians had imagined they worshiped before their conversion.
But that had changed and now they were actually known by God because they were heirs of the promise to Abraham, and children of God because of their faith.
What we have to remember is that God really chose us first.
John 6:44 NKJV No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 15:16 NKJV You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
and we love Him only because He first loved us
I John 4:17-19 NKJV Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.
Paul's question, in verse 9, was, knowing all this how is it now possible that they return to those elementary things which we talked about earlier
Galatians 4:9 NKJV But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?
We said earlier that those elementary things were Jewish religion and Gentile religion centered on human-made systems of works; they were filled with laws and ceremonies to be performed so as to achieve divine acceptance.
Those things included days and months and seasons and years.
The rituals, ceremonies, and festivals of the Jewish religious calendar that God had given to Israel. These things were never required for the church; Paul warns the Galatians, as he did the Colossians, remember our study, in that book when Paul warned them that all they needed was Christ and Him alone. Paul warned them against legalistically observing them as if they were required by God or could earn favor with Him.
Also take a look at what Paul says about the legalism around clean and unclean food in
Romans 14:1-8, 14-18 NKJV Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by men.
Paul was afraid that his effort in establishing and building the Galatian churches might prove to be futile if they fell back into legalism.
TRUTH FOR TODAY
Because believers are God’s children, they are then “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ”
Romans 8:16-17 NKJV The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
What an incomprehensible truth: that by giving ourselves to Jesus Christ in faith, God gives us everything His Son possesses! The gracious gift of sonship is free, but it brings serious obligation. Great blessing carries great responsibility.
Luke 12:48 NKJV But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.