Free as Sons

Paul's reference to Christ's "external form" should not be taken to mean that Jesus only appeared to be human. Rather, Paul is referring to the fact that Christ had a physical body like all men. Jesus was both fully divine and fully human.

Christ had a normal birth, complete with a dingy manger and soiled swaddling clothes, as any other poor peasant in Palestine would have had. Luther said Christianity "does not begin at the top, as all other religions do; it begins at the bottom" (Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 26:30). He continues,

Jesus is fully righteous. Not only was He "born of a woman," but also He was "born under the law" (Gal 4:4). Jesus was born not simply a man, but more specifically a Jewish man who grew up in a Jewish home, attending the Jewish synagogue. He perfectly fulfilled all the demands of the law of God. If Jesus had not been righteous, He would not have been able to redeem unrighteous men.

Adoption requires someone who comes at the right time and someone who has the right qualifications. There's one more requirement that should be mentioned:

Adoption requires someone who has the right resolve. You don't adopt accidentally; you adopt purposefully.

Jesus came with a purpose: God sent His Son "to redeem those under law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (4:5). He determined to redeem us. Here's how Paul puts it:

As a parent takes the initiative to seek out and adopt a child, so it was God's pleasure and will before the creation of the world to set His affections on us. But there's a big difference between a contemporary story of earthly adoption and the biblical story of spiritual adoption. Earthly adoption is often glamorized, even over-glamorized, as we think about sweet, precious, innocent children all over the world just waiting to be adopted by a family. But when you look at Ephesians 2, the people who are adopted are objects of wrath who follow the ruler of this world, Satan, gratifying the cravings of their sinful nature (Eph 2:1-3). Russell Moore, himself an adoptive parent, makes the following analogy with respect to the contemporary picture of adoption:

Then Moore identifies this potentially problematic 12-year-old: "He's you. And he's me. That's what the Gospel is telling us" (ibid.). Praise God that though there was nothing in us to draw Him to us, God determined to redeem us. And lest that sound like an exaggeration of our evil and sinfulness, look at the cross. Look at the picture of God's wrath against sin. It was no minor offense for which Jesus died.

Jesus determined to redeem us, and He died to rescue us. Praise God for His resolve. The other day I was playing with my son whom we 78adopted from Kazakhstan, and his favorite question now is "Why?" When I told him I loved him, he asked, "Why?" I said, "'Cause you're my son." And, of course, he asked, "Why?" How do you answer that? Out of all the children in all the world, why is he my son? I started thinking about all the factors that had to come together, from the timing to the qualifications, to the ups and downs and the days my wife and I wondered if we could do this. I felt the tears well up, though my son didn't even know what was going on (probably sorry that he asked why). I looked at this precious little boy and I said, "Because we wanted you, buddy. And we came to get you. That's why you're my son." In a much greater way, you and I have a God who says, "I love you." And when we ask, "Why, God?" He answers, "Because you're My son." "But why?" "Because I wanted you," He says, "and I came to get you." Praise God that He sent His Son so that we might receive the position of sons.

As great as the reality of being a son is, the gospel could stop there and we would fall to our knees in worship, but there's more good news. The gospel doesn't just declare us "justified," nor does it only give us a new position, a new status. Paul tells us about another blessing: "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!'" (Gal 4:6).

Once you adopt a child, he or she takes a new position in the family, but this is not where the story stops. This is where the story really gets good, which is why we can't be satisfied with an I-prayed-a-prayer-however-many-years-ago kind of Christianity. There is so much more! My children know that I'm their father and they're my children, not only because of the love we showed them by traveling to the other side of the world to adopt them, but because of the love I show them today. Their status is based on what a judge in their country declared years ago, but their life is based on our relationship every day as we play cars and read books and run around the yard and go to Moe's for dinner and sing songs on the way home.

So too with God! Your status with Him was settled on the day you were declared righteous through faith in Christ. But there is more here than simply a change in status. You have new life, a living relationship with God in which He communes with you and sustains you on a daily basis with love, affection, and strength. Coming to Christ changes who we are.

79We live with a new identity before God. In the words of Galatians 3:27, we are "baptized into Christ." This is a picture of immersion into the life of Christ; it's what water baptism symbolizes and signifies. This was huge in context when we remember that Paul was addressing Judaizers—those who were saying that you needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. Paul talks about the picture of baptism, which in certain ways replaced circumcision as the identifying marker of the Christian, though Paul is in no way saying that you must be baptized in order to be saved. Instead, baptism is an outward picture of an inward reality, the reality of experiencing a transforming identification with Christ. Nevertheless, baptism is not just an optional thing to consider: if you are a follower of Christ, this is an extremely important step of obedience as the picture of your identification with Christ. Again, it's not necessary in order to be saved, but it is a fruit of obedience commanded by God.

And as we are baptized into Christ, Paul says we are clothed with Christ. Notice the imagery here, for Paul speaks of putting on Christ "like a garment" (3:27). In Old Testament culture, when you passed from childhood into manhood and received your full rights as a son, you would literally put on different clothes. Likewise, our old self in Adam is removed and discarded when we become new by faith in Christ. This is what happens when we are united to Him.

Not only are believers united to Christ, but also we are united in Christ. In verse 28 Paul starts listing some of the barriers that separated people in the first century, and these are barriers that still separate people today. He starts with ethnic or racial barriers, Jews and Greeks. Then he moves to social barriers, slave or free. Finally, Paul talks about the gender barriers of male and female. Paul is not saying that when you come to Christ you lose these distinctions, that you're no longer a Jew or a Greek, slave or free, male or female. Instead, he's saying that these barriers no longer divide because we are all one in Christ Jesus. Oh, this is the beauty of the church summed up in one verse: a people united not by their ethnicity, their socioeconomic status or gender, not by this or that artificial distinction set up in a particular culture or society, but a people from all ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and genders united together as one in Christ. We all stand before God the same, needing Christ, dependent on Christ, not one of us better or worse. All of us need grace, and we find it in Christ alone, through whom we have all become sons of God!

80Experiencing unity in Christ is one of the great joys of traveling to other countries and meeting with believers there. For instance, when you sit down with Christians in India, there are so many differences that would separate you: you eat differently, you speak different languages, you have different political viewpoints, and you approach life differently. Yet, you immediately have a bond in Christ, and it's a beautiful bond that transcends any differences. It's not a socially, politically, or economically manufactured unity; rather, it's a unity that comes from each person being in Christ. Union with Christ automatically establishes communion with other Christians.

Finally, in addition to being baptized into Christ, clothed with Christ, and united in Christ, we each belong to Christ. In 3:29 Paul says, "And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed." Here Paul takes this unity and ties it to the Old Testament line of saints. We belong to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. We all belong to Christ.

We saw previously that because we've been adopted, we live with a new identity before God. There is a second blessing we should mention.

We enjoy intimacy with God. The Spirit transforms not only our identity, but also our intimacy with God. Paul says, "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!'" (4:6). Remember the context of what Paul has developed up to this point. At the end of chapter 3 and into the beginning of chapter 4, Paul built the case that we were once held captive by God's law. Apart from Christ, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up in our sin (3:23). The commands of God condemned us because we could not keep them. Paul says, "In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elemental forces of the world" (4:3). We were held captive by the law; but now, everything has changed.

Though we were previously imprisoned by the law God gave as a result of sin, now we're captivated by His love. Our situation under the new covenant in Christ is much different from the situation of believers under the old covenant. Consider the fear and trembling associated with the giving of the law in Exodus 19:9-22. The people were warned, "Anyone who touches the mountain will be put to death" (v. 12). In the morning, "there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, and a loud trumpet sound, so that all the people in the camp shuddered" (v. 16). The mountain was "completely enveloped in smoke" and it "shook violently" (v. 18). After that encounter, the people begged 81Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen, ... but don't let God speak to us, or we will die" (Exod 20:19).

This is a picture of the effect of the law. The law revealed man's sin and separation from God, such that in the Old Testament, men trembled at the thought of being anywhere near God. Now take that image and bring it into the New Testament, specifically to the picture of adoption in Galatians 3-4. The people of God were awed and frightened at the prospect of approaching God under the law in the Old Testament, and rightfully so; yet this is the privilege of every single person who is united to Christ. You and I approach God, the same God of Exodus 19, and we do so with "boldness and confident access through faith in Him" (Eph 3:12). And not only do we have confidence, but we also have intimacy: we cry out, "Abba, Father" (Gal 4:6).

This word Abba is sometimes misunderstood and over-sentimentalized as a word that simply means "Daddy," which gives the impression that this is almost like baby talk. But that's not how Scripture uses this title for God. This is a groaning, a longing for a father. It's Jesus in the garden, crying out (Mark 14:36). Likewise, the same Spirit in us cries out, "Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15). It's my son, when he's scared, and he grabs on tight to my neck, and he cries out, "Daddy!" It's when you hear the news you feared, you get the diagnosis you dreaded most, you experience the circumstances you never could have imagined happening, and you fall on your knees and cry out, "Abba, Father!" For even in those moments, you do not have a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear (Rom 8:15). No matter what this world brings, you have nothing to fear because you have received the spirit of sonship, leading us to cry out, "Abba, Father!"

Do we realize that the privilege of approaching God, which was once reserved only for Moses in the Old Testament, is now what happens when you do something as simple as bowing your head before a meal? It's good to be a son, to enjoy intimacy with God. And the Judaizers were missing it, just as many professing Christians today are missing it. They've got the religious routine down, but they have no intimacy with God.

The conversion of the well-known eighteenth-century evangelist John Wesley is a perfect example. Wesley was an honor graduate of Oxford University, an ordained clergyman in the Church of England, and orthodox in his theology. He was active in practical good works, regularly visiting the inmates of prisons and workhouses in London and 82helping distribute food and clothing to slum children and orphans. He studied the Bible diligently and attended numerous Sunday services as well as various other services during the week. He generously gave offerings to the church and alms to the poor. He prayed and fasted and lived an exemplary moral life. He even spent several years as a missionary to American Indians in what was then the British colony of Georgia. Yet upon returning to England he confessed in his journal, "I who went to America to convert others was never myself converted to God." Later reflecting on his preconversion condition, he said, "I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son" (Stott, Message of Galatians, 109).

Are you a son? I'm not asking whether you go to church, read your Bible, or raise your kids a certain way. But do you have intimacy with God as Father? This is what it means to be a son.

Finally, we are guaranteed an inheritance from God. The argument keeps building: you are no longer a slave, Paul says, but a son, and because you are a son, you receive the inheritance. Our salvation and the gospel become more beautiful as you dive deeper into them. We've gone from justification, which means being right before God the judge; to becoming sons, which means we have a new identity and enjoy a new intimacy; and now, since we are sons, God has also made us heirs.

We have been adopted, and the blessings we receive are staggering. Three blessings in particular are worth mentioning. First, we have an eternal Father. Some people have never really had a father in their lives, while others have had great fathers who have pointed to a heavenly Father. But even the best earthly father is an inadequate picture of God as our Father and of our spiritual adoption. For example, some say that children who were adopted have a more difficult time with their identity in a family. I want to be a good father to my children, for them to know every day that they are fully in my family and that I am here to stay as their father. I want them to be secure in my love. On a much grander scale, this is what God does in adoption. He assures us of His love. Even when we fall, He is our Father. This is good news for those who have fallen prey to sin. Like any good father, God may discipline us, but He will do it because He has deep love and affection for us.

Second, our adoption by God means that we have an eternal family. We've already seen in 3:28 that in Christ we have union with one another. As those in God's family, we relate to one another as brothers and sisters. Amazingly, Romans 8:17 says that we are "coheirs with Christ," and 83elsewhere we are told that we are brothers with Jesus (Heb 2:11). He is our elder brother, though not in a way that compromises His divinity, as some cults believe. We are not equal to Jesus. But Scripture does teach that everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to us as coheirs. Now that's good news and bad news. It's bad news because Jesus suffered, and the world hated Him. Therefore, being in the family with Jesus may cost us our lives. But it's also good news because if we share in His sufferings, we will also share in His glory (Rom 8:17). Together, we will enjoy all that Christ has for all of eternity. This is a good family, one that you want to be adopted into.

Third, in addition to having an eternal Father and an eternal family, we have an eternal home. When you're brought into a new home and the adoption is complete, it's not temporary.

Nobody's coming to my house from Kazakhstan or China to take my children away—nobody. You and I can have the same firm confidence based on the authority of God's Word that we will always belong to Him. God has sent His Son into the world that we might receive the position of sons. And when we trust in Christ for salvation, God takes us into His home as heirs, and nobody's taking us away—nobody.

Isn't it indescribably glorious to be adopted by God?

Reflect and Discuss