Adopted as Sons and Heirs
Perhaps you remember the moment you “became an adult.” Though we have no definitive moment when this happens in American culture, some milestones resemble it, such as:
- Getting your driver’s license and driving to school or work alone.
- Graduating from high school.
- Turning eighteen.
- Going away to college for the first time.
- Being hired for your first full-time job.
Moments like these are memorable because they provide a sense of newfound freedom, opportunity, responsibility, and trust. They move you forward on the timeline of life from being a minor whom other people take care of and tell what to do to taking care of yourself and making your own free choices.
When a person handles “becoming an adult” the right way, he or she lives more responsibly nor more recklessly, yet not because they’re governed by a set of extensive rules but because they understand that increased freedom and privilege brings an increased need for responsibility and wisdom. It’s this new degree of challenge that – properly understood – should inspire more admiration and respect for your parents, not less, because you learn to appreciate even more deeply all they’ve done and sacrificed to bring you to this point in your journey of life, from childhood to adulthood.
God treats believers as mature, responsible adults not immature, micromanaged children. This statement summarizes what Paul says in Gal 3:26-4:7 when he argues that following the law is going backward from adulthood to childhood spiritually. He shows that:
- God receives all people equally through Christ (Gal 3:26-29); he has no favorite children.
- God frees us from our former limitations (Gal 4:1-5); we’re no longer helpless young children.
- God gives us the confidence to live as the recipients of his blessings (Gal 4:6-7).
Let’s see how Paul describes this newfound “grown-up” status we share when we turn away from legalism and trust Christ alone for a right relationship with God.
God receives all people equally through Christ. (Gal 3:26-29)
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Paul describes all believers as “sons of God.” This description doesn’t focus on believers simply being God’s children but on believers being treated by God as adult children, not immature minors. We receive this acceptance “through faith,” by trusting in Christ alone not observing the Mosaic law.
In this letter, Paul has twice described Jesus as the “Son of God.” Now he describes all who believe on him as “sons of God,” too. It is our relationship to God’s Son, not our observance of the law, that gives us this close and privileged position with God. Christ is the only person with whom God is “well pleased” (Matt 3:17).
He is God and is perfect in every way. We can never be either of these things, no matter how hard we try. When we trust in Christ alone rather than our own efforts to please God, then Christ shares his favored position with us. He gives us his right relationship with God.
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
By mentioning water baptism, Paul illustrates a spiritual reality with a physical formality. While justification before God does not occur the moment a person is baptized or through the act of baptism itself (it occurs the moment a person believes on Christ), baptism does provide a God-given, public expression of our faith in Christ.
“Put on Christ” portrays putting on a new set of clothes. When a person believes on Christ then follows that belief with baptism, he announces his new identity for all to see. He “goes public” with his faith in Christ. If a person refuses to do this, then it raises the question of whether they’ve truly believed on Christ at all. A true believer will be baptized.
Before Christian baptism, Jewish circumcision was another ritual that Jewish people followed to identify with God, yet this ritual is quite different from and superior to Christian baptism. It occurred to Jewish boys at infancy, so it reflected no personal choice to trust in God. Parents made the decision, not the child.
Baptism is a deliberate, personal decision by anyone who first chooses to believe on Christ for a right relationship with God and then declares that faith in public as Christ commands us to do. What’s more, circumcision occurred only to Jewish boys and men, but baptism is for anyone who believes on Christ, as the next verse makes clear.
“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.”
Many misinterpret this verse today:
- Some point to “neither slave nor free” to suggest that Paul is announcing the end of slavery in every form. If that were true (as awful as slavery can be), then one must also suggest that Paul is announcing the end of freedom from slavery, too – which makes no sense at all.
- Others point to “neither male and female” to suggest that either Paul is announcing (a) the end of gender roles in the home and the church or (b) the end of binary, biological gender altogether.
Neither of these suggestions holds up because, in letters written after Galatians, Paul upheld the sanctity of our God-given genders, male or female, and the differing roles and responsibilities each gender plays in home and church. He also warns against gender-fluid behavior like homosexuality, etc. So, what is Paul saying?
First, he affirms these various classifications as actual realities, neither erasing nor obscuring them. He also affirms that God favors neither classification over another but accepts all equally in Christ. He has no favorite children. God favors no ethnicity, no economic position, and neither gender over another. Legalism tends to have favorites but the gospel of faith in Christ alone welcomes everyone equally.
“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Paul hammers home his main point in this larger section of the letter – that faith in Christ is the way to receive the blessing of a right relationship with God as God promised to Abraham. We receive this right relationship with God by trusting in Christ, whom God promised, just as Abraham believed. We don’t receive this blessing by obeying the law.
So, God receives all people equally who trust in Christ, but he also does something else.
God frees us from our former limitations. (Gal 4:1-5)
“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.”
Paul expands his illustration of a tutor from Gal 3:24-25 because it’s a good one to understand. This time he uses a Gentile alternative to his former Jewish example. He describes how a Roman child was viewed as the heir to his father’s business, estate, and resources. In that sense, he was a “master” even though he was a child.
Yet so long as he was a minor – childish and immature – he was treated more like a slave than a master. His parents would assign him various custodian figures to govern his daily life, sign official documents for him, and approve or deny his decisions. This micromanaged experience would end on the day that his father chose to “adopt” him.
Adoption differs from what we call “adoption” today. It describes how a Roman parent would formally and legally acknowledge his son’s promotion from child to adult. This promotion would end the intrusive micromanagement of guardians and entrust the child with adult-level responsibility, decision-making freedom, and access to the family estate.
This kind of “adoption” could involve two kinds of people.
- A man’s actual, biological children. They would be “adopted” as adult sons when the father determined they were ready.
- Someone outside the immediate or biological family, like our adoptions today. This would occur when a father acknowledged a faithful slave, the son of a friend, or some other person as an adult participant in his estate.
Perhaps the most famous Roman adoption is when Julius Caesar adopted Augustus Caesar. Augustus was a great-nephew to Julius and since Julius had no heir to the position of Caesar and no inheritor for his will, he adopted Julius as his son at eighteen years of age. This practice occurred other times as well, when a Roman emperor approached the end of his life with no heir, he would adopt an adult man whom he believed would rule well in his place.
This arrangement helps us understand what Paul is saying here. Both Jews (biological descendants of Abraham) and non-Jews (outside observers) received the blessing of a right relationship with God through faith in Christ, not through obeying the law. We’re not just “added to God’s family” so to speak, but we’re recognized as responsible, trustworthy adults whom God desires to manage his resources and carry out his will on his behalf.
“Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.”
This “bondage under the elements of the world” refers either to:
- The limitations of a physical, material existence in a fallen world (with its misplaced and ungodly desires, pressures, and temptations), or
- The elemental powers that are active in the world today (angelic, demonic beings that influence us away from God, against each other, and towards sinful choices).
Whichever is true, both remind us that we needed the help of “guardians and stewards” (the commands and requirements of the law) to help us come to the Savior and depend on him by faith to deliver us from these worldly ways. This truth also reminds us that though the law pointed us in the right direction, it couldn’t free us from these influences.
“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.”
Paul offers the incarnation (the “enfleshment” or humanization) of Christ as the answer to our problem. Notice the repeated phrase “under the law.” Before Christ, people lived under the incriminating, watchful eye of the law. God gave this law and was not governed by it, yet he allowed himself to be born as a human being so he would share in our experience of being governed by the law.
However, unlike every other person, Christ fulfilled the law and never failed. Therefore, he was the only human whom the Father could “adopt” or promote to a privileged status.
For us, the law only proved why the Father should not adopt or bless us with a right relationship with him. Christ rescued us from this predicament by doing what we could not do and allowing us to trust in him instead to receive the blessing of a right relationship with God. It is his right relationship with and adoption by God which he shares with us.
- It’s as though he is the only one who passed his classes in high school, the ones we keep failing, then he turns around and shares his diploma with us of we trust in him.
- It’s as though he passes the driving test and then gives his license and car keys to us.
- It’s as though he gets accepted by an Ivy League college then enrolls us in the program instead of on the merits of his application and resume, not ours.
So, God receives all people equally through Christ and frees us from our former limitations and failures through Christ as well. Then he also does something else.
God gives us confidence to live as recipients of his blessings. (Gal 4:6-7)
“And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’”
Legalism (reliance on religious performance) inspires doubt rather than confidence. According to legalism, you’re never quite sure if you’ve been accepted by God, if you’re doing well enough, or if you need to perform better.
When we trust in Christ instead, God not only gives us a right relationship with him, but he also sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. God the Father sent the Son into the world to provide us with a right relationship with God, then he sends the Spirit into our hearts to assure us of a right relationship with God.
In an internal, subjective way, the Holy Spirit within us confirms that God has accepted us as his mature, adult children. He places within us a strong personal sense that we’ve been promoted into God’s family through Christ.
“Abba, Father” doesn’t mean “Daddy” or “Papi” as some have popularized. It does mean, though, that we know God not only as Father in a technical, theological sense but in a relational sense, too. He’s not just a Father or the Father, but our Father, who accepts us not just as little children but as mature, adult sons and daughters, as heirs to his kingdom.
For those with a good relationship with your father (or mother), you know what it’s like to appreciate your parents even more once you’ve experienced adulthood for yourself.
- It’s easy to disrespect or fail to appreciate the advice and instruction, love, and wisdom of your parents when you’re a minor whom they take care of and tell what to do.
- But when you experience the challenges and privileges of being an adult, you begin to appreciate your parents in a brand-new way. Your admiration and desire to be close to them increases astronomically.
When we reach the end of our legalistic performance and trust in Christ alone for a right relationship with God, we receive new freedom and liberty in Christ before God knowing God has accepted us as his children. Yet, this freedom doesn’t spark feelings of independence and rebellion. It inspires a deeper desire and desperation to draw near to God as our Father.
“The Spirit of his Son” is a fascinating way to describe the Holy Spirit:
- It causes us to recall how Christ relied on the power of the Spirit to live his earthly life, but it means more than this.
- It also reminds us of how Christ frequently prayed to the Father for wisdom and strength to accomplish his mission – especially his mission of suffering for our sins.
In fact, the one time we find this word used by Christ in the four NT gospels is Mark 14:36, just before his greatest suffering began. He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Do you experience the same heart cry when you face difficult trials?
One evidence that you’re a true child of God is that there is a direct, frequent, and strong heart cry within you to God as Father. You don’t wonder if he hears you, you know that he hears you and you strongly desire to speak with him, just as a mature adult child feels the need to reach out and speak with his father sometimes. You don’t always verbalize this heart cry, but it’s there.
“Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
Paul concludes with a summary that since we’ve trusted Christ by faith alone, then we have full acceptance by God and access to all his love and resources through Christ. It is Christ’s coming, living, and dying under the law that frees us from our own spiritual immaturity, so why would we regress backward to a legalistic approach to God?
Key Takeaways
Identify with Christ through baptism.
If you’ve trusted in Christ alone, then announce that choice publicly through baptism. Until you do, your profession of faith will be hard for others to believe. “Put on Christ” by being baptized into Christ. This will let others know that you’ve also been accepted by God as one of his heirs and mature adult sons or daughters.
Give everyone in the church equal dignity and respect.
Don’t give preferential treatment to people in the church. Acknowledge that ethnic, economic, and gender differences are real. In the church, there are men and ladies, boys and girls, all kinds of ethnicities, and people from all sorts of economic situations. Yet Christ has accepted all of us through faith and all of us – despite these differences – are equally favored by God. Therefore, we should treat every member of the church with equal dignity and respect. We should treat no one more or less favorably for any reason. God has no favorite children, so neither should we.
Pray with confidence to God as your Father.
Pray with confidence that God is your Father who hears you and wants to bless you. Sadly, many today – perhaps even in the church – don’t have a good relationship with their father or mother. They’re not able to pick up the phone and have a heart-to-heart talk about life or some major decision that’s in their path. What’s more, many simply don’t want to make that call because they have no close relationship with their parents.
But let’s not let this unfortunate reality blur the privileges of our close relationship with God. We don’t need to earn God’s favor; we’re accepted through Christ. Just as Christ prayed to the Father for strength and wisdom, we should do the same as well.
Don’t let the ups and downs of your daily performance diminish that strong desire within you to speak with (even “cry out”) to God as your Father in times of need. That desire comes from the Spirit of God himself – the same Spirit who empowered Christ in his earthy life and mission – and is evidence that you’ve been accepted by God as a mature, adult child with full access to all his divine resources.