fbpx

Galatians: Week 7 | Day 4

by

Day 4

Lisa Scheffler, author

Listen at bit.ly/EngageGodDaily

When we picture adoption, we often think of a couple adopting an infant or at least someone under the age of eighteen. That wasn’t necessarily true in the Roman world. Adoption was often less about forming a family than providing an heir.

For example, Roman emperors frequently had to adopt an heir. Murder plots against the emperor’s family were common, so some heirs were lost. Some emperors had difficulty siring an heir. Others were so disappointed by their biological children that they sought a competent heir elsewhere. In the span of accessions in the 97 years between Emperor Nerva and Emperor Commodus, every heir to the throne was adopted.[1]

Understanding the context of the Roman world sheds light on Paul’s analogy here in Galatians 4. To be an heir that was chosen and adopted into a family was a great honor.

[1] Michelle J. Morris, “Adoption,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

Read

Galatians 4:4-7

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

List all activities of the Father (God), the Son and the Spirit that are mentioned in these verses.

Reflect

According to commentator Timothy George, these verses “contain one of the most compressed and highly charged passages in the entire letter.”[1] Just look at all Paul packs into just a few verses! Paul exalts the Son, the redemption he provides and the adoption that he made possible. He then goes on to explore the effect the Spirit. Ultimately, he concludes, this activity has allowed us to be children and heirs!

Our passage here in Galatians echoes what Paul writes to the church in Rome:

 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:14–17)

Much of the Christian life is about owning our new identity in Christ. We must allow the Spirit to empower us to put to death ways of thinking and acting that are inconsistent with who we are now, an adopted child of God. Like a pauper who is adopted by the king and becomes a prince, we have been welcomed into the royal family of God. Leaving the realm of the flesh behind, we have to embrace this identity, so we can live out who we’ve become.

Abba” is the Aramaic word for “father,” or “Dad.” It’s a title that speaks to the new intimacy we have with God through Christ and by the Spirit. The fact that we are God’s children has profound implicat  ions. He did not bring us into his family to eat crumbs that fall from his table, but to inherit the kingdom with Christ. Paul makes the astounding claim that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ!

Why is Paul using the word sonship and not a more inclusive term? After all, Paul is talking about God’s sons and daughters? As we’ve discussed, in the ancient world, only sons could inherit. So Paul is speaking literally here, yet, it goes beyond that. Paul is not denigrating women, he is elevating them. To every young slave girl, sitting in a house church and hearing this letter, he is saying you are a son and heir too.

Scholars estimate that nearly 35% of the population of the Roman empire were enslaved and could not inherit money, property, or position. The situation was even more bleak for women who had no control over their bodies or the fate of their children. In the natural world, being a “son” and “heir” would be impossible. In God’s kingdom, it is the King’s unassailable decree. So, imagine what it would feel like to be a slave and hear verse 7 read directly to you, “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” Incredible!  

We shouldn’t leave this passage without also acknowledging the beautiful picture of the Trinity that is painted here. We see the activity of the Father, Son and Spirit. “Though theologians did not use the word ‘trinity’, and the technical terms associated with it, until some time later than Paul, the roots of the three-in-one Christian understanding of God are already present in this, one of the earliest, if not the earliest, document we possess from the young church.”[2]

The same Spirit that hovered over the waters at the moment of creation, that anointed ancient kings and prophets is now sent out as the Spirit of God’s Son, given to all God’s children, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, man and woman. “For the house-church members, this is astonishing. [Emperor] Octavian might claim to be son of a god. For a craftworker’s slave girl to claim this turns the status hierarchy upside down”[3]

[1] George 299.

[2] Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 47.

[3] Oakes, 138.

Respond

What does it mean to you that you are a child of God with a glorious inheritance? How does knowing this affect the way you live now? How about how you endure suffering and tragedy?

Consider making the following prayer your own as you praise God, your Father. Then bring all your needs to him today. He loves you so!

Father, I love you! I want to know you as my “Abba.” Remind me that I am your beloved child when I am tempted to rebel against you. Remind me of the inheritance I have in Christ as I endure hard times. Help me experience all that it means to be your son or daughter…