Galatians 3:23-4:7: Adopted as Sons

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and today the next passage we come to is Galatians chapter 3 verse 23 through chapter 4 verse 7. It says,

²³ Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. ²⁴ So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ 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. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. ¹ I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, ² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. ³ In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, every word we find written in this passage is a priceless treasure because it’s your self-revelation. Thank you that we don’t have to guess about who you are or how we can know you or live in the realm of your blessing. You’ve already told us in your Word. So help us to understand everything we need to understand and be changed in every way we need to be changed through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 

Adoption is one of the most beautiful things that one person can do for another. Most of us probably know people who have adopted a child into their home and made that child a part of their family. And that’s such a wonderful thing—because we recognize that children need something more than adequate food, shelter, and medical care. They need to be loved. They need a family. And that’s exactly what they get when they’re adopted. It’s beautiful.

Not only that, as our main passage here in Galatians reminds us, adoption is also a picture of what God does for us in making us his children. And as we’re going to see, understanding our status as children of God is the answer to many of the struggles Christians often have. It’s the answer to feeling like we have to continually earn God’s love and acceptance by performing well enough for him—as if God’s love for us each day were conditioned on that day’s performance. It’s also the answer to feeling alone and forgotten during difficult seasons of life. And it’s the answer to the nagging feelings of doubt we often have during those difficult seasons about whether God truly has our best interests at heart and about whether we can legitimately trust him to take care of us. If you’ve ever struggled with any of these things, what you need perhaps more than anything else is a clearer understanding of what it means to be a child of God.

You know, as we’ve been working our way through Galatians, we’ve repeatedly encountered the glorious gospel truth Paul refers to as justification—or being declared righteous before God. Paul’s explained how, even though we were once sinful and condemned, God’s provided a way for all of our sins to be forgiven. He sent his own Son Jesus to die for those sins on the cross. And because Jesus bore our sins on the cross and subsequently rose from the dead, you and I can be cleansed of those sins and counted as righteous before God as we put our faith in Jesus. That’s justification. It’s a tremendous blessing.

However, I don’t believe it’s the highest blessing we receive through the gospel. And you may find that surprising, but I do believe there’s a blessing even higher than justification. We find that blessing right here in Galatians 3:23-4:7, where we learn that those of us who are Christians have been adopted into God’s family. Adoption is the highest, most breathtaking blessing that flows out of the gospel.

Now, to clarify, I do believe that justification is the most foundational blessing we receive since it meets our most foundational need. Apart from Christ, we stand under God’s judgment and need to be rescued from that. That’s the most foundational need we have. So, justification is the foundational blessing since it meets that need. However, that’s not to say that justification is the highest blessing of the gospel. Adoption is higher because of the richer relationship with God that it involves. J. I. Packer makes this point especially well in his book Knowing God. It’s wonderful to be declared right before God, but to be loved by God and adopted by God as his own child is even more wonderful. There’s no higher privilege than to be a part of God’s family. It’s the highest blessing we receive. 

And remember that God didn’t have to adopt us. Of course, in reality, he didn’t have to justify us either. He could have left us in our sins and allowed us to experience the condemnation our sins deserved. Yet, he didn’t. He chose to send Jesus to rescue us so that we could be justified. But God also could have stopped at our justification. That would mean we’d be forgiven of our sins and enjoy God’s goodness to some degree in heaven. And I’m sure we’d all agree that that alone would be worthy of us praising God forever. It would be an unimaginably wonderful blessing. Yet God hasn’t even stopped there. He’s actually gone beyond even that and adopted us into his family as his beloved children. That’s just off the charts. What greater blessing could there be? And that’s the blessing we read about in this passage in Galatians.

To state it directly, the main idea of this passage is that Jesus has redeemed us from our slavery so that we’re now sons of God and heirs of eternal life. Again, Jesus has redeemed us from our slavery so that we’re now sons of God and heirs of eternal life. Of course, this only applies to those of us who are Christians.

And also, the word “sons” is no accident. Even though it’s certainly accurate to refer to Christians generically as “children of God”—as I’ve been doing so far—Paul is actually more specific than that in this passage. He refers to all Christians—even women—specifically as “sons” of God because, in ancient culture, it was the sons who would receive the inheritance. Daughters weren’t eligible to inherit property but only sons. So, to refer to all Christians as “sons” of God isn’t meant in any way to demean or exclude women but is actually a way of preserving the full richness of Paul’s original metaphor by making it clear that our sonship includes the confident expectation of a future inheritance.  

So, let’s walk through this passage beginning with Galatians 3:23. Paul writes, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” So, in Old Testament times—before Jesus came and, along with him, the possibility of having a full New Testament “faith”—“we were held captive under the law,” Paul says. Since the Old Testament law was utterly insufficient to rescue us from our sins, we were in a state of captivity to our sins. Our sinful desires had a hold on us and a controlling influence over us that we were powerless to break. So, we were “held captive under the law,” Paul says, “imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.”

Paul then changes metaphors in verse 24. He writes, “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” In ancient Roman culture, a “guardian” was someone who was employed by a wealthy family and who had the responsibility of supervising a young boy of the family until that boy became a man. This “guardian” would make sure the boy received a proper education and learned the skills that would be necessary for him to be successful as an adult. And the guardian would also be in charge of disciplining the boy in whatever ways the guardian thought necessary in order to ensure the boy’s character development. So, the guardian would have authority over just about every aspect of the boy’s life. However, once that boy reached a certain age, he would be free from the authority of his guardian. The guardian’s assignment would then be complete since the boy formerly under his supervision would have become a man.

Likewise, Paul says, “the law was our guardian.” However, just like with a literal guardian, this was never intended to be a permanent arrangement. God’s design all along in giving the Old Testament law to his people was that, eventually, they wouldn’t be under the law any longer. The law was always designed to be temporary. As Paul says, “the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” This, of course, is the central thrust of Paul’s argument in Galatians. We’re justified—or made right with God—not by our obedience to the Old Testament law or by any moral accomplishments of our own but rather simply by putting our faith in Jesus.

Paul then continues in verses 25-26, ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. This is the first time Paul’s spoken in this letter of Christians as “sons of God,” and we’ll explore the full significance of that phrase even more in few moments.  

But first, notice that Paul says that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God.” The word “all” indicates that every Christian has equal standing before God and equal status as a “son” of God. Even the Christian who’s the lowliest in the eyes many in this world has just as much standing and status in the eyes of God as any other Christian.

Paul then continues this line of thinking in verses 27-29. He states, ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ 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. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Paul’s point in these verses—and especially in verse 28—isn’t that there are no longer any distinctions at all among Christians. To be clear regarding the categories mentioned in this verse, there are still ethnic distinctions, socio-economic distinctions, and gender distinctions. These are all clearly observable realities, and Paul’s not denying them here. So, for example, there are ways in which men and women are still called to have different roles both in the church and in biological families. Paul makes that clear in places like Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3.

So, Paul’s not saying that there are no longer distinctions among Christians but rather that there’s no division among Christians. Even though we might be distinct in many ways, we’re nevertheless “one in Christ Jesus,” Paul says. There’s an underlying unity in Christ that transcends whatever superficial differences we might have. Whatever social barriers that might otherwise exist among us have been absolutely demolished by the gospel. Paul mentions three barriers in particular in verse 28. These include the ethnic or cultural barrier of Jews versus Greeks, the class or socio-economic barrier of slave versus free, and the gender barrier of male versus female. All of these barriers have been torn down by the gospel and should therefore no longer be things that divide us as Christians. The reality of the gospel is that we’ve all been adopted into one family and are spiritual brothers and sisters in the Lord.

You know, in American culture today, people often view their identity in light of the kinds of things Paul lists here—their ethnicity, their socio-economic status, and even their gender—or whatever gender they consider themselves to be. Yet here we discover that when someone becomes a Christian, a key part of that conversion experience is a radical revolution in the way we view our identity. Instead of viewing our identity—as we once did—primarily in terms of the kinds of things Paul lists in this verse, we begin to view our identity primarily as children of God. That’s not to say we aren’t anything else, but it is to say that we’re children of God before we’re anything else.  

And when we really begin to have that mentality and understand our identity in Christ, all of the things that might otherwise be sources of social tension in the church—or even division in the church—have a way of fading into the background. And we’re able to love one another and have an incredible unity with one another since we’re all brothers and sisters in the same spiritual family. Even though we may be diverse and distinct in many ways, we’re nevertheless “one in Christ Jesus.” And, again, all of this is an outgrowth of the fact that we’ve all been adopted into God’s family. Going back to verse 26, we’re “all sons of God, through faith.”

Paul then elaborates on this metaphor of our spiritual sonship even more in the subsequent verses. Moving into chapter 4, Paul continues in verses 1-2: ¹ I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, ² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. So, during the period of time that a son is still a child, he’s really not that much different than a slave—legally speaking. He’s under the authority of the “guardians and managers” his father has appointed over him and has no legal standing or legal rights of his own. In the future, of course, that will change drastically. But during childhood, the son’s legal status is essentially the same as that of the slaves within the household.

Paul then says in verse 3, “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” So, just like a son was a lot like a slave during the time of his childhood, we also were “enslaved” during the era of the Old Testament law.

What were we enslaved to? Paul says, “[We] were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” This is likely a reference to the basic instinct that people have of achieving a right standing with God through their own moral accomplishments and religious observances. That seems to be the default mentality just about everyone has—in one way or another. And according to Paul, these religious ideas that revolve around our own accomplishments and achievements are incredibly “elementary” in the sense that they’re lamentably uninformed and woefully insufficient. The rudimentary concept of earning our way into heaven falls far short of the glorious gospel of Christ and the promise of eternal life through faith in him. Yet there was a time when we were “enslaved” to these “elementary principles of the world.”

However, look at verses 4-5:  ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. These verses are undoubtedly the citadel of this passage and perhaps even of the entirety of Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

Paul tells us that “when the fullness of time had come”—that is, when the time was exactly right politically and culturally and religiously—God sent his own Son into this world in order to rescue us from our sins. Jesus was “born of a woman” in the sense that he was fully human, even as he continued to be fully divine. In addition, Paul says, he was also “born under the law” in the sense that he was responsible—just like everyone else—to fulfill the law’s requirements. Yet, of course, he was the only one ever to do that successfully.

Paul then tells us that the reason Jesus came was “to redeem those who were under the law.” The original Greek word translated here as “redeem” literally referred to an economic transaction in which someone would purchase freedom for a slave. They would pay a sum of money in order to buy that slave’s freedom. And that’s precisely what Jesus has done for us through his death on the cross. When we were enslaved to our sins and the consequences our sins deserved, Jesus purchased our freedom through his death on the cross.

Yet, according to Paul, that’s not the end of it. The climactic purpose and result of Jesus redeeming us is “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Several years ago, Becky and I attended a seminar on adoption and discovered that it’s an incredibly long process that involves mountains of paperwork, numerous interviews, and a whole lot of waiting. It’s also surprisingly expensive. The average cost of an international adoption is between 20 and 50 thousand dollars. So, needless to say, if you desire to adopt a child, you had better be prepared for that. It takes a lot to see that process through to completion.

However, as extensive and expensive as the process for adopting a child is, it pales in comparison what God did in order to adopt us. Not only did he patiently wait thousands of years for the “fullness of time” to finally arrive, he also paid an unimaginably high price. We might say that it cost him everything. In order to secure our adoption, God had to send his own Son, Jesus, to the cross. Our adoption came at the cost of God’s own Son. It’s therefore no wonder that the Bible tells us in 1 John 3:1, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God….” It’s truly an awe-inspiring thing that God would do something like that for people like us.

Paul then gives us more details about our adoption in verse 6: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” So, in the previous verse, we learned that Jesus made it possible for us to enjoy the legal status of being adopted sons of God. Yet we see here in verse 6 that—now that Jesus given us that objective legal status of sonship—the Holy Spirit leads us into the subjective personal experience of sonship. So, we’ve progressed from having the legal status of sonship in verse 5 to enjoying the personal experience of sonship in verse 6.

Not only that, a key feature of our sonship is that we’re heirs of an eternal inheritance that’s greater than we can ever imagine. And the first installment of that inheritance is God himself—in the Person of the Holy Spirit—actually living within us. I mean, think about it: there’s no greater gift God could ever give than the gift of himself, and that’s exactly what he does in sending the Holy Spirit to dwell within our hearts. It’s kind of like we now have God’s DNA. Of course, in a regular adoption, the adopted child never actually has the DNA of the adoptive parents. But when God adopts us into his family, there’s a certain sense in which he’s actually able to give us his DNA through the Holy Spirit, who comes into our hearts and progressively changes us, from the inside out, to be more like God.

We also see here in verse 6 that the Holy Spirit cries out from within us, “Abba! Father!” That word “Abba” is an Aramaic term that carries with it the idea of tenderness and intimacy. It’s often pointed out that the rough equivalent of “Abba” in the English language would be “Dad” or “Daddy.” So, this cry of “Abba!” toward God shows the intimate relationship we now have with him. We’re neither condemned nor estranged any more. Instead, we’ve now been brought into a wonderfully close relationship with God in which we actually get to relate to him as Father.

I love this picture of John F. Kennedy, Jr., playing under his father’s desk in the oval office. Of course, his dad was the President of the United States and was therefore arguably the most powerful and influential person in the world. And so, I imagine that whenever most people came into the oval office, they’d be very guarded and formal and perhaps a bit anxious as they interacted with the very powerful man behind that desk. And yet, we see quite a different attitude in JFK, Jr. There’s no fear or anxiety because the president is his dad. And that’s similar to the manner in which we get to approach God. Although we certainly revere God, we don’t have to be afraid of him or be anxious as we approach him. Instead, we come to him as our Father—as “Abba.”

Then, in the final verse of our main passage—verse 7—Paul sums everything up in a single sentence: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” So, let me encourage you to remember that our salvation consists of so much more than having our sins forgiven. The Bible’s clear that we’ve been saved not only out of our sins but also into a relationship with God in which he actually views us and accepts us and loves us as his own children—and more specifically as his “sons” who are destined to receive an eternal inheritance.

In addition, it's also important to recognize that, even though there may be many here today who had earthly fathers who left much to be desired, God is the perfect father. In fact, here are a few ways I jotted down in which God is the best Father we could ever imagine. This certainly isn’t a complete list, but I hope it’s helpful nonetheless.

First, God is a Father whose love isn’t conditioned on our performance. That means we don’t have to be good enough or perform well enough for God to love us. He simply loves us—and will always accept us as his children regardless of how hard we might fall at times or how frequently we might fail.

Second, God is a Father who loves to be generous to us. He’s not stingy with his blessings. In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus says: ⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” So, God surpasses even the best of earthly fathers in his desire to be generous to his children. He loves to be generous with his blessings. As Jesus points out, the reason we so often don’t receive God’s blessings isn’t because of God’s refusal to be generous but because of our failure to ask.

Next, number three, God is a Father who’s made himself available for the closest of relationships with us. He’s not perpetually unavailable or distant or closed off as some earthly fathers are. Instead, he invites us into the closest of relationships.

Fourth, God is a Father who’s for us, not against us. Maybe you’re sometimes tempted to think that God’s in some way out to get you or perhaps that he’s just waiting for you to mess so he can bring down the hammer on you and put you in your place. Yet that’s not at all what this truth of God as Father teaches us. God wants us to enjoy his goodness and fullness and blessing both in this life and in eternity. He’s for us, not against us.

And along with that, number five, God is a Father who will take care of us and provide for our needs. He’s not a negligent father who carelessly leaves his children on their own to fend for themselves without any regard for their welfare. No, he takes care of us and provides for our needs. As we saw in Matthew 7, he’s not going to give us a stone when we ask for bread or a serpent if we ask for a fish.

Then finally, number six, God is a Father who always remains faithful to us. He’s not like some earthly fathers who abandon their family and chase after some woman twenty years younger than them. Instead, God will always be faithfully present and faithfully engaged with you. You never have to worry about him leaving you, losing interest in you, or changing his mind about how he’s going to relate to you.

So, here’s the question, for those of us who are Christians: How do you view God? Do you view him as the Father he’s revealed himself to be or as something other than Father? That’s a very important question because your view of God determines how you relate to God.

One time, a friend of mine tried to send a text message to his fiancé. However, instead of sending it to his fiancé, he accidentally sent it to another woman that he knew. And let’s just say he wrote something in this text message that he definitely wouldn’t write to another woman intentionally. Now, thankfully, they were eventually able to get the situation figured out, but at first this other woman was very confused and my friend was very embarrassed. So, the point is that we relate to people differently depending on who we perceive them to be.

And the same holds true with the way we relate to God. Viewing God as Father will lead you to relate to him much differently than not viewing him as Father. For example, the way you approach God in prayer will be different. Are your prayers guarded and stiff since you really don’t know if God’s favorably disposed toward you, or do you delight in God in your prayers and pray with confidence because you know God loves you and hears you? It depends on whether you view him as Father or not.

Or consider your life in general. When you think about living as a Christian, do you think about it primarily in terms of adhering to a list of rules and duties or do you think about it in terms of loving God and delighting in God as your Father, with all of your devotion to him rising out of your love for him? Are you approaching God as Father?

And if you’re not yet a Christian, let me encourage you to put your trust in Jesus and become a child of God even today. Maybe you feel alone in this world and are looking for a place to belong. God offers you a place in his family. And he offers to be for you the kind of Father I just described—a Father who loves you no matter what, who delights in being generous to you, who’s made himself available for the closest of relationships with you, who’s for you rather than against you, who promises to take care of you and provide for all your needs, and who will always remain faithful to you. God can be this kind of Father for you—if you’ll turn away from your sinful rebellion and put your trust exclusively in Jesus to cleanse you from your sins through his death on the cross. Will you do that even today?