“Free as Sons and Daughters” (Gal 3:26-4:7) - Galatians: Be Free V -

“Free as Sons and Daughters” (Gal 3:26-4:7)

- Galatians: Be Free V -

Contemporary Picture of Adoption

Adoption is often glorified. We think about sweet, innocent children all over the world just waiting to be adopted by a family. Russell Moore, himself an adoptive parent, makes the following analogy with respect to the contemporary picture of adoption: Imagine for a moment that you’re adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you’re told that this 12-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things, and attempting repeatedly to skin animals alive. He acts out sexually. The social worker continues with a little family history. This boy’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended their own lives. Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn’t you watch nervously as he played with your other children? Would you watch him nervously as he looks at the knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on TV with your daughter?

Am I Adopted?

Then Moore identifies this potentially problematic 12-year-old: “He’s you. And he’s me. That’s what the Gospel is telling us.” In Ephesians 2 the people who are adopted by God are objects of wrath who follow the ruler of this world, Satan, gratifying the cravings of their sinful nature (vv. 1-3). The Bible says, “You were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (2:12). The Bible also says, “Once you were full of darkness” (5:8 NLT). God took a huge risk in order to adopt fallen, rebellious, dangerous children. God adopted us. Some people, particularly the Unitarian Universalists, argue that man is not a fallen sinner. They put an emphasis on humankind's capacity for goodness. They say that God is the Father of all human beings because all humans have been made in His image. And they believe that all human beings gain salvation through personal improvement. According to the Universalists, the mere idea someone might go to hell is not compatible with the character of a loving God. Yes, our God is a loving and compassionate God. He wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth (1 Tim 2:4). Yes, God is the Father of everyone because he made all humans (Acts 17:29). But, the Bible says man is separated from God by sin (Isa 59:2). Man is not good, but sinful, hopelessly lost, and totally depraved. Romans 3:10-12 says, “As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” That is how God sees human beings. But God does not stop there. Our loving God determined to adopt sinful, hopeless, depraved us. God’s adoption of us is not one of many ways, but it is one and only way for us to be saved and reconciled to Him.

Through faith in Christ Jesus

Then, how are we adopted by God? In verse 26 the Apostle Paul says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” He also says in 4:4, “God sent his Son… to redeem those under law.” God sent his Son to adopt us so that we may enjoy the full rights of sons. This sonship is not a universal given. We are not “children of God” in some general way, by virtue of having been created by Him. Here Paul is speaking of a much deeper kind of relationship. This sonship only comes “through faith in Christ Jesus.” We are only His sons when we have faith in the Son. If you want to adopt a child, you have to possess the right qualifications. In order to go through a contemporary adoption process, you have to go through screenings, fingerprint tests, background studies, and home studies, all in order to fit the qualifications. About two years ago God gave my wife, Joyce, and me a strong desire to adopt a North Korean child. So we began to do some research and contact adoption agents. We found out that we couldn’t adopt because we are not U.S. citizens. So we tried to adopt a South Korean child. But still, we couldn’t adopt because we live abroad. My wife and I are still praying that the Lord may give us a privilege to adopt a child at the right time.

Adoption requires someone who possesses the right qualifications. In the same way, adoption into God’s family requires the right qualifications. Jesus Christ is the only person who has the right qualifications in history. Then, what are His qualifications? First, Jesus is fully human. Paul tells us Jesus was “born of a woman, born under law” (Gal 4:4). Why is it so important that Jesus is fully human? It is because only human can be crucified and shed blood. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Jesus has come to us in the flesh to die on the cross and shed his blood, so that he could pay the price for us to be saved. Hebrews 2:14-15 elucidates the point further in this way: “Because God's children are human beings - made of flesh and blood - the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (NLT). As the last Adam, the Son of Man, Jesus embraced death to destroy the Devil’s strongest and sharpest weapon, that is, death. Secondly, Jesus is fully divine. Colossians 1:15 says Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” Then why is it so important that Jesus is fully divine? It is because only God can be raised from the dead. In human history there is no one raised from the dead. Only Christ, the Son of God, the very nature of God, rose again from the dead. By the resurrection of Christ God demonstrated that Christ is righteous and truly the Son of God. And now God counts anyone who believes Jesus’ death and resurrection as righteous. Romans 4:25 says, “Christ was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Justification means “made righteous.” By the resurrection of the Christ, the Son of God, we become righteous children of God. Jesus has fulfilled the right requirements of divine adoption – fully human and fully divine.

Live as God’s Child, Not as His Servant

God sent His Son to adopt us, and now through faith in Christ Jesus we have become His sons and daughters. We have clothed with Christ (Gal 3:27). Our identity is now found in Christ. This is an objective legal condition. This is done externally to us, so we may not feel it. Our inner being is still sinful and unrighteous, but God counts us as righteous. He sees us in Christ. But there is more! God sent His Spirit to transform our inner being. In verse 6 Paul says, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”” Through the Son, we become God’s children legally, and through the Spirit, we become God’s children experientially. Martin Lloyd Jones explains the work of the Spirit in this way: A man and his little child are walking down the road and they are walking hand in hand, and the child knows that he is a child of his father, and he knows that his father loves him, and he rejoices in that, and he is happy in it. There is no uncertainty about it at all, but suddenly the father, moved by some impulse, takes hold of the child and picks him up, fondles him in his arms, kisses him, embraces him, showers his love upon him, and then he puts him down again and they go on walking together. The work of the Spirit helps us not only intellectually know and understand the love of the Father, but also emotionally feel and experience it. Have you experienced, and more importantly, are you experiencing this shower of God’s love?

In today’s Scripture Paul was concern for the Galatians because they intellectually agreed the gospel and did all religious works, but they had no intimacy with God. The conversion of John Wesley is a perfect example. He was active in practical good works. He regularly visited the inmates of prisons. He prayed and fasted and lived an exemplary moral life. He even spent several years as a missionary to American Indians. But on his way home 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.” The son obeys out of love, but the servant obeys out of fear. Are you a son? Or are you a servant? In Galatians 4:4 Paul reaches the climax of the gospel: “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir” (NLT). So live as God’s children and heirs, not as His servants. Put all your trust in Jesus Christ and believe the gospel that you are adopted as God’s sons and daughters in Christ. At all times cry out to Abba Father, and he will shower his love upon you and you will find all of the riches of God hidden in Christ (Col 2:3) moment by moment! Amen.