From Slaves to Sons: God’s Inheritance
Galatians 4:1-7

God really has set believers up for eternity, beginning before we were old enough to remember! Our Lord has graciously taken care of His people through several “phases” of spiritual life:

1. Schoolchild/slavery phase (4:1-3)
2. Salvation phase (4:4-5)
3. Sonship phase (4:6-7) 

In the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul is trying to convince these people that there really is no better way to go than simply to trust Jesus, nothing more. He comes at that point from a number of different angles and today he’s coming at it from the angle of inheritance. Inheritance is always a fascinating topic.

Galatians 4

¹ Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything,
² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.
³ So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.
⁴ But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,
⁵ so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
⁶ Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, " Abba! Father!"
⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Many years when our boys were little we, as an act of stewardship, set up our will. The thought being that if the boys were left without their parents, what’s going to happen? Did we want the state to settle that issue? With that in mind, we enlisted trusted caregivers, a family whom we trusted to raise our children if we were not there and a gradual financial support scale that would have to do with any life insurance and so forth. What were we doing? What were we thinking? We were concerned with the long-term well being of our children.

God did the same thing. That’s what Paul is going to bring up to us today. He did the same thing; only He did it on a much better and a much grander scale for His children. The point of these verses is that God brings His children into their inheritance. It’s a very special and a very blessed work that He does. It’s sort of like what God did with the children of Israel long ago.

Recall that by His providence they are in Egypt because of the famine in Israel. Jacob and his twelve sons went to Egypt and  their offspring were there for hundreds of years while the nation was growing and developing. They were slaves in Egypt, serving the Pharaoh, making bricks. They were slaves in Egypt though they were children of God at the same time.

In God’s time, He sent them salvation. He sent them Moses, and God through Moses delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt through the agency of the Passover lamb and so forth and voila! They’re brought out of the land, they are safe. And then He brought them into the Promised Land of their inheritance.

Similarly he does that with his people. That’s what Paul is talking about. God has the believers’ inheritance well in hand. What his children have coming in time and in eternity is well taken care of. There are three what I’ve identified as phases in these verses regarding God’s children, you and me, if we have put all our trust in Jesus only to save us. The schoolchild or slavery phase, the salvation phase, and the sonship phase -- the actual inheritance. There’s another way of looking at that, which might be helpful: problem, solution, result.

Schoolchild/slavery phase (Problem)
Galatians 4:1-3

What Paul does is to draw on what is cultural to them. The rich people (a two class society) would have not only their children but also would have servants and slaves around the place. What Paul is saying is it’s really difficult to tell them apart when the kids are little. They are children, but they intermingle with the slaves and the slaves care for them.  

He says he appoints them managers and stewards until they reach a certain point in time. Until they eventually come to realize who they really are and what they really have at the hand of their father. We sort of work that way in our own country. 150 years ago many slaveholders in the south enlisted some of their slaves simply to raise their children and the children of the owners played with the children of the slave families -- except you could tell who was who in that case.

They played together, they learned together, they grew together until the time appointed by the father and then a sharp distinction was made. The point is that it is the father’s care and provision that was present even during the slave time, even during the little child time. It says in the Scripture that the Father has taken care of things. He has appointed managers. He has appointed stewards. He has that phase of spiritual existence completely under control.

In Galatians 3, verse 24 says about the law: We were in custody under the law, we were shut up under the law, but the law even became our tutor, our pedagogue to lead us where God wanted us to go, to lead us to Christ. It’s saying the same thing basically in chapter 4, verse 2, “under these managers and these stewards.” These are the learning years, the little kid years so to speak. Then Paul says in verse 3, “So also we.” A deliberate shift is made. It was like that with us too, he says. We were children. We were held in bondage under what he calls the elemental things of the world, the basic of worldly religion. It’s an interesting phrase with lots of facets to it. “So also we.”

Think of yourself, he says, you Galatians, formerly a Jew or a Gentile or a complete pagan. Do you remember your previous spiritual life? Can you call it to mind? What was it like? Do you remember being under basic worldly religion? Do you remember, he is saying, being a Jew? Do you remember thinking as a Jew? “Boy, I’m really something special just because I’m Jewish?” Because they did feel that way.

“Do you remember being a Jew, trying real hard to keep the rules? Do you remember, as a Jew, keeping all those rules and thinking you’re special, yet never really knowing if you’re going to go to heaven when you die?”  Do you remember being under a basic worldly religion belief system? The Jews did. Do you remember worshipping angels? There are people who do.

How about you non-Jews? How about you pagan Gentiles in the Galatian churches. Do you remember worshipping nature? Remember hearing the stories? Remember taking the trips? Remember the nature worship, river worship, sun worship, moon worship? Remember being afraid of the false deities that represented that? Remember the torment of the spirit world? Do you remember the unpleasant past? I’m asking.

I ask myself this -- Do I remember being enslaved, being under that which was inadequate and  wrong? How many do? I remember as a little boy, my mother dropped us off at Sunday school. I was not raised in a Christian home and the nearest Sunday school was where we went at least for a little while. So I gained early on some kind of knowledge of God and as I progressed through grade school there was awareness there. I believed there was a God. I believed a couple things about Him. One is I believed that He probably would reward me if I asked Him enough and He probably would get me if I didn’t behave.

I had this little prayer routine at night when I would go bed and I would pray pretty consistently. Not for much, just $1,000. Could I please have $1,000 next to my bed when I wake up in the morning? It never showed up. I remember one night I was very angry with my parents when I went to bed, I don’t remember why. Looking back, I’m sure they were right. In any event, I was so upset when I went to bed. I was lying on my bed and my parent’s bedroom was above mine. I was in the basement. I remember being so mad at my parents I lay there on my bed and stuck my tongue out at them. Then I thought, “Uh oh.” That was the wrong direction to stick my tongue out if God was in that general area. I remember being very nervous about that.

I can remember being a young person. As I grew into teenage years and then into a young adult, I can remember the futility of believing in a God I didn’t know and being enslaved to sin I couldn’t control. I remember the frustration, I remember the lostness. I remember those slavery years and I know as sure as I’m standing here that then, as now, God had me in hand and He was using the events in my life to bring me to a point, to a right relationship with Himself. God was there then even as God is here now.

So Paul is talking to these Galatians. Some of then had Jewish backgrounds, some of then had utterly pagan backgrounds and he is saying to them, “Do you remember those backgrounds before you came to faith? Why would you want to stay there? Why would you want to go back there? To those wrong and inadequate forms of worship. Why not trust Jesus only? Why stay there?

Salvation Phase (Galatians 4:4)

Here’s what God has done and I love how God steps in and He profoundly steps in. Verse 4 and the first part of verse 5 is how God steps in historically and I believe that’s what Paul is referencing here. When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son. His Son was born of a woman, His Son was born under the law in order that He might buy out, or redeem, the ones who are under the Law.

God steps in right on time in history. He makes His entrance -- just like at the Exodus. Here you have God’s people in their misery in Egypt, making bricks and carrying on under a Pharaoh who the Bible says didn’t know the Lord, making their lives miserable. And then through Moses and Aaron and the rod and all the ten plagues and the mighty deliverance, suddenly into their lives, literally into history, God just steps in and says, “It’s time to go. We‘re out of here”

He stepped in and delivered them by an outstretched arm and a mighty hand and out they came. God stepped in and saved them.

Fullness of time -- exactly what that means is hard to say. It may   mean that after, in God’s mind, certain things had been accomplished; now it’s time. Or when the world had reached a certain condition, now it’s time. Or perhaps when a certain pre-established timeframe had elapsed -- this has been fulfilled; now it’s time. We don’t know, but in God’s mind the fullness of time came and Jesus showed up. Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late. God was right on time and He always is. Jesus now is the focal point of everyone’s attention in Galatians. God sent forth His Son and His Son entered this world born of a woman. While the book of Galatians doesn’t develop the theme much at all, other places in the Bible do. Here, what is in view is the humanity of Jesus. Jesus came not from a UFO. He didn’t materialize and be sort of a ghostly spirit being who walked about on the earth. Jesus underwent literal, physical, human birth. Jesus -- truly man.

The book of Hebrews goes to great length to talk about His humanity. In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Truly human, therefore identifying with every human issue that you or I face and ever lives to make intercession for us. A wonderful thing.

I’ve discussed this before. For some reason it’s more difficult for us to grasp the humanity of Jesus than it is His deity, that He was truly man, born of a woman, nothing ethereal about it. Absolute childbirth, absolute little kid growing up. All of it. He understands us from every facet.

Also born under Law. This human Jesus, Jesus truly man. Jesus truly God, born under the law in order that He would perfectly keep all of the rules of the law, to establish himself at the end of His life as the perfect sacrifice for those of us who couldn’t keep the Law. Born of a woman, born under the Law, perfect sacrifice in order to redeem, in order to purchase, those who are under the Law. Born with buying power, born with intrinsic worth. Only Jesus born with the ability to account for souls other than His own. As truly God, His worth is boundless. As truly man, His life is perfect. He alone could pay the debt owed by humanity and on the Cross that’s precisely what He did.

In Revelation, Chapter 5, there’s a marvelous account of a heavenly scene, where the Son of man takes the scroll from the Father on the throne and proceeds to begin the act of judgment upon the earth. He is claiming what is His own and all the hosts of heaven (Rev 5) fall down on their faces and they proclaim Him to be “worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals and to claim what is your own.” Why?  Because You were slain and you purchased with your blood. What Jesus did. Born of a woman, born under the Law so that He could buy it all back, make it all right.

If He did these things, Paul will argue, why would you not want Him? Why would He not be enough? He’s enough to satisfy the eternal God of heaven, why is He not enough to satisfy these people? Paul argues strongly for the worth of the Savior. Jesus steps in historically, but at the end of verse 5, He also steps in personally in order that we might receive the adoption. Now it’s gone beyond history. I can explain historically and go over and over the fact that Jesus invaded history. He truly did die on a cross for the sins of the world. He truly did all the things the Bible said He could do. You can sit there and say, “Oh, isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t Jesus great? Isn’t that good!” But all of that historical knowledge doesn’t get anybody to heaven. What gets you and me to heaven is when we appropriate it personally. That’s where Paul is taking this. It’s not enough just to have that historical knowledge.

Historically that’s established but there’s a huge gap between what we believe historically and what we own personally -- about 18 inches. It’s the greatest distance, probably, that we’ll ever have to deal with. That’s what Paul does here. He says, “OK, let’s move now from history. How about now to you and me.” He’ll take it further in the next couple verses, but God steps in right on time in history, he steps in right on time personally with you and me. Which brings us to the final two verses.

Sonship Phase (4:6-7)

“Because you are sons, He has sent forth the spirit of His Son into our heart, crying, Abba, Father.” So that you are no longer slaves, but sons, and if sons, then heirs because of God. What an amazing statement. God steps in right on time and He does it personally. What is in view here is this business of being adopted, being put into His family. What Paul does not have in view here is simply a religious coming of age experience where maybe something registers in our heads. This is more than say, in a Jewish culture, a Bar Mitzvah where someone says, “OK, I’m in. I’m identifying this as my new religion.”

This is more than what  many churches practice, a confirmation, where we say, “OK, I’m really going to identify with this church.” This is more than baptism, where we go down to the river and say, “OK I’m done with the old and it’s up with the new.” This is more than that. It’s supercedes all of the above. What is in view here is more than simply coming of age or enjoying religious liberty. The view here is nothing less than a relationship. It’s not just a head issue. It’s a relational issue that God has in view. Because you are His sons, this is what He has done. This is what God has done. He has taken the initiative in a relationship. “I am so keen on you I want to have a relationship with you to the extent that the same Spirit who inhabited my Son will now inhabit you.” Now that’s pretty personal. That’s hard to argue out of.

He will send the Spirit of His Son, he says, into our hearts. Key words. Not into our minds. In Greek thought, the heart was the seat of the inner person. It’s the part of me that looks out through my eyes. It’s the inner person. It is the mind. It is the intellect. It the will. It is the emotion. It’s the seat of who we are on the inside and so when God makes a claim there He has us all. It’s huge. That’s a big, big deal. He has sent His Spirit into our hearts.

In Romans, Paul goes into greater detail speaking to a different batch of believers across the sea in Rome.

Romans 8
¹⁴ For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
¹⁵ For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

God doesn’t put His Spirit in us just so that we will be able to stand up and say, “Yep, we’re right.” Or just so that we can have our previous thoughts on religion confirmed. That’s not what it’s about. He puts His Spirit into our hearts so as to seal a relationship between the almighty God of the universe and you and me. I might add, a privileged relationship, because we are now allowed, enabled, encouraged, to cry out, “Abba Father.” Interesting expression!

The word “crying” suggests an ongoing situation. Many of us are pretty good at throwing prayers to heaven as the need arises. Normally when things are bad, occasionally when things are good, we will remember, “Oh yes, Lord. Thank you, Father.” The Spirit of God, who literally lives inside God’s people, has an ongoing relationship with the Father. It never is diminished. There is a continual address, “Abba Father.”

By the way, there is nothing that unique about “Abba Father.” Jesus first uttered these words in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ natural language on earth was Aramaic. Aramaic for Father is “Abba.” The other word, “Father,” is Greek. There are two words for Father, one in Aramaic and one in Greek. So all it’s really saying is He is crying out “Father, Father.”

In the same sense Jesus was able to address His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane when His trial was weighing heavily upon him, in the same way as Jesus taught His disciples to pray, saying (revolutionary term at the time), “Our Father, who art in heaven.” That was brand new stuff when Jesus taught that prayer. Jesus connected to the Father intimately, called Him “Father.” We are invited and encouraged to address the author of the universe with the very same term. Because we deserve it? Because we’ve earned it? Because we’re just nice folk? No. Because He has orchestrated our slavery and childhood and brought us into salvation and adopted us into His family and sealed our position there by His Spirit. He says, “OK, we are now in relationship. Please get to know Me. You may call me Father.”

We don’t even have to be wonderful? No. We just have to be honest and sincere and broken. That’s what it takes. The Holy Spirit is the lynchpin of our ongoing walk with God. Without the Holy Spirit our relationship with God would not exist. The Spirit lives inside us and is our link with the Father.

There are a couple of interesting verses further in Romans 8, verses that we could spend a lot of time on. In verse 26, Paul writes:

Romans 8
²⁶ In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;

That’s literally what it means. We don’t know. We don’t know how to deal with heavenly reality. We don’t live there. Very frequently our prayer requests have to do with problems and trials and tragedies and issues that we can’t understand because we can’t see eternity. The Spirit can.

So how do we pray? Lord, we want You to do this. Well, is that right? We don’t know. It seems right, but we don’t know. We pray from our hearts and we say, “Lord, this is how it looks to us. We can’t see the other side of the tapestry. All we can see is the backside and it doesn’t make a lot of sense with all these various colored threads going every which way with no apparent pattern until the Spirit prays. Can we hear Him? No. His groans, it says in the verse, are unutterable. We can’t even hear them, but we know that we have the Spirit of God within us who is constantly in communion with the Father praying accurately and holding us linked to Him. He’s critical, this Holy Spirit, who has placed us in the body of Christ and who comes to live in our hearts. It’s an amazing thing.

It’s a personal and individual walk He’s leading us in. The Bible says the Spirit is a Person, not an “it.” It’s wrong to refer to the Holy Spirit as “it.” It wouldn’t be “she” either. He’s a Person. It’s how He’s referred to in Scripture. A person is a being with will and intellect and emotion. The Bible says do not quench the Spirit. Do not say no to Him. When the Spirit of God is convicting our conscience in accordance with what God’s word clearly teaches, it is for us simply to respond in obedience. Don’t say no to the Spirit. There’s a relationship being built here. In every relationship if there’s a constant turn-down and put-down there’s not much of a relationship there, is there?

Do not quench Him, the Bible says. Do not grieve Him. Do not put Him in a position to make our lives more unpleasant perhaps. He’s interested in relationship. The Bible, on the other hand, says be filled with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. How do we do that? Here’s a clue: I believe the key to understanding the Spirit of God and to having the Spirit of God move in our lives with power is the Bible. This is why I believe that: The Bible is very clear that the Holy Spirit is God’s agent of delivering His truth. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture is God-breathed. The Spirit is responsible for delivering the Scripture in the form that we now have. It’s His. They are the Words of God, borne along by the Spirit of God. They are His truth. The Bible is the Holy Spirit’s province.

The Bible also tells us that the Spirit of God lives in the people of God. So if the Spirit owns the Book and the Spirit owns the believer, when the believer and the Book interact there’s a completed circuit involved and we change. The word I have hid in my heart that I might be changed, that I might not sin against God. The word of God is the key. If we are not in the Bible, we can’t for a minute expect to walk in the Spirit or to be filled in the Spirit. We can only expect to grieve Him and to quench Him.

It’s the responsibility of every individual believer to feed himself or herself, to respond meaningfully and regularly with the Bible. If we’re not there, we’re not growing. If we’re not there the relationship isn’t what it ought to be. When we face decisions that are difficult, when we face temptations that are troubling, what would God want me to do? “Dear God, should I do this or should I do that?” Invariably the Spirit of God will say, “You do what God‘s Word says to do.” We step in that direction -- we just grew in faith. We just walked in the Spirit. It’s a great thing. We just became more like Jesus. It’s all related.

We are in prayer. We are in the word. We make choice after choice after choice according to what God’s word says. We are walking and growing in the Spirit. We are growing in an eternal relationship that is, frankly, beyond our imagination.