Chapter 4. The lesson is about the privilege of adoption in God's family. I didn't want to tell a story. I'm prone to do that. But a while back, and it's been a while, I had lost some weight. I lost about 20 pounds. And I was really proud of myself. And right after that, I had an encounter with a Pentecostal minister. And he, I don't know how he met, but all of a sudden he got this look on his face. He said, I've got a word from the Lord. He said, I'm a prophet and that God had revealed this to me. He put his hand on my head, you know, and he said, God has told me that he is going to restore to you tenfold everything you've lost. Come on, folks. alright alright tough audience I tell ya alright but we are in Galatians chapter 4 let's begin with reading verses 1 through 3 it says now I say that the heir as long as he is a child differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your work. Bless the breeding of it, and how blessed we seek to expound on the things we pray in Christ's name amen now to correctly interpret this passage of scripture you've got to have an understanding and I think you probably do the theme of the epistle and it's been pretty much driven home in the last few weeks that we've been studying this Many of the Galatian believers had been influenced wrongfully by some false teachers that had come to them, insisting that they, mostly Gentiles, some were Jews, but insisting that they had to comply with the ceremonial observances of the law, along with their faith in Christ, in order to secure their salvation. They had a special emphasis on circumcision, but that wasn't the only thing. They just were emphasizing the ceremonial observances of the law. In chapter one, verses six and seven, Paul said, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. And then he goes on to say, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. They weren't preaching something totally foreign to these hearers. What they were doing is taking the gospel mixing it with some other things. Well, that doesn't work. Anything outside of grace is works. And Paul is very adamant in another passage where he says, if it's of grace, it can't be of works. And if it's of works, it can't be of grace. They do not mix. And so in chapter two, Paul had his confrontation with Peter, criticizing him for his inconsistency in the matter of the Christian liberty. In chapter three, verse one, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Verse three, are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? So that's the theme running through this book. is about trying to bring the Christian believers out of their liberty back into bondage to the legalism of keeping the law. Salvation by grace through faith uh... alone is is is of such importance that paul was compelled to write uh... an epistle to this church is focused almost entirely on this crucial issue in fact it was so important this is as far as we know this is the only one of paul's epistles that he actually wrote in his own handwriting the whole thing usually he would say i'm putting the sagitation here at the end so he should know it's from me But this one, he said, you see, at the end he says, you see how large a letter I've written with my own hand. It was so important to him that he felt compelled to overcome his handicap, which I believe was his eyesight, and write an entire epistle with his own hand. Now chapter three ends, as you see in verse 29, it ends with the assertion that in Christ we are heirs according to the promise. And that introduces the teaching here in chapter 4. Let's get to the right place. We're searching the text now. And we want to talk first of all about the disadvantage in verses 1 through 3 that we've already read. The first thing we see in verses 1 and 2 is the child. It says, Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. There is no difference, no practical difference between the child, or the heir, and the servant. These verses describe the position of an heir when he was still a child in the culture of that day. The Greek word means infant, but it generally was assumed to be from birth to age seven, perhaps. And so the child growing up in that culture, it didn't matter that he stood to inherit the entire estate of his father as a child. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, I'll bring this quote to you, it says, servants were under the lord of the household, and children were under the servants. So in this way, they were even less free than the servants. So that was the position of the child in that culture, and he's gonna make a comparison here in a minute. In fact, that's the next thought here, is the comparison in verse three. It says, even so we, We who put our faith in the future Messiah. Now this is a truth that is visited often from this pulpit, but I think it bears repeating. Saints of the Old Testament were saved by grace through faith just as the believers of the New Testament. And we're not hyper-dispensationalists. We don't believe that there was one way of salvation in the Old Testament and then another way in the New Testament. No, it was always by faith. Believers before the time of Christ exercised faith in the Messiah that would come. They looked forward to the coming sacrifice of the one who would be the Christ, or the anointed one, the chosen one. And they displayed their faith in the sacrifices that they made. And even before the law, you had Cain and Abel that somehow they were instructed to bring the sacrifice before the Lord Abel brought the correct sacrifice the blood sacrifice and his his offering was accepted whereas Cain Decided he wanted to bring that which he had had a hand in bringing about you know the fruit of the earth and his sacrifice was rejected. So even back in those days there were blood sacrifices pointing to the Christ who would come. In the book of Job, we see Job making sacrifices for his children. That was long before the law. Abraham made sacrifices as well. And he was before the law. And so then when the law came, these things were established in a very regimented manner. And they all knew, these who truly believed, They knew that the sacrifices were only a picture. There was no saving efficacy in those pictures. They were made in anticipation of the Savior who would be the true And the scripture was fulfilled which said, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. It doesn't say that he offered a sacrifice and that's what imputed the righteousness. No, he believed God. It was his faith. that was imputed. In Romans 4.3 it uses the word counted. In Galatians 3.6, accounted. That's all the same Greek word. It was imputed. It was credited to his account. He believed God and righteousness was imputed to him. Well then finally, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming down the road and he declared, behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. This is God's Lamb. This is not a picture Lamb. This is the Lamb of God. In other words, here's the fulfillment of the pictures, Hebrews 10, 4. It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. So the pictures of the Old Testament never did take away any sin. There's plenty of verses that deal with that. I don't have time to go through them all, but I sort of picture it like this, that through the years as they would come to the Day of Atonement and make the sacrifice and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat in the tabernacle, later on in the temple, that it was not paying for sins, but it just pushed those sins forward for a year. You can imagine pushing forward every year. It's like plowing snow. You keep plowing, you keep plowing, and that pile keeps building up and building up and building up. Can you imagine how big that pile of sins was? Well, when he came and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again, all those pictures were fulfilled. That whole pile of sins was paid for. And we are saved by faith. We, in this era, are saved by faith in the past accomplishment. of redemption that Jesus made on the cross through his shed blood and his vicarious, which means substitutionary, death. Now, back to the narrative. It says, even so we, verse 3, when we were children were in bondage under the elements of the world. Now Paul is comparing the position of the pre-messianic believers, those who were saved before the time of Christ, and he's comparing those believers to the position of minor children. As he said, the child is, even though he's an heir, he's no different from to the inheritance. And they were in bondage, as it says, to the elements of the world. You may have heard the verse here in Colossians 2. It says, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why is the living in the world already subject to organs? That word rudiments is the same Greek word as elements. So elements, rudiments, it's elementary. It's rudimentary. The law was elementary in religious matters because the law could never make anyone spiritual. As in chapter 3, the law was our schoolmaster. The law can only point out that we are sinners and point us to Christ. The law can only condemn sin. It has no remedy for sin. So consider the Old Testament looking forward to Christ coming. I don't know when it's going to be. Every Jewish young lady that knew anything about scripture in the Old Testament, they harbored the hope that they would be the one to bear the Messiah. And of course, thousands of years went by and finally Mary was the one to bring the Messiah into the world. So his faith The Old Testament saints' faith is in the coming Messiah, but he is yet relegated to offering the sacrifices and observing the feast, and how they longed. to see the Messiah come into the world, Simeon and Anna. Remember how ecstatic they were when they were presented with Christ there in the temple. And what a blessing that was. Well, that's the way all Old Testament saints live their lives. But they were looking forward and then they still had to keep the feasts and they still had to make the sacrifices and do all of that thing. And then, what about those who died during the Old Testament times? He's a saint, he's a believer, it's counted to him for righteousness, but What about when he dies? Does he go to heaven? To the presence of God? It seems to me that not, and there's differing views, but my interpretation is, of course, the correct one. And I've had good men that have disagreed with me on this, but remember Lazarus the beggar died in the story that Jesus told And he was found in Abraham's bosom. Seems to me to be what is also called paradise. It was sort of a place for the departed saints that were awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Well then Jesus did come and he died and at some point he gathered those saints who were in captivity and it says that he led captivity captive Ephesians chapter 4 verse 8 and all of the dead Old Testament saints were then taken to the third heaven, to the presence of God. And my point is that all this was yet future. Old Testament saints were limited in their privileges, just like the minor child growing up as an heir and yet enjoying none of the benefits. of being the heir. And this is what Paul is talking about in this particular introduction to this passage, is that he said they were living without the privileges of the inheritance. Well, let's move on now. The second point is Verse three, we were in bondage to the elements of the world. But, I like the buts of the Bible. There's a lot of good ones in there. And it says, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. So notice a few things here. It says, when the fullness of time was come. God's timing is always, not always, but often it is puzzling to his people. The Jews spent 400 years in Egypt before God finally delivered them. The Messiah was promised all the way back in Genesis chapter 3 to Adam and Eve. And yet 4,000 years went by before Christ appeared. And there's a lesson in that for us. We need to trust God's timing and curb our impatience. Now maybe some of you aren't impatient. I am. I tend to be impatient. I mean, I won't go through a car wash because it doesn't have a passing light, you know. I want to get through that thing. But, I mean, I'm the kind to sit at the red light and rev my engine, you know. Come on, let's go. But we need to trust God's timing in our lives. So in the fullness of time, it says, God sent forth his son. When the time was right, you say, well, why did he wait so long? I don't know. But that's what he determined to do. That's what he thought was best. And if God thinks it's best, It's best. So that's what he did. He's finally, in the fullness of time, he sent forth his Son. It was a command of the Father. It was the obedience of the Son. But the Son was revealed, Immanuel, God with us. God became flesh. And I think that shows to us the immense love of God for man, that he would send his Son. knowing what the Son was going to have to do to accomplish redemption for His people. And I don't have time to go into that any further, but it's when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made Him a woman. As far as I know, this is the only time in the Bible is used. Now, all men, all individuals are born of women. We all have, you know, a human mother, either still living or passed on, but we had one at some point. But only Jesus was made of a woman. He had no human father. And that's what we call, of course, the virgin birth. And so important that Jesus was born of a virgin. In Adam, all die. But Jesus Christ was not in Adam. He did not have the human male seed. That which is conceived in her, God told him, Joseph, is of the Holy Ghost. And so he was virgin born, and then it says he was made under the law, or made to be under the law by God's appointment and by his own free will. under the law in the sense that he was subject to the law to keep it perfect. There was no redemption for Christ because he was to be the atonement, the redemption for sins. And so it was his responsibility, if you will, to keep the law perfectly. And there's all kinds of people, of course, today that think they're going to make it to heaven because they keep the law. Most of them can't even quote the Ten Commandments, but they think they're going to make it by keeping the law. Even if they could start today and keep the law perfectly from now until they die, you can't do anything about the sins they've already committed. We come forth from the womb, speaking lies. Infants go to heaven because of grace, not because of keeping the law. Babies are liars. You ever notice that? They really are. Because I remember when my kids were small, and they'd be in the other room in their crib taking a nap. And all of a sudden, we'd hear a blood-curdling scream. And one time, I forget which kid it was, had gotten their head between the upright bars of the crib. I don't know how they did it, but they did. And so they had a reason to scream. Another time you hear that blood-curdling scream, you go in there and they grin, that's it, goo, you know, dad, dad. They were lying. They acted like something was wrong, but there wasn't. There's nothing the law can do to remedy the past sin. And by the way, if you think you can keep the law from here to your death, you're fooling yourself. We can't do it. And so Jesus was the only one that could keep the law perfectly. And because he did that, he did not have to sin in nature because he was not in Adam. Because he kept the law perfectly and enabled him to take our place in death. If he had been a sinner, if he had one sin, he would have to die for his own sin. But he was perfect and so he was able to take our place. And our sins were imputed to Him. His righteousness was imputed to us. And that brings us to the next thought, and that's the saving in verse 5. To redeem them. God sent His Son into the world for what? To redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. So first He came to redeem us that were under the law. Now that's all of us. We're all under the law and as transgressors we're all condemned by the law but Jesus came to redeem us that we might receive the adoption of sons some people get hung up on this they say well are we born into God's family or are we adopted well the answer is both we have the privileges of both the natural born child and the adopted And it's generally accepted that the new birth is a spiritual transformation. Adoption is used to describe a legal change, a relational change. And don't let those two terms throw you. Salvation is referred to by many terms. Each one of which emphasizes different aspects of the miraculous change that has been brought about in us. You've got justification, regeneration, propitiation, atonement, conversion, sanctification, adoption, redemption. I could go on and on. And all of those are referring to the same thing and yet it's different waves of shining lights on what happened to us in our salvation. So we were redeemed that were under the law so we could be adopted into the family of God. And that brings us to an anti-climactic thing, that is the sonship in verses 6 and 7. It says, because ye are sons, women don't feel left out. It just means we're the children of God. But it says, because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. Abba Father, and you've probably heard this, that the word Abba is the familiar, intimate term of referring to our Heavenly Father, what we might say Daddy. All my life I called my father Dad. I don't remember ever one time in his 80 some years that he lived, that I ever referred to him as father. He was always dad. And why? Because I was his son. And we had that kind of relationship. It's a closeness with God. Not only that, but then we also have the inheritance in verse 7. Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. So the inheritance that was always technically ours, that inheritance becomes a reality. It becomes accessible to us. And so much can be said about the inheritance. I think you get the idea. But we want to go on now to the third point of the lesson, and that is the danger in verses 8 through 14. First of all, we see in Galatians a strange reversal. When ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." So there was idolatry in their past. You say, well, I never did that. Oh yeah, we were all idolaters to one thing or another in our unsaved life. In their case, they were caught up in the paganism of the culture, they were under the bondage of that false religion. You know, pagan worshippers had to appease their gods with sacrifice and doing penance and observing rituals, all the while hoping that their gods would be satisfied. And more often than not, it seemed to them that their gods were not pleased because they experienced things like a drought, and their livestock would die, locusts would come perhaps and destroy their crops, and they looked at that as if they were being punished by their gods. They were enslaved. to their false religion. Well then in verse 9, there was a change that came about. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggary elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Now this is a question that Paul's asking him. And he said, how can he possibly do this? He said, after that you have known God. Sometimes it's our way of thinking. Well, I found the Lord. I came to Christ. And in a sense, that's true. But look what Paul says. After that you have known God, or rather, are known of God, he says, this is what really happened. The reality of coming to know God is based primarily on His action, not ours. In John 6, verse 44, he said, no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. So God took the initiative to know you. and then you came to know God. And this is far more than just knowing about God, more than just head knowledge, more than just intellectual knowledge. This is an intimate knowledge. And I don't want to be indelicate, but when Adam knew Eve, his wife, that was intimacy. That implied an intimate relationship, and that's the kind we have with God. Now, not fully developed of course, because we are still sinners, we're still sinful creatures of dust, but I think it says over in Peter that we are partakers of the divine nature. We tap into the divine nature of God. So he says, now you've got this relationship with God. You know God and you are known of God. It says, how? Turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements. That word elements is the same word again, rudiments, elements, the basics. Remember the heir, as long as he was a child, he did not have any access to the riches of his inheritance. A commentator named Elcott said this, the legal system was barren and dry. The gospel dispensation was rich with all the abundance and profusion of the messianic times. So he said, why would you want to become a child with no access to your inheritance? That's what you were. You were saved. You were accounted for righteousness. But you were still like a child under the tutors and the governors. Why would you want to go back to that? And he says, where unto ye desire again to be in bondage? I mean, how soon we forget. You know, remember the Israelites that got out, they got released from Egypt. God delivered them miraculously. Wow, we're on our way. Whoa, we're going to the promised land. It wasn't very long at all. I don't know what the time frame was. But it wasn't very long at all. They got thirsty. They got hungry. And they said, we should have stayed in Egypt. We want to go back to Egypt. We want to go back to the leeks and the garlics that we had there. They had forgotten. The bondage had forgotten the toil that the Egyptians put them to, you know, building things and making their bricks and all of that. In Acts 15, 10, he says, now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? He said, you remember how you don't even, you're forgetting how you had an unbearable yoke that was on your neck, and you didn't have the privileges of the inheritance. He goes on in verse 10. Here's what he's doing. He says, ye observe the days and months and times and years. Like the pagans, the Jews observed holidays based on certain times. Now, it is true that most of those special days were prescribed by the law. But the Jews had stripped those things of their spiritual meaning. For example, the Passover was meant to remind Israel of God's miraculous deliverance from Egypt and appoint them to the true Passover lamb, which was Jesus Christ, who would appear on the scene sometime in their future. But the legalistic Jews had pretty much abandoned the idea of the Messiah coming, and they focused less on remembrance and more on the details of the observance, and certainly nothing about Christ during that time. Instead of observing days and months, etc., they should have been observing their Savior. They were focused on their observances. And Paul is saying, that's what you wanted to go back to. You don't realize it, but you're desiring to go back into bondage. So he gives them a strong reminder here in verses 11 through 14. Verse 11, he says, I am afraid of you. Now, I think it's obvious he means I'm afraid for you. I fear for you. I'm afraid of you. They were in vain. One of Paul's constant fears was that his efforts would be found lacking. They would be in vain. Verse 12, Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am. In other words, use this same Christian freedom that I have experienced. For I am, he says, as ye are. Even if they were a little fuzzy on the details, they were free. Even if they didn't recognize it, or even if they had sort of set it aside, they were free from the bondage of the law. So he says, be as I am, because I am as He says, at the end of the verse, ye have not injured me at all. This is an introduction to the next discussion. He says, you have not injured me because, verse 13, ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. He says, my burden for bringing you the pure gospel was so great that I labored through physical infirmity. And I'm sure Paul had more than one ache and pain that he experienced. Remember he had been stoned and whatever. at various times, put in prison, shipwrecked, all that good stuff. But I think primarily his thorn in the flesh was his eyesight. In verse 15, which we're not going to study, but in verse 15 he says, if it were possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. You know, I couldn't see very well, but you would have done that for me. That's the kind of relationship we had. I preached to you through my infirmity, and in verse 14, and my temptation, or my testing, which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected. To despise, of course, means to look down on. He says, you didn't see me as inconsequential because I was physically limited. And we do that sometimes, don't we? We tend to have a lower opinion of those with a physical handicap. I know that when my dad went blind, there were, I could tell, people's opinion of him was altered because of that. Was he the same Yes, my opinion, I'm just saying. But it lowered some people's opinion of him. And my daughter, of course, goes through the same thing sometimes. But he said, you didn't do that. I came to you and I was not in the greatest of physical health. I had to be helped and shown the way and whatever, but you did not despise that. And he goes on to say, but you received me as an angel of God all the time. But the word angel, it literally means messenger. And I think that's how Paul meant it. He says, now Galatians. Remember how you receive the gospel at that time. Do not try to mix it with the religion of your past, which will bring you into bondage once again. And I suggest to us, let's not ever try to add anything in to the gospel. Remember your liberty that you have in Christ. Now, that's not liberty to sin, In any way you want, it is liberty to serve the Lord and to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, bless the lesson today, this passage of scripture. Thank you for it. And bless now as we prepare for the service to follow as our pastor brings the message in Jesus' name.