Adopted Slaves

Galatians 4:1–7

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, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Not Yet Ready

Paul appeals to an analogy of heirs to expose the faulty logic of turning to the law of Moses as a means to being acceptable to God.

He likens the believers under the law of Moses to that of a child who will eventually inherit his father’s wealth. However, prior to the appropriate timing set by his father, this child is not truly free — he is subject to the management and safeguard under guardians and managers. By the same token, those under God’s promise would eventually inherit His kingdom, but until that appointed day comes when Christ would free them from the law, they would continue to be bound by it and not be truly free.

Those who look to the law for their freedom and inheritance will not find it; only in the redemption of Christ will they find both.

Adopted As Sons

Those who lived under the law remained in some form of servitude until Christ arrived on earth. Being sinful, we were all bound by the law (which revealed our sinfulness and our falling short of God’s perfect standards of moral judgment) — but Christ came to set us free from sin.

This atonement was achieved when Christ paid for our sins with his life — the cross marked a substitutionary sacrifice: Christ’s blood interposed on our behalf, so that we may go free.

But God did not leave it at that. For those who received Christ and believe in his name, God adopted them as His own children:

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:12–13

In so doing, God redeemed sinful slaves and exalted them to the status of children of God — free from the tyranny of sin and born of the Spirit. To top it off, He gave His own Spirit to the hearts of these new sons and daughters.

What Does It Mean To Be Free?

What does it mean for us, practically, when we say that we are no longer slaves but we have been adopted by God as His children?

Some thoughts from Enduring Word gives light to this foreign idea of adoption:

There is a sense in which this is a totally unnecessary blessing that God has given in the course of salvation, and a demonstration of His true and deep love for us. We can picture someone helping or saving someone, but not going so far as to make them a part of the family — but this is what God did for us.

We receive the adoption of sons; we do not recover it. In this sense, we gain something in Jesus that is greater than what Adam ever had. Adam was never adopted as a son of God in the way believers are. So we are mistaken when we think of redemption as merely a restoration of what was lost with Adam. We are granted more in Jesus than Adam ever had.

John Newton, the man who wrote the most popular and famous hymn in America, Amazing Grace, knew how to remember this. He was an only child whose mother died when he was only seven years old. He became a sailor and went out to sea at eleven years old. As he grew up, he became the captain of a slave ship and had an active hand in the horrible degradation and inhumanity of the slave trade. But when he was twenty-three, on March 10, 1748, when his ship was in imminent danger of sinking off the coast of Newfoundland, he cried to God for mercy, and he found it. He never forgot how amazing it was that God had received him, as bad as he was. To keep it fresh in his memory, he fastened across the wall over the fireplace mantel of his study the words of Deuteronomy 15:15: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you. If we keep fresh in our mind what we once were, and what we are now in Jesus Christ, we will do well.

God’s adoption of us is a gift of sheer grace — given freely to us not because it is something we need but it is a show of His infinite grace. And it is true that we have been granted something far greater than Adam ever had; adoption as God’s children was no mere restoration of what was lost since the Fall, it is the bestowment of a far superior redemption.

And as freed children, we will do well to remember that we were once slaves — so that we might know and remember the mercy of God and how He redeems us. No longer are we, as a matter of practice, bounded by laws and rules and statutes; we have been given the freedom to live in love and in the Spirit — and we are acceptable to God on the account of Christ’s sake.

May the grace and mercy of God be proclaimed in our living.

Prayer

Father in Heaven,
I may call You Abba Father, only because I am Your child as a co-heir of Christ. In Your begotten Son is the fullness of grace and mercy, imputed to sinful men like me — LORD, I do not deserve it at all, but You cleanse me of my sin and welcome me into the family anyways. For this, I am forever indebted and grateful — may my heart sing praises in worship of You!

Set my heart forth, then, to make such truths known to the lost in this world, wandering amidst the mire of the world — that they may know of a gracious loving Father and be adopted as Your children by Christ as well.

This is my prayer to You, O God. In the namesake of Christ I pray, Amen.