If you would, go ahead and take your Bibles and turn with me to the NT book of Galatians. We’re in Galatians 4:1–7. 

When I was young, my dad and mom would always tell me the story of my birth. They would leave out all the gory details of that event, but they would emphasize the really important things. For one, my parents did not find out the gender of their three children until we were born, and so the delivery room was heightened with anticipation. “Is it a boy? Is it a girl? We’re going to find out soon.”

Well after my sister was born, my dad started praying diligently for a son. And so as my mom’s pregnancy drew to a close, there was a lot of hope that maybe now he would have a son. And as they went into the delivery room—this was in the 1970s—they would make the fathers wear goggles in that room. And dads would stand in the corner of the room waiting for the delivery. And my mom told me that after I was born and my dad saw that he had a son, his goggles were filled up with tears, so much so, that he couldn’t see through them. At that moment, he was thrilled to have a son and to have his prayers answered.

After hearing that story throughout my childhood, I figured I would protect myself from a dramatic response in the delivery room by finding out my child’s gender before birth. So I knew way before the birth of Alastair that he was a boy. But that didn’t stop the tears from flowing when he was born. 

And both of those stories illustrate the unique place that a “son” has in the heart of his father. “Daughters” are unique too and have a special place in the hearts of their fathers. So I don’t want to deemphasize that. But there’s something special about the dad/son relationship. Dads get to do unique things with their sons: 1) they teach their sons their trade, 2) They teach them how to play their favorite sports, 3) They teach their sons how to kill stuff, 4) They wrestle with them and teach them how to be a man, and 5) They pass on their name to them. Something that is very valuable to me that came from my dad is our family name. I proudly identify myself as a Caffey, the name of my dad and my granddad and my Scottish forefathers. I feel like the heir to a dynasty.

I mention these things, because the subject of our message today is “sonship.” As significant as sonship might be in our own culture, it was even more prominent in the Biblical culture. The sons had a legal right to their father’s property. 

But it’s not earthly sonship that Paul is going to talk about here in Galatians. It’s cosmic sonship. As we saw in last week’s text, those who are in Christ Jesus are “sons of God.” What we’ll see in the text today, Galatians 4:1–7, is three transformations that take place when we become a son of God. 

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You can see those three transformations in your notes. Here’s the first of those three. 

1) The sons of God move from captivity to freedom (4:1–3)

Paul says in verse 1, 

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,

Now we are launching out in chapter 4, verse 1, right into a discussion about heirship. And the previous passage is crucial to understanding Paul’s argument here. 

At the end of chapter 3, Paul made some dramatic statements in a rapid-fire manner. First he said that the law held us captive until faith came (3:23). It was our guardian, our disciplinarian. Second, he said that faith in Christ made us “sons of God” (3:26). Third he said that there is unity among those who are in Christ. And this unity doesn’t discriminate against race, class, or gender (Gal 3:28). That’s a powerful statement; one of the most powerful in Galatians. And fourth (and this is the bridge to our passage today) he said that these “sons of God” are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. 

So for Paul, the idea of sonship and heirship are interrelated. If you have faith in Christ, then you are a child of God. And if you are a child of God, you are an heir of God according to the Abrahamic promise.

Now being an “heir of God” is different than being an heir in this world for a few different reasons. When we talk about heirs or inheritances in our world, it is usually in the context of a will. When a relative dies, then that person’s estate gets divvied out to other family members. That person’s personal wealth typically goes to immediate family members after death.

But in the ancient world, the inheritance automatically went to the sons. People didn’t typically have wills. And so you knew ahead of time who got what when a person died even before they died!  

Paul’s description here of God’s inheritance to us as heirs is more like the ancient world than our world. The inheritance automatically goes to sons. That’s why us being called “sons of God” is so theologically rich. 

But this is also different from the ancient world, because God never dies! And so our identity as heirs is an eternal identity. It’s what you might call a perpetual living-inheritance. So instead of us waiting until God passes away to bestow his riches upon us, he willingly gives them to us now. He gives them exclusively, though, to the sons of God, those who are heirs according to the promise.

So if that’s the case… and it is… then why does Paul differentiate here between the heir and a slave? Let’s tease that out. Paul says, 

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. 

Okay, Paul is using an analogy to describe the difference between a son and a slave. The two were treated the same in youth. Sons were heirs destined to inherit what belonged to fathers. Slaves were part of the inherited property. They were worlds apart. But under Roman law, “the status of the minor still under a guardian was roughly that of a slave.” The rights, privileges, and expectations of the heir were essentially the same as a slave, when both were young. It wasn’t until an heir had matured out of adolescence that they had access to their inheritance.  

So you can imagine the heir of a vast estate growing up with the same stern discipline and teaching as the slaves of a household. They would eat together. They would play together. They would grow up together. They are not treated differently, even though one is “the owner of everything.” 

But once that heir matured, usually at around age 25 in the Roman world or at whatever date was set by his father, then he would be freed from the guardians and managers. Then he would have the freedom to manage the inheritance that his father left him.

Paul says in verse 3, 

3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 

Now Paul explains the analogy. At one time, we were all enslaved to the elementary principles of the world, which I would define as sin and the demonic realm. Before being adopted as sons, we were slaves. This is true both salvation-historically in the broader plan of redemption that God unfolded, but also in our own personal plan of redemption. In the broader plan, all of humanity was held captive under the law (3:23). 

Galatians 3:22 said it this way, “The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” Those passages are illustrated in 4:1–2 where both slave and heir are treated as slaves until the date set by their father. 

But we can also see this in our own personal path towards redemption. Before Christ we were slaves to sin and slaves to the law. We were unable to free ourselves in our own power. Christ came and not only freed us from captivity; he made us “sons of God,” heirs according to the promise. 

When I was learning to play guitar in college (I started late), I remember being totally frustrated by the learning process. I was learning to play all the chords. I was taught the strum patterns. I was memorizing songs and chord charts. The tips of my fingers ached from pressing chords for hours on end. It was a kind of torture. Everything was a slog. I couldn’t put it together. I felt like a slave to this instrument, and I wasn’t getting anywhere.

But then I had a break-through. And I don’t even know how to explain what happened. It just all came together. My fingers developed callouses. I finally figured out a strum pattern that worked that I could use for songs. I learned syncopation, and how to combine that with chord changes. And that totally transformed my guitar-play. I felt like I was shot out of a canon after that. 

Something like that is being described here in Galatians. When we were children, we were enslaved to the principles of this world. Enslaved to sin. Enslaved to the law. Unable to live holy lives. Unable to experience the joy and the freedom of sonship!  

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But then what happened? Well, look at verse 4.

4 But when the fullness of time had come, 

 Now that’s an interesting expression, the “fullness of time.” Why was it the fullness of time? Some have speculated that it was the relative peace and stability of the Roman Empire that brought about the fullness of time—the so called Pax Romana. 

Others have pointed to the development of Greek as a universal language or to the relative ease of travel that promoted the spread of the gospel. Maybe that’s what Paul is alluding to here?

I’m more inclined to see this phrase as linked with the “Seventy Sevens” in Daniel 9:24. Those of you who are familiar with that passage know that the prophet Daniel prophesied the exact time frame in which the Messiah would be revealed. And in the fullness of time that happened! In this way, the “fullness of time” should be linked to God’s ultimate sovereignty in determining when and how his Son, the Messiah, would come into this world.

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, 

Notice this is The Son. This is “his Son.” This is the Capital-S Son of God. We are the small-s “sons of God.” Let’s never confuse those two designations. Yes, we are the sons of God. Yes, we are the children of God. Yes, I’m even comfortable saying that I am a child of God. But I would never say… and we should never say… “I am the Son of God.” There is only one The Son of God, and it’s our big brother, Jesus. 

And in the fullness of time, God sent the Son of God into this world. Why did he do that? Well the motive for this action was love. John 3:16 speaks to this, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  

And notice what Paul says in the middle of verse 4.

"born of woman,"

Christ is fully God. Christ was fully God. And yet Christ is also fully man. This is what we call the hypostatic union in theological circles. Most Christian heresies either deemphasize Christ’s deity or they deemphasize Christ’s humanity. Christian orthodoxy fully affirms both—his deity and his humanity.   

And notice too, there is no reference to a human father in verse 4. Why not? Where’s Joseph? Well, Joseph was an adoptive father. He’s not the biological father of Jesus. Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He was born of a virgin, born of Mary. This is the event that we celebrate every Christmas. This is what’s called the incarnation, when Jesus became Immanuel, “God with us.”

And look at the end of verse 4. There’s a lot of theology packed tightly into this verse. And every phrase, every word, is crucial.

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 

What does that mean? Born under the law? This last phrase is very important. Jesus submitted himself to the same restrictions that we have. He was born under the law. He grew up with the OT law. He knew the OT law backwards and forwards. But unlike the rest of humanity, he obeyed it perfectly. So whereas we are cursed under the law, Christ fulfilled the law. 

Speaking of Christ’s birth under the law, Timothy George says, “Not only was he a man, but he also was a Jewish man, circumcised on the eighth day as all Jewish males were. He grew up in a Jewish home reading the Torah, praying to his Heavenly Father, attending synagogue, faithfully fulfilling, as no one before or after him has ever done, all of the precepts and demands of the law.”

So Jesus is like us, but he’s unlike us. He’s completely human, just like us. But he’s also perfectly and sinlessly human, unlike us. And he’s God enfleshed, unlike us. That’s why we worship him, and we don’t worship ourselves. 

And why did God do this? Why did God send forth his Son to be born of a woman and to be born under the law? Why would he do that? Here’s why…    

5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 

Here’s the second point from our text today. Like I said at the beginning we are looking today at three transformations that take place when we become sons of God and the second transformation is that…

2) The sons of God move from separation to adoption (4:4–5)

 God sent his Son to do two remarkable things: 1) to redeem those who were under the law. That’s you and me! And 2) to receive the newly adopted “sons of God.” That’s you and me too! 

 There are two fantastic theological terms in verse 5 that we need to be familiar with as Christians. These terms show up again and again in Paul’s writings. 

 The first one is redemption. This term was used in the Greek world to refer to a commercial transaction between parties. This is an appropriate term in light of the “slave language” of this passage. Jesus redeemed us. He paid the ransom for us, so that we could be freed from a life of slavery to sin and the law. As we read of few weeks ago, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal 3:13). 

 But Paul also uses another theological term in verse 5. And since Galatians is Paul’s first NT letter, this is the first time that Paul introduces this concept in Scripture. It’s the term adoption. We are adopted as sons!

 Now adoption was a common legal procedure in the Greek world as well. Even Julius Caesar legally adopted his great-nephew Octavius who later became Caesar Augustus. So adoption was perfectly legitimate in the ancient world, and in our world too, for the passing down of an inheritance. 

 And Paul uses this term to describe the cosmic adoption of human beings as the “sons of God.” So let me put all these constituent parts together and read 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. 

In his fictional book, Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes from the perspective of one demon to another. It’s a senior demon, Screwtape, writing to his understudy Wormwood. And in that book, Screwtape says that the “Enemy [i.e. God] has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into sons.” 

It’s amazing that God not only saves us from our sins, but he goes a step further and calls us “sons.” The amazing thing about adoption is that those who were not family, now become family. Those who were strangers, separated from one another are now kinfolk. 

 One of my best friends in Illinois is a pastor. And he has been able to experience the joy of adoption. Sanja and I have watched him and his wife bring four adoptive children into their home. And then I got to hear him preach on the theological subject of adoption, our adoption as sons. 

 And I remember talking to him about it. And he said that his experience adopting children had brought such joy and light to this theological truth. To think, these individuals (him and his kids) were, at one time, completely separated from one another. But then, they were brought together in God’s providence by adoption. 

 That’s beautiful. Those who were strangers are now kin. It was an amazing revelation for him. It was an amazing revelation to me.  

 And that’s what Christ Jesus has done for us. He has bridged the gulf between us and God. He has made strangers kin. 

 Now here’s a tricky question. Let’s think deeply about this. Some of you might even be asking this question right now. How do these ideas of adoption and heirship come together? If God adopted us as sons when we put our faith in Christ, then how could we be the heirs who coexisted with the slaves in verses 1–2? Anyone curious about that? 

 Well the answer to that is found in God’s foreknowledge. God lives outside of time. He’s not bound by time as we are. And Paul says later in Ephesians 1:5, “[In love, God] predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” In other words, God knows, outside of the parameters of time, who will be his sons. And he moves in time and space to adopt us as sons when we believe. So the heirs of God are also the adopted sons of God. They are the ones chosen by God to share in his glory and his inheritance forever.

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 And here’s the privilege that we have as the sons of God. Look at verse 6. 

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 

No Spirit; no sonship. No sonship; no Spirit. Now, ladies in this room, please don’t be put off by this masculine language here. The ESV did not translate this word “sons” (Greek: υἱός) here as “children” or “sons and daughters.” And that’s a good thing. 

In the ancient world, the sons were the ones who received the inheritance from their fathers. That was true in the ancient Roman world. That was true in the ancient Jewish world. That was true in England just a few decades ago. If you’ve seen “Downton Abbey” or read Pride and Prejudice, you know all about that. That was true even in Elizabethan England, when Queen Elizabeth I was the most powerful person in the world. Even then, the sons inherited from their fathers!

So in terms of the metaphor, ladies, you are sons of God. That may feel odd to you, but it shouldn’t. Men are called the bride of Christ; they shouldn’t be uncomfortable with that metaphor. Women are called sons of God; they shouldn’t be uncomfortable with that metaphor. Because that means you are an heir to Christ’s kingdom. Even Peter tells husbands to honor their wives because they are coheirs with them in the grace of life (1 Pet 3:7). 

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 

“Pastor Tony, aren’t all people God’s children?” Actually, no! We are all God’s subjects. All of humanity was created by God and is beholden to God. But technically speaking, we are not all God’s children. The children of God are those who have God’s Spirit. The children of God are the ones redeemed by God’s Son. And only the children of God can call God Father!

Notice also the Trinitarian framework that Paul uses in verse 6. God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts so that we might cry “Abba, Father.” Here’s Father, Son, and Spirit working together. Here is the first, second, and third person of the Trinity accomplishing salvation and facilitating relationship with us. 

Remember now, when we embrace Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells us, and lives inside our hearts. And that deposit of the Holy Spirit empowers us with freedom and sonship and relationship so that we might cry out to God and call him, “Father!” 

And let’s just reverse engineer this passage for a moment. Paul is not saying here that we are sons of God because we cry “Abba! Father!” It’s not the uttering of those words that makes it true. You can program a computer to say those words. That doesn’t mean that that computer is a child of God. What he says is that because we are led by the Spirit, and because we have received the Spirit inside of us, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of his Son, we can justly and truthfully call God, “Abba! Father!” 

Have you ever started your prayers by calling God your heavenly Father? Can we do that? Is that legit? Yes it is. If the Spirit of adoption is inside of you. 

And not just “Father,” but “Abba, Father.” And no, Abba is not a Swedish band from the 70s that sings cornball love songs. 

The Hebrew word אָב is the word for “father.” “Av-raham” was “the father of many nations” [Abraham]. And ἀββα (the Greek transliteration of Aramaic אבא) was an Aramaic derivative of that word. “Abba” is the Aramaic word for “Dad.” It was used by children, young and old, as a term of endearment for their fathers. There are actually parts of the Middle East where you can go today and hear little children calling out “Abba” to their fathers. Jesus would have called Joseph, his adoptive father, “Abba.” It’s a term of endearment similar to the way we use “dad” instead of “father.” 

And by the way, the Greek word here for “father” is the word “πατήρ.” We get our English words “paternity” and “paternalistic” and “patriarchy” from this word πατήρ. And that word is similarly the less technical term of endearment for “father” in Greek. Greek-speaking kids in the Roman Empire would call their fathers, πατήρ. Jewish kids called their dads, ἀββα. And they can all now call God “Father,” because they have received the Spirit of adoptions as sons.

The use of this word for God the Father implies remarkable intimacy between the sons of God and God the Father. Can we really get away with calling God “Dad”? 

When I was a kid, I had a good friend in school who would always call his dad “father. “Father, can I go out and play with Tony?” “Father, what are we having for dinner tonight?” And I remember how when he would do that it would just hurt my ears. And in my spiritual immaturity, I thought to myself, you can’t call your dad “father.” Father is a term for God when you are praying. You call your dad “dad.”  

But if Paul is right here, then we actually can use the same language for our Father in heaven that we use for our earthly fathers. He is our dad. The Spirit of his Son cries out “Abba, Father,” and we can experience joy and relationship and intimacy with him. 

That doesn’t mean that we are allowed to disrespect him. That doesn’t mean that he is not the single all-powerful cosmic force in the universe. He is that and more. But he is also our dad.

And some of you might say, “I didn’t have a good earthly father, Pastor Tony. I had an abusive father!” Or you might say, “I had an absentee father.” I understand. And honestly that should make the passage that we are looking at today even more precious to you. Your Heavenly Father won’t fail you like your earthly father fails you. Even the best earthly fathers fail you. Those of you who are fathers in this room right now, you will fail your kids. Just deal with that. And point them towards the Heavenly Father. 

And here’s what’s amazing, our Heavenly Father will never fail us, but we, his kids, will constantly fail him. If you don’t believe that, then you are really naïve about your ability to not fail him. We will fail him, and yet he will never fail us. He will never leave us or forsake us. He sees us through the prism of his beloved Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. 

And yet, when we do fail him, it’s not like a grandparent who says, “Oh, that’s okay. Let him do whatever, I don’t care.” You know how grandparents are. They leave the disciplining to the parents. God’s not like that. God has no grandchildren. When we fail the Lord, he picks us up and says, “Son, daughter, stop it! Get back in there. You can do better. I’ve empowered you by my Holy Spirit to do better.” God’s love is not a pampering love or an enabling love; it’s an empowering love. 

And look at verse 7.

7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Notice that Paul nowhere says that we are debtors to Christ or to the Spirit. That’s very precise thinking here by Paul. We don’t owe a debt to Christ; that would be theologically compromising. We are the sons and daughters of God. Children don’t owe their parents anything. Which is good, because it costs something like $250,000 to raise a kid in America today. Can you imagine settling accounts with your kids when they turn 18? “Son, it’s time to pay your bill. Food bill – $100,000. Medical bills – $50,000. Remember that time you broke the bed by jumping on it. $500. Time to pay up.” We don’t do that with our kids. God doesn’t do that with us. We don’t pay him back for saving us. We are not debtors; we are his children. 

And just wrap your minds around this for a second. Our Father in Heaven is the single all-powerful cosmic force in the universe, and according to Galatians 4, we are his heirs. That doesn’t mean we will ever supersede him as the cosmic power of the universe. God will never die. It means instead that we will bask in his glory for eternity as the sons of God. 

Here’s the third and final transformation that is noted in the text. Write this down as #3.

3) The sons of God move from slavery to intimacy (4:6–7)

As an application from this text, let me just say that one of the great privileges that we have as the sons of God is cultivating time with our Heavenly Father, every day. When Alastair was little, The best part of my day was coming home and hearing my son say, “Daddy’s home!” Kids want to spend time with their fathers. Kids cherish their times with dad. And dads cherish their time with kids. 

Now I don’t want to get carried away with this analogy. God doesn’t need a relationship with us like we  need one with him. But I think there is enough Biblical evidence to support the idea that God desires sincere, intimate relationship between himself and his created beings. He even sent his Son to establish that relationship. So in light of that, let me encourage you to cultivate time with God, every day.

If you are a morning person and the best of your day is accomplished in the morning, then I think you need to carve out some time in the morning to converse with your Father. Don’t do it as a perfunctory ritual. Do it as an expression of love from adopted son to Father in Heaven.

And let me say this as well. The sons of God need to mirror the attributes of their Father. When I was little, my dad had this signature. And I wanted to sign my name just like him. My dad’s signature is cursive and thin letters slanting right. But I’m left-handed and my dad is right-handed. But I didn’t care. So I torqued my hand awkwardly with my left hand to imitate my dad. I wanted to be like him. 

Also I wanted to shoot a basketball like he did (except for his outdated hook shot). I wanted to comb my hair like he did. I wanted to wear clothes like he did. I wanted to tie a tie like he tied his tie. And the children of God want to be like dad too. That’s good. 

Let me put it another way—the apple shouldn’t fall far from the tree. We’ll be delineating later in Galatians the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit. The works of the flesh are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, etc. (5:19–21). The works of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (5:22–23). The works of the Spirit are the moral reflections of God’s holy character, and we should find ourselves gravitating towards the spiritual and away from the fleshly as we age as Christians. Nobody gets saved and then immediately becomes a conduit for Christian character. But there should be discernable growth in the life of a Christian, because the sons of God should reflect the attributes of their Father.

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I’ll close with this. When I was a kid we sang this song that went like this: 

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us

That we should be called the sons of God. 

That we should be called the sons of God.

 I remember singing that song as a kid. All the best theology I learned in my life, I learned singing kids’ songs. Parents, remember that when you pick out music for your kids. 

I used to sing that song in a room full of kids, both boys and girls. And it never struck me as odd that girls were singing “we should be called the sons of God.” I never said to my Sunday School teacher, “No! They’re not sons. They’re girls. They’re daughters!” I never said that. And I’m glad. Because ladies, you are sons of God. You are part of this sonship. You are joint heirs in Christ Jesus. That’s the truth. And that is a glorious reality that we should celebrate.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us

That we should be called the sons of God.”