Redemption in Our Adoption
My aim today in this message is to remind you of your salvation. There are so many glorious aspects of our salvation and of redemption that it is like looking at a prism and seeing how the light refracts into different colors. There is only one salvation and yet there is a universe of glories in this great salvation. Psalm 3:8 and Jonah 2:9 both say that “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”
And so my goal, by God’s grace, is that you would love the redemption of God even a little bit more. That you would understand how we’ve been redeemed even if just a little bit more. That you would taste and see the riches of His grace that you’ve been adopted in. And that it may overflow in thanksgiving and multiply into heartfelt sacrificial worship, a true worship that would lead to endurance, to a personal regard of holiness, to a greater love of humanity in general and the family of God specifically, and to an ever deepening appreciation of what Christ has done for you and a boldness to that witness. All for the good of these Cities and for the glory of God.
We can’t do this in our own strength. This is only possible with God. So let us go to our Father.
Father, by the grace of your Spirit, and in your Son’s name we ask for your help. We need your grace. Lead us, guide us, in your will, and for your glory. Amen.
This passage continues the train of thought from last week's message from Pastor Jonathan which was the second half of Galatians chapter 3. We started seeing the glorious reality that God is our father and we are children of God.
We saw that the law was added because of transgressions. We saw that Paul was not being exhaustive about the uses of the law under the New Covenant but because of the specific context that the Galatian church was facing, Paul was being clear that the law could not save.
There were false teachers that were saying Christians needed to believe in Jesus and live under the Mosaic law to have life.
As I heard it once said, when it comes to salvation, Jesus + something = Nothing, but Jesus + Nothing = Everything.
The message of the Gospel is that law keeping does not give life but only grace through faith in Jesus gives life.
And so the Apostle Paul here in verses 1 and 2 of Ch.4 finishes his train of thought from the previous passage about how the law was meant to be a guardian.
Galatians 4:1–2 (ESV): 4 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.
V.1 and 2 is describing Paul and all Israelites under the Old Covenant and it’s protective role designed to keep them mindful of their condition looking forward to the promises of God.
He compares them to a child who has an inheritance but can’t use it until they are a certain age or until the date that is set by the parents. The child, in regards to touching and using the inheritance is no different than the lawyer who helped write the will, until that set time.
The law under God’s specific covenant with the people of Israel in all of its requirements was necessary in that stage of redemptive history.
[My 2 sons find car seats very annoying. And you know what I do too.]
But in their specific stage of physical development it is meant to protect them. It is meant to guard them. And in a similar way that’s what the law under the old covenant was like.
V.3 states “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”
That phrase, “elementary principles of the world” is the same wording we find in Colossians ch 2v 8, 20 where its translated “elemental spirits of the world”. The context there is similar where people are being taken captive by different teachings and traditions and not walking in Jesus as they were taught. They were replacing faith and obedience to Jesus through biblical standards with a faith and obedience to another set of regulations and standards.
Paul says in Colossians 2:23 that “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
This is similar to what Jesus told the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, saying in Matthew 23:28:
“So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
And it’s actually demonic, the Apostle Paul, says in 1 Timothy 4:1 “some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.”
Back in our passage the old covenant was a type of bondage relative to the freedom found in the new covenant.
A commentator notes that Paul uses the same phrase in v.3 that he uses in v.9 and he states “v.9 is referring to the idolatrous practices in the Galatians’ pagan past, drawing an implicit and shocking link between the false teachers misuse of God’s law and the pagans’ allegiance to false deities.”
Outside of freedom in Christ we are enslaved. It doesn’t matter if there is a religious exterior or a non religious exterior.
Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures”
John 8:34 Jesus says: “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”
John Piper describes sin as:
The glory of God not honored.
The holiness of God not reverenced.
The greatness of God not admired.
The power of God not praised.
The truth of God not sought.
The wisdom of God not esteemed.
The beauty of God not treasured.
The goodness of God not savored.
The faithfulness of God not trusted.
The promises of God not believed.
The commandments of God not obeyed.
The justice of God not respected.
The wrath of God not feared.
The grace of God not cherished.
The presence of God not prized.
And the person of God not loved.
Oh church let us not allow our hearts to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin but let us love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
We saw in last weeks passage that the law was added because of transgressions, that the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin… we were held captive under the law… and today in this passage we’ve seen we were enslaved…
but then we are shown the glorious truth of our redemption, and this sets up how our redemption allows us to be adopted to be the children of God—
in v.4 and the beginning of v.5 here in this 4th chapter of Galatians it says that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law”
Here we see the beautiful Christological truth that Jesus was the God-Man, he was both fully divine and fully human. Truly God and truly man. Though he was born of woman he was sent by God. Sent purposefully at just the right time.
Galatians 4 continues saying “He was born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law”
He redeemed us. He lived sinlessly under the law and fulfilled all that the law required. In his life of obedience, and through his atoning sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from death He did all that was necessary to redeem us. And one aspect of our redemption is God declaring us righteous in justification.
At the end of Galatians chapter 3 from last week’s passage it said “We were held captive under the law… until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”
Some of you might know I have been arrested before. When I was a younger I got into a fight with someone and after the police showed up I ended up getting into an altercation with the police and I was charged with 3 misdemeanors: assault, interfering with an officer, and breach of peace.
And one of the things that happened is by God’s grace I had the opportunity to go through a specific pre-trial diversion program that they offered in Connecticut, the state I was living in, and I was able to fulfill the requirements needed and it allowed me to avoid criminal conviction.
And so when I fill out a job application. And the question comes up “have you ever been arrested?” I can legally say that I’ve never been arrested. And everytime I’ve had a background check it comes up clean. In my eyes I know what I’ve done but in the eyes of the law, I have been legally declared completely innocent and it’s like it never happened.
And in an infinitely greater way that’s what happens with us in Christ. Even though we are guilty, by grace through faith in Christ, we are covered by the righteousness of Christ because of the blood of the cross, and God declares us innocent.
Listen, when someone is justified in Christ, when by God’s grace, they repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, trusting in Christ alone as their only hope for their salvation, though they are guilty, God looks at them with the innocence of Christ and declares them righteous.
And our adoption as children of God is similar.
Scottish theologian John Murray wrote “Adoption, like justification, is a judicial act. In other words, it is the bestowal of a status, or standing, not the generating within us of a new nature or character” he goes on “in adoption the redeemed become sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty; they are introduced into and given the privileges of God’s family”
John 1:12–13 “12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Joel Beeke, on this verse says, “This may be the clearest statement of adoption by God in the Gospels, for “right” implies a legal authority, liberty, or privilege. A believer does not receive power to make himself into a child of God, but receives the privilege of being counted a child of God.”
1 John 3:1 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
Yo this is a glorious thought. In one way it’s simple. God loves and he makes us his children. And yet in another way there are vast glories in that truth, an ocean of the riches of the goodness of God’s love that are contained in that verse.
It’s a statement that transcends the loftiest places of the human imagination. A truth that ventures deep into the eternal recesses of the heart touching an instinctive familial desire and yet it’s also a truth that goes outside of us beyond the reach of space and time and journeys into the shores of eternity, to where as the scriptures say in Ephesians 1 “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” and that “he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” An echo of the reality that we find in Revelation that “the dwelling place of God is with man.” and of what God proclaimed through the prophet in Jeremiah 31, when he said “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are”
Romans 5:5 says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”
Our adoption into the family of God is such a precious truth. God is creating in himself and for his glory a new family. We were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we once walked, following the ways of the world, we were sons of disobedience, children of wrath, we were like the pharisees, when Jesus told them that there “Father was Satan.” But God sent the Son to redeem us and then God sent the Spirit of the Son because he adopted us.
V.6 says “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son in to our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
We see the word “Abba” which is an aramaic word for Father and here we see a glimpse of the mysterious glory of the Trinity at work that God sends the Spirit of His Son to our hearts, the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, who cries out with the very cry of Jesus for His father. And His cry for the Father becomes our cry for the Father so that we can cry out to God our Father as His children.
Wilhelmus à Brakel, a pastor in the Netherlands in the 1600’s wrote “God hears and answers [his children] as their loving Father. As children they take refuge [in] their Father [even] in perplexity and by reason of this relationship they call Him, “Abba, Father!” In an intimate manner they bring their needs before Him, and with tearful eyes they tell Him what their sorrow is [by crying] out…. “The Lord looks upon such children in love, and is pleased with their childlike complaints and their taking refuge [in] Him. He will most certainly answer them and deliver them at His time and in His manner.”
Jesus in the gospel of John says something fascinating. He said, “I will not leave you as orphans.”
The disciples hearts were troubled, they knew they were coming to the end of Jesus’ ministry even if they didn’t fully realize what was going to happen.”
Let me read to you John 14:16–18, Jesus says
16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
I will not leave you as orphans.
That’s why when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he astonishingly tells them to say “Our Father in Heaven” “Our Father.” We can call God, “Our Father”
And so here in Ch. 4 of Galatians Paul says in v.7, “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
It is one thing to free someone who is enslaved but God frees us, adopts us, and allows us to be an heir through Him. Our inheritance is through Him.
And so one important implication of our adoption is that— we are heirs with Christ if we suffer with Christ
I get this from Romans 8:15-17, which is a parallel passage to our Galatians passage. It says.
15For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Think about this: the span of your life in light of eternity is a speck of dust. It’s a grain of sand. And in that short amount of time is the only time and opportunity in your existence that you will get to suffer for Christ and to suffer with Christ.
Romans 8:18–19 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time... are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
2 Corinthians 4:16–18 “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
We suffer but we have hope in our suffering. And because of our hope sometimes we even risk suffering.
A Pastor in Ukraine this past week in the midst of what’s going on in his country wrote, “We have decided to stay, both as a family and as a church. When this is over, the citizens of Kyiv will remember how Christians have responded in their time of need. And while the church may not fight like the nation, we still believe we have a role to play in this struggle. We will shelter the weak, serve the suffering, and mend the broken. And as we do, we offer the unshakable hope of Christ and his gospel.”
Oh Father may we live faithfully for your glory in light of these glorious realities, give us grace even right now to live in light of your redemption and the truth that we are your children. Thank you that we have been adopted into a family that spans the globe. Give grace and strength to our brothers and sisters around the world including Ukraine and that whole region. May we live obediently to you in what you have placed before us in our specific lives. May you be to us the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with your very comfort. Would we be renewed and sanctified through your Spirit and by your truth, going to you and crying out to you. Knowing you are our father who cares for us and loves us with an everlasting love. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.