God’s Word for You

Galatians 4:4-7 Abba

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, July 19, 2024

4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman in order to be born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

But when the time had fully come. Everything in Old Testament times pointed forward to this event, from the first promise of the Savior in Genesis 3:15 to the proclamation of John the Baptist: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who comes to take away the sin of the world!” Everything was right for the Savior to come into the world. Greek was the accepted language throughout the known world, one language which everyone understood and used. Rome’s conquests, savage as they were, had actually established a peace which the world had never really known before. The system of Roman roads and safety of the seas under Roman rule made travel fast, safe and relatively cheap. And Judaism was still a legal religion. For a short time, a single generation, the time was perfect for the Messiah to come into the world. Just 35 or so years after Jesus’ ascension, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Yet the world still was an ideal place in which to spread the gospel. Even the dispersion of the Jews (due in part to the exile of many Jews under the Assyrians and Persians) placed synagogues throughout the world like mushrooms in a forest. Think about the way the Apostle Paul did his mission work—from synagogue to synagogue, across the Mediterranean world, from Jerusalem to Cyprus, Crete, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain. The time had fully come. It was God’s plan, carried out in God’s way, through God’s one and only Son, to bring you and me, personally, to faith in him and to heaven.

God sent his Son to be born of a woman. Here we see Jesus’ human nature as part of God’s plan to save mankind. Jesus had to become human in order to be subject to everything we are subject to: birth, death, temptation, the restrictions and regulations and demands of law, and so forth. Jesus Christ was human in every way. And God sent him into the world when the time was right so that he could, as a human being, do what God demands that each of us must do, but which we fail to do. But since Jesus is also true God, his accomplishment is able to be applied to each of our accounts before God.

In order to be born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Our status of being declared to be not guilty before God is seen from two points of view. On one side, we see that God sent his Son Jesus to pay for the sins of all those born under the law. Since all people are born under the law, Jesus had to be born under it, too. Jesus bought us back, he redeemed us from that status. That, Paul tells us, is how we receive God’s forgiveness. But then Paul also tells us the second important thing in this verse: What we receive. God’s loving act toward us is to adopt us all as his sons and heirs. The first part assures us that all people are included. The second part assures us that you, personally, are included. You have been bought back, redeemed, by Jesus on the cross. You are his. Your sins are gone. You have the full rights as an heir of eternal life.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” The word Abba is the Aramaic word for father. It is placed here side by side with the Greek word so that whoever reads what Paul has written will understand it in the correct way: we are God’s children by faith, faith in Jesus, who died to wash away our sins.

This is one of many passages in the Bible which describe God as Triune, three distinct persons yet one unified God. More than that, here in Galatians chapter four we also see our relationship with God in each individual person of the Trinity. Jesus, the Son, died in order to make us sons of God and heirs. And God the Father also sends the Holy Spirit to us, who is the one who brought you and me to faith. And now that Jesus has made our relationship with God right again, and the Holy Spirit has given us faith in what Jesus did for us, you and I are able to approach the Father as dear children approach their dear father. What a close, intimate relationship we have with God! When we pray to him, we can ask him not as unworthy beggars, but as his own children.

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Paul has already covered this idea pretty thoroughly as far as you and I are concerned, but something he does with the little word “you” here is that he addresses both Jews and Gentiles alike. In Paul’s time and to Paul’s audience, this was a difficult concept. Before God, all of God’s children are God’s heirs. There was a strong feeling of class distinction in that time which we would find difficult to bear today. Even among people with wide economic differences, there is nothing today like the citizen vs. slave difference which was a way of life and death in the Roman Empire.

You are an heir. It isn’t possible for someone to mess up their life so much that God our Father cannot forgive them. Be comforted by this good news: If we are sorry for our sins and ask his forgiveness, he does not look at our status, our intelligence, our age, our race, our gender, or anything else. He looks at our hearts and he listens to our words. We are his sons and daughters; we are his children and his heirs. Ask God the way children ask loving parents. He is listening.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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