Paul Trask continues making his way through Galatians by looking at a section of the text from 3:26 to 4:7, spanning a chapter break.
- Before looking at the content of this section, Paul spends some time looking at modern editorial features of our current Bibles, providing a historical context
- Chapter divisions
- Versification
- Red Letters
- Variety of modern features, i.e. capitalization, periods, commas, semi-colons, exclamation marks, hyphens, parentheses, paragraphing, section titling, etc.
- Be a demanding reader of the Bible, and feel free to challenge modern editorial decisions, in order to better understand the Biblical text, and make it your own
- “Sons of God” was a designation in the Old Testament of direct spiritual creations of God, not human beings
- Adam was the only human who was the direct creation of God, all humanity then became sons of Adam
- Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is the “Only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14)
- When Christians are “born again,” and are now “in Christ Jesus,” we become “new creatures in Christ,” and become new, direct creations of God in the spiritual realm, and are now therefore “Sons of God”
- Being “under the Law” in the Old Covenant era has been replaced by being “in Christ” in this New Covenant era
- “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
- Through faith in Christ, all kinds of different people are brought to a singular commonality, a unity of identity, one people
- No more artificial boundaries, barriers or partitions of the human race. Race, gender, age, education, profession, nationality, geography. In Christ, all of creation is now brought into a single, redeemed unity before God. Fleshly, manmade distinctives are now virtually – history.
- The ground is level at the foot of the cross.
- “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29)
- Climax, and summary of the whole book
- God’s promise to, and through Abraham was always intended to fulfilled spiritually, in Christ and the Church, representing “all nations on earth”
- In the New Covenant era which Jesus ushered in, being a child of Abraham means having the FAITH of Abraham, not his GENETIC material – big difference!
- In a powerful reversal, a “turning of the tables,” Paul is saying that in order to become legitimate children of Abraham, the Judaizers must now no longer rely of genetic descent and Law keeping, but rather demonstrate the FAITH of Abraham
- Christ has ushered all Believers into a state of spiritual maturity, a spiritual “age of majority”
- “Supervisory guardians,” whether the Mosaic Law, or any other legal, moral or ethical code have now all become superseded by faith in Christ
- Slavery under “The basic principles of the world” have given way to a wonderful spiritual freedom by in the indwelling presence of God’s Holy Spirit
- Believers now, therefore, have “the full rights of sons”
- Are Christians “out of touch with reality,” or in touch with a higher reality?
- The current presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives is a “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession — to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:14)
- The coming resurrection will complete the full possession of our inheritance, inaugurated by Christ and made available by Him, and through Him
- “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.For in this hope we were saved.” (Romans 8:23-24)
(Galatians 3:26 – 4:7; John 3:16-21; 1:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Matthew 21:43; John 10:10, 5:24; 1 John 5:13; 2 Corinthians 3:6; 1 Corinthians 13:11; Acts 13:46; 1 Corinthians 2:12–16; Romans 8:20–24; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 1:13–14)