AP

Galatians 4:6-7  Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

We can understand Paul’s frustration with the Believers in the churches in Galatia.  His own life-changing experience of being released from the utter bondage of the works-based religion of Rabbinical Judaism into the life-giving freedom of the Gospel of Grace had had such an impact on him that he could not understand what was reported as happening among that company of Christians.  He had shared the Good News with them and noted the change it made to them … and now it had come to his attention that they were being influenced by ‘Judaisers’ who were trying to rob them of all the joy and peace that came with the gift of life they had received.

In today’s verses, he uses the significance of the Trinity to remind them of who they truly were in Christ Jesus.  In the sinful state into which they had all been born as descendants of Adam, they had NO relationship at all with their Creator, and they were captive as slaves to sin.   Into this helpless, hopeless situation, God the Father sent God the Son to die as a sacrifice for their sins, and so to qualify them to be reinstated back into his family, changing their status once-for-all from slave to child; and all this carries with it the blessing of being indwelt by God the Holy Spirit to fill them and enable them to know their new status, allowing (and encouraging) them, ‘naturally’, confidently and with child-like trust, to address him as ‘Our Father’.

Eugene Petersen’s translation (‘The Message’) helps us to own the overwhelming significance of this for ourselves: “Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage.  You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, ‘Papa! Father!’  Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child?  And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.”  Does this inform your daily experience?  How is this expressed in your prayer life? … in your contentment? … in your readiness “to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)? … in your assurance of eternal salvation ‘by grace through faith alone’ (Ephesians 2:8)?

“Loved with everlasting love, led, by grace, that love to know; Spirit, breathing from above, you have taught me it is so.  O this full and perfect peace!, O this presence so divine!  In a love which cannot cease, I am his, and he is mine.  Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; something lives in every hue, Christless eyes have never seen: birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flowers with deeper beauty shine, since I know, as now I know, I am his, and he is mine.  His forever, only his, who the Lord and me shall part?  Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart!  Heaven and earth may fade and flee; first-born light in gloom decline; but, while God and I shall be, I am his, and he is mine”  (George Wade Robinson).

– Bruce Christian