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. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 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. 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 through God. (Galatians 4:1–7, ESV)

No Longer Children. No Longer Slaves. (1-3)

Our entire passage today is meant to explain the sentence in the last verse: "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (7). If you have trusted Christ, if you have believed his gospel, you have been transferred from slavery to sonship. You are—right now, not only in the future—a full heir of God because of your connection to Jesus.

So, in this passage, Paul wants us to think of ourselves as full-grown, full-blown recipients of God's inheritance. He even says God did everything he did so that we might receive adoption as sons (5). Paul did not say "sons and daughters" because, in their society, only the sons received the inheritance, and Christians receive the inheritance of the Son of God. And Paul says we are adopted as sons, likely referring to their practice of adopting full-grown servants and giving them the inheritance of a full-grown son.

Again, Paul wants us to think of ourselves as full-grown, full-blown recipients of God's inheritance. Though we are waiting for God's kingdom to fully come, we can experience the inheritance of God's kingdom right now.

To illustrate this, he gave an example in the first three verses of our text. He pointed out that when an heir is still a child, their functional experience isn't much different from a slave, even though the child will one day own everything (1). In their culture, fathers would set a date for their heirs to be considered full adults, and until that date arrived, heirs were subject to the same rules and regulations the servants were (2).

In using this illustration, Paul's' point is that we also—before the gospel—used to be children who had not yet received full, adult sonship before God (3). We were enslaved, Paul said, to something called the elementary principles of the world (3). There is debate as to what he meant by the phrase, but the rest of Galatians fleshes it out. Within Galatians, Paul described humanity as enslaved under sin, trying to approach God through the works of the law, subjugated to the law, wrestling against the curse and fallen brokenness, under a guardian, and totally enslaved, observing ceremonies in an attempt at righteousness.[^1] I take all these phrases together as what Paul means by the elementary principles of the world. He is describing our situation before Christ as a desperate struggle with the elements of law, conscience, sin, and powers of darkness.

But God has delivered us—through Jesus—into full sonship. Now, through the gospel, God is our good Father. With this as our backdrop, I think the rest of the text pushes us to ask two questions. First, do I think God is my Father? And second, do I feel God is my Father?

Do I Think God Is My Father? (4-5)

For the first question—do I think God is my Father?—Paul highlights what God did to engineer a way for us to become his children. He said:

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." (Gal. 3:4-5)

In Paul's view, we should conclude God is our Father (if we've trusted Christ) because of all God did to make it so.

He Appointed A Time

The first thing God did was send forth his Son at the perfect and appointed time (3). It was the historically perfect time because of the conditions in the world when Jesus came. The Roman Empire had forced peace on everyone, built an elaborate network of roads, and Greek was the common language. Combine these elements, and you discover a perfect opportunity for the church. Traveling Roman roads, visiting places under Roman rule, and utilizing the Greek language, they could tell a hurting world Christ had come. It was the perfect moment, the fullness of time.

But there is also the biblical view that Jesus came at the perfect moment. Throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, various clues were given as to the timing of the coming of the Christ. Daniel 9 suggested that Jesus had to arrive the year he did. Psalm 22 indicated that he had to arrive during a time when crucifixion was in popular use. And the general anticipation of Scripture was that the future offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would arise to become a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:1-3). God had made these promises—and many more—but they had not yet come to pass, and Jesus came at the perfect time to fulfill them.

But beyond the historical and biblical timing of Christ's coming, there is the divine point of view. For God, it was the fullness of time. God was ready to rescue. The book of Exodus tells the story of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. They had lived there for nearly 400 years before their residency turned into slavery. When it did, they cried out to God. And God was ready. He sent Moses and rescued them from their slavery. In like manner, Jesus came at the time he did because God’s rescuing heart was ripe. To him, the time was full. The Son must be sent.

He Sent Forth His Son

The second thing God did was send forth his Son to be born of woman (4). Though the phrase makes room for the glories of the virgin birth, that is not what Paul is highlighting here.

Mary was amazing. The virgin birth is jaw-dropping. However, in this passage, Paul isn't highlighting the virgin birth but the fact that Jesus had a mom like all the rest of us. In other words, Jesus was fully human upon arrival. Sent from eternity, he became one of us. He is fully God, yet fully man—a divine mystery that theologians call the hypostatic union.

It is good news that God became one of us. Since humanity was broken, we needed God to create a new humanity, one that is compatible with his holiness and majesty. The old humanity, the one we were born into, couldn’t connect to God. So Jesus died on the cross for old humanity’s sins so that all who trust in him could be forgiven and become new.

But for a new humanity to be possible, we needed a new human. We had Adam, and we all copied his ways, but we needed another option. And Jesus is that option.

He Got Us Out From Under The Law

The final thing God did was send forth his Son to get us out from under the law. Paul wrote that Jesus was born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (4-5).

This means that Jesus was required to keep the moral and ceremonial law of God. He was required to obey the law of conscience and nature. Like every other human, he was weighed and tested by the law.

But unlike every other human, Jesus passed the test. He was born under the law, subjected to the standard of holiness laid out in Scripture. And Jesus is revealed as an obedient Son who fulfilled the law of God. He was not negligent in even one area.

Then, after fulfilling the law, Jesus died for us in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:3-4)! He satisfied God on our behalf.

All this to say, God worked and engineered the means whereby we could become his sons. He orchestrated history. He sent prophets. He commissioned his Son to be born of woman. He found a way for his holy and just nature to be satisfied while also accepting and embracing us forever. He did all this so that we might receive the adoption as sons (5).

It's Valentine's Day this Tuesday, so it's the season for terrible romantic comedies. Do you remember the iconic scene from Say Anything where John Cusack's character, Lloyd Dobler, stands holding a boombox over his head while it blasted out "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel?[^2] The whole scene screams, "Look at this guy. He will do anything to get the girl! He will go to great lengths! He will even put a tape in his tape deck and play a song over his head while wearing a trench coat! What love!

Well, all the elements Paul detailed here are meant to show us what God did to connect with us. In the story of the prodigal son, the father saw his son from afar, cast off his robes, and ran to him. That is the God we have. He ran to us. He sent for us. He engineered the way to bring us home.

We are no longer enslaved. We are no longer children. In our next study of Galatians, we are going to explore how we sometimes go back to a slave-law relationship with God, but this is not God's desire. Through the gospel, we have come of age and are full sons in God's sight. We must believe this to be true. We must believe that he is—we must think of him as—our Father!

Do I Feel God Is My Father? (6-7)

But our second question should be, do I feel God is my Father? I realize it's probably abnormal for you to hear about feelings in a church setting, so bear with me. Paul said:

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." (Gal. 3:6-7)

Abba!

What these verses tell us is that God is discontent with positioning us as his sons—or even us thinking we are his sons—he also wants us to feel we are his sons. He puts his Spirit in believers, and the Spirit within us cries out to God, Abba, Father!

Abba is an interesting word. It means something close to "daddy" or "papa" in our language. It isn't part of the Greek Paul used to write this letter. It's Aramaic, the same language Jesus used when he prayed to God, which is telling. Since we are made into God's sons, it makes sense that the Spirit would drive us to pray just like God the Son did.

So Paul is saying that the Spirit residing within us cries out from within us to the Father as Abba or daddy or papa. In other words, the Spirit puts a Godward urge within us, but one that sees and thinks and feels that God is our good Father.

I understand this all sounds very mystical, but it appears to be the thrust of the text. God the Spirit is within God's children, helping them cry out to God the Father. Even when our sinful flesh is in the midst of rebellion, the Holy Spirit is crying out. We cannot be happy running from God anymore because the Spirit is constantly driving us toward him. No matter how faint his cries, he is calling out to God for us, teaching and training us that we are God's children.

A Different Brand Of Relationship

All this to say, God wants you to know that he is your Father, but also to experience him as your Father. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I believe this is part of the reason we are so deeply impacted (and even hurt) by our fathers. We are designed to have a good father, but no human dad can completely measure up. Every one of them has flaws. But they are a mere shadow of the true definition of "Father," the one we have in God.

Jerry Seinfeld has a bit comparing some dads to a day-old helium balloon, floating around the house somewhere between the ceiling and the floor."[^3] We get it. Some dads do not impress. But it isn't as though God searched the world for a term that could describe him and thought dads were the perfect image of what he would be. It's that everyone needs God as their Father, and our longing for our earthly dad is meant to point us upward to our true Father in heaven.

In other words, our desire for our earthly fathers should serve as a signpost that we are designed for a relationship with God. In the movie Interstellar, Anne Hathaway's character, astronaut Dr. Brand, wants to go to the planet Dr. Edmunds is on because she loves him. Her heart is drawn there, and she believes it must mean something—"love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends the dimensions of time and space.[^4]Likewise, our pain and longing for our fathers might mean many things, but it certainly means God wants to father us.

And this Father-son relationship is, in some ways, scarier and less certain than the guardian-slave relationship we had while under the law. We must admit this: "there is a certain kind of perceived security that comes from being under the supervision of the law."[^5]

Under a legal code, a works-based way of doing things, we know how to react to our behavior—either in celebratory pride at how well we've done or self-flagellation that we have not measured up. It's all about performance. But God has something far better for us through the cross. We are God's children.

As our Father, God is unlike any teacher, leader, employer, or parent we've ever known. He isn't grading us. He doesn't consider replacing us. He doesn't weigh whether to give us a raise or not. He doesn't fly off the handle at us. It's a different type of relationship.

I was recently praying the Shepherd's psalm when the first line gave me pause: The Lord is my Shepherd" (Ps. 23:1). This, of course, means that I am the sheep in the psalm, and sheep aren't usually thought of as the most intelligent, most predatorial, or most independent creatures. Instead, they are seen as fairly foolish, easy prey, and in need of a shepherd to sustain them. As I prayed, it struck me that my Father in heaven isn't expecting me to graduate from sheepdom on this side of eternity. Yet he loves me—foolish, clumsy, easy pickings me.

Can We Grasp This Truth?

Some have argued that divine fatherhood cannot be grasped by those who've had terrible human fathers—or absentee fathers. But we all know that ideal, good, and positive concepts can be formed by contrasting with imperfect, bad, and negative ones. People often get married while saying they will not repeat such and such a mistake their parents made. They have learned by contrast.[^6]

We all have an ideal version of a Father in our mind's eye, and the point is that God the Father measures up. He is the perfect Father we have all desired. And the full Trinity is involved in making this real to us—The Father stands ready to parent you. The Son fulfilled the law and died for you. And the Spirit cries out within you to your Heavenly Father.

The Son came to secure our objective legal status as God's children. The Spirit came to seal us and give us a subjective and experiential sense that we are God's kids (Eph. 1:13-14).[^7]

I believe this passage is vital to our spiritual, emotional, and physical health. If the third person of the Triune godhead has been sent on a mission to help every one of God's children to feel they are God's children, it must be a key to so much of life right now.

Think about it, a strong sense that God is our Father does nothing to alter our eternal destiny—that was secured by Christ's work. But the Spirit's work has a ton to do with our today. When we live in an experience of God as our Father, we have rest. Our Father will provide. Our Father will lead. Our Father will guide. Our Father will satisfy. Our Father will defend. Our Father will back us up. Our Father will navigate every disappointment for his ultimate good in our lives. Our Father is the most important relationship we have.

Recently, my daughter needed my help finding the key ring with the key to the family car. I was the last to drive it, but the keys weren't in any of the normal spots. As I scanned all the places it could be, I remembered using the house key late the night before when returning from a road trip with her. So I went to the front door, opened it, and found the keys. There they were, ready for anyone who fancied a visit to our house in the middle of the night. That frantic look around the house for the keys is similar to how humanity often spends itself—we are desperately trying to find the key to peace, joy, and satisfaction. And it's only found in enjoying God as your Father, which is only found when you go to the door of Christ! We can look everywhere, but what we need is found in the Father.

When you lean into this key truth, you are protected, and so are the people around you. You are protected from looking for too much from others, things that only your Father in heaven can provide. And this protects others in your life from being crushed by the weight of expectations they could never bear.

And the Spirit is trying to help us think of God this way. He calls out from within us, which is a reference to our prayer lives. A baby bird instinctively screeches for its mother, a young child calls out for his parents, and we call out to God. We call out because we have a sense of God's presence, and that sense is given to us by the Spirit. And we think of him as Abba, meaning we have confidence before him. The holy, righteous, almighty God has become our loving Father, and now we come boldly before him![^8]

Do not neglect this cry within you. You cannot have true joy if you do.

Conclusion

So our passage tells us the great lengths God went to make us his adopted sons. He sent his Son at the perfect moment in human history to live as a man under the law, fulfilling it for us before dying on our behalf. It would have made no sense for the Galatian Christians to submit to the elementary principles of the very law God redeemed them from!

But God was not content to only do the excruciating work of positioning us as his children. He also wants us to experience and feel his presence as our Father right now, so he gave us his Spirit to drive us to him. The Spirit puts an urge within us for the Father, so we must yield to the Spirit's nudges.

If the concept of God as Father is so important to God that he specifically commissions the third person of the Trinity to make it real to us, how can we better yield to his mission? How can we allow our inner person to become rewired to view God as our loving, good, and benevolent Father? Here are some suggestions:

First, search out the work of Christ as revealed in Scripture. In a sense, this passage makes the world's greatest case for Bible study and prayer. Studying the Bible helps you meditate on the work of the Son, while prayer yields you to the work of the Spirit, both of whom want to get you to the Father.

Second, preach the gospel to yourself every day. Paul said we must reckon ourselves to be as Christ is, with his righteousness and position, dead to sin and alive to God (Rom. 6:11). At the beginning of your day, and then all throughout it, tell yourself who you are in him.

Third, pray the Lord's prayer, and do not allow yourself to get past the first words until you feel them to be true. "Our Father, in heaven..." (Mat. 6:9). In a sense, if you can get that first truth of God as your Father instilled within, you are well on your way. Pass "Go" and collect your two-hundred dollars.

Fourth, pause to consider how you currently feel about God. If you have to journal or write to get your thoughts out, do it. I'm not asking for a report on what you know the Bible says about God, but how you perceive him at the moment. Know that anything out of line with the way he is presented in Scripture is a lie. Any perception of him not aligned with the truth of him as your Father in heaven is designed to keep you from him.

Finally, go to him. The Spirit is trying to drive you in his direction, but we all have a sinful flesh that wars against the Spirit. Don't allow the flesh to win, but cut it off by feeding the Spirit. Run to him. He loves you.

[^1]:Harmon, Matthew S. 2021. Galatians: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary. Lexham Academic. ↩ [^2]: Crowe, Cameron. 1989. Say Anything. USA: 20th Century Fox. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/. [^3]: Seinfeld, Jerry. 2021. Is This Anything? Simon & Schuster. [^4]: Nolan, Christopher. 2014. Interstellar. North America: Paramount Pictures. https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/interstellar. [^5]: Harmon, Matthew S. 2021. Galatians: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary. Lexham Academic. ↩ [^6]: Stott, John R. W. 2008. Galatians: Experiencing the Grace of Christ. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press. [^7]: Harmon, Matthew S. 2021. Galatians: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary. Lexham Academic. [^8]: Keller, Timothy. 2013. Galatians For You. New Malden, England: Good Book Company.