Gods Sons in Slavery
Galatians 4:8-14 · Roger Henderson · Aug 11, 2019
Galatians (2018-20), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191554315

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, today we're going to continue in Galatians chapter four, but I hope it's not too confusing. I know in the handout, I didn't really have a lot of verse markings on there, but we're going to go back and look a little bit back as far as 326, I think, to kind of get the context. And actually what was read is where we're kind of going.

So this section, including seven and eight, I like the title, God's Son and Slavery, because Paul's going to make the case that, you know, you guys have come to know Christ. He's your Savior. You come out of slavery, the slavery under sin. You become sons and you become heirs, which we're going to talk about. But then, but you're going back when you go back to the law, you're going back under slavery. You're going back to rules and regulations and don't do that.

So that's going to be the thrust as we go through the next couple of weeks. But I want to kind of set the stage for that today. So we're going to review a little bit. and kind of set the stage for the rest of this passage, which is basically four through eight through fourteen. Galatians four, eight through fourteen. So let's look here. So this is the outline, you know, I really like Chester Macaulay's outlines. He just is pretty amazing. I don't always agree with everything he has on the outline, but it's certainly a great starting point.

So he kind of goes back to around 325 here and talks about, we talked about being heirs with Abraham. And then he goes into this section, starting in chapter four, that we're heirs and sons of God. And that's, that's really, really super important to realize the wonderful blessing we have being a son of God or a child of God, as it says in some places. And in the first six, seven verses that Mike covered, there's an illustration about the heir as a child. And as a child, he's untaught, unlearned. But we've come out of that. We've come to know Christ, the incarnation. God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born into the law.

And then, of course, that marvelous verse in 4.6 about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, crying out, Abba, Father. But then you get down to verse 7, and verse 7 actually is kind of a pivotal verse. I'm going to spend some time on that. So most of the time we're going to spend on 4, 4.7 and 4.8.

And 4.8 is going to talk about this, that in their past life as unbelievers, they had no knowledge of God, they had no freedom, and they had no reality. They worshipped no gods, which is kind of, and there's that phrase kind of shows up, no gods. We're going to see that a little bit. So let's kind of just jump in here to So this is going to be a little review here of three twenty six to four seven but kind of focus on three areas.

First area is. Believers are no longer slaves. Wonderful, wonderful message. You know, people, if you talk to an unbeliever, a person that maybe hasn't read scripture, they think, well, I'm free. I can remember myself. I thought, well, I'm free to do whatever I want. I can raise my kids. I can raise my kids. I can make them whatever I want them to be. And then we had our first child.

And I realized, no, I can't do that. He has a mind of his own. You know, I realized that, no, I am actually a slave to sin. So basically, but the good news is when you become to know Christ, you're no longer slaves. It says, therefore you are no longer a slave. So that's actually point one. We're no longer slaves. Point two, believers are sons, sons of God. A couple of verses here. How do you become a son of God? Do you do a really good deeds? Do you get your list on the refrigerator? I did 12 good deeds today and I get extra points for that.

It tells very simply, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Trusting Christ as your Savior is the way we become sons of God. Another verse, no longer slaves, but sons. And then finally, the third observation from 26 to 47 is that believers are heirs.

Once we become a son, think about this. If I'm a son of my father, You expect in our culture, you expect typically you're going to get inheritance. You're going to receive something back from your father. You're going to receive whatever his accumulated wealth is.

But we are heirs of God, which is just mind boggling. And the verse is going to talk about how we're not only heirs of God, we're joint heirs with Christ. We get Two airships, if you will. We get two for the price of one. We're heirs on ourselves as children or sons of God, and then we're heirs because we're in Christ. A couple of verses here. You're Abraham's descendants, heirs according to a promise. And then if a son, then the heir through God.

So the pattern here is going to be no more slavery. We're sons and now we're heirs. So we're going to trace down that path and look at verse 7 to start with to do that So verse 7 says therefore you are no longer a slave So let's think about that therefore so that according to thus You are no longer a slave and what's interesting is this this is really marvelous a good part of God's Word made statements about the believer and that are just amazing.

And they state it in a way that it's absolutely unchangeable. And this is the case here. You are a me, a state, and with something continuous exists. In the present tense, it means we continually exist as no longer being a slave. You cannot change that position. You can change your condition. You can act like a slave. And believers do. We act like slaves sometimes. But in your position, you are absolutely, unchangeably, no longer a slave.

And that's what's brought across here in this verse. And no longer is the idea no more. No longer, no more. A couple of examples here, other verses that kind of bring that point through. Yeah, is that okay? First of all, it's 219 says the first part of that says so then you are no longer strangers and aliens and then Romans 6 6 So that we would no longer be slaves to sin and that's just a key point. We're no longer slaves to sin and Slave is the word do loss And it kind of has the idea. We're going to see in a couple of charts here. It has the idea of our origin and Adam in a sense and But it's basically the idea that we are in bondage to another, and it's actually voluntarily in some cases, but in some cases of our birth in Adam, we had no choice. We didn't get to choose our parents. Maybe I would have chosen, I don't know, how about Abel? We get to choose Abel. Adam was our father.

Okay, so anyway, so let's go on here. The word slave identifies a subject, a believer, but says he's no longer a slave. And once again, all the tenses here that we're going to talk about today, a good part of them are going to say that the state that we're talking about, that's a permanent condition, unchangeable. You continually exist as a slave prior to being saved. And the next part of the verse says that's changed.

So there's a similar message in Romans 6.17, but thanks be to God. that though you were slaves of sin, and that was a permanent place, you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. We're going to kind of examine that verse a little bit more as we get into this. OK, so we're going to kind of keep thinking slaves. We're in the slave domain. Slaves, sons, heirs. Slaves, sons, heirs. OK, we're still in the slave domain here. OK, we're going to talk about some more things.

And our brother, Hal, kind of shared some of these about 20 years ago. It's neat to have his notes. It's wonderful. I'll be looking at his notes and I'll see little notes about the body of Holly Hills. Oh, so-and-so did this. I saw this brother do this and this and that. It's just really cool. I feel like I've been transported back, you know, 20 years ago and kind of seeing Holly Hills through that, through his eyes and pretty cool stuff.

First thing is the word doulos, or slave, stresses a slave by birth. If you think about it, we start off as a slave. I have four grandchildren. We're talking about grandchildren today. It's wonderful. I really like what you shared. It's just great. But you see, we have two twins. They're 20 months old. Man, they're boys, not girls. They go after each other.

I mean, it's just brutal sometimes. But then occasionally, One will give something something else. He'll give him a toy. He'll hand him a toy. And he's like, whoa, where did that come from? Where did that act of kindness come from? But most of the time, they're after each other, on each other, taking each other's toy. The best toy in the room is what your brother has. That's the best toy in the room.

OK. So basically, we're a slave from Adam. Only death can terminate slavery. Upon belief in Christ as our substitute, We died with him to our sins. We were cut loose from our sin nature and our death with Christ terminated the slavery of our sin positionally. But as we well know, and this is going to be Paul's major point from here on out to the rest of the rest of four here, chapter four.

Don't go back. Don't go back to the slavery that you had. Don't go back there. Don't try to obey rules to impress God. Don't try to keep the Sabbath if you're of Jewish origin. Of course, Galatia was a Gentile area, but they had some Jewish influence there, too. Don't go back to the law. You've been saved from this slavery. Don't go back there. Don't return to that.

OK. So one of the contrasts that I kind of liked, and actually in reading different things, this is really a cool contrast. Think about this. The contrast the slavery of sin versus the slave slaves of sin versus slaves of righteousness So there's a verse or two verses that talk about that. So let's look at that And this is what we covered before this verse 617 but thanks be to God That though you were slaves of sin You became obedient from the heart to a form of teaching to which you were committed in the next verse, which we didn't read before And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

That's something that you received. So now we've traded in our slave from sin to slaves of righteousness. And actually, that's a wonderful deal. You think, wow, I'm a slave again, but now I'm a slave of righteousness. But this is God's doing, his plan, his purposes. So a couple of points on that. But this slavery is freedom.

This wonderful verse, I don't have the verse number quoted. If the sun makes you free, you will be free indeed. And that's so, so marvelous. Free from our sin nature and free from any law system. So God's slavery of righteousness is a wonderful thing. It's slavery from anything that would change that. And so we're free from our sin nature and free from the law system.

OK, we're about ready to turn the corner here. We're still in the slave domain, not to the son domain yet. We're getting there. OK, but here it is. But in strong contrast, so we had slavery. Now if you look at the verse, there's three parts to it. The first part with a comma. Therefore, you're no longer a slave, comma, but a son. And if a son, comma, the last part's an heir. So slavery, son, heir.

OK. You walk out the door saying all I heard was slavery, son, heir. That's all Roger had to talk about. Okay. And once again, very strong language. You continuous exist as a son. God doesn't do any halfway business. You continuous exist as a son. You can be no less. And that doesn't mean that includes women.

Because actually we're going to see also that we're children of God too. Son is Huyas, those who God loves and cherishes as a father. Actually, and that's adult sons. We are God's adult sons. We have the full right, and the picture is often used in the Roman culture, when Nica had an adopted son, he had full rights, as if he were, in fact, almost better than if he were a native-born son. What's the right word? Natural born, thank you, natural born son. Okay. You as a believer are now identified as a son.

So I have some verses here, I think that really kind of bring that across as being a wonderful son of God. I have four verses to look at here. The first one is, and this is actually a conditional verse. I went through with Vani and Vani said, this is, you know, we talked about this verse for a while. See if you agree with me. If you don't talk to me after we can discuss it.

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. So it seems like there's a doubt there, right? I believe this is talking about fellowship with Him, being led by abiding with Him, by walking with Him. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Think about this.

We've already found that we by faith became a son of God. This is just saying that you can live out that sonship in your position, in your condition by being led by the Holy Spirit. And that's true of so many things in the Christian life where something is true of us and then our condition we live it out for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, our sons of God.

The next one, a wonderful verse, for the anxious longings of creation wait eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. So this is just a fact that all creation marvels. They long to know about salvation, long to know about the sons of God. And then here's a verse we looked at earlier.

So this is a positional statement. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. So that's how you become a son of God. That's your position. The first verse, 814, is your condition, that you are to be led by the Spirit. And that proves out that you are a son of God. And then lastly, because you are a son, as a result of a son, God sent forth his spirit, the Holy Spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So that's the verses that talk about being a son, a slave to a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. So this is kind of a meaty section. It has some really neat things. Boy, the sun's gotten dark in here. All right. All right.

So first thing, and since a son, assumed to be true, you are sons. You continually exist as sons. And you receive the adoption as sons. Paul will now tell us about the privileges of a son. And that's basically being an heir, being an heir of God. Okay, so the heir is the idea that denotes one who obtains a lot or a portion. There's two verses that are really, really cool here that kind of explain what being an heir. So we move from a slave to a son to an heir. So now an heir.

So the spirit himself, Romans 8.16, testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, if children, heirs also, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ. So there's really a lot in here.

So let's start off with the spirit testifies. It's the idea that he bears witness. He announces, if you will. He makes known. He testifies with our spirit that we are, in this case, we are not sons of God. We are children of God. And that's a cool thing. And this is another statement of fact. We are children. We continuously exist as both a son of God and a child of God.

And I was kind of thinking about that. That'd probably be a cool study. What are the differences, the attributes of being a son of God and then being a child of God? One is, you know, I started to try to draw some conclusions and I really said, I'd better stop. That's another lesson. But anyway.

So we're both sons of God, and this says we're children of God. And it says, if, or literally it's going to be, oops, let's go back. If or since, if children or since children, there are three things. It says we're heirs, since children, we are, we're an heir, just like we're an heir of the human father. Then it says we're heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. So three, three statements about our being heirs. Since we're a child, a child of God, we're an heir, we're heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ. You couldn't have any better situation. It couldn't be any better. So he states it in kind of three different ways, or three different aspects, if you will. Okay, the next verse.

So that, being justified by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So we've been justified by his grace and we've been made heirs. And here, here again, we're going to have this wonderful rock solid statement. We've come into a new state of being those who have, who have absolutely assurance of their eternal life. So we have absolute as heirs. We have absolute assurance of the hope of eternal life. It's rock solid.

God is stands behind that. And these are all. through, or dia, by God. So the whole realm of our inheritance is through or by means of God. God holds it all together. He holds our freedom from slavery together, our sonship, our being child of God, and the fact that we are now heirs.

Okay, so that's verse 7. So now we're going to move on to verse 8. Actually, let me just read verse 8 first before we look at this because verse 8 is going to tell us about Who we were before we were saved, you know, Paul does this a lot. It seems like he'll kind of go back and forth.

He'll talk about Here you are you're believers in Galatia and you're doing this and they're doing some things that I have a problem with and then he kind of goes back he kind of regresses if you want he says this is where you came from this is where you were before and He's not say don't go back there.

Don't go do that stuff that you did before so verse 8 says however at that time When you did not know God you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods So there can be some questions that we're going to have about verse 8, but three points You had no knowledge didn't know God. This is before your believer you had no freedom you were slaves and And then thirdly, you had no reality. You were slaves to the no-gods and no small g-gods.

Just think about it. It's kind of a sad situation. In our world, so many people, even believers, go back to the no-gods. It's sad. The ones that have no power, no ability to satisfy you, and that's a no reality. And that's not reality. Reality is worshipping the true God, knowing the true God, not making up something that's God to satisfy your desires. Okay, verse 8. However, at that time, you did not know God.

So let's kind of ponder that for a little bit. I notice almost every verse, and parts of verses kind of start with, there'll be a strong contrast. He'll say, now in strong contrast to what I did before, now I'm going to tell you something. At that time, so the first question, when I first read this verse, I said, What time is he talking about here? I didn't read the rest of the verse, which is bad. If you read the rest of the verse, it tells you what time he's talking about. But I said, what time is he talking about here?

I don't know. But Roger, read the rest of the verse. Have you ever noticed, I don't know, guys in Bible study, have you ever noticed, if I just read one verse more, it'll explain that. Or I go back a verse, well, it explains the whole thing. Here I am, pulling my hair out, saying, what am I going to say here? I can't figure this out. It's you know, it's 1130 at night and tomorrow I talk I gotta say something here.

I gotta pretend to be smart Okay, okay so for the next part of the verse it will identify the time When we are unbelievers, it's when you did not know God at that time when you did not know God So what are some of the characteristics of that and let's first of all, we'll define some terms here In fact not knowing God is what we says Knowing is Oida to acknowledge, adore God in the perfect tense, past completed action, with abiding results. At that time you did not know God in the past and you continue not to know God into the present as an unbeliever and were permanently in a state of unbelief. So like I was saying, I went through all these verses and all these verb tenses showed up with all these Just rock-solid statements. So he's saying, you didn't know God and there was no way you could move from that position. And he's going to say later on that it's not that we came to know God, that he came to know us. No. He first loved us so that we could love him. OK. So here's some more verses. And these aren't too pleasant in some cases.

1 Thessalonians 4.5. not in lustful passions like the Galatians, who do not know God.

You know, the Galatians were Gentiles. They weren't Jewish. You know, the Gentile people, if you read through the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you see the picture of the Gentiles saying, And there's several occasions where people will come to Christ and they say, well, we have no access to God because God only is available through the Jewish line. And they recognize that, that God had especially blessed Israel, and they realized they had no access to God.

And the verse kind of points that out. Like the Gentiles who do not know God, pretty sad place. And then 2 Thessalonians 1.8, dealing out retribution. to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, retribution is the idea that it's just punishment. So, God is... maybe it's kind of a hard thing to say, God is not unrighteous in dealing with people who do not know Him. And that would be the final judgment. People who do not know Him will live apart from Him.

Okay, then thirdly, Titus 1.16, They profess to know God, but their deeds, they deny Him, being detestable, disobedient, and worthless for any good deed. Thinking about, here's another one that we see a lot today. They don't walk the talk. They profess to know God, but their deeds don't back that up. Okay. OK, so now we've covered the first part, the A part.

However, that time you did not know God. So this is the B part. You were slaves to those by which by nature are no gods. You were in a slave's bondage to the gods, small g, which are not gods by their nature. So you were slaves. So you did not know God. You were slaves. And this is a verb form of of this word, due loss, to serve as a slave, to be a slave, to be in bondage. Again, it's a past point fact, it's a reality, unchangeable. You were slaves.

And basically, if you're a slave, you have no freedom, right? You're not free. And that's probably the biggest lie in our world today is that we're free. If I were just to, you know, instead of I called up the Denver Post, said, I want to put a full-page ad, you're not free. I probably would get a lot of bad things happen to me anyway. But that's the case. God says you're not free outside of knowing my son. You're not free. Okay, so being a slave.

Romans 6.6 Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. God doesn't want us to be slaves to sin. And he provided for that. The old self was crucified with a purpose that our body of sin might be done away with. And that's actually rendered inoperative. It doesn't cease to exist. You still have your sin nature. It's still around. But you don't have to follow it. You're free from it. You're free to choose to walk with Him.

Then 1 Thessalonians 9, For they themselves report about us, what kind of reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. So this is basically talking about turning from idols, turning from that slavery of idols to serve the living and true God.

And lastly, Titus 3.3, for we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. And that's that slavery with that, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

Not a very pretty picture. OK, so that's part two. Part three is, to those by which to those which by nature are no gods." It's bad enough to be a slave, but when we go off and we worship something that we pretend to be a god, you know, this is my god. I'll make this a little idle. In Old Testament times, that was very much the case, but today we're more sophisticated. Once again, we have our no-gods. They continually exist as no-gods. They don't all of a sudden... It's impossible. They're no-gods by their name and by their nature. Nature is the essential character of a thing.

So, Weiss says here, He, Paul, grants them objective existence, and actually, he grants that there could have been demons, and that's possible in those times there could be demons that people worshipped, so that they would be, but he denies that they're gods by their nature.

So, therefore, This is pretty cool. This doesn't use the word gods, but it uses idols, which is what I referred to earlier. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know there is no such thing as an idol, I like that, in the world. There are no such things as an idol in the world, and there is no god but one. And here's a real cool statement by Macaulay.

The gods of the Greek religion, and the Galatians were of that ilk, the gods of the Greek religion were no gods. This is futility in the fullest sense, a life of devotion to the unreal. So when you worship a no god, you're in unreality. Reality is God, is Jesus Christ. That's reality. OK, so where are we going here? So that kind of sets the stage for the next couple weeks here. So next week we're going to get into verse 9. Verse 9 says, But now you have come to know God, or rather be known by God.

How is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? So he's going to start down this path. He says, Don't you see you've come from slavery to sonship To becoming an heir. Why do you turn back to that slavery?

So I just had a couple points here on this slide You have this wonderful relationship which God established by grace and your faith And so so just summarizing the verse You desire to be enslaved all over again How is it you turn back again? To the weak or things without strength strengthless and worthless elemental things So we're going to see in the next couple weeks, Paul's going to spend quite a bit of time talking about not to turn back, not to return to what you were prior to knowing Christ. All right, so let's close.

We thank you, Father. Thank you so much, Lord, for the blessings that we have. We thank you, Lord, that you've taken us from slavery to sonship, becoming a wonderful heir And we're not only heirs of God, but we're heirs with Christ. We thank you so much for that. Thank you for your word that shows us the care which you have in defining our wonderful place with you, that we're sons and children, and those relationships can never be changed. We thank you for that. In Christ's name, amen.