Heirs of God, pt 1

Galatians chapter 4 now, the first seven verses, but really there's no real There's no big break here from what we've been doing for the last couple weeks. It blends right in. The end of three blends right into chapter four here. So I'm just blending in what Bob did last week, and then he'll blend in what I do today into his lesson next week.

So Bob and I talked, Wolford and I talked, and I said, OK, Bob, I'll take verse 1, you take verses 2 through 7. You got a good deal. Why don't we negotiate? I don't recall that. But I'm going to get up to about chapter, or verse 4. There's a nice break at verse 4, right in the midpoint of verse 4 that makes a nice natural break. So that's what we're doing. So we'll do about the first four verses this morning.

So verse one is, now I say, and he's continuing on from chapter three, I think, verse 29, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although He is the owner of everything, but He is under guardians and managers until the date set by the Father.

So also we, while we were children, we were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoptions as sons. Because you as our sons, because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Courtney's favorite verse there. Amen. Verse seven, therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, an heir through God.

And this whole section, the last few weeks in this section, and I think on to next week is, Paul is using so many metaphors here and so many similes. He's throwing in the kitchen sink, everything and the kitchen sink, into all of his explanations of the law.

So it's hard to pin it down, but we'll try this morning. So he's still on the broader question of what we covered a few weeks ago, where he was, he asked the question, why the law then? He tells us, this was point seven in my little seven point reason why the law, but to put Israel under its custody until a Tudor, as a Tudor, the law is a Tudor, and keeps Israel under a Tudor until Christ comes. And that's the last few weeks study. And he's still sort of on this subject, but now he's blending this. He's twisting it a bit to include the Gentiles, and we'll see that.

So he's expanding and explaining the role of the law in taking Israel from the age of minority, One who's immature, intellectually and morally, as a child would be, and a child needs a task-setting nanny. That's the word we saw that's pedagogos, or pedagogue. This child needs a guardian, which we'll see today, and even a manager to handle his affairs until he reaches the age of majority. And that's basic law. That's Roman law. That was Jewish and the Jewish losses of Greek. It was all over the world at that time. And it's even in You know, we get our laws, our laws are the same.

With children, they're minors and they become, they reach the age of majority at age 18. So Bob explained in the last few weeks that this Jewish custom, this son became of age at about 14 years old. And in the Roman world, I think it was 18 years old, and Bob explained that ceremony. And I think he will again next week, won't you, Bob? Because he'll do the subject of adoption of sons. He'll recover that and that ceremony that the Romans had.

So Bob was tasked with Paul's example of this Jewish child turning into an adult son, that transition in the latter part of chapter 3, where Israel was under the conservative conservatorship of the law in chapter 3, Paul blends this concept into us and our spiritual state before we came to a saving knowledge of Christ. And again, Bob described this transition last week. So go back to that, his lesson two, and that'll make sense. That was a great job that he did last week.

So Paul is making an argument that both Jew and Gentile, which both Jew and Gentile can understand. And now, at the end of this section, he's addressing, he says, both Jew and Gentile, there's neither Jew, nor Gentile, nor slave, nor free, but all are one in Christ now.

So here's chapter 3, verse 29, the last verse, where he brings in this concept of heir and heir. He says, and if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. And that's the Abrahamic promise, which we've seen in the last few weeks. So, chapter four, verse one, now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So, this concept of heirship now, that he brings up in verse 29 of chapter three, what is an heir?

It's clarinamos, and claro means distributing by law, and then namos is law, so the law of distribution by law is what you can say. So a very good example, and there's tons of examples in, the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So Moses commanded the sons of Israel saying, this is the land that you are to apportion by lot, that's the same concept, exact same concept, among you as a possession, which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine and a half tribes, from Numbers 34. Verse 13. And that surprised me, because when I went through the Old Testament a while back, I didn't know that, yeah, to divide the land of Israel between the tribes, it was done by lot.

They cast lots for it, and that's how they did it. So that's our word, lernamos. In Roman culture, slave kids, and so you have this concept up there with slave kids. And they are at the same level. And Bob described this too in his lesson. Legally, they're the same. The heir or the son, the natural born son, is the same as a slave legally. They're on the same plane.

The father of the house did not have to transfer the estate to the son if the son proved unworthy or irresponsible or rebellious. And if a slave child, so take a slave child. If a slave child was exceptionally bright and obedient and the father of the house really liked him, there's no reason why he couldn't become heir.

And Bob, again, described that when he described the plot of the film Ben-Hur, right? And this is just to say I was paying attention last week. Right so and that he described that that's the same thing that So who was a Charlton Heston? Technically he wasn't of the household be became the heir So what's this?

Child in verse one. Let's define that in the Greek. It's Nepios and and A nepeos child is one that does not speak, an immature person intellectually and morally, or one in his minority instead of the majority. So a nepeos, so a little non-speaking, you could say baby, really. A child needs to have restraints put on them. in our world, so as in the spiritual world, Israel was treated as a nebios before Christ under the law. So Paul is blending this allegory of a Jewish person under the law, this nebios, and he directs as well, and he makes this shift in these verses to the Gentile Galatian believer, who finds himself enslaved to his Judaizing brethren, and you can expand that into any system of law-motivated works system. So under the law that the child owns his parents' estate, technically, were they to die, the estate transfers to the child. But this nebios can't appreciate or understand yet what he owns. And I thought of this example.

What does X, and that's his real name by the way, Elon Musk's son. You'll just have to, that's what he named him. What does X understand about his earthly inheritance? You know, which is, I think it's a half trillion dollars now. So little kid, cute little kid has no clue as to what Oh, I found out that Elon Musk names his children after, what is it? Spaceships or something?

He has a theme. He names them after something. Well, he's an interesting guy. You get off on a whole rabbit hole. Very, very. He has an interesting thing about sending people to Mars to save the Earth. Right. Okay. I don't know. Ignoring what God has done about the Earth, but never mind. I can see that with my own eyes. Some people, right? And how would that fit into eschatology? I don't know. It doesn't. It doesn't. That's the problem. Yeah, that's not mentioned in the Bible. Certainly not. Mars. The dispensation of Mars.

But if you look at One, yeah, see the positional truth up there? The positional truth is the nebios, child, is the heir, positionally, of everything. He's the owner of everything. It's a positional truth. Same spiritually. Verse 2 says, he is under guardians and managers until this date set by the father. So guardians, let's look at that word. That's epitropos, guardians. And that's epi is towards or upon. Tropos is the manner or way or fashion, manner of life. The deportment or the character upon or regarding the department character of life, manner of life.

We looked at, the other week, the word tutor is, well, this word tutor is from epitropos, which designates the guardian which designates the guardian of a minor orphan, is what we says. The word tutor is from epitropos, and that's a guardian of a minor orphan. But we see, think about the other week, the word pedagogue or pedagogus.

It's that schoolmaster, but we learned that Pedagogue is not so much of a teacher. It's just like a person who takes the child. His job is to take the child from home, escort him to school, make sure he doesn't loiter, make sure he doesn't get lost or kidnapped. That's the job of a pedagogue, but he doesn't teach.

But this Epitropos, this guardian, you can see that this person, Epitropos, sort of fashions the child's life a bit more. and sort of teaches the child things. So this guardian, or epitropos, is the molder of a child's character. And his responsibility is to the child's person, whereas the manager, let's look at that word. And extra credit for anyone who guesses the Greek word for manager in this verse.

What do you think that would be? Can I look at my phone? It's a familiar word. No, no looking at a, don't Google it. Is it where we get our word economy? Oh, you were, and I didn't think of the prize, but I'll give you a prize. He gets to teach next week. Yeah, he gets to teach. That's right. Yeah.

So it's oikonomos, right? From economy, or it's a stewardship. So we know that from dispensationalism. A dispensation is oikonomia. So it's a steward of one's property, a state or a manager of one's economy. a manager of one's household. So this manager, this oikonomos, is entrusted with the child's property. So the epitropos The guardian is responsible for his person. The manager is responsible for the child's property.

And this, think back, what we're thinking of here is that's the law, this guardian that we're under, and Israel was under as well. So, It's the exact same thing, this concept of guardians and managers, as this word under is what we're looking at. So in Matthew 8, 9, when the centurion comes to Jesus and says, he says, I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And he uses that word hupo two times. And that is our same word under guardians and managers, that's hupo. So it's the same concept of what that Roman centurion said.

A key concept Of all the last few weeks and where we are this week and where we're going next week is under law, or any law system, is the concept of immaturity. And then under faith in Christ, under grace, it's maturity. So those are two diametrically opposed things that Paul is pointing out here. One of them, he's pointing out a lot here, but that's one key concept.

The nebulous child cannot assert his own will. He cannot conduct his property affairs. He cannot even marry at will. Everything is prescribed for him until the date of majority comes, until the date set by the father. And that's Tenney, Tenney's words there, M.C. Tenney, Merrill Tenney. On the date, on that date, the father recognizes him as an equal, and the child is granted administrative power over his own affairs.

And so if you were a ex-Elon Musk's son, that'll be a fun day, right? You can go out and spend it. Get one of those Ecola Expresses, which Bob brought up last week. What was that, a Ferrari, Bob, I think it was? I don't know. Yeah, it was a nice car.

So, on to verse three. So also we, when we're children, we are held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. And that's... So also we, you'll recognize that as a simile, comparing a child under nannies, guardians, and managers to Israel under the law.

And a fun fact is, and we won't go into this, but Paul, Merrill Tenney has this chart, and Paul uses all these figures of speech in Galatians. He uses similes, metaphors, and allegory, metonymies. I practice that word, synoptides, but he uses those, S-Y-N-E-D-O-C-H-I-E-S, synoptides, I think it's pronounced, hyperbole, he uses hyperbole, ironies, litotes, neosis, and euphemisms, all in the Book of Galatians. But in this case, it's a simile.

So in, and we'll look at this more too, but verses one through seven, Paul is using the pronoun we, referring to himself and his fellow Jews under the Mosaic system. The Jews are under the Mosaic law, but not Gentiles. The law belongs to the Jews. But then in verse six, he switches to you, meaning he brings in these Galatian Gentiles. But they are under a law system as well.

Because he says in verse nine, coming up in a few weeks, he says, they are under the elements and rudimentary things as well, not the Mosaic law. But what they are under is if you go to Colossians chapter 2, Paul talks about Colossians being kind of enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. And he mentions new moons, Sabbaths, you have these self-abasements that you perform. They probably cut themselves or mutilate or starve themselves.

They have these self-made religious requirements, which are all Law work systems inherit in Gnosticism, Greek Gnosticism. So Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, all the Greek stuff is what the Gentiles are under. So kind of just like the Jews under the Mosaic law. So everyone's kind of in the same boat.

And the word elemental things is stoichion, something like that, that C-H-E has a guttural kind of pronunciation, stoichion. It's the first things or the first principles. And one example is the letters of the alphabet, or even sounding out the letters of the alphabet with your, you know, pronouncing them are fundamental, elemental things. Rudiments of the language is what elemental things are.

And so all are under bondage to these things. The nephew's child is under bondage until he reaches the age of majority here. So on to verse four. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. So what's the fullness of time? It's pleroma in the Greek. Time can either be chronos or, what's the other word? I didn't put it in here. There's another Greek word for time. Kairos. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Kairos. So, and they mean different things.

Kairos means like an epoch of time. Kronos is like a chronology of time. Kronos is the succession of moments of time. And the correct word here is as chronos so if we look at why this it was the fullness of time you can go back to Daniel chapter 9 and his discussion of the 70 weeks and that was for it comes up to an exact number of years 483 years from Cyrus's order to rebuild the temple until the time of Messiah the Prince, is what Daniel says. So that's the fullness of time there, and the succession of Cronus, and not the end of an epoch really. The law had completed its educational work at the fullness of time. It set forth Israel as a favored nation among the other nations in their vicinity, and it made them a peculiar people among the nations.

But it demonstrated that not even they could keep the law. So the three sections of the law, and I think I did that two weeks ago, the moral section, the moral code, the social code of the Mosaic law, and then the ordinances, which have to do with temple worship, that had all been completed.

But Israel was breaking the first commandment all the time, worshiping other gods. That was the big complaint of God. And so the law really had no It was just being completely ignored by Israel. And in fact, in Ezekiel, you'll look at the glory, the Shekinah glory of God left the temple. Ezekiel watched that happen. So Israel was far too gone. And so there was this, from the last prophet, there was that period of about four centuries where nothing happened. And they were just sitting there, waiting for the fullness of time. And that's when Christ came.

Another aspect of why the fullness of time was special is because the Roman Empire had conquered everyone, and there's now safety in the world. There is a common language, Koine Greek. The Greek culture was more or less all around a Roman culture, or a mix of both were around the whole world there. And the Romans built that road system, the highway system, right, that they could travel freely. And I think that was one of the main purposes, I think, was for, think of it, Paul to get around. He was able to travel and spread the gospel on those Roman roads in safety. So that's the fullness of time. That's why those 483 years God designated that time. So when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son.

And that word sent forth is ex apostello. And an apostle is from apostle. And the word apostle is one who is sent from someone or from a superior. And that person has credentials. or the one sent represents the sender in apostleship and speaks for the one who sent him, the sender. Jesus is an apostle and a high priest.

In Hebrews 3.1, it says, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. So he is known as an apostle sent from God. from, but you see that little X in front, apostello, and that's out from God. So out from God's very presence and his essence is where Christ came. He was sent to the earth at a very specific time with a very specific spending. It was a glorious mission to save mankind from the sins.

And next week, Bob will take up the rest of verse four, and it's gonna be, don't get into Christmas, though, yet, Bob. The Christmas video, doesn't it? God sent forth the Son, born of Owen, born under the law. Too bad we weren't at December 18th, but we'll get there.

And he's also got a, Not only that, but Bob, you're going to have to, in this day and age, you're going to have to look at God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, you're going to have to define woman, too. Maybe you should substitute the word birthing person there. So I didn't want to go there, I'm leaving that.

So, Tenney aptly names this section, The Argument from the Point of Superiority of Maturity in Christ, Relatively to Immaturity. And just as a quick review, because I like, thanks to Margaret, who wanted this chart, or brought up this chart, this picture, from the latter part of chapter three, says, But the scripture has shut up everyone under the sin, so that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed And you can see the scripture shuts us up. All mankind is under sin, unrighteousness, and the scripture shuts us up or imprisons us or confines us, incarcerates us. under sin. And the law is the guard, the prison guard, and he acts as a policeman, keeps everyone here in line until the work, the personal work of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is here. The verse mentions the faith, so it's a definite article faith. the Abrahamic promise came, the free gift. And here we are, the ones believing.

So that was verses 22, 23 of chapter three into 24. So you remember that chart. And here, I'll get through that. And in my chart, Verse 24, therefore the scripture became our tutor to lead us to Christ. So this is our review so that we might be justified by faith.

There's the nephew's child under the tutelage of this tutor, this child conductor, pedagogue, and their job was strict, rigorous, custodial moral care to and from that schoolhouse that you see there. And that was before the faith came and this child grows in maturity. to being a son, and then he has possession and inheritance of this estate, which is physical in the Jewish culture and the Roman culture, spiritual as Paul uses it here. So, one more chart, and this wraps up these verses that I covered this morning. So, here's The believer in time, or in Israel, too, is this nebios child.

And he's held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world. There they are right there. And he's under guardians and managers. You see this guardian? The guardian guards the child's person, epitropos. Above that is managers, guards the child's property. Here's the property.

And you can see this abacus here that calculates how much money he has until this date set by the father. And this is when the Lord Jesus Christ comes into the world and dies on the cross. The child grows in maturity to the majority. Majority is grace through faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

There he is, the adopted son. Now he has the glory of this possession of his estate. He comes into his estate and now he's able to enjoy it and has full liberty in the estate, enjoying full resources. Oh, was it? One of the commentators says, he is conscientious. He has consciousness of his sonship. So he knows he's a son. These are the things he's enjoying this inheritance.

So that's what I came up with for my last chart. But if you kind of study it, it sort of brings in all these concepts from the last few weeks and chapter four, one through four at least. I kind of threw it all in there. and the kitchen sink. That's good, that's very good. Yeah, it kind of helped me to visualize it too, because I like that chart that my dad originally did with the jail, which I thought was cool.

But yeah, there it is. So, oh, and I forgot the little money there. So there it is. Oh, and one, I keep, let me advance these. And so this, Paul's example also works as this conditional, our condition, the believer in time. to our position. You can also put that in there, too, into all these.

These are such rich verses. He's bringing up so many things. It's really amazing. And that's why that chart is so busy. A lot of things going on there. I think that's it. OK, that's it. That's the completion of the chart. Questions? Comments? Bob, I owe you a box of cookies. or a package of cookies for answering the question correctly. But I'll close in prayer here. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you. for these rich verses, and you convey it so well, and you convey information that we need to spiritually grow, and just pray that these things will settle into our hearts and minds, and we can apply them into our daily lives, and we thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.