From Slavery to Sonship

Part 4

Text: Galatians 4:1-7

Intro/Review:

I.       The law discloses our need for sonship. vv. 1-3

II.       God the Father sent His Son to merit our sonship. vv. 4-5

A.       The timing of the Son’s Sending, v. 4a

 “But when the fullness of time had come”

B.       The Source of the Son’s Sending, v. 4b

“God sent forth His Son”

C.       The Method of the Son’s Sending, v. 4c

“born of woman” v. 4c

D.       The Occasion of the Son’s Sending. v. 4d

“born under law” v. 4d

Lesson:

E.       The Purpose of the Son’s Sending, v. 5

“to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons”

1.       Redemption, v. 5a

2.       Adoption, v. 5b

Reflection:

Is my Christianity the drudgery of being a slave or is it the liberty of being a son of God?

Is my Christianity a burden that I carry? Or, is it a blessing that carries me?

“What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father…you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 201).

© John Fonville

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