Richard Leroy Walters died in 2007 at the age of 76. He left an estate worth about $US 4 million. He was also homeless. Richard Walters slept on the grounds of the senior center. But he used the hospital telephone to make his trades and investments[1].
Curt Degerman was 60 years old when he died of a heart attack in Northern Sweden. He was known as Tin-Can-Curt. He scavenged for tins cans and old sandwiches for 40 years. He wore the same filthy blue rainjacket. He sold the tins for pennies to shopkeepers and a recycling plant.
But no-one knew Curt used the money to buy stocks and shares. He studied the financial pages in the public library every day. After he died, his relatives found he had left behind shares worth more than £731,000 in a Swiss bank account, and gold bars worth £250,000[2]. He has even had an online game based on his life[3].
Yes, these stories tell us that appearances can be deceiving. But they are also sad stories. They are sad stories in that these materially rich men lived materially poor lives. Maybe that’s the way they wanted it. Maybe their lifestyles simply reflected their extreme frugality. And they left massive and unexpected inheritances to others who did nothing for them.
Today I want to talk about our spiritual riches. Each of us who is a Christian has an enormous spiritual inheritance. It is not this world’s money. It comes from being adopted into God’s family. It is an inheritance that we share with the Lord Jesus Christ. And I don’t want any of us here living like a spiritually homeless and impoverished person, when such a spiritual inheritance is theirs.
We are in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Paul has just finished contrasting the promise and the law. The promise was given to Abraham. The promise only depended on God. And it promised blessing on all nations through Abraham and his seed. And it came long before the Law.
The Law was given through Moses to the people of Israel. The blessings of the law only came through obedience. The law says, the one who does these things shall live by them. And it means, all of them, all the time, without fail. And because we are all sinners, the law imprisons us. The law was our prison warden. And it was our paidagogos. It is a bottom-smacking slave that drives us to Jesus Christ. Needing to be under the Law is a mark of spiritual immaturity.
So Paul has said that like Abraham we Gentiles can be justified by faith. Abraham was declared righteous, was credited righteousness, because he believed God’s promise. And so can we. And this is totally apart from keeping the law or doing good works. And because we are justified by faith we are free from the condemnation of the Law.
So now, Paul brings his argument to a head with what looks like a manifesto. A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions. Often they are political in nature. Religious manifestos are called creeds. The objective of them is to make someone’s view and intention ‘crystal clear’.
Take for example, these statements. Who said these things:
Here are three manifestos. They are public declarations. Open statements making clear the principles on which these men stand. Lincoln – all people are created equal. Luther-King – judge me not by my skin colour. Marx – Workers of the world, unite!
And now let’s listen to the Apostle Paul. Here is the Christian manifesto. The Charter of Christian freedom. Galatians 3:26 to 29:
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (NIV)
In this packed description, this effusive panegyric extolling the Christian’s birthright, there are four statements of what the Christian is.
First of all, the Galatian believers have become Sons of God. By trusting in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, they themselves become sons of God. They are adopted into God’s family. This has been called the highest blessing in the Christian life.
It’s one thing to be forgiven. OK, you can come in. Here are the servant’s quarters. Work starts at 8:30am and finishes at 6pm. You get a day off a week, and 4 weeks off a year.
It’s another thing to an outsider adopted in, and given the rights of a natural son. Here’s your room and your seat at the table. There’s the fridge and your bathroom. Help yourself. Here are the keys to the car. I’ve called my solicitor and we’ve changed our wills. You get an equal share.
That’s what we Christians get. We are co-heirs with Christ. We inherit with Jesus Christ.
Second, all those who have been baptized have clothed themselves with Christ. We are not told what baptism is spoken of.
We need not run to water baptism. It is more likely refer to Spirit-baptism. That event of receiving the Spirit at the beginning of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 12:13) Consider what Paul says in a similar context, 1 Corinthians 12:13:
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave of free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.’ (NIV)
Most often, the baptism that Christ is said to perform is the one with Spirit and fire and in contrast to one with water (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 1:16; John 1:26-27, 33; Acts 1:5; 11:16) [4].
That is not to denigrate Christian water baptism. It is simply to say that water baptism is symbolic of and pointing towards something greater, more basic, more foundational. That is, water baptism points to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which comes to Jew or Greek, slave of free, and we can infer, male and female, by faith in Christ (cf Galatians 3:2, 5).
These baptized people are said to have ‘clothed themselves with Christ’. Jesus is described as a robe, a covering, in which we wrap our naked bodies. The image might indeed be drawn from water baptism. But that should not be surprising. Given that visible water baptism is meant to typify, symbolize and represent invisible Spirit baptism. The candidate strips off to be plunged in the water. And when they emerge from the water, they are covered over in a robe.
And this ‘putting on Christ’ the believer does points to the justification we receive through Christ. Christ and his righteousness is the robe that we must wear.
Third, Paul indicates there is a new common denominator for the Christian. There is a new banner under which they gather. There is a new allegiance which takes precedence. There is a new identification which they must take, which transcends nationality, class, and gender. They are in Christ Jesus. And in him they are one.
Paul is speaking about our justification in Christ, which is our forgiveness of sins and being considered righteous in Christ. He is speaking of our adoption to the spiritual privileges of being Sons of God. He is speaking about our being clothed in Christ. In the book of Acts, the baptism of the Spirit come on all sorts of people. Jews in chapter 2. Males and females in Acts chapter 2. Gentiles in chapter 11. Indeed, Paul says that all were baptized by one Spirit into one body. So every Christian received the Spirit. So Paul is talking about our right to spiritual privileges: adoption, union with Christ, inheritance according to Abraham’s promise.
We live in the post sexual-revolution West. And this of course has affected the church. So many look at this verse as saying that there are no distinctions any more. Some say Paul contradicts himself. Others that he never got to implementing a complete obliteration of roles in the church, as this verse suggests.
But a Christian way to read the bible is to compare Scripture with Scripture. He is not saying that the distinctions between Jew, Greek, Slave, Free, or Male or Female, don’t matter for any purpose whatsoever. They simply don’t matter for adoption, union with Christ, inheritance according to Abraham’s promise, etc. In short, these distinctions don’t matter for salvation.
There was still Jew and Greek for Paul in other areas of life. Paul became like the Jew to win the Jew, for example. To those not having the law, he became like one not having the law. To the Greek he became like a Greek (see 1 Corinthians 9:19-22). Because Paul was attempting to win both Jew and Greek through the gospel. Paul went to the Jew first, then the Greek. This was his customary missionary practise (Romans 1:16; 2:9-10; cf Acts 13:5,42-48; 14:1-2; 17:2, 10). And he did this because he saw a distinction between them. Not one that mattered for salvation, or fellowship. But one that reflected that Israel was the cultivated olive tree, and the gentiles were the wild olive tree.
Paul also operated within the Roman Empire slavery structures. He didn’t declare that slavery was always evil institution. He advocated that slaves should remain in the place in life that the Lord assigned to them at the time of their calling. Sure, he was highly critical of slave trading. But slavery was part of the structure of his world, just as bankruptcy and employment contracts and bonded servitude and other forms of sworn service are a structure of ours. So he lays down a rule for all the churches in 1 Corinthians 7:20-24:
Each man should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you – although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman’ similarly, he who was a freeman when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to. (1 Corinthians 7:20-24 NIV)
Likewise, there is a distinction between men and women. Paul describes the husband as the head of the wife. Paul says the husband is called to love the wife as Christ loved the church. The wife is to submit to her husband as the church does to Christ (Eph 5:22ff). None of this impinges on the fact that they are co-heirs of salvation (cf 1 Peter 3:7). Paul does not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man in church (1 Tim 2:12). So they are equal, but they are different.
But whether someone is Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, does not affect their spiritual inheritance. And because of this, there is a basic unity that they share. The basis of the unity is in Christ. And in so far as they are adopted as sons of God, baptized in the Spirit, clothed with Christ, and co-heirs with Christ, none of those distinctions matter anymore.
Allow me to address my sisters in Christ. You are said here not to be just God’s children, nor God’s daughters, but his fully-grown Sons. You have the adoption has Sons. Because the son, not the daughter, is the heir. The Son received the inheritance. And every Christian believer, male or female, is a Son. Paul doesn’t call you daughters but sons of God. And it is said of us, each of us, no matter what age, sex, colour, or class…
Finally, in his manifesto, Paul states that those of Christ are of Abraham’s seed (singular), and are heirs according to the promise. Paul has already said that Abraham’s seed = Christ (Galatians 3:16). Because of this, belonging to Christ means we belong to Abraham’s seed.
And this means you also receive the promises given to Abraham. And this promise was that ‘God would justify the Gentiles by faith’ (Gal 3:7-8). This is how Abraham is heir of the world (Romans 4:13). And this is yours through Christ, through Abraham.
Now, being a Son means that you are an heir. The estate is yours. But only when you come of age.
Take Michael Jackson’s kids, for example. Before he died, the pop star set up a trust fund for each child. Each child has a trust fund which currently has about $33 million. It is managed by trustees. But each child has no say and only get an income from it until age 30. And even then, they can only access a third of it at 30, half at age 35, and all of it at age 40[5]. They might be rich. But they really get no say until they come to maturity. That is Paul’s point in chapter 4 verses 1 to 3:
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his Father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. (NIV)
Remember the paidagogos? The son was the heir over the whole estate. Yet the wealthy heir was under a slave, the paidagogos, who would correct and discipline him with his rod.
And Paul is saying, this is our situation before Christ.
We were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.
In other words, before Christ all of us were infants, no better than slaves, even though we were heirs, learning our alphabet and playing with our toys. And our paidagogos punished us when we messed our room or didn’t keep the rules.
The slavery of the Jew looked a little different to the slavery of the Gentile. The Jew was under the law of Moses, with it’s particular ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’; ‘do not handle, do not taste, do not touch’ (compare Colossians 2:20). At least they came from God.
But the Gentile was a slave to things that are not gods (Galatians 4:8-9), with their ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ But each were in infancy, under supervision, under guard, under a paedagogos.
Well, for the Christian, the time of maturity has come. The time without the harsh supervision of the law: Chapter 4 verse 4:
But when the time had fully come…
When the time was just right, When Israel had made it abundantly clear that the law of Moses, though good and right and holy, was unable to save their sinful hides, And when we Gentiles had only done worse with the light we received, When it was clear that no law could save us, God acted. God stepped in himself. In two actions of sending out.
The first is in Verse 4 again…
God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
God sent his Son. That was the first sending of God. God the Son, Jesus Christ. Though in very nature God, he was born of a woman. That is, he was fully human. Yet, he also was born under law. He had no need of a paidagogos, yet he willingly submitted to one. For Jesus never sinned. Yet he took on our obligations, to love God and neighbour, so minutely set out in the Law of Moses. And he did them. Unlike us, he obeyed the whole law and fulfilled all its requirements, both in its letter and in its spirit. Jesus obeyed the law’s demands in his life, Jesus bore the law’s curse in his death (Gal 3:13), and in doing so, by his life and death he redeemed those under the law. In other words, Jesus’ life and death was the costly price he paid to buy us back. The Son bought us back from our slavery under the law.
But that’s not all. God wasn’t content to send his Son. Verse 6:
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son in to our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father”.
God also sent the Spirit of his Son to us. First, God the Father sent God the Son to buy us back. And then God, Father and Son, sent God the Spirit to us. Here is the Trinity working to bring about our redemption. The Spirit of his Son, notice. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Jesus (Compare Romans 8:9-11).
Because Jesus is God. And the Spirit enables us to call God ‘Abba, Father’. The respectful, loving name of a Son to a Father. Proof that in verse Verse 7:
So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
For God bought us back not so we can be slaves again. We have not just swapped slave masters in a slave draft. We have been bought from slavery into mature Sonship.
This is the stuff of every fairytale. Cinderella, from slave to marrying her prince. Snow white, hated and in rags, to marrying her prince. It is Joseph, a slave framed in Potiphars house to ruler over Egypt. It is Moses, a discarded baby to leader of God’s redeemed people. It is Rahab, prostitute doomed to die to an honoured place in Jesus’ family tree. It is Ruth, a despised Moabite to grandmother of the Messiah. It is the story of every Christian in every age. From slavery to Sonship through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Every Christian is a rags to riches story. Before we were slaves to the basic principles of this world. Now we are adopted as adult Sons of the King of the Universe. This is what we are.
So perhaps we can see the reason for Paul’s frustration with the Galatian Christians. Paul has reminded them they are Fully Grown Sons of God, heirs of the Universe. And here they are, going back into the rumpus room to play with the toys of their infancy.
A small incision and operation that no-one will see. Is that necessary to be saved? That’s childishness, once Jesus and the Spirit have come. Having pious parties, holy feasts, special celebrations is necessary to please God? That’s immaturity, once Christ and the Spirit have come. So verse 10:
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years…
A sabbath here, a passover there. A feast of booths here, a feast of weeks there. After the coming of Jesus, it’s like Bananas in Pyjamas. B1 and B2 always need to have a party. Get the teddies along. Bring the munchy honeycakes and yellow jelly. Listen to Paul’s frustration. Verse 11:
I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you…
The Galatians have gone from responding joyously to Paul and his gospel. To being sidetracked by these others who are zealous to win them back to the playground of the law.
Friends, what are the childish play things you are dragged back to. The little religious toys that we create to avoid God. To keep God in a box of our own making. Special holy days, months, seasons and years? Little rituals and celebrations that you or others have made up. Or even the ones that God has made up under the Old Testament, but that no longer apply now with the coming of Christ.
But they are ancient. But they are Anglican. We’ve always done this on this day!
You might observe Lent, or Ash Wednesday and Shrove Thursday and Good Friday, and Easter Saturday and Easter Day and Easter Monday, and Ascension Thursday and Whitsunday and Christmas and Epiphany and Grandparents Sunday and Education Day and Mothers Day and Fathers Day and Jeans for Genes Day and Red Nose Day and Anzac Day and Daffodil Day… There might be many good reasons to do special things on these days and seasons. As a Christian, you are free to observe them all and enjoy them all. If you observe them, good for you, you do that to the Lord.
But let's be clear that observing or not observing these days does not matter a whit when it comes to our relationship with God. It brings us no closer to observe them, no farther if we don’t. When it comes to our standing with God, it doesn’t matter whether you observe a special day or not. According to Scripture, we could cancel all our Easter services and decide to meet on Easter Monday instead. We’ve all got the public holiday. And our relationship with God would not be affected one little bit.
It is ridiculous to think that one of the continuing arguments between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy is the date of Easter when Paul says that days don’t matter (Romans 14:1, 5-8).
I grew up hearing Good Friday and Easter Sundays were the most important days of the year. Well, these days might celebrate the most important event in the history of the universe, but there is nothing special about the day! If you think they are special, you be convinced in your own mind. You are free to do that. But I am not.
There is nothing special about any one day. It is not absolutely necessary that we meet on Sunday. Though pragmatically, it might be the best day to meet, given our culture. We are free to do it, free not to do it, according to God’s word. We are free to think all days the same (Romans 14:5-6). The one thing that matters is faith working through love.
But we are adult Sons of God. We are Christians. We are justified by faith, apart from works of the law. And we must not go back to living under law, whether of the Old Testament or of our own making. The law of Christ is the law of love, and it gives freedom. And of course that involves meeting one another. How can I carry your burdens, and you carry mine if we don’t meet. We need to not give up the habit of meeting, though some do this, but continue to meet more and more as the day of Jesus Christ approaches. (Hebrews 10:25)
But we do so as adult sons, heirs of the universe, clothed in Christ, baptized in the Spirit, one in Christ despite our outward differences. The Spirit of Christ in us draws us to himself and to his body. So friends, you are rich. You have come of age. Don’t live like paupers. Don’t live like infants.
Let’s pray.
3:26For you are all sons of God through the faith in (en) Christ Jesus[6].
3:27For as many as were baptised [passive] into Christ have clothed [themselves; note middle] with Christ.
3:28There is not[7] Jew nor Hellenic, there is not slave nor free, there is not male and female, for all of you (pl) are one in Christ Jesus.
3:29Now (de) if you [pl] are of Christ, then (ara) you (pl) are of Abraham’s seed (singular), according to promise heirs.
4:1Now I say, for as long as the heir is an infant/child[8], he differs nothing from a slave, [though] being Lord of all.
4:2Rather [alla], he is under guardians[9] and stewards[10] until the stipulated time of the father.
4:3Thus also were we [emphatic, indep prn], when [hote] we were infants/children, we had been enslaved [periphrastic pluperfect: impf eimi + pf ptcp doulow] under the rudimentary elements (stoicheia) of the world (kosmos).
4:4But when [hote] the fullness [pleroma] of time [chronos] came, God sent forth his Son, coming from woman, coming under law,
4:5 so that [hina] those under law might be redeemed out [exagorazw], so that [hina] we might take sonship/adoption.
4:6 Now [de], because [hoti] you [pl] are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts [note change to first person], crying ‘Abba, the Father’.
4:7 so that [hwste] you (sing) are no longer a slave (sing); Rather [alla], [you are] a son (sing). Now [de] if [you are] a son (sing), Also [you are] an heir (sing) through God.
4:8However [alla], at that time [tote], on the one hand, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those who by nature [are] not being gods.
4:9But [de, postpositive] now [nun, fronted], when you know God, or [de] better, are known by God, how can you return again [palin] to [rely upon; epi] the sick/weak and poor rudimentary-elements (stoicheia), to which [rel prn] again [palin] anew [anothen] you (pl) wish to enslave [yourselves; form is present active infinitive, douleuein]?
4:10You (pl) are closely observing days, and months and appointed times and years.
4:11I am fearful for you [pl] lest somehow vainly [Cf Gal 3:4 (also eike) & 2:2 (kenos); Col 2:18 (eike)] I have laboured for you.
[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111091624&ps=cprs
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1262496/Secret-millionaire-Relatives-tramp-1m-recycling-old-tin-cans-settle-inheritance-feud.html
[3] http://media.farbflut.de/upload/press/dossergame-streetrivals-how-a-homeless-man-became-a-millionaire-collecting-bottles.pdf
[4] See Mark 1:8; Acts 1:5; 10:44ff; 11:15-16; Acts 19:4-7 and see Calvin’s comments ‘I do deny that baptism with water was repeated, because Luke’s words imply only that they were baptised with the Spirit. It is nothing new for the word ‘baptism’ to be used of the gift of the Spirit’ (Calvin, Acts 320).
[5] http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2010/05/31/jackson_kids_wont_access_trust_fund_un
http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2010/05/michael-jackson-kids-trust-fund-wisely-managed/
[6] I think the syntax, δια της πιστεως εν χριστω ιησου dia tes pisteos en Christo Iesou, is parallel with dia tes pisteos Christo Iesou. In other words, it suggests that the phrase pistis Christou does not mean ‘the faithfulness of Christ’ but ‘faith in Christ’: See also Moises Silva, ‘Faith Versus Works of Law in Galatians’ in Carson, O’Brien and Seifrid, Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume 2, 227ff.
[7] Seems to be a rare word, eneimi, a verb meaning ‘it is in’ or ‘it is within’.
[8] νηπιος infant, child, minor
[9] επιτροπους epitropos: A steward or manager. A caretaker or curator of anything. A guardian, trustee. Here, one who has the care and tutelage of minors, either when the father is dead or while the father lives: Thayer.
[10] οικονομους oikonomos: A household manager or steward, to whom the head of the house has entrusted management of affairs, and provision for the lower servants.