Notes:

Sons of God

• During the old covenant period God’s people were under the guardianship of the law. This is depicted by the custom of a child being under a pedagogue (household servant) in New Testament times. ‘But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith’ (Gal. 3:23-24).
• Under this arrangement a child fared no better than a household servant. ‘Now I saythat the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father’ (Gal. 4:1-2).
• But there was a specific moment, marked by a special occasion, when this changed. Then, the child was officially adopted into his father’s family. He was no longer a ‘child’ but a ‘son’.
• The Cross was the defining moment when God’s people were no longer servants but sons. ‘But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons’ (Gal. 4:4-5).
• This was characterized by, 1) Freedom from the pedagogue (law), ‘…after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor’ (Gal. 3:25);   2) Intimacy with the Father, ‘you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus’ (Gal.3:26).
• Jesus said, ‘A slave does not abide in the house forever,but a son abides forever’, (John 8:35). A servant serves to maintain his place in the house; a son’s place in the house is secure because it is not based on his service but his position as a son.

We are dead to the law and alive to the Spirit

• For the believer the Holy Spirit has taken the place of the law, ‘…if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law’ (Gal. 5:18). We are dead to the law and alive to the Spirit.
• In Gal.4:4 we read that God sent forth His Son; In Gal.4:6 we are told He sent forth the Spirit of His Son.
• In Christ we have the position of sons; through the Spirit we have the experience of sons. The Spirit helps us to feel like sons, even like Jesus Himself, in the presence of the Father.
• It is not fitting that those who have received the status of sons should relate to the Father on the basis of laws, rules, regulations, etc. This would be a return to childhood/servant status.
• Sadly, this is what the Galatians did when they succumbed to legalistic teachers. ‘But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, howis it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain’ (Gal. 4:9-11).

The status of sonship is characterized by intimacy with the Father

• A servant mentality is not only characterized by laws but also by dependence on law-givers. People with a servant mentality always need someone to tell them what to do. They need a human mediator between them and God.
• The status of sonship is characterized by intimacy with the Father.
• Sons are Spirit-led. ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God’, (Rom. 8:14).
• Under the new covenant there is a new level of intimacy based on a new kind of relationship. There is no human mediator between us and God, ‘None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them’, (Heb. 8:11).
• The less we understand what it means to be sons the more we will behave like servants. We will need rules, and someone to tell us what to do.
• Jesus said, ‘My sheep hear my voice.’ We must learn to distinguish His voice from the voice of strangers.
• The more we know His character the more we will recognize His voice.