1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:1–7, ESV)

This entire passage illustrates the point in the final verse: "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (7). If you have trusted Christ and believed his gospel, you have been transferred from slavery to sonship. You are—right now, not only in the future—a full heir of God because of your connection to Jesus.

Paul wants us to think of ourselves as full-grown, full-blown recipients of God's inheritance. He even says God did everything he did so that we might receive adoption as sons (5). Though we are waiting for God's kingdom to come fully, we can experience the inheritance of God's kingdom right now.

To illustrate this, he gave an example in the first three verses of our text. He pointed out that when an heir is still a child, their functional experience is not much different from a slave, even though the child will one day own everything (1). In their culture, fathers would set a date for their heirs to be considered full adults, and until that date arrived, heirs were subject to the same rules and regulations the servants were (2).

In using this illustration, Paul's point is that we also—before the gospel—used to be children who had not yet received full, adult sonship before God (3). Paul said we were enslaved to something called the elementary principles of the world (3). There is debate about what he meant by the phrase, but the rest of Galatians fleshes it out. Within Galatians, Paul described humanity as enslaved under sin, trying to approach God through the works of the law, subjugated to the law, wrestling against the curse and fallen brokenness, under a guardian, and completely enslaved, observing ceremonies in an attempt at righteousness.[1] I take all these phrases together as what Paul means by the elementary principles of the world. He describes our situation before we had Christ as a desperate struggle with the elements of law, conscience, sin, and powers of darkness.

But God has delivered us—through Jesus—into whole sonship. Now, through the gospel, God is our good Father. With this as our backdrop, the rest of the text pushes us to ask two questions. First, do I think God is my Father? And second, do I feel God is my Father?

Do I Think God Is My Father? (4-5)

With the first question—Do I think God is my Father?—Paul highlights what God did to engineer a way for us to become his children. In Paul's view, we should conclude God is our Father (if we have trusted Christ) because of all God did to make it so.

He Appointed a Time

The first thing God did was send forth his Son at the perfect and appointed time (3). It was the ideal time in history because of the conditions in the world when Jesus came. The Roman Empire forced peace on everyone, built an elaborate network of roads, and used Greek as the common language. Combine these elements, and you discover a perfect opportunity for the church. Traveling Roman roads, visiting places under Roman rule, and utilizing the Greek language, they could tell a hurting world that Christ had come. It was the perfect moment, the fullness of time.

There is also the biblical view that Jesus came at the perfect moment. The Old Testament Scriptures gave various clues as to the timing of the coming of the Christ. Daniel 9 suggested that Jesus had to arrive the year he did. Psalm 22 indicated that he had to come when crucifixion was popular in use. The general anticipation of Scripture was that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's future offspring would become a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:1-3). God had made these promises—and many more—but they had not yet come to pass, and Jesus came at the perfect time to fulfill them.

Beyond the historical and biblical timing of Christ's coming, there is the divine point of view. For God, it was the fullness of time. God was ready to rescue. Like God sent Moses to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt when they cried out to Him, Jesus came at the time he did because God’s rescuing heart was ripe. To him, the time was full. The Son must be sent.

He Sent Forth His Son

The second thing God did was send forth his Son to be born of woman (4). While Mary was amazing and the virgin birth jaw-dropping, Paul is not highlighting the virgin birth but the fact that Jesus had a mom like all the rest of us. In other words, Jesus was fully human upon arrival. Sent from eternity, he became one of us. He is fully God, yet fully man—a divine mystery that theologians call the hypostatic union.

It is good news that God became one of us. Since humanity was broken, we needed God to create a new humanity, one that is compatible with his holiness and majesty. The old humanity that we were born into could not connect to God. So Jesus died on the cross for old humanity’s sins so that all who trust in him could be forgiven and become new.

But for a new humanity to be possible, we needed a new human. We had Adam and copied his ways, but we needed another option: Jesus.

He Got Us Out from Under the Law

The final thing God did was send forth his Son to get us out from under the law. Paul wrote that Jesus was born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law (4-5).

This means that Jesus was required to keep the moral and ceremonial law of God, as well as the law of conscience and nature. Like every other human, he was weighed and tested by the law.

But unlike every other human, Jesus passed the test. He was born under the law and subjected to the standard of holiness laid out in Scripture. And Jesus is revealed as an obedient Son who fulfilled the law of God. He was not negligent in even one area.

Then, after fulfilling the law, Jesus died for us in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:3-4)! He satisfied God on our behalf.

All this to say, God worked and engineered the means whereby we could become his sons. He orchestrated history. He sent prophets. He commissioned his Son to be born of a woman. He found a way for his holy and just nature to be satisfied while also accepting and embracing us forever. He did all this so that we might receive the adoption as sons (5).

All the elements Paul detailed here are meant to show us what God did to connect with us. In the story of the prodigal son, the father saw his son from afar, cast off his robes, and ran to him. That is the God we have. He ran to us. He sent for us. He engineered the way to bring us home.

Through the gospel, we have come of age and are full-grown sons in God's sight. We must believe this to be true. We must believe that he is—and think of him as—our Father!

In our next post, we’ll look at the second question this text causes us to ask: Do I feel God is my father?

[1] Harmon, Matthew S. 2021. Galatians: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary. Lexham Academic. ↩