Our living God, Pt 5: Children of God

Galatians 3:23-29                  23Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  24So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  25Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.  26So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Custody under the law

In the 1st Century it was common practice, at least for the Roman and Greek elite, to assign a slave to be a guardian whose job was to watch over the family’s male child between the ages of six and sixteen to make certain he behaved properly, didn’t embarrass the family, and attending to his personal needs.  Paul is using this practice as an analogy to describe the role the Mosaic Law played in God’s plan.  Remember, God had entered into unilateral agreement with his people, including both Jew and Gentile, which is called the Abrahamic Covenant.  This Covenant described a permanent blessing that the Jews, and all who joined with them (the Gentiles), would become a great nation through which would come blessing for all the world.

The Mosaic Law was added to the Abrahamic Covenant to guide and shape God’s people to maturity in faith.  It is in this sense that the Law was seen as a guardian, protecting and guiding God’s people into maturity.  The Law then functioned, temporarily, to show them their sinfulness, and to underscore the people’s inability to correct their sinfulness, and to point them toward a better way.

This faith has come.

This better way is of course the arrival of the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the seed of Abraham mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant, and the fulfillment of God’s promise.  Remember also, that by the time of the coming of the Son of God, the Law had taken on a sort of divine status of its own.  The Pharisees required the people to obey it exclusively even though that was impossible to do.

Paul was telling the Galatians that that obligation was no longer mandatory, that the function of the Law to point out sin was obsolete because the Son of God had arrived on the scene, that he fully fulfilled the Law, and was the embodiment of God’s promise through the Abrahamic Covenant.  Whereas obedience to the impersonal Law was akin to regulation of one’s life as if by a jailor, obedience to the person and work of the Seed was a releasing from the prison.

Children of God through faith

When a person accepts Jesus as his or her personal Savior, that person is recognizing Jesus as the embodiment of that Abrahamic Seed and is entering into a relational identity with Him.  This is a life-changing event because one’s identity is no longer determined by obedience to certain rules or cultural standards, but by ethical and moral transformation because of relationship with God himself.  Further, this relationship is not static.  Once having accepted Jesus as Savior, one’s entry into eternal life is guaranteed and in that sense is a one-time event.  But relationship with God is also on-going because we fragile and frail believers are consistently battling with our propensity to sin and consistently having to turn to Jesus through the Holy Spirit for help.

All are one.

When I first read this passage all those years ago, I thought there was nothing special about all believers having the same identity in Christ.  “That’s obvious, isn’t it?” I was thinking.  But later I came to realize a deeper, cultural, and even spiritual reason for Paul’s pointing out that we believers are all one in Christ.  During the time of the Law’s supremacy, division did have a place in God’s economy.  God’s people had to be shown, for instance, that the ungodly, idolatrous worship systems of the pagan Gentiles could not be allowed to contaminate Jewish culture.  This is why the Gentiles were treated so badly unless they fully converted to Jewish worship.

Then, as today, the world system was opposed to God, so all non-Jewish peoples were treated as anathema.  God wanted his people to learn what it meant to accept Godly precepts as the norm.  The people needed object lessons.  Similarly, one’s station in life or one’s gender created distinctions which served a purpose at one time but no longer do so.  Now, as members of the same body of Christ, those sorts of distinctions have no revelatory importance.  Culturally, it is still distinguishing to be male or female, and one’s status in life can have implications for one’s lifestyle, but such things have no import related to Christ.

But now, in Christ, all believers, no matter their nationality, gender, cultural status, or heritage, have the same access to God, the same salvation, the same responsibility to grow in Christ, and the same responsibility to follow the Greatest Commandment…

 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.  Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”  29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

What about me?

There is a movement these days to blur the distinctions between individuals, cultures, and nationalities.  But every one of these distinctions has value in the sense of uniqueness and heritage.  This is not the sort of thing that this passage describes.  God loves all his children of whatever culture, or nationality.  But God doesn’t want those distinctive characteristics to separate his kids.  If we are to love our neighbor as our self, then we must forgive them when they sin, help them when they stumble, and nurture their growth in Christ.

Believer, you are a valued member of the family of God.  I know nothing about you except that God loves you, and that is enough for me.  I hope you feel that same way about individuals around you.  If there is an individual you struggle with, ask God to show you your part in it.   Maybe there is a hurt that needs healing, or forgiveness that should be given.  In either case, God can help.  This person is a member of your family in Christ; you will be spending eternity with him or her.  Now is the time to heal that separation.