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Sons, Not Slaves: Freedom Through Christ (Galatians 4) | F. F. Bruce · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking, where we take complex biblical
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  and theological sources, crack them open, and synthesize the
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  central knowledge for you. Today we're undertaking A
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  detailed exploration into the doctrine of Christian liberty,
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  and we're zeroing in on Paul's argument in the 4th chapter of
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  his letter to the Galatians. Right.
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  And this single chapter is, you could argue, one of the clearest
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  legal and relational defenses of justification by faith anywhere
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  in the New Testament. It really is.
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  Our sources for this deep dive bring to together Paul's
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  remarkable synthesis of, well, 1st century Roman inheritance
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  law and a pretty dramatic Old Testament story.
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  The story of Hagar and Sarah. That's the one.
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  And the core thesis that Paul is pushing here is not subtle at
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  all. He's arguing that Christ
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  executes a complete legal shift. A shift that moves the believer
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  from a state of what he calls spiritual slavery and infancy
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  all the way to a position of full grown sonship and
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  guaranteed inheritance. And that's the key take away.
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  So our objective today is to really dissect the technical,
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  very specific terms Paul uses, words like huyothesia, which is
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  in statement as sons, Stroatia or elemental forces, and of
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  course ABBA. Because you have to understand
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  those to really get the scale of this change.
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  You do. Paul isn't talking about some
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  kind of spiritual self improvement plan.
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  He is declaring a comprehensive, spiritual and, you know,
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  relational revelation that was enacted by God himself, OK.
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  Let's unpack this monumental status change.
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  And to do that, we have to ground ourselves in the
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  situation Paul describes as the old order.
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  And he starts, a little surprisingly, by comparing the
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  Jewish people before Christ to someone who, well, already owns
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  everything. But it's completely powerless to
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  use it. Paul begins with this powerful
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  comparison and he's drawing heavily on contemporary Roman
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  and, you know, local inheritance law.
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  He says that as long as an heir, the cloronymous is an infant or
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  Napios in the legal sense. There are, and I'm quoting here,
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  no different from a slave, the doulos.
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  Now for you listening, that is a jarring statement.
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  How can someone who is the undisputed legal owner of a
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  massive estate be put in the same category as a slave?
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  It is a paradox, and it's only really solvable when you
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  understand the Roman legal definitions of the time.
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  The infant heir, the Snapios, is under the legal control of other
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  people until they reach the age of majority.
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  So they own it all on paper. On paper they are indeed the
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  sole beneficiary. They legally own everything that
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  was called the patrimony. Yet because of their age they
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  have 0 legal capacity to act on that ownership.
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  I see our sources say they are hedged about with restrictions.
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  Imagine, you know, owning all the shares in a major
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  corporation, but you have to get permission from a caretaker just
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  to buy your lunch. So the ownership is absolute,
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  but the exercise that ownership is nothing.
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  It's zero. They have the title deed, but
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  they are utterly subject to instruction from someone else.
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  So what was the typical Roman mechanism for managing this kind
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  of vulnerable ownership? Who was in charge?
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  Well, that's where the restrictive element really comes
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  in, to manage this massive estate and of course to
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  safeguard the air, the child would remain under guardians,
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  epitropoi and stewards or oikonomoy.
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  And these weren't just babysitters I take.
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  It not at all. These figures held significant
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  controlling authority over both the property and the person of
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  the minor. This whole arrangement, this
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  custodianship, it lasted until a very precise, predetermined
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  moment. OK.
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  And that moment was. The time fixed by the father.
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  Paul calls it the prothesmia to Patrose.
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  The Father's decree. Yes, the role of these
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  custodians was, you know, protective on one hand, but it
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  was overwhelmingly restrictive in Roman society.
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  The age of majority could vary. It wasn't just turning 18 or 21.
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  It often extended well beyond physical puberty.
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  And it required the father's specific decree, sometimes even
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  when a man was in his 20s. And Paul grabs this whole legal
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  setup. And he leverages it to represent
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  the law, the Mosaic Law. For Paul, the law acted as this
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  necessary but ultimately temporary controller over God's
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  people during their spiritual immaturity.
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  It was the system that, you know, preserve the inheritance
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  until the Messiah arrived. OK, so if the law is the
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  custodian, the epitropos, that brings us to a really crucial
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  point about the condition of humanity under that system.
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  Paul connects this legal infancy directly to a state of bondage
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  under something he calls the Stokia to Cosmo, the elemental
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  forces of the world. Now, if the divine law given
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  through Moses is the custodian, why does Paul categorize
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  existence under that law as slavery to something called the
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  Stokia? That seems like an astronomical
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  leap. It is.
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  It's probably the single most radical theological maneuver
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  Paul performs in Galatians 4, and to get it you really have to
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  understand the three dimensions of this word stokia.
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  OK, let's break it down. What's the first dimension?
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  So the first dimension is linguistics.
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  Stokia literally means elements that are placed in a row, like
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  the the basic building blocks of something.
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  Like ABC? Exactly like ABC, by extension,
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  it means the ADC's or the rudiments of basic education.
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  So Paul is referencing the period of the law as a time
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  spent in, let's call it a spiritual infant class.
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  You're dealing only with rudimentary notions of religious
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  life. It's a period of necessary, but,
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  you know, very limiting infancy. So the lawn is the required
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  primer, but it's not the final destination.
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  Precisely. But that meaning immediately
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  merges with the second, and much more decisive.
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  Meaning. Which is the law itself.
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  Our sources confirm that whatever else the Stotia might
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  encompass, it plainly includes the law in the sense of legal
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  restriction. For Paul, existence under law
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  hyponoman is treated as basically synonymous with
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  existence under the sturcia. To Kosmu, the law was that
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  necessary controller, that custodian over the Jewish
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  people, making sure they were contained until faith in Christ
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  arrived. So this means that adherence to
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  the law, at least when you're relying on it for your ultimate
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  standing before God, it actually forces you back into an
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  infantile, controlled state. That's the argument he's making.
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  But what about the third dimension?
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  You said there were three. This is where the term becomes
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  really explosive. It does.
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  The third dimension includes cosmic and even demonic forces.
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  Stoichia was also a word that was widely used to describe the
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  elements of the material world Earth, air, water, fire.
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  OK, the basics. The basics, but also, and this
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  is critical, the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, the
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  stars. But why do the stars matter
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  here? Because they regulate the cultic
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  calendar, the Jewish law included very strict
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  requirements for observing specific days and months and
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  seasons and years, all of which are regulated by planetary
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  movement. Right.
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  The feasts, The new moons. All of it.
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  Now, in the Hellenistic world at that time, these heavenly bodies
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  were often thought to be controlled by, or sometimes even
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  synonymous with, demonic forces that exercised control over a
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  person's fate and fortune. So he's tying a lot of that.
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  He's tying the law, at least insofar as it relies on
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  adherence to these calendrical rituals, to these external
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  controlling forces of the cosmos.
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  By submitting to that kind of observance, Paul argues, the
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  Galatians were submitting to the old system that regulated time
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  and kept them enslaved to externals.
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  I have to stop you there. I need to press on this specific
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  point. Is Paul really placing the
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  Mosaic Law, a divine revelation from Sinai, on the same
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  theological footing as say Pagan astrology or the worship of
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  generic weak spiritual forces that seems designed to
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  completely undermine the laws sacred nature?
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  He is. You're right.
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  To see how shocking that is, Paul is executing A radical
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  category here, and it's designed to shock the Jewish Christian
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  faction in Galatia. It's a polemical move.
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  It is. He still views the law as holy
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  and good in its proper place. But when the law is used as the
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  system for justification after Christ has come, it becomes just
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  another system of external constraint.
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  Paul asserts a universal plight of bondage that, you know,
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  covers all of humanity before Christ acted.
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  So he's leveling the playing field.
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  Completely. For the Jews, this bondage was,
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  you could say, a respectable one.
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  It was restriction under the law controlled by the calendar and
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  rituals. For the gentiles.
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  This bondage was more obviously Pagan enslavement to beings
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  which by nature are no gods, serving idols that had no
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  reality but still help people enthrall.
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  But the spiritual outcome was the same.
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  The spiritual outcome was identical in Paul's view,
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  subjection to stoichiya, weak external forces that kept them
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  in spiritual slavery. So the moment Christ comes, the
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  law which was once the divine custodian reverts to being just
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  another weak and beggarly elemental force.
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  If someone tries to re enter it for justification, it
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  establishes the common starting point of slavery for.
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  Everyone, precisely. Paul is essentially saying that
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  adherence to the Jewish ceremonial law, when you rely on
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  it for achieving righteousness, is just a religiously formalized
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  version of the universal human tendency to seek control and
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  assurance through external restrictive systems.
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  It's an infant grasping for the ABC's when they should be
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  writing prose. That's a great way to put it.
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  OK, so that established the universal nude for redemption.
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  If all of humanity was collectively trapped in this
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  system of restrictive elements, how exactly did God break in?
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  Paul describes his intervention is happening when the appointed
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  time had fully come the puploma to Quenu.
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  What is that moment signifying God's plan?
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  This is a statement about divine sovereignty over history.
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  It's the moment the Heavenly Father had fixed for the heir to
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  come of age. It's the prothesmia of the
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  Heavenly Father, the moment of emancipation.
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  So it wasn't random. Not at all.
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  It was the specific climactic epic that was divinely ordained
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  for God's people to finally graduate from that tutelage and
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  enter into their inheritance as mature, responsible sons and
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  daughters. The fullness of time.
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  Yes, this concept of plushma fullness or completion it
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  suggests that all the prior historical arrangements,
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  including the law, had served their purpose and we're now ripe
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  for being superseded. All the requirements of the past
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  had been met, the historical stage was set, and the time for
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  God's final action had arrived and the.
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  Core action that defined this epic was, of course, the sending
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  of the Sun. Yes, and the action was
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  specifically tailored to solve the problem.
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  God sent his son, born of a woman and critically born under
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  law. Christ was intentionally placed
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  within that same restrictive prison House of the Mosaic
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  system. He submitted to its mandates,
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  its requirements, and in the end, its curse.
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  And the goal was clear. The goal was to redeem those who
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  were under law. The word means to buy out, to
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  purchase from slavery. Christ bought them out of that
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  existence. This transaction liberates
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  believers from being hyponomen under the law's legal domain,
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  and by extension, it redeems them from the curse of the law.
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  Which is the death sentence pronounced on those who failed
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  to keep it perfectly correct. So redemption is a specific
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  legal transaction that removes the liability imposed by the
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  law. But the purpose wasn't just
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  negative, was it wasn't just freedom from the law.
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  It was positive in statement into a new elevated status.
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  Absolutely. The ultimate positive goal of
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  Christ's redemption was the instatement as sons or
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  heathesia. This Greek term, often
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  translated as adoption, signifies immediate spiritual
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  majority. So the legal infancy, the Nepio
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  state is instantaneously over. It's over.
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  You are no longer under custodians.
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  Let's. Talk about that term, Heathesia.
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  In the Roman world, adoption was a much more rigorous legal
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  affair than we might think of today, right?
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  What does this status elevate the believer to?
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  It's a huge deal. Roman adoption was a serious
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  legal maneuver. It was often used to guarantee
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  the survival of a family lineage or a business.
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  When a man was adopted, he didn't just, you know, join the
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  family. He was legally reborn.
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  Reborn completely. All of his prior debts were
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  wiped clean, he gained immediate full adult status with all the
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  rights of an eldest legitimate son.
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  He could vote, he could manage assets, and he could inherit
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  everything. So Paul uses this powerful legal
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  framework. To show that believers
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  transition instantly to being no longer a slave but a son.
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  Yes, they are granted their freedom and the power to use it
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  responsibly. They move from being a
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  restricted minor to a spiritual adult in a single moment.
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  And this status is the culmination of the whole
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  redemptive mission. It is.
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  It means their identity is now secured not by their works or
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  their performance, but by their new, legally recognized
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  relationship with the Father. And the moment that status of a
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  full son is established, the status of an heir Chloronimus
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  follows inevitably. It's a non negotiable, legal and
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  spiritual consequence, Paul says.
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  If a son, then also an heir through God, this status grants
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  them full rights to the patrimony, the entire spiritual
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  inheritance that was promised Abraham.
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  He goes further, doesn't. He he does, Paul often uses
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  language that suggests this sonship makes them Co heirs with
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  Christ himself. They share in the spiritual
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  estate of the true natural son. The transition from a potential
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  heir under custodianship to a full Co heir with Christ is the
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  dramatic climax of the entire argument.
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  The status is secured legally through Christ's birth and
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  death. But then Paul says the status is
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  confirmed internally. It's confirmed by the sending of
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  the Holy Spirit. How does the Spirit testify to
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  this new status? The Spirit acts as the
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  definitive internal witness to this reality because believers
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  are now full sons. God sent the Spirit of His Son
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  into our hearts, crying ABBA Father.
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  The Spirit's presence is the undeniable internal seal
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  confirming their new familial relationship.
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  It moves the assurance of sonship from an external legal
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  declaration to an inner, heartfelt reality.
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  The phrase ABBA father is maybe the most intimate declaration in
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  the whole New Testament. What is the significance of
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  using that specific Aramaic term ABBA?
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  ABBA takes us straight into the family dining room.
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  It's an Aramaic hippocristic. A pet.
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  Name a pet name, essentially A diminutive, affectionate term.
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  Sometimes it's likened to Daddy or Papa.
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  In modern usage, though, it still carries the respect of
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  father. It was the domestic term used
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  within the immediate family circle, and it expresses this
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  incredible loving nearness and implicit trust in the Father.
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  And this was very different from the way God was usually
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  addressed. Profoundly different from the
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  formal liturgical Our Father that was used in synagogue
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  prayers, the historical evidence suggests Jesus was virtually
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  unique in applying this designation to God in prayer.
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  He used it all the time. Repeatedly in the Gospels, most
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  notably in Gethsemane, calling God ABBA is considered the
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  epsysmovox Izu, the very voice, the characteristic address of
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  Jesus. So the fact that this spirit
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  enables Gentile Christians to spontaneously use this intimate
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  address. Is a token that they're indwelt
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  by the very same spirit that indwelt Christ.
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  It's a shared radical intimacy. So using the word ABBA shows
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  that the Galatians have been granted the right not just to
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  know God, but to have the same intimate prayer life and access
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  to the Father that Jesus himself.
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  Had precisely and notice the verb for the action crying
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  Krazu. This is not a formal recitation.
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  It's not a planned liturgy. It's not quiet.
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  No, Krazu suggests a loud, spontaneous shout or ejaculation
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  that's driven by an inward impulsion.
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  It is the sound of absolute assurance.
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  The Spirit gives believers the immediate power of using the
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  rights of sonship, of realizing that they can address the
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  Creator of the universe with the simple, spontaneous confidence
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  of a child to a loving parent. The slaver is gone.
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  The fear is dissolved. OK, so to absolutely lock down
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  this theological argument about status, Paul fits to scripture.
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  He uses the ancient family story of Hagar and Sarah as an
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  allegory. Allegra Romena.
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  And this is where he uses history not just to illustrate
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  his point, but to deliver a final binding scriptural
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  verdict. He does.
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  He announces explicitly that the two women represent 2 covenants,
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  the old and the new. This interpretive method, using
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  history to convey theological truth, was radical.
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  Paul is forcefully inverting how his Jewish opponents were likely
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  using the story. They would have claimed physical
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  descent from Isaac secured their status as the true children of
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  Abraham. Paul argues that it's the
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  spiritual nature of the birth flesh versus promise, that is
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  the thing that determines true airship.
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  So let's examine the first covenant.
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  He talks about Hagar the slave girl.
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  What does she represent and what does she produce?
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  Hagar represents the covenant that derives from Mount Sinai,
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  the whole dispensation of the Mosaic Law, and Paul
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  characterizes this covenant as bearing children for slavery.
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  Wow, that's a deliberate slight against those who relied on the
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  law. It is.
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  They would have proudly claimed Sinai as their heritage, but
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  Paul just declares that Sinai's output is bondage, not freedom.
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  And what's the connection to the contemporary scene in Jerusalem?
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  He says Hagar corresponds to the present Jerusalem, Tony and
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  Jerusalem. Now, this refers not just to the
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  physical city, but to the entire legal system of Judaism,
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  particularly those aspects that were focused on legal adherence
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  and works. So what's his verdict on that
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  system? Paul's verdict is that this
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  system, despite its heritage, is in slavery with her children,
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  meaning those who rely on the law for righteousness are
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  spiritually enslaved, regardless of how righteous they might
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  appear on the outside. And Hagar's son Ishmael then
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  becomes the archetype for those who are trapped in legalism.
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  Exactly. Ishmael was born according to
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  the flesh Khatisarka. His birth was, you know, in the
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  ordinary course of nature. It was just the result of human
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  planning and physical capability.
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  So he becomes the figurehead for legalism for those who seek to
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  gain divine favor through their own physical efforts, their
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  adherence to rules, and their natural ability rather than
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  reliance on God's supernatural promise.
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  All right, so now we turn to Sarah, the Free woman.
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  She's the opposite archetype. She is Sarah represents the
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  covenant of promise, the new covenant fulfilled in Christ.
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  She is the spiritual counterpart to Hagar, and she's associated
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  with the Jerusalem above. Hide on to Jerusalem.
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  The heavenly Jerusalem this. Heavenly entity is emphatically
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  free. Eleuthera esten.
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  This Upper Jerusalem is the transcendent, eternal reality of
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  the people of God. And Paul tells the Galatians,
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  who are mostly Gentile converts, that this heavenly free
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  Jerusalem is our mother, Mucha Holman.
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  That must have been a stunning declaration for people who had
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  no prior connection to Abraham's physical lineage.
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  Oh, it completely reverses the concept of lineage.
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  Paul is stating that believers, whether they are Jew or Gentile,
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  are spiritually born into this free community.
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  The community is defined by the New Covenant and freedom in
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  Christ. Their true origin is heavenly,
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  not earthly or tied to the physical mandates of the Law.
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  And Sarah's son Isaac established this lineage of
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  freedom. Right.
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  Isaac was born through promised epangelias.
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  His birth defied the ordinary course of nature.
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  It was a miraculous act of God's enabling word.
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  He represents grace. So believers, Paul says.
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  Are the children of promise as Isaac was?
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  Their Staris, just like Isaacs, is derived entirely from God's
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  promise and is received by faith, not by any works or legal
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  adherence. This contrast also seems to
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  establish the enormous growth potential of the new covenant.
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  It does. Paul quotes Isaiah 54
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  reinforcing that the formerly barren wife, which stands for
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  Zion or the Jerusalem above, is now blessed.
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  The free community, the spiritual descendants of Sarah,
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  is destined to have more children than ever the old
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  Jerusalem had, which highlights God's inclusion of the Gentiles
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  into the promised inheritance. OK, so the allegory serves a
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  practical purpose too. It explains the current tension
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  in the churches. In Galatia, Paul says that just
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  as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, that same spiritual conflict is
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  happening even now. What did that persecution look
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  like in the 1st century? Well, rabbinical tradition held
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  that Ishmael mocked or harmed Isaac.
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  Paul uses this historical friction as a template for the
• 20:00
  contemporary situation. The persecution in Galatia was a
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  kind of theological and social. Coercion.
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  The legalists. The legalistic adherence.
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  The sons of the flesh were actively trying to force the
• 20:12
  Gentile converts, the children of the Spirit, to adopt
• 20:15
  circumcision and the law. They were trying to pull them
• 20:18
  back into slavery. It was a persecution driven by
• 20:21
  theological incompatibility. So the two systems just cannot
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  coexist. They can't.
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  If the Galatians accepted the legal demands of the
• 20:27
  circumcising party, they would, in Paul's view, be aligning
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  themselves with the spiritual lineage of Ishmael, and in doing
• 20:34
  so they would be sacrificing their inheritance.
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  This leads to Paul's final and very severe conclusion, which he
• 20:41
  frames as a binding scriptural command.
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  It's like a definitive court ruling on the matter of
• 20:46
  inclusion. It is, he cites, the ultimate
• 20:49
  decree drawn from Genesis 21.90. Drive out the slave girl and her
• 20:54
  son, for the slave girl's son shall not share the inheritance
• 20:57
  with the son of the free woman. That is a stark, absolute
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  declaration of exclusion. It's intended to be.
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  Paul treats the Scriptural injunction as God's final word
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  on the matter. It establishes the spiritual
• 21:09
  incompatibility. Legal bondage and spiritual
• 21:12
  freedom cannot coexist. The entire promised inheritance
• 21:16
  belongs exclusively to the children of the free mother.
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  So there's no middle ground. There is no middle ground.
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  Those who insist on seeking justification through adherence
• 21:24
  to the law have, by their own choice, aligned themselves with
• 21:28
  the lineage that must, by God's decree, be excluded from the
• 21:32
  promise. After delivering that definitive
• 21:34
  court ruling, Paul pivots immediately to this urgent
• 21:37
  pastoral appeal. He expresses genuine alarm.
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  He says I am afraid for you in case I have labored over you in
• 21:45
  vain. He even describes his effort as
• 21:47
  enduring birth pangs for you all over again.
• 21:51
  Paul is deeply worried here. What specific actions were the
• 21:54
  Galatians taking that risked nullifying their salvation and
• 21:58
  his Apostolic work? Paul feared that their adoption
• 22:01
  of legalistic practices showed that they had fundamentally
• 22:04
  failed to grasp the Gospels core concept of freedom.
• 22:07
  The specific visible evidence of this theological error was their
• 22:10
  adoption of ritual observance. Right, he listed out.
• 22:13
  He does, observing days and months and seasons and years.
• 22:16
  Why are these calendar observances, you know, holy
• 22:19
  days, Sabbaths, feasts? Why are they so fatal to their
• 22:22
  standing in Christ? Because they were taking the
• 22:24
  requirements of the Mosaic cultic calendar and adopting
• 22:27
  them as a religious obligation that was necessary for their
• 22:30
  acceptance before God. This wasn't a matter of, you
• 22:33
  know, cultural interest or historical appreciation.
• 22:35
  It was submission to a restrictive system.
• 22:37
  And this observance was the concrete proof that they were.
• 22:40
  That they were turning back to the weak and beggarly elemental
• 22:44
  forces, the Stoea that we discussed earlier.
• 22:47
  So it all connects. Back it all connects by tying
• 22:49
  their standing with God to the alignment of the sun and moon.
• 22:52
  They were, in Paul's mind, re entering the old system that was
• 22:55
  controlled by external weak forces.
• 22:58
  They were reverting to spiritual infancy.
• 23:01
  They were behaving as though their spiritual majority had not
• 23:03
  arrived. It's like they were saying we
• 23:06
  know God but we still feel compelled to serve non gods.
• 23:09
  That's it exactly. These external forces and
• 23:12
  routines, their adherence to the Laws ritual calendar showed they
• 23:15
  had no conception of the new order.
• 23:18
  They were trading the intimate freedom of crying ABBA for the
• 23:21
  distant requirements of the cosmos.
• 23:23
  It jeopardized their status entirely.
• 23:26
  Paul saw it as a deliberate act of regression.
• 23:28
  He says. You know you've come to know
• 23:30
  God, or rather to be known by God, which emphasizes God's
• 23:33
  initiative, and yet you are behaving as though you have to
• 23:36
  return to serving these external structures that Paul now
• 23:39
  describes as weak and beggarly. Paul's final authoritative plea
• 23:44
  is a direct command. Stand firm, therefore, and do
• 23:47
  not be encumbered again with the yoke of slavery.
• 23:51
  He returns to the image of slavery.
• 23:53
  What exactly does he mean by the yoke?
• 23:55
  The Zygos. The yoke zygos signifies the
• 23:59
  burden and legal obligation of the Mosaic Law.
• 24:02
  The phrase zygos dulius, a yoke of slavery, is used here in a
• 24:06
  definitively negative sense, what we call in Melampardum.
• 24:10
  It denotes A disagreeable restrictive burden, something
• 24:13
  akin to actual physical slavery. Which is a crucial distinction,
• 24:16
  right? Because within Judaism, the yoke
• 24:19
  was seen honorably. Very honorably it was the yoke
• 24:22
  of the Kingdom of heaven, a privilege of obligation.
• 24:24
  But Paul, he employs it strictly in its negative sense.
• 24:27
  For Christians who have been liberated by Christ, adopting
• 24:29
  the legal obligation of the law again is a choice to return
• 24:32
  willfully to the status of a slave.
• 24:34
  So the choice is laid bare, either the full rights of the
• 24:37
  sun in the heir, or the choice of the slave constrained by an
• 24:40
  unbearable restrictive yoke. The freedom Christ one is
• 24:43
  comprehensive. To take on that legal system
• 24:45
  again contradicts that absolute liberty.
• 24:48
  It is a failure to recognize the finality of Christ's work.
• 24:51
  Subjecting themselves once more to the control of those
• 24:54
  elemental forces that can neither justify nor save.
• 24:57
  This new status demands constant vigilance.
• 25:01
  Outro So this deep dive into Galatians 4 reveals a high
• 25:04
  stakes nature of poles argument through the legal shift from the
• 25:08
  infant heir under custodianship to the full grown son.
• 25:11
  And then that dramatic scriptural allegory of Hagar and
• 25:13
  Sarah Paul synthesizes a single defining theological truth.
• 25:17
  He does, and that truth is that Christ is the spiritual
• 25:20
  emancipator who provides not just freedom from the law, but
• 25:22
  full in statement as sons and heirs to the entire divine
• 25:25
  estate. The central point, then, is that
• 25:27
  our identity is secured by promise, not by our performance.
• 25:30
  Right. And this status is attested by
• 25:32
  the Spirit's intimate familial confidence, that spontaneous cry
• 25:36
  of of ABBA Father. The law was temporary, it was
• 25:40
  external, and it was protected for a time.
• 25:42
  But it has been superseded. To return to it is a regression.
• 25:46
  It's classifying even a divinely given system as slavery if it's
• 25:49
  relied upon instead of Christ. This leaves us with a necessary
• 25:53
  concluding thought for you, the listener today.
• 25:55
  If Paul classified adherence to the Mosaic Law, a divinely given
• 25:59
  system, as a reversion to slavery under the Stoichia, what
• 26:03
  modern systems, religious or secular, might be functioning
• 26:07
  today as those weakened, beggarly elemental forces in
• 26:11
  which we place our ultimate trust apart from the living God?
• 26:14
  It's a challenging question. You should consider the systems
• 26:16
  we build for personal assurance. These could be complex rituals
• 26:19
  of self justification, or rigorous adherence to cultural
• 26:22
  expectations or even political ideologies that promise a
• 26:25
  complete ordering of the world. Any system, even a religiously
• 26:29
  flavored one, that requires continuous external performance
• 26:32
  to secure your internal validation or salvation is
• 26:35
  potentially substituting the full freedom of sonship with a
• 26:38
  new form of spiritual bondage. This status as free sons demands
• 26:42
  constant vigilance over where we seek our assurance, knowing the
• 26:46
  inheritance is secured solely by promise and grace, attested by
• 26:49
  that intimate cry of ABBA. A compelling challenge to stand
• 26:52
  firm in the liberty with which Christ has set us free.