Friday, December 27, 2013

Notes on Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7


Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.
4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.  6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

The editing choices in this reading are a little …odd. We are only given part of a sentence in verse 25— it is actually completed in verse 26, which was omitted. So, let’s look at the verses that were omitted, including the original verse 25:
25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
4My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world.

Then after this, chapter 4 continues at verse 4 as in our reading. Of course, verse 28 in particular is pretty well-known, especially in our denomination, which emphasizes equality among the sexes as well as the main concern for Paul, which was the tension over this mission to Gentile (Greek) as well as Jewish converts.

We last saw part of this reading on June 23, when the epistle assigned was verses 23-29. Here are some of the notes from that Sunday:
I used to have a poster on my classroom door for over 20 years. It said: “The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.” For Paul, the Law was the teacher, but to be fully human faith then enables us to know how to live without having to follow the Law. Instead, as Jesus insisted repeatedly, He was “the way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:16)…. As Paul has insisted, faith has replaced obedience to the Law, and all the social categories that reflected outsider and insider are now irrelevant….
 
In the rest of the omitted sections at the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4, Paul uses the metaphor of inheritance to discuss how Christians receive salvation. In our reading, chapter 4 then moves on to discussing the meaning of Jesus as a bridge to all believers. Jesus was fully human and yet the Son of God, and born under the Law but providing the way for sinful, fallen people to become fully equal recipients of God’s grace. It is through Jesus willingly taking on full humanity with us that we can bridge the gap to relationship with God. God once again takes the initiative to act, and we respond in faith and trust through the inspiration of the Spirit, which causes us to cry out, “Abba!” (v. 6) or, basically, “Daddy!”—a term of intimacy and dependence. This trust or faith replaces any sort of required steps or myriad rules to follow as it had been under the Law.
Jesus helps us discover who we really are. Who we are is not an accident of birth, or appearance, or gender, or orientation. WE ARE GOD’S CHILDREN. God sends the Son to save us; God sends the Spirit to inspire us to understand our status as God’s beloved children and in following the path laid down by the Son. We are actively involved in this process by willingly acting upon the freedom that God has given us to be formed by love into a community of praise.

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