If A Son, Then An Heir Part 2
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
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.
Last lesson we covered what it meant for the Jew to be under guardians and managers and the Gentile to be under guardians and managers, The law of Moses for the Jew and Pagan religion and civil law for the Gentile.
The graduation from childhood into maturity is shown by the coming of Christ at the proper time in history to submit to the law for the sake of redeeming those we were to be brought out of the law into grace.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
“Because you are sons...” - Our sonship in God gives us access to many of God’s blessings and one of those blessings is that of assurance in our adoption into the household of God, members of the Kingdom of Heaven.
We are blessed by God as he “has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”, which is that God has given us the Holy Spirit, who is our helper (John 14:16-17) of which the Holy Spirit has many roles that he fulfills in the lives of God’s people.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
In this passage Paul is speaking primarily of a particular work of the Holy Spirit, which is the assurance of our adoption as sons to the kingdom of God.
Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit does this by working in us to recognize God as our father and concludes in that we may approach God in with speech that signifies intimacy in our relationship with him, us “crying Abba! Father!”, Abba being an Aramaic word denoting a intimate child like way of saying “father”, such as “daddy” or “papa”.
In this passage Paul is quickly moving through his argument to conclude our assurance of sonship in Christ, however in Romans 8, we get a deeper look at this work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
If the Spirit of God dwells in us then we are not in the “flesh” because Christ is in us to whom we belong, who was raised from the dead by the same spirit and as such we are also raised with Christ, first in spirit, then in the body at the second coming of Christ that has yet to take place.
Paul tells us that we are not obligated to please the flesh, but obligated to “put to death” sin by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.
This is what we call a synergistic work, synergistic coming from the Greek word synerg(ós),which means “working together”. God and man working together for the purpose of our sanctification.
This synergistic work is evidence of our being led by the Holy Spirit, which is confirmation of our sonship in God V.14
Living life in a way that shows the fruits of being led by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, is a measure to validate our sonship with God V.14
The spirit of slavery is referring to what the law produces in us, that the law drives us forward in fear of death before a Holy God, much like what was seen on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, but the Spirit of Adoption brings us assurance.
We see this in Hebrews 12:18-24
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
V.18-21 calling back to Exodus 19 just prior to the giving of the 10 commandments, but we have come to Mount Zion, that is the new Jerusalem from Heaven, the Church, God’s dwelling place with Christ as our mediator.
We can cry out in confidence and assurance that God is our Father
The Holy Spirit gives us confidence in our sonship, there is a gift of knowledge given to us 1 John 5:19-20
19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Being from God can be seen in 1 John 5:1-3
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
And now we circle back to our confirmation as sons and if sons then heirs of the promise V.17
Back to Galatians 4:7
7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
We are no longer under the law, but we have recieved the adoption as sons to obtain the inheritance