Adopted Sons: Are We God's Second Class Children?

We have about 3,000 words. It should be able to finish in about five or six hours here. If I have to describe everything in there. Just kidding about that. It looks like things are working and it's showing what should be showing there. Here we are between holy days, between Pentecost and the Feast of Trumpets, which teach us a great deal about God's plan for us and for all of mankind. We all understand that our destiny is to become sons and daughters of God and his family.

That process, that aspect of God's plan, begins with God implanting our minds with his Holy Spirit at baptism, at which point we receive God's Spirit. At that point, the process begins for us to become God's literal children. We liken that process accurately to a child being conceived in its mother's womb, and then the child then grows and develops and matures until the point of birth.

We recently celebrated that part of God's planet at Pentecost several weeks ago, commemorating the miraculous giving of God's Spirit at that Feast of Pentecost there. When God established his Church through the giving of his Holy Spirit, and now, two thousand years later, God has continued over the last two thousand years of that process of calling and placing people into his Church by giving them his Holy Spirit.

Then, what happens after we receive that Spirit? Well, we all know that through the remainder of our lifetimes, we continue to grow, utilizing that Spirit as God's children. We mature spiritually. We grow in the likeness of Jesus Christ. We seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness. And those are lifelong instructions for us. And then, as pictured in the next part of God's plan, we are born as his literal sons and daughters at the return of Jesus Christ in the first resurrection there.

As pictured by the next Holy Day coming up. Hard to believe it's only two months away from right now. That is the Feast of Trumpets. And at that point, we are literally born again as part of God's Spirit family in his kingdom, becoming literal children of God's Spirit as God is Spirit. And I think we all understand that and certainly pray for that, for the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishing of that kingdom and the rewarding of his saints.

However, maybe there are times when you've come across some scriptures that about our future is God's children that maybe don't quite fit with that picture and may be a little bit puzzling for us. Maybe you've read verses like these. Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5, which says, He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons. Let's look at another one. Romans 8, verses 14 and 15, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out, Abba, Father. Romans 8, verse 23, We also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Finally, Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5, But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Here we have four different passages from the Apostle Paul, four different statements, saying that God adopts us as his children. So what's going on here? How does this fit with the picture that we know and understand from God's holy days and so on? Does this mean we really are not going to become literal sons and daughters of God, but some sort of adopted second-class children, for lack of a better term?

And that brings us to the title of today's sermon, which is Adopted Sons. Are we God's second-class children? Adopted sons are we God's second-class children? And it's only natural somewhat for us to view adopted children as not quite the same as actual biological sons and daughters, but rather a kind of second-class children. It's kind of natural for us to think of those who are adopted in that way. So what does Paul mean here when he refers to us as adopted children?

What exactly is Paul telling us in these four passages that we grant here? Is there a difference in what we will be? And does it make any difference for that matter? So what exactly is the truth of what is going on here when Paul refers to us as adopted sons? To share a somewhat humorous story—Connie isn't here with me today, so I'll share this story—that when she was a little girl in the second grade, she concluded that she was adopted.

A new child had entered her second grade class this year, and the teacher announced that this child was adopted. Connie thought that was kind of cool, so she decided that she was adopted. Connie has very bright red hair, and her mother had bright red hair, and her brother and sister all have this bright red hair. So one day, Connie said to her mom, Mom, I was adopted, wasn't I? You can level with me. You can let me know that I was adopted. And her mother was kind of taken aback by that and said, No, you weren't adopted.

I mean, look, you have red hair, just like mine. Your brother and sister have red hair. And Connie, being the logical thinker that she is, said, Well, of course. If you were going to adopt a baby, you'd get one that has red hair that looks just like you. Of course you would do that. So I know I'm adopted. You can tell it to me straight.

And this phase went on for, I don't know, a couple of weeks or a couple of months or whatever. Connie was just 100% sure that she was adopted. They went down to adopt a baby store and picked out a red hat in there. So eventually, Connie came to get over that and realized she really was their natural child. And not some random red-headed baby they'd adopted there. But for quite a while, she was absolutely convinced that she was adopted.

But on the more serious side, when Paul writes about us as God's adopted children, does he mean that we're really not God's children? We know what adoption means in our culture today. It means taking a child of one set of biological parents and raising that child, or a single parent, raising that child as one's own son or daughter.

And it's a noble thing. It's a wonderful thing to provide a home and a family for that child who needs it. And adoption is typically a great blessing to both the child who is adopted as well as the parents who do the adopting. And typically, the adoptive parents will come to love that child as much as they would their own natural-born children.

You might even consider that Jesus Christ himself was essentially adopted. Because after all, his stepfather Joseph was not his real father. But Joseph took Jesus as his own son and brought him up as his biological son alongside Jesus' later brothers and sisters who were born to Mary and Joseph. So even though adoption can be a very good thing, is Paul saying or implying that we're really kind of God's pretend children, that we're not really his literal children.

So what is going on here? What part of this picture are we missing or we don't understand? And is it accurate to even use this term adoption to describe our relationship with God? Let's back up and see some of the problems with that. Because after all, all human beings are ultimately God's children from the start, even biologically. For instance, in Christ's genealogy in Luke 3, he traces it all the way back to Adam. And we won't read the whole genealogy, but in Luke 3, verse 38, Luke refers to Seth as the son of Adam, the son of God. So what Luke is telling us here is that all human beings are biologically the children of God going back through our lineage to Adam, the first son of God, the original son of God.

So God was the father of Adam and Eve by creation. And therefore all human beings born since then are sons and daughters of God through Adam, who was the original son of God. And notice also what Paul says to the Athenian philosophers debating on the human being as also some of your poets have said, for we are also his offspring.

And quote, quote, therefore since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. So Paul says here that even in physical sense we are God's own children. Our offspring is Paul turned it here because God is the creator of all mankind, every human being who's ever lived. And in human adoption, the adopted children are human beings, just as much as the adopted parents who adopt the child are human beings.

But if God, think about the implications of adoption here because if God is the adopted us and we are not really his children, that means we would be different kinds of being in the resurrection from God, since he would not be adopting us from other beings like himself.

And because Paul uses this word adoption in describing our relationship with God, many people, most people probably, assume that in our relationship with God we are and we will forever be a different kind of being. In other words, we will not be spirit as God is spirit, but we will be always eternally a lesser kind of being. But we know that is not an accurate view from Scripture as well. So because of this, most people don't see a problem with the word adoption here. They assume we are not going to become the literal sons and daughters of God, but instead we will always be a lesser kind of being. We are just going to go to heaven after we die and we are going to be these ethereal beings there playing our harps and our wings and so on, kind of like angels and always lesser kinds of being than God. So again, what is going on here? What does this word mean?

And what are its implications for us? Well, a number of different Bible translations recognize that there is a problem here in the verses that we read, and instead of the word adoption, a number of them use a word like sonship, for instance, or something like that. But what does the word sonship mean? Well, if you look it up in a dictionary, sonship means simply being a son, or being a son as opposed to a father there. So the word sonship really isn't much help at all.

It really doesn't tell us anything useful here. So to begin to dig down to the heart and core of the matter, what does this word translated adoption mean?

In Vine's complete expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words, it says that the original Greek word here is, you can read it on the second line here, euthesia, from two different Greek words, chios, meaning a son, and theses, a placing. Well, that's not really all that helpful either. So it literally means placing or setting in place as a son. Is that really all that helpful? Well, not particularly. It was, this word was used in the ancient Greek world in reference to adoption. So adoption is a possible meaning and translation of this particular word, a possible meaning. But is adoption, as we think of and use the word today, what Paul is talking about?

So while chioshesia, this placing or setting as a son, was certainly applicable and used of adoption, is that what Paul meant by the word? Or did he have a different meaning in mind?

Let's look at a little deeper into a different translation passage that we read earlier up front here. We can begin to see what Paul might be talking about here in Galatians 4 and verses 1-5.

And here, the new international version, I'll be reading from that here, it translates this word chioshesia as, quote, full rights of sons, end quote, full rights of sons.

So notice what we see here from the context as we read up to this, beginning a few verses earlier in Galatians 4 and verse 1. Paul says, What I am seeing is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.

He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, this is the part we read earlier, when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law that we might receive the full rights of sons. chioshesia, the word that is used here. So note here that in what Paul writes, the one who receives the chioshesia, the full rights of sons, is already the child of his father.

So this clearly isn't talking about adoption as we understand the word. The child is already the father's son, so he is not adopting the child here. So again, what's going on here?

What is it that Paul is really talking about? Well, to understand Paul's point, we need to understand that this Greek word chioshesia, translated adoption or sonship or various other ways and other Bible translation, is actually a very specific Greek and Roman legal term, a legal term, and we know legalese, we know that words can have very specific meanings. It refers to a son receiving full legal standing in Roman culture, full legal standing in Roman culture. But what does that mean? We're going to do a deep dive here into various words today.

So what does it mean to receive full legal standing in Roman culture? Well, Paul uses this word five times, chioshesia, and uses it five times in his letters. He uses it three times in the book of Romans. The book of Romans is written to the church in Rome, the capital city of the Roman Empire at that time. He uses it once in the letter to the Ephesians, and Ephesus was either the second or third largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome and possibly Alexandria. Historians debate which was bigger, Ephesus or Alexandria, and then also his epistle to the Galatians, which is kind of the heart of modern-day Turkey, which was a very crucial part of the Roman Empire there in the first century there. So all of these letters, Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, were written to audiences of church members who were totally immersed in the Roman culture and practices of that day. And in that culture there, this word, euathesia, had a very specific meaning that was well understood by the audiences of that day. So to understand what Paul meant when he uses this word five times in his letters, we need to understand some of the background of the Roman culture in which his audience was immersed when he uses this word.

So we're going to go through a couple of history lessons here. In Roman culture, it was quite different than our culture today. The father in the Roman family, Potter Familius, is the Latin term, Potter Father Familius of the family, the father of the family, had essentially absolute power over his family. The father was the only one who had legal rights under Roman law. And those rights were very extensive, particularly when it came to his rights over his children. He had rights that literally encompassed life and death decisions over his children. For instance, the father had a right that if a child was born and the child had some kind of birth defect, or maybe was very weak and sickly, maybe born prematurely, or something like that, the father, the Potter Familius, had the right to leave the child outside the seguals to die of exposure.

That's a term that uses the equivalent to die of exposure from the heat, or from the cold, or from starvation there. So it was literally a case where the father had life and death authority over his children. To give another example, if the family ran into financial hardships, the father had a legal right to sell his children off as slaves. And this canon didn't happen.

You know, if you're a farmer, you have eight children, and your crop fails, you don't get the water in time, and your family's going to starve. A reasonable alternative would have been to sell off two or three of your children as slaves. And you'd take that money and keep the rest of the family fed. It sounds harsh, but that was the reality of life in that time. So the father had these specific, all-encompassing legal rights. And these were carried over from the Greeks, largely. They didn't originate with the Roman Empire, but a lot of it was carried over from earlier Greek culture. And this is the culture to which Paul is writing, members who lived in this culture. So where does this legal term, euathesia, the full rights of sons, as it was translated, where does this come into play, and how does this come into play? Well, this is a case, those of you who've studied foreign languages, you know there's some foreign words that just do not have any good English equivalent. There just isn't one, and this is one of those cases. And this is why it gives translators fits, trying to understand and translate it into a way that makes sense to us as English readers. There is literally nothing like this Roman practice in our modern world today. And that's why we see it translated different ways, all of which are wanting in some way. There simply is no one-to-one accurate way to convey the meaning of this Greek word.

So what then exactly is the meaning? Well, this legal term had to do with, again it's a legal term, it had to do largely with Roman citizenship and inheritance. What was so significant about Roman citizenship? Well, here we give citizenship to anyone born in American territory or on American soil here. In the Roman world, in the ancient world period, it was not like that, particularly in the Roman Empire. Not all people born within the Roman Empire were Roman citizens by birth.

Roman citizenship was something that was very highly prized. And you basically had to either buy your citizenship or do some great deed to advance the interests of the Roman Empire, or to be born to a father who already had Roman citizenship. These were three ways in which you could have bestowed Roman citizenship upon you. And all three of these methods are directly referred to or inferred in the writings of the New Testament. So how did a son become a Roman citizen with full rights? Well, today we don't let six-year-olds drive or buy guns or sign contracts or get married. Six-year-olds, we all recognize this, six-year-olds are simply not mature enough to make choices like that. And we all recognize that. And it was similar in the Roman Empire. They recognize a child is not mature enough to make decisions or to receive an inheritance or things like that. They don't know what to do with it. So the practice was that a father would legally declare his son to be his legal son when the son reached a certain level of maturity, typically in the late teens, sometimes into the early 20s. But before that, the son was always viewed legally in a very inferior position to the father. Again, the father has all legal rights over his family. The son, the child, has none. That's why Paul likens it to a slave in Galatians that we read there earlier. The son would be wholly subject to his father and liable to the father's judgments over the son, even to the point of death.

If the father so decreed, it was essentially the son was a non-person.

In terms of legal rights, the son had zero legal rights of his own until he matured to this point that the father would legally declare him his son. And again, that wouldn't take place until late teens, early 20s, thereabout. And at that point, the father would make a formal public declaration that, yes, this is now my son. So during a boy's teen years, the father would determine when the boy was mature enough for him to pass from childhood to adulthood. A similar concept we're probably all familiar with is the Jewish bar mitzvah, or for a girl, the bat mitzvah. We're at age 13, a young boy, a Jewish boy. Well, he's not necessarily that young anymore, but he becomes, in the eyes of the Jewish community, a man at age 13 when he recites portions of the Torah and they have a big ceremony. It would be somewhat parallel to that. There would be a formal public ceremony where the father would declare his son to be now an adult and heir of the father's estate, with all the rights and privileges and powers of a son, an heir of his father. It wasn't a change of relationship because the father is still the father and the son is still the son, but it was a change in status or position, a change in status or position because now the young man was no longer legally a child. Now he was legally an adult and an heir of his father's property and estate. Up until that time, the child again had no rights, no inheritance, no nothing, but now, having been officially declared the father's son, now he had full rights and privileges as a son and an adult.

So, in a very true sense, he was now a new person legally. Before legally, he was a nonperson, a nobody, literally a nobody, but now he was a new person. Before that, he had no rights, no legal standing, no legal status previously, but he was considered a child. But now, at this public declaration, he now has full legal rights and privileges as a son and a citizen.

At this ceremony, he went from a legal nobody to a full son in the legal air of his father.

So, let's go back to that passage that we read in Galatian, and we actually see all of these things referred to in this passage. So, we'll pick it up again in verse 1, from the new international version. Paul writes, What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is destined to be the inheritor of his father's property, but he's not. He's not yet, because he hasn't attained that status in that legal declaration. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So, Paul is again saying what everybody understood, that a child, as long as he's a child, has no rights at all. No rights. He's the same as a slave. A slave has no rights at all. A child has no rights at all. And this status lasted until, quote, or until the time set by his father. So, the father is the one who makes that determination, when the son has reached a level of maturity to be declared an adult and a son with those rights.

Continuing in verse 3, So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. So again, as children, we had the same rights as slaves, he says here, meaning no rights at all. Nobody's. The children and the slave are nobodies with no rights.

But when the time had fully come, in verse 4, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive, quote, the full rights of sons. He doesn't say we have received them past tense, but that we might receive them. It's a future or conditional tense there. So what Paul is saying is that because of the coming of Jesus Christ, things have changed for Christians. Our status has changed. Now Paul says we can receive the full rights of sons, but we might receive them. It's a future or conditional tense there.

So what Paul is saying and his audience there in the Galatians would have certainly understood that. So he's using this Roman cultural practice that they would have fully understood to teach us about our present and future relationship with God. Right now, he says, we're children without those full legal rights and status and privileges. But a time is coming when we will receive those full rights and privileges as sons. That's what Paul is saying. You read here, and that's with that background that I've explained, and you begin to understand that. So why do so many Bible translations then use the word adoption here? Well, because again, the Greek word can mean adoption.

But as we see here, what Paul is actually referring to is this act, this formal declaration of the young man now being recognized as a legal son and heir.

But there's also a slightly different angle on this that further confuses the issue here.

And that is that the one who is chosen to be a son and heir didn't have to be a natural biological son of his father. So the same declaration of legal sonship and being an heir and so on could be bestowed on someone who wasn't a natural biological son but was in reality an adopted son, truly the son of somebody else, but becomes adopted. So this act could be used in that way, and that's why in that case the adopted son could become the real son, the legal son, the legal heir of the father. And that's why these two different meanings get intertwined and intermeshed in there and somewhat garbled in a lot of our Bible translations. This word, heuthesia, was used for both adoption as well as this public declaration of one being a son. I'm going to play you a movie clip here. Actually, if our technology cooperates there, it'll give you a little background of this, though. This is from the movie Bin Her. How many of you have seen that movie here? You may want to go home and watch it again here after this. But we're familiar with the basic story of Bin Her. Bin Her is a Jewish prince who, through a series of unfortunate events, becomes a Roman slave. And he's a slave on a Roman warship. He's one of the men chained to the oars down below decks. And he gets involved in a naval battle there with other slaves who are below decks there. And their ship gets rammed and starts to sink. And Bin Her escapes and rescues the Roman naval commander. The admiral of the fleet is what we would call him here. So he saves the commander's life. And then later, in recognition and thankfulness for saving his life, this Roman commander adopts this Jewish slave to become his legal son and heir. And this is celebrated in a large public banquet and ceremony. So we'll watch this short clip, it's about two and a half minutes here, to get a flavor of what this ceremony was like. And as we view this clip, think about this is our future as the children of God. So now we'll play this clip here.

So here's the admiral.

This ring of my ancestors would have gone to my son. So now it is yours.

It's a strange destiny that brought me to a new life, a new home, and a new father.

He brought me here. It may take me away. But wherever I may be, I shall always try to wear this ring as his son of Erich. With gratitude and affection, be with him. Okay, we can stop here.

It's really a moving scene. And as I was studying this subject, I came across reference to this clip. And I must compliment the screenwriters in this movie. They really did their homework and understood and worked into the movie this presentation, this public declaration of sonship here. And it's very, very moving because Paul is using this as a metaphor for what's going to happen to us as God's sons and daughters. There's coming a time when there's going to be a public declaration that, yes, these are my sons, these are my daughters, these are my heirs to whom I am giving everything.

Everything. And that's what this word is referring to here. So this gives us a feel of the importance of this declaration of sonship and what it was all about. And Paul uses this as an illustration for what God is going to do us as his children in legal heirs. So this practice, euthesia, and adoption as an extension of that, again, the same word is used for both, adoption was not something that was looked down on in the Roman Empire. If anything, one who was adopted would be viewed as having higher status than one's own natural-born children. Now, now that sounds weird. It's totally weird. How could someone choose someone who's not his biological son to become his legal son in heir? But as an illustration of how important this was and what high status it took on in the Roman Empire, during the period in which Paul is writing, during the period of the Gospels, and Paul is doing his writings, four out of the first five Roman emperors were adopted sons. Four out of five who were reigning during the period most of the New Testament is written. I'm not including John's writings, which are after that period there, but four out of the five were adopted sons. Let me show you this here. Julius Caesar is kind of viewed as the first empire, technically emperor, rather, of the Roman Empire. Technically he wasn't. He was more of a dictator than emperor who took power, but he was followed by his grand nephew and adopted son Gaius Octavius, later known as Caesar Augustus. He was the Roman emperor when Jesus Christ was born. Caesar Augustus reigned from 31 BC to AD 14, and he was followed as emperor by his wife's son from a previous marriage, Tiberius. Augustus adopted Tiberius, his wife's son, from a prior marriage. This adopted son became emperor at the death of Caesar Augustus.

Tiberius, who reigned from AD 14 to 37 BC, so he's emperor when Jesus is crucified, was followed by his grandson, and who was also his adopted son, Caligula. Caligula became emperor at the death of Tiberius. Caligula, who reigned from 37 BC to 41 BC, was such a bad emperor, such a crazy ruler. He appointed his horse to the Roman Senate. He was just a little bit off upstairs there. He was such a bad ruler that he was actually assassinated by his own bodyguards, the Praetorian Guard. He was followed by, this is where there's a break, where there's not an adopted son, he was actually followed by Claudius, who was appointed emperor at the death of Caligula.

And then Claudius, who reigned from AD 41 to 54, this is a period when much of the Book of Acts takes place, was followed by his wife's son from a previous marriage, who was the infamous Nero.

Nero was Claudius's adopted son, again, son of his wife from a previous marriage.

So he became emperor at the death of Claudius. And then after that, things kind of go crazy. Nero commits suicide in AD 68. He doesn't have any legal heirs or sons.

And this set in motion a period of turmoil among the Roman emperors. There were three emperors in one year. They're all fighting with each other for control of the empire. This is also the period the Jewish rebellion in the Holy Land starts in AD 66 or 67 in the latter years of Nero. And I won't go into all the detail of what happens after that. But these examples illustrate the point that adoption was both fairly common and highly respected in the Roman Empire, not least because those who are specifically chosen to be sons and heirs of their father's wealth and property and titles. So with this background in mind, these dual meanings of adoption or sonship and this public ceremony, let's go back and in the remainder of the sermon and reread those four verses we read earlier and see what Paul is telling us by referencing to these Roman cultural practices here. So I'm going to read these from several different translations here.

So first, Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5 from the New Living Translation. Paul writes, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. So let's notice a few points that Paul makes here. And these all teach us important things about our relationship with God the Father and about His love for us. First of all, Paul says God Himself chose us. He didn't just randomly pick us out. He chose us specifically. Why did He choose us? Point 2, He chose us because He loved us. And point 3, because He chose us and loved us, He has brought us to Himself and into His own family. These are all three points that Paul makes here just in those two verses. Let's move on to another passage, Romans 8, verses 14 through 17, again from the New Living Translation. Paul writes, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a Spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him Abba, Father, at close personal relationship. For His Spirit joins with our Spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. So we see several key points. I'll give you three points out of each of these passages here, if you're keeping track. So three points Paul brings out here. Just as in the Roman world, fathers would choose when and whom they would designate as their sons, God does the same with us. And He chose us to be His own children. And the time we are to become His heirs is at the resurrection of the dead, at Christ's return. So second point, because of this, because He has chosen us, we have a close relationship with Him as our Father. And a third point Paul mentions here, because we are His children, we are heirs with Christ of God's glory. We will be glorified, in other words, as Christ is glorified. And essentially, if you want to do an interesting word study, sometimes just go through the words glory and glorification. And as new as I can tell, every time those are mentioned, it's talking about our transformation from physical to spirit.

That's what the word glory. Glory, God is spirit. Christ is glorified. It's talking about being transformed from physical to spirit. Another passage from Romans, Romans 8, verses 21-23, again from the New Living Translation. The creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children and glory us freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us, as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rites as His adopted children.

He'll athesia again, including the new bodies He has promised us. So here Paul explicitly tells us what that glorification is going to be. It's going to be new bodies that He has promised us. So again, we see several key points here. First, God's entire creation eagerly anticipates the time when we fully become God's children and heirs. Second point, at that time we will receive our full rites as God's children. Right now we're God's children, but we don't really have those full rites yet. That's coming in the future, at the resurrection of the dead, at Christ's return.

And three, what do those full rites include? It includes, quote, the new bodies He has promised us. And these new bodies mean we will be transformed from flesh and blood physical bodies to glorified, immortal spirit bodies. So again, Paul uses this Roman cultural practice to teach us these important truths about what God has in store for us when God will give us His full rites as children. We will be glorified, as Paul says here, with new bodies, meaning we will be spirit beings as God is spirit. And a final passage that we referred to earlier, where Paul uses this term, Galatians 4, verses 4 through 7. We read the verses leading up to this previously, but now we'll continue with the Revised English Bible. When the appointed time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to buy freedom for those who were under the law, in order that we might attain the status of Son's euthesia again. To prove that You are Son's, God has sent into our hearts the spirit of His Son, crying, Abba, Father! You are therefore no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, an heir by God's own act. So again, several key points to pick up from this. The first part of this verse here, or passage, is referring to buying a slave His freedom. And that actually happened here. We obtained our freedom from being slaves to Satan by Jesus Christ, making that payment for us through His sacrificial death.

And it's actually documented in historical writings that there were cases where, I alluded to this, I did a sermon series several years ago on slavery in the Roman Empire. And there are documented cases where Roman slaves were actually so highly valued that their owner valued the slave more than his own children, and made the slave his adopted son, an heir.

And the slaves, for instance, might have been the owner's business manager, and did such a great job managing the estate so much better than the father knew his own children would do, that he made the son his legal heir of everything that he owned. And Paul apparently is alluding to that. There were cases that were so well known that Roman historians wrote about these type of cases, so presumably Paul was aware of situations where that had happened as well. So that's the picture that Paul is drawing here. And that's essentially what happened with us. We were slaves to Satan the devil, and Christ made the payment to free us from that slavery so that we could become God's own heirs and legal children. A second point Paul brings out here is God gives us proof that we are his sons, and that proof is his spirit. He's given that spirit as kind of a down payment on our future glorification as his children. And third, now having given us proof that we are his sons, God declares that we are also his heirs. And as heirs, we are to inherit everything that God has.

We will not only be like him, glorified as his children, but he promises that everything that he owns is now our inheritance as well. So from these verses we can see that there are a number of obvious parallels here with our relationship with God, that he has called and chosen us out of all the people of the earth to become his full, legitimate sons and daughters in his divine spirit family. And God has chosen us for that, but we do not fully have that inheritance yet. We do not fully have those rights and privileges yet. When will that formal declaration of being his children be made? When will that happen? Well, again, it will happen at Jesus Christ returns when we are transformed and glorified as spirit beings, changed from flesh and blood to spirit, from mortal to immoral, from human beings to God beings. And so long as we are in this life, we can disqualify ourselves from that sonship. But once we are raised to eternal life and that resurrection, we will have reached that level of spiritual maturity, at which point we will receive all those rights and powers and privileges as divine child of God. And what an amazing event that will be! Again, think back to the brief clip we saw there from Ben Hur of this public declaration that, yes, this is now my son in whom I am well pleased. And he's going to share with us and give us everything that he owns, and we will then become divine members of the God family alongside our elder brother, Jesus Christ. So these verses here, to wrap this up here, these verses about adoption that Paul uses here do not in any way take away from our destiny as God's full and literal children. What they do is actually firmly confirm and clarify this incredible biblical truth about our future in God's family. And Paul uses his cultural practice that was very commonly understood there by those he was writing to in Rome and in Ephesus and in Galatia as an example for what God has in store for us as his children. And all of these various meanings are wrapped up in the understanding of this word, translated adoption or sonship. But without knowing about this Roman custom, this Roman practice, this Roman declaration of sonship, we miss out on all of these, the richness and the depth of what Paul is conveying when he uses these words here.

And there are really some wonderful and encouraging lessons that we can and should take about the depth and the richness of God's love for us and what we have in store for us when we fully become God's children at the resurrection at Jesus Christ's return. By the way, we will be having the sermon chat here after the closing.