Chapter 1: What does it mean to face our Maker after death?
When you draw life's last fleeting breath and your eyelids are closed in death, you will not suddenly become unconscious or annihilated or swallowed up in oneness in the ocean. You will awake in the next second and face your Maker.
AND THAT REALITY SHOULD CAUSE US TO STOP AND THINK. ARE WE PREPARED TO MEET OUR MAKER? IF YOU'RE NOT SURE, PLEASE REQUEST R.C. SPROLL'S FREE E-BOOK, WHAT IS THE GOSPEL? AT RENEWINGYOURMIND.ORG SLASH GOSPEL. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham and welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today, we're beginning a short sermon series in Galatians chapter 4.
I remember hearing these messages preached when Dr. Sproul was my pastor. Well, all of those messages from the entirety of Galatians were brought together to form his commentary on Galatians. and we'll send you a hardcover edition when you give a donation in support of this daily outreach at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight.
Well, if you have your Bible, open it to Galatians chapter 4, because here's Dr. Sproul.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave. though He is the owner of everything. But He is under guardians and managers until the date set by His Father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of this world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son."
born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son." and if a son, then an heir through God." What a glorious passage this is.
It summarizes the very essence of the gospel, and this is not simply the opinion of the Apostle Paul in the first century. This is the Word of God. Please receive it as such. I think of the eighteenth century. the advent of what was called the Aufklärung in Germany, the Enlightenment, and it spread to France and the rest of Europe and then across the seas to America.
But in that so-called discovery of Enlightenment, though it was not a monolithic position held by all the philosophers of that day, the basic point of the Enlightenment was this. Now we know through the advances of science that the idea of God is not a necessary concept in order to explain the origin of the universe or the origin of human life.
We know now in our sophisticated scientific understanding in the eighteenth century that all these things came to pass through spontaneous generation. These were intelligent men, brilliant men, but what they were teaching was nuts. pure nonsense.
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Chapter 2: How does R.C. Sproul introduce the concept of adoption in Galatians?
If for no other reason than what followed in the wake of the Enlightenment was a whole new theology based upon an attempt to make a synthesis between Enlightenment naturalism and Christianity. And that was birthed again in Germany in the 19th century, and we speak of 19th century liberalism.
And the basic credo of 19th century liberalism was this, that we have to get rid of all aspects of supernaturalism in historic Christianity. The miracles of Jesus, gone. The virgin birth, gone. The transfiguration, it's gone. The substitutionary atonement, that's gone.
Of course, the resurrection is gone, the ascension is gone, and there's no hope of any return of a dead Jesus who remains a corpse buried somewhere and hidden in Palestine. And so the immediate problem that 19th century liberals has is, well, what do we do with the church? Because the church has been built upon 1900 years of conviction of supernatural events.
One pastor and theologian of the day, his name was Pearson, said, well, what we need to do is be honest and close the church doors because the church is committed to something that's out of date, antiquated, and no longer tenable. And the other men said, wait, wait, wait a minute.
You know, all we're trained to do is be preachers, and we've invested billions of dollars in these great edifices that go throughout the land of Europe, the wonderful cathedrals and art and all of that stuff. So we can't get rid of it. We just need to change it. And as they were looking around for ways to change it, one of the most insightful church historians of all time, Adolph von Harnack,
wrote a book called The Wesen or The Being or The Essence of Christianity in which he tried to reduce the bare minimum of Christian religion to its most basic substance, its being and essence. And he said historically that the real essence of Christianity can be summed up in two principles. the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.
He said, now we can have a truly humanitarian religion based upon a new gospel, which was called a social gospel, that addresses the fundamental needs of humanity under that great umbrella of the universal truths of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. The problem with that, of course, is that
The Bible doesn't teach the universal fatherhood of God, nor does it teach the universal brotherhood of man. However, I dare to guess that every one of you in this room was raised in a culture that assumed the truth of those two premises, the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of men. When I say the Bible doesn't teach this, there's one remote passage.
For example, when Paul's at Mars Hill and he's debating with the philosophers, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and he saw an altar to an unknown God, and he declared that unknown God to them in power, and he quoted one of the poets. He says, even your poets are saying that we're all God's offspring.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of being an heir in God's family?
explaining on what was said earlier in chapter 3, Calvin had apoplexy about these chapter divisions here. He said, how in the world could somebody start a new chapter here? When Paul wrote these letters, he didn't write verse 1, chapter 1, verse 2. There weren't any versifications or chapter divisions. These were read as an entire epistle to congregations.
But in any case, we read, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, yet He is the owner of everything. This is an incredible statement.
but it's one that's tied so closely to everything Paul's been expanding on with respect to our relationship to the Father as adopted children and the relationship of the law that was given to be a tutor or guardian to the people of God. until the covenant of promise was fulfilled in Christ. And he's addressing this to those Galatians who have fallen away from the gospel as we know.
But what Paul is explaining here is he said, an heir, let's speak metaphorically here, as long as an heir is a child, he's no different from a slave. What? The slaves are working in the kitchen. They're working outside on the grounds. They clean the house, and they're involved in all kinds of labor. It differentiates them from the children of the estate. Paul says, well, they're still children.
Well, you were still children. You weren't any different from a slave. How could that be? He says, because you haven't received your inheritance. The big difference between you and a slave is that you were mentioned in your father's will, but the slave isn't. And as long as that will has not been executed, in the meantime, you might as well be a slave. Why? Because you're still under a guardian.
You're still under that tutor. And he goes on to say, he is under the guardian and managers until there is a terminal point when you graduate from being a slave or a child to the status of being an heir. And when is that day? He's saying here that the day that you become an heir is the day that your father determines
And not one second before, we know the story in the New Testament of the prodigal son. He was impatient. He didn't want to wait until the appointed day when his inheritance would be realized. Rather, he goes to his father and he said, let me have my inheritance now. I don't want to wait until I'm too old to be able to enjoy it. Let me have it now. The father said, okay. Okay.
and you know the rest of the story. As soon as that son got his hands on the money, he left his father's house, went into a far country where no one knew him, no one could accuse him, and he lived a life of riotous, sensuous behavior until he ran out of money, his inheritance was gone, and he started to live with the pigs. Again, you know the story.
But it was a story about one who was prodigal, one who squandered an inheritance. I think Paul goes on, in the same way also we were children, we were slaves or enslaved by the elementary principles of this world. enslaved by the powers of the air, enslaved by our sin, enslaved by all of these things, and yet we speak again of time where the apostle says, but when the fullness of time had come,
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Chapter 4: How does the Enlightenment challenge traditional Christian beliefs?
but he assumed that there was no real judgment day. We're not really held accountable. He did it his way, and we applaud that. And again, the Scriptures tell us, it is appointed once for man to die and then the judgment. When you draw life's last fleeting breath, and your eyelids are closed in death, you will not suddenly become unconscious or annihilated or swallowed up in oneness in the ocean.
You will awake in the next second and face your Maker. There's not one person in a hundred that really believes that today. We do everything in our power to get rid of the idea that we're going to be accountable for how we have lived our lives, what we have done, what we have left undone. But make no mistake about it, God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness.
But in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. That's the critical point, to redeem everyone who was under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters, children of God. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.
In order to be part of the family of God, we have to have the Spirit of God changing our hearts until we cry, "'Abba, Father.'" We assume that without realizing at all what it means to be able to say that, to be able to get on our knees and say, "'Our Father.'" Jesus had this debate with the Pharisees, you know, and they didn't believe in Jesus, and Jesus said they needed to be free.
And the Pharisee says, what are you talking about free? We're not slaves. We're the children of Abraham. We're the children of God. Oh, Jesus said, you are of your father Abraham. the devil. Everybody in this room by nature is a child of wrath. Do you believe that?
Every one of us, when we came into this world, we were born under the wrath of God, under the law of God, until the curse was removed and we were adopted into God's family, the most precious and beautiful event of our life. And so he ends this passage by saying, so, what does it mean? It means you're no longer a slave, but a son, and by extension a daughter. And if sons and daughters then heirs,
through God.
The right response to the gospel proclaimed is for sinners to repent and trust in Christ's finished work on the cross. And the promise is that those who believe will be adopted as sons and daughters of God. We truly have heard great news today on Renewing Your Mind as we begin our time in R.C. Sproul's sermon series in Galatians chapter 4. Studying God's Word is vital to our growth as believers.
Romans 15 says that whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. So I encourage you to respond today to request Dr. Sproul's commentary on Galatians so you can spend time slowly working through this important New Testament letter from the Apostle Paul.
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