Son of God

 

Today the blog is written by my friend Chris Townsend - a most faithful reader of the blog for the past decade and huge encourager to me in his comments and general cheering.   He has Covid 😒 ( boooooo!)  But that means he had time to write a blog yesterday ( hooray!)    Enjoy.

This must be one of the most familiar names for Jesus - even non-believers know of it. We can all quote, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" from Matthew and Luke's Gospels. I've used it as an encouragement when praying for men (maybe you have too?). But it's harder when praying for a lady. Some will simply exchange the word son for daughter, especially these days when there are so many conversations around gender. This, however, is to miss the point.  

In Roman times, sons were heirs. Today, we think of an heir as anyone who gets a family heirloom or inheritance one day when a relative dies. But Paul links being an heir to being a son. 

Galatians 4:1-7 says "What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.  The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.  So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.  But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,  to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”  So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir."

The note for verse 5 says "The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture". In verses 1&2 of Galatians 4, Paul refers to this ceremony, known as 'son placing' or huiothesia, which occured when a father decided that a boy, usually in his teenage years, could pass from being a child into adulthood where he had the full status of son and heir. It is the same meaning that is conferred on Jesus as the Father speaks the words I started with over His Son at baptism before He begins His ministry.

In Greek and Roman culture if a father had no son to be an heir, they introduced the idea of adoptio filio. Here the father would adopt another boy as his heir. Unfortunately, this has been mistranslated as adoption since Jerome's times whilst the concept and context of adoptio filio is long gone.

So when we read 'adoption' in the context of sonship, this is not like adopting a child that is not biologically our own. Everyone, whether they recognise it or not, is a child of God. They are already part of His family. But only when we are baptised into the Son of God do we become sons, receiving the Spirit of sonship and inheriting all that is ours in Christ, whether we are male or female!

This Christmas, rejoice that God sent His only Son, not so that we could be adopted into His family, but that we too might be His true and full sons and heirs.

(with thanks to Trevor Galpin who first introduced me to this)