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FROM THE PASTOR'S STUDY

Topic: Galatians Chapter Four: Message Outlines (Include Audio)

Galatians 4:1-7 (7)

by Darrel Cline
(darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)

Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 1 Study # 7
July 22, 2012
Dayton, Texas
(Download Audio)

(191)

Thesis:At the core of "adoption" is God's determination that a person is "qualified" to begin to exercise the privileges and authority of "lordship".

Introduction:As we have worked our way through the issues raised by Paul's concept of God's plan to share His Life with human beings through "adoption", we have seen that the core issue is His provision of a Redeemer Who would accomplish two significant things: He would provide an adequate solution to the "Justice" problem of the sins of those with whom He would share His Life; and He would provide an adequate solution to the "motivation" problem of the sinfulness of those with whom He would share His Life. Both of these issues are made necessary by the reality of the demands of any genuine relationship between persons, which is the absolute necessity for the sharing of Life. On the one hand, God had to be reconciled to sinners so that He was able to "relate" to them, and on the other hand men had to be reconciled to God so that they would be willing and able to "relate" to Him. So we read of the Grace of God that He "apostelized" His Son, born of a woman and born under Law so that He might redeem us.

This evening we are going to look a bit further into what has to happen in order for a human being to be able to share the Joy of God's Life. Paul addresses this issue with the term "adoption". What he means by that term is identified in our paragraph by the analogy in the culture of a father who places his children under rather severe restraints and compulsions until they learn how to handle the responsibilities of their "identity" as "lords" within the household. We have already seen that the analogous "severity" is the issue of Law in respect to Justice where violations are met with condemnations and consequences.

For our study this evening we are going to look more particularly at what I will just call "the threshold" of entrance into the exercise of the lordship of Life.


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