THE LIBERTY OF SONSHIP (4)
THE LIBERTY OF SONSHIP (4)
JT It was said this morning that chapter 3 presents the paternal feature of the truth, Abraham being mentioned prominently; and it is said that those that are on the principle of faith are “Abraham’s sons” and “are blessed with believing Abraham”; and then again, in the last verse, “then ye are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise”. It is therefore the paternal thought; whereas chapter 4 is more the maternal side. The end of chapter 3, which we scarcely touched this morning, asserts the conclusion reached, that “ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”, verse 26. It is a matter of faith; not a matter of attainment or state, but of faith, and applicable to all who have faith, who are on that principle in their relations with God.
HD'AC Do you connect the words “by faith” with the thought of God? “Ye are all God’s sons by faith”. It is not exactly by faith in Christ Jesus that we are God’s sons, is it?
JT Well, that is how it reads.
HD'AC Do you connect the faith with the first part of the sentence or the latter?
JT The way it reads is, “ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”. There is no comma after the word “faith”. Do you suggest it may be that, ye are all sons of God in Christ Jesus on the principle of faith?
HD'AC That is what I thought. Is that the meaning?
JT I do not understand so. I think the instrumentality by which we come into sonship is faith, and Christ Jesus is the object of this faith. “By faith” is instrumentality. We have in chapter 4 the suggestion of formation under the figure of birth; so that it is the mother that is in mind, that is, “Jerusalem above”. In chapter 3, we have the Spirit suggested as received;
[p. 351] it is assumed that they had received the Spirit. In chapter 4, it is stated, “But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. There is state, in principle, in both chapters in that way, only that coming to the maternal side of our position, there is the suggestion of formation under the figure of travail in birth; but sonship is clearly stated to be on the principle of faith.
WCG Would you say that verse 28 of chapter 3 is explanatory of the latter part of verse 26: “in Christ Jesus”? “There is no Jew nor Greek”.
JT Well, the reading is, “For ye, as many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ. There is no Jew nor Greek; there is no bondman nor freeman; there is no male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. Verse 28 is position, as I understand: “ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. Verse 26 is the means of sonship, that is, “by faith in Christ Jesus”. As I see it, according to the context, the faith is in that Person.
EuR Have you in mind in chapter 3, whether as to covenant or promise or sonship, that it comes from God, and has to be received authoritatively, and that that governs our exercises?
JT Yes. The way in which the things are entered into, as we had it this morning, is “on the principle of faith”, a translation that is very instructive. The position in Abraham is to bring out the paternal side. Of course, “sons of God” is the point; but, “ye are Abraham’s seed”, and earlier, “Abraham’s sons”, is a thought to help the Galatians as affected by the Judaisers; that what God had in mind in Abraham is really theirs, but not on the principle of law, but faith. The law came in four hundred and thirty years after the promise, and in no way abrogated or affected the promise; it came in for another reason altogether. The promise to Abraham is reached on the principle of faith, and not on the principle of law.
LDM Is your thought borne out in Luke’s gospel [p. 352] in regard of the woman who was bowed down with infirmity? The Lord speaks of her as a “daughter of Abraham” Luke 13:16, and then in chapter 19, Zacchaeus is referred to as a “son of Abraham” Luke 19:9.
JT Luke helps us on this point, referring to the Jew, his being peculiarly the gospel that sets out grace, and makes great allowance for Jewish thought and feeling, and shows that the Lord had Abraham in mind in His teaching. Even in the well-known figure of hades in chapter 16, Abraham is still in mind. It is God graciously getting down to the Jewish way of thinking; the Jew is met in grace. If John the baptist said, according to Luke, that “God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham” Luke 3:8, yet that is not what He did. He could do that; He could do without the Jews in that sense, but grace could not do without them; grace would make the most of them, so that Luke tells us that the Lord said, “remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high” Luke 24:49. That is, the gospel is to be presented in Jerusalem in “power from on high”; it is to be presented in that way, but presented there first. In the case of the woman who had been bowed together for eighteen years, the Lord said she was “a daughter of Abraham” — there were daughters of Abraham — and then, Zacchaeus, “he is a son of Abraham”. Nothing is lost as regards God’s promise to Abraham. Grace would meet the Jewish thought and feeling in that way; and so here, these Galatians are affected in regard of the law, but the law was not given to Abraham. The covenant made with Abraham was a disposition of God; God made the promise on the principle of grace to him four hundred and thirty years before the law, and God is not abandoning grace. That was His principle. The principle of God’s action was grace, and the principle of the believer’s coming into it is faith. God is not abandoning His principle by bringing in something else in the law. He has brought in the law for another purpose, but He has [p. 353] not given up what He began with; that is, the Scriptures announced to Abraham the glad tidings that God would bless the nations on the principle of faith. Abraham was one of the believers; he was the great believer and stood on the ground of grace. God approached him thus in making a promise to him. Well, God has not altered His mind in that respect; and so we have sons of Abraham through faith, even from among the gentiles. Then, in chapter 4, the apostle enlarges on this by the question of time. The children were kept in the nursery, so to speak, until the time appointed by the father — the father, of course, being a figure of God. Now that time is given in chapter 3 — “before faith came” (verse 23), meaning the period in which faith is the principle as over against law. But now, the period fixed of the father has arrived, and the apostle takes up the thread again in the way of God’s intervention in His Son: “God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship”. The coming of the Son at the period fixed of the Father has the law in mind, to redeem those that were under it.
WCG Did Abraham have to learn in connection with Isaac and Ishmael, that the change of order accompanied the giving of the promise?
JT Quite so, the child “born according to Spirit”. So that we have come on to another line now; it is a question of birth and formation. But the coming in of the Son is a question of a period of time fixed of the Father, to “redeem those under law”. God is still dealing with that, but those under it are to be redeemed, and “receive sonship”. We have sonship by faith in chapter 3, but now we receive it; it is something you have taken on knowingly.
PTF Why does it bring in the “principles of the world”, in verse 3, instead of the principle of the law?
JT “So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the principles of the world”. It seems [p. 354] to be an allusion to the Jewish system, as on the level of the world.
AFM Is this cry of “Abba, Father” something special or general for believers? It is not an expression that we use frequently.
JT It is the action of the Spirit here, bringing out, as we were remarking, the state; it is the basis of state amongst the saints. The Spirit takes the lead in crying, but it is in the believer that He cries. He does it, and, in that way, I believe, gives a lead as to state.
AFM Is the true lead given in Mark’s gospel, where the Lord thus addresses the Father in Gethsemane?
JT Yes, the Lord used the exact expression, “Abba, Father”. Now the Holy Spirit says it in the christian, and the order would be therefore for the christian to use it too, by the Spirit of adoption, which is stated in Romans 8. We learn these things in Christ, by the Spirit operating in ourselves.
HD'AC It does not say of the Lord that He cried, “Abba, Father” — He said it.
JT I suppose the Spirit crying is urgency; He would bring that about in christians. I do not think it has become very urgent with us, but it does say in Romans 8, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. It is only in the power of the Spirit that it can be uttered according to God — the Spirit of adoption.
AFM Would you mind telling us something about this twofold title, “Abba, Father”?
JT It has often been remarked that the first is Aramaic, meaning Father. The other, of course, is Greek. The first is not translated into other languages, it is carried down; and we have the Lord’s own word, which is most touching. I should regard it as one of the choicest things in the christian’s treasury — the Lord’s exact word in speaking to His Father, and that in the hour of greatest pressure. Only Mark gives [p. 355] us that.
DLH Does it not refer to two languages, one speaking of the Father as Abba, and the other the language that the Lord Jesus would generally use?
JT “Abba” would be the thought of Father in its primary formation in the human mind. It would have been used in the ordinary sense by children to their fathers, and as used by the Lord it seems to be a very precious jewel in the treasury of the saints — His exact word, carried down, the Spirit taking it up, we may be sure. He cries in keeping with the Lord’s use of it, but in the christian.
MWB Do you think that perhaps there is a lack amongst us in not using that expression more, as I might say, artlessly?
JT Yes. That is, without special form. God loves what issues from us in the liberty of the relation itself, as known to us.
JJ Would there be a deeper thought as well in the Hebrew and the Greek being brought together? Would it signify that the Jew and the Greek in the body would be calling on the same God?
JT Very likely; a Greek believer would use this form as would a Hebrew believer.
DLH Does not the repetition of the relationship mean that it is emphasised? “Once hath God spoken, twice have I heard this”, Psalm 62:11. Is it that kind of repetition to emphasise the particular thing in mind?
JT I suppose repetition itself is testimony. We have Hebrew and Greek and Latin at the cross in the inscription, that is, full testimony to the judgment of man in the known languages. The Latin, although the same as Greek, is evidently not in mind here; it is just “Abba, Father”. It is not much used. Sometimes the question is raised as to whether we should ever use the term “Father” by itself. The usual formula in the epistles is “our God and Father”, or “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, but it seems to me [p. 356] that this passage, together with Romans 8, warrants and requires that a christian should say, “Father”.
PTF Does Luke 11 help, where the Lord Jesus teaches us to pray? He says, “Father”.
JT It does.
WC What had you in mind when you said that possibly we never use the term by itself?
JT I was only remarking that the question is sometimes raised as to whether we should use the term “Father” by itself, but it is warranted by this passage and by Romans 8, and by Luke 11, where the Lord teaches His disciples to pray. He says, “When ye pray, say, Father”.
CCE Do you think we should rightly leave out the personal pronoun? We can say “our”; can we say “my”?
JT I do not see any objection to it.
CCE The Lord used it, of course.
JT He does not often say “My Father”, but simply “Father”. God has delight in the expression of feelings and affections that belong to that relationship — as expressed in the words “Abba, Father”! It seems as if in assembly, in speaking to the Lord, the scene resounds with the words “Lord Jesus” by the Spirit — that is, when it is by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gets a place in the assembly in relation to the Lord’s supper, by the expression “Lord Jesus”, for no one can say, Lord Jesus, save by the Holy Spirit. The saying of “Lord Jesus” is an element in the place and indicates a lead; the words resound in the power of the Spirit; the place is filled, so to speak, with that, when it is by the Spirit, and so when the Spirit of adoption cries, “Abba, Father”, the place resounds with that. We have a lead given, which should be maintained and not relinquished.
CCE In Matthew, the Lord says, “My Father” Matthew 26:39, in the garden.
AFM You would suppose the Lord Jesus in His [p. 357] pathway as in prayer and communion, would invariably use the words “Abba, Father”.
JT Of course He used the word “Father” by itself, too, in the beginning of John 17, and I believe He uses it there as a lead for us. Having said so much, as recorded in the chapters immediately preceding, He lifts up His eyes to heaven, and says, “Father”; and, as has just been remarked, He uses “My Father” in Matthew.
MWB Some of J.N.D.’s hymns begin with “Father”, without the prefixion, “God” such as, “Father, Thy name our souls would bless”, and “Blest Father”.
JT It seems as if it is to resound in the divine domain, as belonging peculiarly to the Father’s realm. How delightful it must be to Him to have from our hearts the term of relationship used as the Lord Jesus used it! Obviously, as coming into this world, He was to be Leader in everything. He told us to say, “Father”, but how precious to hear Him say, “Father”. If one had heard that, one would seek to speak in the same way.
HFN Why is it we are so conscious at times of a lack of liberty in the assembly in speaking directly to the Father?
JT I believe it is due somewhat to the covenant not having its full force preliminarily. The covenant makes room for love in the heart; it is perfect love. I apprehend perfect love is God’s love; it does not allude to the Father’s love. Not that that is not perfect, of course, but “perfect love” is a relative thought and it casts out fear. It is the love that comes into our circumstances, and the love that comes into our hearts; it is the kind of love that overcomes what may have been there against God; it “casts out fear”.
CSS Would this be different to 1 John 3, where it speaks of children? Here, it is in connection with sons.
JT It is different. Besides, it is the Father there:
“[p. 358] See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3:1. It is more that Person, but here it is “Father” in the sense that the relationship implied exists, and the Holy Spirit is crying it in sons. It is not children that are saying it, but sons, the Spirit of adoption, crying, in their hearts, “Abba, Father”.
DLH Would you say something in regard to what the Lord said, “For the Father himself loveth you”, John 16:27? I think you were connecting love just now with God simply as such. The Lord said, “For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”.
JT That is not quite the thought of the love of God in the covenant; it is because of something. It is not the Father’s love for them as sons, nor is there anything said in John at all of His being our Father, save in chapter 20. It is that Person that loves you. God in grace, I apprehend, is the thought of the Father, in John’s gospel. It is not a term of relationship with us. The relation is there with the Son, with Christ, but not with us, until chapter 20.
MWB Since you have alluded to John’s usage of the thought of Son, would you say a word as to the distinction between John’s presentation of the Lord as Son, and Paul’s presentation, which you have brought before us?
JT John presents Him as Paul does, but also as a divine Person come into manhood, by Himself, in the testimony. Paul presents Him as expressing the relationship that God intended for man, which we have here. John does not develop that side, but just mentions at the end of his gospel that the Lord said, “my Father and your Father, ... my God and your God”. But he does not even say that they are sons, save in the book of Revelation, which need hardly be brought in, because it is not a question of the counsels of God there. John is occupied with God come into the world [p. 359] under the name Father; and Christ being here under the name Son. It is a question of the testimony; and if the Father loves us, it is that Person in grace. John expressly says that the Father judges no one (John 5:22); that is, it is that Person in grace; this enters into the economy, which John presents.
EuR “To us there is one God, the Father”, 1 Corinthians 8:6. Does that help?
JT It does; it is the Father.
JJ Why does this thought of “Abba, Father”, come into the maternal chapter, and not into the paternal?
JT The maternal subject does not begin until verse 12. Chapter 4, until the end of verse 11, is the continuation of what is presented in chapter 3. We come to the full thought in the Spirit crying, “Abba, Father”; we have in principle the state answering to the relationship in the Spirit.
RF Does he bring in the highest truth to correct what was deficient, in presenting sonship?
JT That is what was in mind. If God is meeting an attack, He carries the conflict on to the full result in mind. This epistle is the great charter of christian liberty; and I think verse 7 is the end reached from the paternal side, showing that christians are sons on the principle of faith as belonging to the time of sonship as believers; and the Holy Spirit has a footing in christians, not to work out the testimony here, but to answer to God; the relationship being formed, and the state being there in principle, answering to the relationship. That is a fixed thing. So that, “thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also through God”; that is a fixed position. The Holy Spirit is here maintaining that thought. There is a point reached in the epistle, and it is fixed.
Ques What is the force of the expression, “sent out the Spirit of his Son”?
JT I suppose it means that there was distance;
[p. 360] but it is a definite thing that the Holy Spirit has come out. The Spirit of adoption has been sent out to establish the full position, and now it is to be carried on in these feeling words, “Abba, Father”; they are to continue in power. The question of what the Galatians were going on with, the observing of days and months and times and years, is in the mind of the apostle in what follows. As regards what they were as gentiles, he says, “not knowing God, ye were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods; but now, knowing God, but rather being known by God, how do ye turn again to the weak and beggarly principles to which ye desire to be again anew in bondage? Ye observe days and months and times and years”. We see, therefore, how christendom today has gone back to the teaching that this epistle refutes, for these are the things that are observed — days and months and times and years.
CEB Were they beneath their proper dignity in that?
JT Surely. God had a right to introduce the idea of time, which is treated of fully in chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4, but now He has reached what belongs to eternity; that is, sonship is a relationship that belongs to eternity, and the Galatians had dropped down from that, and resumed the old way of days and months and years — what had obtained in Judaism and paganism.
Ques Would you say a word as to the expression, “if son, heir also” — the connection between sonship and heirship?
JT I suppose it is a principle in Scripture that heirship goes with sonship in Christ, and so with us.
HMS Do we have both those in eternity? In Revelation 21:7 it says, “He that overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be to him God, and he shall be to me son”.
JT The thought is linked there with [p. 361] sonship.
HES Is the thought in sonship our position, and the thought in heirship a portion?
JT The inheritance is like the income by which the dignity of sonship is maintained. Sonship is the dignity, heirship implies the income, whatever it might be called, to sustain us in that dignity.
MWB The inheritance is rather what we have, sonship being for God.
JT Just so. His inheritance comes in there; He has an inheritance in the saints.
LDM In Romans 8 you get the same wonderful expression, “Abba, Father”, and then it says, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also”, verses 16, 17. Would you say a word as to the difference there?
JT There is not much. It is quite a common thought that children come in for what is their father’s. You see it with Isaac. “Unto him has he given all that he has”, Genesis 24:36. The son comes into that; being son, he is heir.
Rem In verse 1 it speaks of the child not being able to enter into what belongs to him as heir.
JT The word “child” there means just that he is a minor, in the way we speak. In Romans 8, the children are not minors; they are the same persons who are sons. The glory of the children of God is spoken of in that chapter, which is sonship; all is to be in the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Sonship goes on into eternity; it is the primary thought of God, whereas children seems to be a term that applies to us here as the objects of care; and the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God, because there is much that may deny it. The Holy Spirit maintains us in the sense that we are children of God, and being children, heirs too, heirs with Christ, a comforting thing, for we are the objects of opposition as children here.
Ques Why does it say “through God”, verse [p. 362] 7?
JT You will notice there is a questionable reading: “of God through Christ”, it may be. But it is safe to accept this reading. That is, God has made you that; it is instrumentality. “Heir also through God” is certainly a position that stands; you can never be disinherited; there is no power in the universe to disinherit the christian.
Ques Is it linked with what was said as to “God is one”?
JT Just so; it is the fixity of the thing. “Through God”. I can never be disinherited if I am an heir “through God”.
HMS J.N.D.’s translation shows that it is God Himself who has made us heirs.
JT Yes, it is instrumentality.
EuR What had you in mind earlier when you said he came down to the thought of formation on the principle of birth?
JT It comes out in the next paragraph. He again returns in verse 12 to the thought of changeableness, which he alluded to at the outset, and says, “my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye did not slight nor reject with contempt; but ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then was your blessedness? for I bear you witness that, if possible, plucking out your own eyes ye would have given them to me. So I have become your enemy in speaking the truth to you? They are not rightly zealous after you, but desire to shut you out from us, that ye may be zealous after them. But it is right to be zealous at all times in what is right, and not only when I am present with you”. And now, he comes to a stop. He is evidently so full of the thing that he is dealing with, that he stops, and says, “my children” — he is getting nearer to them — “of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you”. The damage done was really, you might say, fundamental; they were so damaged, and that is the state of christians generally today; they are terribly [p. 363] damaged, not only by bad doctrine, but bad influences. So he has to take on the maternal exercise. It is no longer a question of telling them the truth in an objective way, but agonising in birth until Christ was formed in them. It is the subjective state he is aiming at now, to deliver them from the terrible damage that had been caused by the Judaisers; and not only the doctrine they taught, but their influence, because they really wanted to keep the apostle from them, to have them as partisans.
JTS Is there any special force in the way that, in the close of verse 14, Paul says, they had received him “as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus”?
JT It alludes to the extravagance that is often seen in christians making too much of any servant. Not that the apostle was not deserving of all they could lavish upon him, but it seems as if it was beyond their real spiritual state. It was more than a super-appreciation of the apostle; it was a manifestation that was untrustworthy. When people make much of you, what is their motive? Why is it they are so lavish? Then he says, “if possible, plucking out your own eyes ye would have given them to me”. They were thus affected, and yet that does not remain; the next person that comes along affects them also, and, as we have said before, it marks the shallowness and fickleness of the state of the Galatians.
PL Would the thought of sonship put the Spirit in superiority, so that the feelings which are described here would be under control?
JT Yes, under spiritual control. The Spirit of adoption involves maturity. It is not a minor or childlike condition, but manhood that is implied, and what should go with that is balance, not unduly estimating brethren who are labouring among us, but according to what is right; of course we are to hold them in honour for their work’s sake.
JHT Would right estimation be seen in Philippians, “because ye have me in your hearts” Philippians 1:[p. 364] 7?
JT Just so. Even that generally spiritual company of believers as they were, needed to revive their thinking of him, but still, there was the balance there. But here was a state that was extravagant, and another comes along and bewitches them; they are capable of being bewitched, as it says, so that they turned away from Paul.
AJB Would this principle help in our localities as to receiving individuals into fellowship? Perhaps we sometimes make too much of them and spoil them.
JT Very often, especially if they are persons of note in the world. That has to be watched. Balance is of immense importance in dealing with persons, and I think the Spirit of adoption implies that manhood, which implies balance, is there.
CAC Would you mind saying what is the thought of Christ being formed in them? What is the precise force of it here?
JT The reading stops, and then he goes on, “my children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you”. I should think it is in line with what we have been remarking. Christ formed in the christian, means that Christ is there in all His parts, so to speak; not merely that I believe on Him; He is in me in a fixed way, as in conception and birth there is the formation of the child. It may be in a small way in the christian, but there is fixity in the position Christ has in the believer, in the figure that is used: “until Christ shall have been formed in you”. That is how I understand it.
CAC Is it a question of spiritual apprehension?
JT I suppose it is. Perhaps you would tell us something about it?
CAC No; I am asking because I should like a more definite thought as to what is implied in Christ being formed in saints, in this particular setting.
JT Spiritual apprehension must precede it; but the figure of travail in the apostle would be transferred [p. 365] now to you or to me. There is no apostle now to travail, although any of us may be concerned about others; but travail, I apprehend, necessarily is involved in the formation, and is a powerful figure in this connection. It alludes spiritually to what goes on in the believer, especially in his lower affections.
GAvS Would “formed in you” be collective, seen in the Galatians as a christian company, or would it be individual?
JT It must be individual, although it does not say formed in each of you. It is the principle that is in view, the principle of formation, involving fixity.
EJMcB Is not the idea in birth that everything is there?
JT That is what I was thinking — Christ in all His features, but there through travail. That is, it is not a light matter: “until Christ shall have been formed in you”. The travail was in Paul, in this case, but the implication is that it is necessary in all cases to this result, that Christ should be proportionately in christians.
DLH Would the verse, “no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me” Galatians 2:20, give an exemplification of Christ being formed?
JT The apostle would exemplify the thing in himself. The full result is seen in him. Christ being formed must mean in all His features, so that the full thought of manhood is there, at least potentially.
Ques Would Ephesians 4:13 help? “Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”. It seems to come in there so that the Ephesians might not be carried away like the Galatians.
JT The full-grown man is the end in view, but that must begin somehow, and the figure of birth here is very striking. It must accompany this in all cases. The aim of ministry is that very thing, “until we all arrive”, only he uses this remarkable figure to show [p. 366] how tremendously he was affected about them; and in some sense this travail must always accompany this formation. Christianity in this sense is not a superficial thing. Superficiality marked them, but this formation is not superficial; it is depth and fixity.
MWB Do you mean it must accompany it on the part of the labourer or of those who have Christ formed in them?
JT Both; it is a principle in christianity that this depth and fixity amongst us is accompanied by this exercise.
LDM The Lord speaks in John 16 of a man born into the world; John 16:21.
CAC Is this the crux of the whole situation?
JT It is, and it is the way that superficiality and fickleness are met.
EuR So at the end of the chapter, is the same thought continued? You get “he that was born according to flesh persecuted him that was born according to Spirit”. There is no affinity between the two; you are either one or the other.
JT Quite so. I would suggest that perhaps we might stop here. The remaining part of the chapter is very important, and the Lord may give us a clear view of it tomorrow, if He permit.