“Our tutor—and more”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Sunday, December 26, 2021

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7 (Forward, p. 58) CEV p. 1218

Here the apostle Paul picks up on an image that is quite foreign to us, but which would have been very familiar to high class citizens of Greece or Rome, and indeed, likewise familiar to much of the upper class of Great Britain and elsewhere. It was the widespread practice of children being raised by a succession of nannies, governesses, guardians, schoolmasters and tutors—raised yes, and basically controlled.

Paul says that the Jewish Law at one time functioned in this way in our lives. It was our teacher, a teacher that would instruct us in the basics and pave the way for something much better and more substantial, namely faith, faith in Jesus Christ. For me, the Scout Law and Promise, and the old stories of past scouts, functioned in this way. (I think back on the stories and images in Baden Powell’s Scouting for Boys—the picture of the Scout with Jesus at his side, ‘The Pathfinder’, or the story of how the knights of old would spend the entire night in prayer prior to their investiture--as especially formative.) But I happen to think, as does Don Richardson in his book, Eternity in Their Hearts, that many cultures have images and concepts that predate the Gospel and that, in fact, prepare the way for it.

Paul, however, goes beyond this. He asserts that Jesus, by fully obeying the Law and fulfilling it in all its exactitude, actually sets us free from it. He did not nullify the Law, not in the least, but, using it basically as a starting point, went far beyond it. And so, we are no longer mere infants or youngsters, slaves basically to the control and tutelage of guardians, schoolmasters and nannies, but the heirs and children of none other than God Himself. And so we have a freedom and an identity totally unlike anything that we could have ever known otherwise. All of that, of course, finds its origin and is based on a faith in Jesus Christ. And so, let us adhere to Him and trust in Him as with no other. Amen.

Forward notes: “So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God” (verse 7).

“My six-year-old son sidled up next to me and asked, ‘Mama, do we get everything in the house when you die?’ I looked at him and shook my head in a dizzying sort of way: this was not the conversation I intended to have before a second cup of coffee. ‘Well, I guess so,’ I replied, unsure of what to say when all I wanted was to glory in Boxing Day (and drink a second cup).

“But when Paul writes to the church at Galatia, he reminds them of their standing in the kingdom of God: You, my friend, are now a child of God, an heir of the King of Kings! As my friend Holly once said to me before I preached at her church, ‘At the end of the day, if you can just remind them that they’re children of God, that’s all they need to hear.’ It’s all she spouted week after week, and to good measure, for the simple profundity of being called a child of God was all her congregation needed to hear.”

“I doubt it’s any different for the rest of us.”

MOVING FORWARD: “Just in case you’ve forgotten, wrap your arms around yourself and give your body a squeeze. You, my dear, are a beloved child of God.”

A concluding note: I’m afraid that such comments miss out one essential component of what Paul has to say, namely that being a child of God is only possible through faith. “All of you are God’s children because of your faith in Christ Jesus” (verse 26). Or as the Prologue to John’s Gospel says, “He came into his own world, but his own nation did not welcome him. Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God. They were not God’s children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children” (verses 11-13). It was ‘not nature’, the simple act of being born into the world, but faith in Jesus Christ that ‘did the trick.’ Being a church member or being in church do not guarantee this, only faith in Jesus. There is no other way to become a child of God.