LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 268

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268

II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

There are probably few of us who would answer the question above with the words “Free!” or “Alive!” Writing
centuries before Luther, but expressing some of the same
thoughts, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Christians at
Ephesus that, when God had accomplished the mystery of
the birth of His Son,
all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the
ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished,
and the ancient kingdom was abolished when God
appeared in human form to bring the newness of
eternal life; and what had been prepared by God began to take effect. As a result, all things were thrown
into ferment, because the abolition of death was
being carried out.118

here in Galatians 4.121 Although helpful information can be
gained from an understanding of both Roman and Hellenistic practices of adoption, Paul’s “reasoning remains at a
general level and does not depend on the concrete details of
any particular legal system.”122
We must be careful, too, not to automatically impose our
21st century American ideas of adoption on Paul’s thought.
Ernest Burton has described the term in Paul’s usage in a
way that helpfully compares and contrasts it with our various contemporary understandings:
ἡ υἱοθεσία [hē huiothesia; “adoption”] is, therefore,
for Paul, God’s reception of men into the relation
to him of sons, objects of his love and enjoying his
fellowship, the ultimate issue of which is the future life wherein they are reclothed with a spiritual
body; but the word may be used of different stages
and aspects of this one inclusive experience. . . .
The meaning “sonship” would satisfy most of the
passages in which υἱοθεσία [huiothesia] occurs, but
there is no occasion to depart from the etymological
sense, “installation as a son.” This does not, however,
justify reading back into v.1 the idea of adoption, and
from this again carrying it back through κληρονόμος [klēronomos; “heir”] into the διαθήκη [diathēkē;
“covenant”] of 315, for Paul is not careful to maintain
the consistency of his illustrations. He employs here
his usual term because he is speaking of the establishment of those who have previously not had the
privileges of a son in the full enjoyment of them.123

11. Why should Christmas make us feel like everything
is “thrown into ferment,” that this world’s old rules
about the way things work no longer apply and that
nothing will ever be the same again because this Child
has been born?
5b “That we might receive adoption as sons”
We have already noted the chiastic structure of verses 4 and
5, but, even in noting it, we pointed out that there is still
progression as Paul moves from thought to thought. The
purpose and goal of Christ’s work of redemption was not
that we would all end up masterless men. We do not end up
as freed men only but as sons. We are in some sense freed in
order that we might be the sons God had intended us to be
all along.
“Adoption” can be a word heavily laden with emotion in
English. Your opinion of whether or not it is a good translation for the Greek word that Paul uses here will depend
very much on the emotions and values you attach to the
word adoption. Paul’s word is υἱοθεσία (huiothesia). Andrew
Das provides extensive background material for our understanding of the word and its use by Paul in his “Excursus
10: The Metaphorical and Social Context of Gal. 4:1-7.”119 A
first point to be noted is that the term υἱοθεσία (huiothesia)
“is absent from the Septuagint, Josephus, Philo, and other
ancient Jewish literature.”120 Although we might think of
the overarching image of God “adopting” Israel as His son,
Paul does not use the language associated with the Exodus
Ignatius, “The Letters of Ignatius to the Ephesians,” from The Apostolic Fathers
in English, 3rd ed., trans. and ed. Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2006), 102.

A. Andrew Das, Galatians, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 2014), 427–438.

Burton’s final line bears repeating with added emphasis:
Paul is here speaking of “the establishment of those who
have previously not had the privileges of a son in the full
enjoyment of them.” If “adoption” means something less
than full sonship, then it should not be used here to express
Paul’s meaning.
We allow Luther to conclude this section for us:

120

Das, 433.

Das, 432.

122

Das, 438.

Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle
to the Galatians, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1921), 220–221.

123

Justifying Christmas — Leader’s Guide |

This passage has much to teach us concerning the doctrine
of justification by grace through faith. Luther summarizes
nicely for us the most obvious connection:
This [duel] also serves to support the idea that we are
justified by faith alone. For when this duel between
the Law and Christ was going on, no works or merits
of ours intervened. Christ alone remains there;
having put on our person, He serves the Law and in
supreme innocence suffers all its tyranny. Therefore
the Law is guilty of stealing, of sacrilege, and of the
murder of the Son of God. It loses its rights and
deserves to be damned. Wherever Christ is present
or is at least named, it is forced to yield and to flee
this name as the devil flees the cross. Therefore we
believers are free of the Law through Christ, who
“triumphed over it in Him” (Col. 2:15). This glorious triumph, accomplished for us through Christ, is
grasped not by works but by faith alone. Therefore
faith alone justifies.125

Luther spoke above of the connection between our passage
and justification by faith alone. What about by grace alone?
Of course, the point made above that no works of ours ever
entered into the equation and that this sonship is received
solely by faith — neither earned nor bartered for through
the commerce of our own works — necessarily implies that
this comes to us solely by the grace of God. Commenting on
Gal. 4:3, Luther calls Christ Himself, who redeemed us from
the curse of the law, “the throne of grace.”128 The “sending
out” of the Son by the Father, moreover, calls to mind these
verses from Luther’s hymn “Dear Christians, One and All,
Rejoice”:
Then God was sorry on his throne
To see such torment rend me;
His tender mercy he thought on,
And his good help would send me.
He turned to me his father-heart:
Ah, then was His no easy part;
His very best it cost him!

It is often said of Paul that his writings tell us very little
about the earthly life and ministry of our Lord. Some have
wrongly concluded on the basis of superficial reading that
Paul showed little interest in such biographical information
and that his sole concern was the death of Christ. Although
there is much material to show both Paul’s knowledge of
and high regard for the details of Christ’s life and ministry,
the direct references to those details are admittedly few.126

To his dear son he said: Go down;
Things go in piteous fashion;
Go thou, my heart’s exalted crown,
Be the poor man’s salvation.
Lift him from out sin’s scorn and scathe;
Strangle for him that cruel Death,
And take him to live with thee.
The son he heard obediently;
And, by a maiden mother,
Pure, tender — down he came to me,
For he must be my brother!
Concealed he brought his strength enorm,
And went about in my poor form,
Meaning to catch the devil.

With regard to the birth of our Lord, it is also often theorized that reflection on Christ’s birth was one of the final
dimensions of Christological reflection in terms of the
Gospels as we have them.127

Earlier [Paul] had named righteousness, life, the
promise of the Spirit, redemption from the Law,
the covenant, and the promise as the blessing given
to the offspring of Abraham. Here he names sonship and the inheritance of eternal life, for these
121

Concluding Discussion

Setting those two conclusions from the academic study
of the New Testament side by side makes it all the more
remarkable that Paul should here, in one of his earliest if not
his earliest epistle, speak of the birth of Christ and couple
that with His work of redeeming us out from under the
power of the Law. Paul’s proclamation that Christ was born
of woman so that we might become the sons of God is a
powerful statement of the “for us” nature of Christ’s birth
that we studied in Session 3.

12. What other connections to the doctrine of
justification come to mind?

118

119

things flow from the blessing. Once the curse that
is sin, death, etc., has been removed by this blessed
Offspring, its place is taken by the blessing that is
righteousness, life, and everything good.124

29

124

AE 26:374.

125

AE 26:371–372.

See the fairly balanced discussion in James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul
the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 182–206.
126

127

See Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 26–32.

128

AE 26:362.

30 | Justifying Christmas — Leader’s Guide

He said unto me: Hold by me,
Thy matters I will settle;
I give myself all up for thee,
And I will fight thy battle.
For I am thine, and thou art mine,
And my house also shall be thine;
The enemy shall not part us.
Like water he will shed my blood,
Of life my heart bereaving;
All this I suffer for thy good —
That hold with firm believing;
My Life shall swallow up that Death;
My innocence bears thy sins, He saith,
So henceforth thou art happy.129
And this Christmastide and henceforth, forevermore happy
shall we be.

129
Martin Luther, “Luther’s Song-Book,” in The Project Gutenberg EBook of
Rampolli, trans. George MacDonald (Posting Date: August 29, 2003 [EBook
#8949]). Cf. LSB 556.

2019 Convention Workbook

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