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Turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Galatians, Galatians 3. We'll be primarily in Galatians 4 this evening, but you'll remember that there's a passage at the end of the very last verse of Galatians 3, we had yet to treat in as much fullness as is possible for one sermon. verses 6 and 7 of Galatians 4. So I'm going to start reading in Galatians 3, at verse 26, and read to Galatians 4, 7.

Galatians 3, beginning at verse 26, the Word of God. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Amen.

Well, let's pray. God, we thank you for this time together in worship. We rejoice in your goodness towards us. Help us in this time of preaching. to honour you, to give you praise, to give you thanks as we avail of your holy word, your revelation to the sons of men. We just pray that you'd help us in this exercise, help the preacher, help the hearer. And might all that is done be done to the praise of your glory. And we pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Well, if you're here last Lord's Day evening, we had a look at Galatians 4, 1 to 5. that primarily seeing the incarnation of the Son of God as that central epical event, that is E-P-O-C-H-A-L, epical event in the entire history of the cosmos. All that creation and providence was moving towards, and certainly in the context, what the Old Covenant or the Mosaic Covenant was pointing to was to a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, ultimately that that babe would grow as the Son of God incarnated and effect redemption for the sons and daughters of God.

And we see that the Apostle Paul, we saw that the Apostle Paul was using that argument, the argument of the incarnation of the Son of God against the idea of the permanence or the abiding reality of the Mosaic Covenant and its elements and all of its things as that which is ultimately to justify us before God. No, it's Christ alone. It's by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And one of the things that we looked at a number of weeks ago was the sons and heirs portion of the end of Galatians 3, where we see the Apostle Paul saying that it is not physical connection to Abraham that causes us to be the sons and the heirs of the promise, but rather it is if we are in Christ. It is if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that truly we are Abraham's sons and daughters.

And this same language is picked up in Galatians 4 near the end of verse 5 and then in verses 6 and 7 as well. So we're going to look at verse 29 of Galatians 3 connecting it to Galatians 4 verses 6 and 7. So first off we want to notice the inheritors of the promise in Galatians 3 29. Who are the heirs of the promise or the inheritors of the promise. We see this heavy language. If you were a Judaizer in the first century, if you were a Jew in the first century, this would come as significant language. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed. and heirs according to the promise. 

Imagine from the vantage point of a Jew at this time. It has only been 16 years since the crucifixion of the Messiah, of the Lord Jesus Christ. 16 years. which is a very short amount of time. And from your vantage point, in the blindness of your zeal, and under the pretense of good intentions, you put to death the very Lord of glory. You executed the one that was promised to you, generation upon generation. And Paul, a former Pharisee, is writing and saying that that Christ whom you put to death, if you believe in Him, then and only are you Abraham's seed, Abraham's sons and daughters and heirs according to the promise. 

We can't appreciate the full weight of this particular verse, though hopefully we can appreciate it in a measure 2,000 years detached from that. If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Who were Abraham's seed according to the Jews? It was those physically descended from Abraham. Now we'll note in a number of minutes that there was a physical seed of Abraham, but the physical seed they were not and they are not the inheritors of the promise, the covenant of grace. with respect to Christ and His seed. 

But we see here that at this time it would have been the case that it has to be Abraham's physical sons and daughters who are the seed of Abraham. And Paul is sharp and quick to assert with great confidence that it's those who believe in Christ who are Abraham's seed. And so, notice here, seeing that you are Christ, this language, we see here, and if you are Christ's, we could read that as seeing it that you are Christ's or since you are Christ's. So through the Father, the Father's giving of them, through the Father's giving of us to Christ before the foundation of the earth, and through Christ's redemptive work, His end-time redemptive work, that is how we are Christ's. 

If you are Christ's, or since you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So, it's not according to circumcision, it's not according to adherence to the Mosaic calendar, it's not according to the washings and the ceremonies and all of those sacrifices offered up, but rather it is solely and alone by faith in Jesus Christ, our union with him that we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. And notice, then you are Abraham's seed, not his physical seed, but of course, as it's connected to faith in Christ, his spiritual seed. And no lesser or greater than but one man with the Jews that believed. 

Notice some of the language previously in Galatians chapter three. Notice specifically at verses 16 and 19. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, capital S, seed, who is Christ. And verse 19, what purpose does the law serve? It was added, excuse me, not verse 19, but verse 18, for if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. So this specific promise in view, which is the promise of the covenant of grace, which would be ratified in time by the Lord Jesus Christ, the shedding of His blood of the new covenant, the promise is a spiritual promise, in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And in time and in history, Christ comes in order to effect the promise of that covenant.

So, then you are Abraham's seed, not his physical seed, but his spiritual seed. Notice, again, the language of verses 27 and 28 of Galatians 3. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. A verse that, amongst other things, speaks to the importance of baptism. In baptism, those who are baptized have not in effect, have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism is so intimately connected to salvation, it itself does not save, but it is so intimately connected to salvation that being baptized in the waters of baptism as a believer and that only is as if we have put on, no, that we have put on, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And notice verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. Remember this threefold assertion goes against the Judaic or the Jewish maxim prayer that I thank God that I'm not a Gentile, I thank God that I'm not a slave, and I thank God that I'm not a woman. Paul writes, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ. And if you are Christ's, or remember, since therefore you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's spiritual seed and heirs according to the promise. You are Abraham's seed and the inheritors of the blessings of the covenant of grace.

And that's what's being referred to, heirs of the promise, all of the stuff of Galatians, excuse me, Genesis 12, 17, 22, all of the blessed stuff of the promise made to Abraham that in your seed, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, we see we see the reality that the promise is given is received by those who are the inheritors, not the physical heirs of earthly promises, not the external heirs of the potentiality of a promise, but the undeserved yet actual heirs of everlasting promises.

Turn with me for a moment to the book of 1 Peter. Actually, first to Ephesians, one book over, and then to 1 Peter. Notice the language of Ephesians 1, and beginning at verse 7, we're moving our way to a particular verse, but as it transitions here from the consideration of the Father to the Son in this triune doxological passage, we see here in 1-7 of Ephesians, in Him we have redemption, that's in Christ, the Son, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to the good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times," remember, in the fullness of the times, or when the fullness of the times had come, Galatians 4.4, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him.

Now notice, with regards to heirs of a promise, a spiritual, not a physical one, in him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. And so this promises, or airs according to the promise, connects to the spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus Christ, our blessed Redeemer. Turn as well to 1 Peter 1, where we have this blessed language of inheritance in 1 Peter 1. 

As Christians, as the saints of the Most High, as those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and so therefore as Abraham's seed, we have the blessing of this redemptive inheritance. Notice in 1 Peter 1 at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith, for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 

Peter takes pen to paper or quill to parchment or whatever it was back in the day and he writes this glorious doxological declaration to the pilgrims of the dispersion and he highlights the blessedness of this inheritance by which we are heirs of God. We have been given this living hope by virtue of divine abundant mercy and based upon the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ punctuated by his resurrection from the dead, it is an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled. 

Which of course highlights not physical things but the blessed spiritual things that God pours out. upon His people, everlasting life, union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and the blessed spiritual blessings that accrue by virtue of Christ's perfect work in this age, yes, but perhaps even more anticipatorily in the age to come, the blessed eschaton where we're with the saints and the holy angels and with our Savior age upon age. 

We have the blessed reality that we are the heirs according to the promise. And we ought to note a number of things with regards to this. Saving union with Christ is the sole ground of covenant membership. The book of Galatians is why we're Reformed Baptists. In many ways it is, and that's not a cute little little joke or a jab at Pado-Baptists. The book of Galatians is why we are Credo-Baptists. 

So many passages, passage upon passage, speaking to the fact that the members of the covenant of grace are only those who are the elect. Members of the covenant of grace, equal sign, recipients of the definitive, the definite atonement of Jesus Christ. I think this is something important that Of all the arguments, I think, in favor of credo-baptism, and there are many, one of the ones is the simple and inescapable connection between membership in the covenant of grace and being the recipients of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

There is a massive equal sign between those two things. Members of the covenant of grace are not the physical seed of believing parents. They might be, but by virtue of some sort of physical, unconfirmable reality, we are not to mark those as covenant members who are simply descendants of those who believe. That's not the argument from the Abraham and his seed. Remember, his spiritual seed, those who are united to the capital S single seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

But those who are members of the covenant of grace, equal sign, those who are the exclusive and blessed and undeserved recipients of the limited atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. those who are the recipients of His doing, His dying, and His rising again. The true seed of Abraham are those who are in Christ, who have faith in Christ, who have Him as Lord, who have Him by His Spirit dwelling in them. Only those who belong to Christ in saving faith are Abraham's seed, heirs of the promise, and members of the covenant of grace.

As we've said on a number of occasions, it's not ethnicity, It's not national connection. It's not culture. It's not circumcision. It's not ceremonial consecration that makes one a child of the promise. It is the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ, applied to us by the power of the Holy Spirit, the blessed redemption wrought by our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and applied to us by grace.

Notice secondly then, we'll have occasion to come back to the topic of inheritors of the promise at the end of verse 7, but notice secondly, and only just briefly because we looked at it last Lord's Day evening, the covenant reality to which the promise is connected. So what covenant reality, what covenant is the promise connected to? The Judaizers would have been saying that it's connected to the Mosaic covenant. It's connected to circumcision. It's connected to physical blessing. It's connected to ceremonies and washings and sacrifices. Yes, Christ, that's good. cute little Galatians, but you must also adhere to the Mosaic ceremonies in order to finally be justified before God.

Paul is saying, that the covenant reality to which the promise is connected is the new covenant. And in fact, the promise given to Abraham is the promise of the new covenant. The covenant of grace is the new covenant promised. The new covenant is the covenant of grace ratified. And so from the outset of redemptive history, salvation, remember, has always been by virtue of that one promise in the midst of the curse in the garden. the hero born of woman who will crush the serpent with his heel, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And epic upon epic mounts and the furtherance of that promise is brought to bear more and more by divine revelation until the fullness of the times come and God sends forth his son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under it. So Paul, after announcing that those who are in saving union with Christ are the seed of Abraham and the heirs of the covenant of grace, Paul reiterates what the purpose of the law was by a cultural analogy.

Remember this whole reality of heirs as they are children of a younger age, they don't differ from a slave even though they are master of the household in seed form, but they're under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. He uses this cultural analogy stressing again that the Mosaic economy was not the ultimate epic of redemptive history.

Even so, we, verse 3, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world, but when the fullness of the times had come. So the Mosaic era, the Mosaic age, that had a divinely designed obsolescence, an end. It served a more ultimate purpose, a more transcendent purpose. It served a much greater purpose, that of the purpose of the covenant of grace.

Remember, it's been said before that the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant, is not itself an administration of the covenant of grace, but a subservient covenant that typically and temporally and physically points to that which is greater, the covenant of grace or the new covenant promised. And ultimately, the covenant of grace which is ratified in the very doing, dying, and rising again of the Son of God, particularly the shedding of His blood. So after shining the light on the incarnation of Jesus Christ as that which ushered in the new covenant, Paul returns again to true heirship and sonship.

Notice in verses 6 and 7, after saying that Christ came into this world to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons, we read here thirdly and lastly of the blessed implications of covenant inclusion. the blessed implications of covenant inclusion.

Verses six and seven, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

So first off, under the blessed implications of covenant inclusion, we want to notice the blessing of sonship, this language, and because you are sons, this includes you daughters as well. And because you are sons, and as we've observed this sonship language before, previously in our studies in Galatians, because it's come up a lot by the Apostle Paul, we've had pause and we do again now, we've taken pause to consider the glory of being a son of God by adoption.

Because remember what we were beforehand. Remember the stuff of Ephesians chapter two. Because we're not the sons and daughters of God by nature. That rite was lost, and that was even a sons and daughters of God by creation. But the reality of being sons and daughters by nature or by creation had to do with Adam and Eve in the garden. That rite was lost by their fall and the plunging of humanity into sin.

And so sonship amongst the sons of men looks like this. Verse 1 of Ephesians 2, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. in which ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works, notice, in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were, notice again, by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

There's a sweetness of religious sentimentality that goes around throughout, not only at this time, but at every time, that we're all just the sons and daughters of God. We're all just the children of God, and let the sweet effervescent petals of religious happiness float down from the sky. The reality is that because of sin, because of the fall, because of the reality of total depravity, we are the sons and daughters of disobedience. We are the sons and daughters, the children of wrath, unless Christ frees us and makes us His.

And so the blessedness of being found as the sons of God, finding our way back to Galatians 4, the blessedness of this reality, and because you are sons, Read also, because you are daughters, because you are sons, it's a glorious thing. We don't deserve that title. We don't deserve that rank. We don't deserve that inclusion. We don't deserve that adoption. It comes to us by the saving and amazing and victorious grace of God, visited upon us by virtue of the perfect work of Jesus Christ. Always count it, not a right, but an undeserved blessing and privilege that we can be called the sons and daughters of God.

The blessing of sonship. Notice, secondly, the blessing of the indwelling spirit. Verse 6b. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. The Trinity is present here in just one single verse. It's glorious. And because you are sons, God the Father has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Paul, a Trinitarian par excellence, writing here with regards to the Trinitarian blessings of redemption. God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. 

We see the reiteration of the spiritual reality of covenant membership. Those who are members of the covenant of grace are the recipients of the Spirit of the Son. Those who are members of the covenant of grace and they only cry out, Abba, Father. That the vehement and confident and glorious cry that they cry to the Father by virtue of the Spirit of Christ. 

And what does Abba Father mean? What does Abba Father not mean? And what does it mean? You may have been told at some point in your Christian life that Abba is like our English daddy, as if conveying some informal nursery-speak sentimentality or mere emotional intimacy. That's more of a modern etymological intrusion upon what the word actually is and what Paul is doing here. He's not trying to informalize language rendered unto God and to bring down the reverence of addressing God to the realm of the nursery room. Though we are to come to God as little children, we read that this morning in the Gospel of Luke, but the truth is much more respectful, reverent, and doctrinally rich with regards to the language of Abba, Father. 

Paul deliberately uses the Aramaic father, Abba, and the Greek father, Pater, to demonstrate the unity of believing Jews and Greeks in Christ. He has already just written, there is neither Jew nor Greek. And so, by the Spirit of Christ, both Jew and Greek cry out, the Jew, Abba, the Greek, Pater, they cry out together as one new man in Christ to the Father by the Spirit. Gil writes this, the one is a Syriac word in use with the Jews, the other a Greek one, and denotes that there is but one father of Jews and Gentiles. The word Abba signifies my father and is expressive of interest and of faith in it. And read backwards is the same as forwards. God is the father of his people in adversity as well as prosperity. It is the word used by Christ himself in prayer in which he directs his people to. To say no more. It is a word which the Jews did not allow servants, only free men to make use of and to be called by. 

Another force or another weight of using it here. Yes, there is neither Jew nor Greek, but also there is neither slave nor free. You who were once slaves, or you who the Jews think are slaves, you cry out Abba, a title of the Father, a title of God, that only free men are allowed to use. The blessed reality that Paul is bringing to bear here, that Jew and Greek are one man in Christ, not by virtue of the Mosaic Covenant, but by this one who came into the world, sinners to save. 

And notice we see the blessing of mature heirship. The blessing of mature airship, not an airship that's flying through, not a blimp or anything like that, but H. The airship that begins with an H. H-E-I-R-S-H-I-P. Therefore, verse 7, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God. through Christ. This, therefore, is really bringing to bear, yes, those things immediately before it, but also the weight of what he had previously written culminating at the end of verse 29. If you are Christ, then you're Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise, the weight of everything that follows, and then therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. The blessing of mature heirship.

When you were young, when you were a child, you were You were not different from a slave, verse 1 of chapter 4, though even you were master of all, but rather you were under guardians, you were under stewards until the time appointed by the Father. In other words, during the Mosaic economy for you Jews, that I'm writing to who are now Christians, and for you Judaizers, if you listen and believe the gospel, there was a temporary reality to the Mosaic Covenant.

You were under guardians and tutors. But when the fullness of the time had come and God sent forth the Redeemer of God's elect, we are no longer under guardians or tutors, but rather we are now the mature heirs, children, sons and daughters of God, and so then, heirs of God, through Christ, enjoying the maturity of the new covenant. And what a blessing that is.

Our confession brings it out in a particular way in chapter 21 of Christian Liberty with regards to something that the Galatians would have been enduring, and it speaks to the Galatian reality that was obtaining at this particular time. And notice as I read this, wherein true Christian liberty lies, the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the rigor and curse of the law, and in their being delivered from the present evil world, from this present evil world, bondage to Satan and dominion of sin, from the evil of afflictions, the fear and sting of death, the victory of the grave and everlasting damnation, as also in their free access to God and their yielding obedience unto him, Not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind.

Just hit the pause button for a moment there. That's where in true Christian liberty lies. Ought we to fight for particular liberties that we should enjoy as natural citizens under God? Absolutely. Whether it's food or drink or gathering together. in a church, whatever it might be, we need to fight for those things. I'm going to not say gathering together in a church, because that's of a different category. But things to eat and things to drink. Christian liberty often lands upon those two things, or where we can go and what we can do.

But Christian liberty lies truly in freedom from the guilt of sin and the condemning wrath of God, etc. But notice this language that touches upon the Galatian issue, all which were common also to believers under the law, so in the Mosaic Covenant, the law as the Apostle Paul is using it here, for the substance of them, but Under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law to which the Jewish church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free spirit of God than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.

There is the reality that we've arrived at, redemptive historically at this time of maturity as God's people. We, the heirs of the promise, are living in this age, this side of the fullness of the time when Christ came to usher in the blessed reality. of the New Covenant age inaugurated. We are children of God. We are the heirs of the promise. What a blessing that we have in Jesus Christ our Savior. 

Just a couple things in closing. First of all, and to reiterate some things, theologically, no one is a son or daughter of God except those who are elect, regenerated, justified, and adopted. and who are now being further sanctified unto glorification. In other words, Christians who by the grace of God believe in Christ are the true and only children of God and children of Abraham. 

And so, that's something we ought to rejoice in. Our sonship under God. We don't owe anything of this sonship to ourselves, to our obedience to a set of precepts. We owe it solely and alone to the perfect work of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. who exercised the perfection of His saving work, His charge given to Him by the Father, that He might bring us, give us the adoption as sons. 

We ought to see here as well the implications, as I've already noted, for our doctrine of baptism. There are a number of passages in Galatians 3 where if baptism was to be given to unbelieving infants, or elect infants who may die in infancy, I don't want to leave that out. We don't have to wait until 18 for someone to be saved. God saves according to his wisdom and his prudence and the good purpose of his will. 

But the application of the actual sacrament or ordinance, if it was the case that there could be an argument made, Galatians would have been a place for Paul to say something to the effect of baptism replaces circumcision. Would have been a perfect spot to say, no, no, no, you guys are confused. You Judaizers, you just have to replace circumcision with baptism and all is well. Cancel the mosaic calendar stuff. You know, the washings and the ceremonies just apply baptism and all as well. That wouldn't have solved every problem, but you get the point. 

If there was any place where Paul could have been clear with regards to it, he could have been clear here if it was the case, but the connection to Abraham is not physical, and therefore this principle of a physical seed does not obtain also. There are two covenants, and we'll see that in Galatians 4. 

In fact, just as we close, turn there just for a moment. In Galatians 4, later in the chapter, beginning in verse 21, there were two covenants. The covenant of circumcision, a physical covenant. We don't obtain principles for spiritual ordinances from physical covenants, temporary covenants, covenants of works. 

There was a physical seed and a spiritual seed, a physical temporary covenant, and an eternal everlasting spiritual covenant. Notice 421. Tell me you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh. and He of the free woman through promise. Which things are symbolic? For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all." 

Now, we'll have time more time to spend on that in a number of months. But suffice it to say, the reality is that there were two covenants. There are two realities. There was the physical seed of Abraham, and there was the spiritual seed of Abraham. They that truly receive. the sign of the covenant. But notice the language of Galatians 3. The language of Galatians 3, in a number of places, 7, 9, 16, 26, and 29. Notice Galatians 3, 7. Therefore, know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. Verse 9, so then, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ. Verse 26, for you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, in Christ Jesus, and verse 29 again, and of course, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. 

So Abraham's seed, not a physical principle, but a spiritual one, and therefore any seed who receives baptism is simply a Christian, the elect, a saint of the Most High God, one who, like Father Abraham, believes and receives the righteousness not his own. The blessed reality that we have, sonship in Jesus Christ, and that this sonship is the very ground of our baptism, a saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Nehemiah Cox wrote this, not the communication of temporal good things, obtaining with regards to the promise, with regards to heirship and inheritance, not the communication of temporal good things, but the bringing in of better promises, even such as pertain to the life and immortality brought to light by the gospel, which promises are made effectual only in Christ, the true seed, to such as are by faith in union with him. 

That covenant with Abraham, that is, or excuse me, that covenant with Abraham did not establish the covenant of grace, but only prefigured it. It was of earthly things and for a typical seed. He's talking about the covenant of circumcision. That covenant with Abraham did not establish the covenant of grace, but only prefigured it. It was of earthly things and for a typical seed. A typical seed that pointed forward to the spiritual seed that those who are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

One other quote before we close, John Owen, the particular Baptist, John Owen, just joking, the Congregationalist, the Paedo-Baptist, but as many Paedo-Baptists, Credo-Baptists of his time noted, very contrary in doctrine to his own doctrine of the covenant. Great doctrine of the covenant, they would say he just had to do way too much heavy lifting on the sacrament of baptism. But he writes these great words. God gave a twofold privilege to Abraham. The Messiah would be born from this line, Abraham's line, making his descendants a special people. This privilege was to end when Christ was born. Abraham's faith would be the pattern for the church in all ages, and only those who believe as he did are his spiritual children. This resulted in a twofold seed, a seed according to the flesh, separated for the bringing forth of the Messiah, a seed according to the promise, those that have faith in the promise, or all the elect of God. 

So we don't give baptism to the seed according to the flesh. We give baptism to the seed according to the promise, which who are all who are united to Christ in faith and back to the passage just in closing. What a glorious thing, brothers and sisters, that we are the sons and the daughters of the Most High God. What a blessing to be found in Christ as his brother. The Scripture, the Scripture calls us according to his according to his humanity, his assumed humanity, were the brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the sons of God by virtue of the perfection of a savior and so then far be it, far should it be from us then to entertain anything like the Galatians were entertaining. that we can add to faith, that we can add ultimately to the work of Christ.

Never be stolen away by even the smallest inkling, the smallest little scattered seeds of anyone trying to interrupt the blessedness of salvation by so great a Savior by introducing your own wicked works, your own works mingled with transgression, your own works mingled with weakness and corruptibility.

The works of one avail with the living and true God, and those are the works of Christ. May we all believe in him because it's possible with God to do so that we would all leave as those with our tongues who sing the praises of our victor and redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word. We rejoice in your goodness to us. Thank you for the words of the Apostle Paul speaking to these Galatians and speaking ultimately by the Spirit to us. Salvation is solely and alone by virtue of the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Might we daily glory in Him. Might we daily reflect upon so great a salvation that He has made us the sons and daughters of the living God. Do go with us into this upcoming week. Help us to worship you. Help us to honor you. Help us to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Help us to come to you in prayer. Help us to come to you in supplication and all these things mingled with thanksgiving. And we thank you for the peace that you give us that does surpass all understanding. We pray that you'd go with us now in the name of Christ. Amen.