Receive or Recover? Re-reading Galatians 4:4-6

And when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, being made of woman, being made under Torah, in order to redeem those under the Torah, in order that we may recover (our) sonship. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!”, so that you are a slave no longer but a son. And if a son, then also an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4-6; my translation)

 

Having read Galatians 4:4-6 many many times before, I have always been bothered by the “hoti” clause of verse 6, for it has never fit my understanding of the text. In times past, I understood God’s sending of the spirit of his Son, as the cause of Christians receiving their sonship. Yet, this is not what the text says. For the passage does not read: “God sent his sons spirit to make us sons.” No, rather it is the other way around: “because you are sons (δε οτι εστιν υιοι), God sent spirit, to fix the situation of his sons being in slavery (à la the children of Israel under Egypt).”

But how is this possible? Well, when reading verse 5, I noticed that the verb for “receiving” the sonship/adoption, is not an ordinary form of  λαμβανω ; instead we find Paul using a compound form απολαμβανω, which can also mean to receive back or recover.  If we understand the verb to imply that Christians, by means of Christ, recover their once lost sonship, then the verse 6 fits better: On account of you being sons, God then sends is spirit (the second act of the rescue operation), in order to break the bonds of slavery which held you captive.

Thus the sending of the spirit, does not make one a son according to this passage. What the spirit does is to take away the slaveship and by so doing re-inforce the son as an heir.

What are the implications of this reading? That everyone is already a son of God, and it’s just a matter of recovering this sonship? The Calvinist within would have to say no 😉 I think Paul only has in view God’s predestined elect. These can be said to be sons of God even prior to having their sonship realised (just as the Unitarian within me could say Jesus was God’s son prior to him existing since he was predestined before the foundation of the world).