Inheritance in the Roman Empire. (3.27–4.7)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

For any of Paul’s talk about adoption and inheritance to make sense to 21st-century Americans, we have to understand our ideas about these things are very different from ancient Roman ideas about these things. (And ancient Jewish ideas, which by this time were very similar to Roman ideas.)

Whenever a Roman patriarch, or paterfamilias, had kids, they weren’t officially his kids until he formally declared them his kids. When the kids came of age, the paterfamilias stood up in front of the community and declared, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” and this was now formally his child. (Sound familiar? God said those particular words on purpose. He was straight-up telling everyone Jesus is his son.)

Usually they adopted their biological kids when the kids turned 12 or 13 years old, which was considered adulthood back then. But anyone could be adopted at any age. Julius Caesar adopted his grandnephew Octavian when the “boy” was 21.

Why’d they do this? If you’ve read Roman history or Greek mythology, you’ll immediately see a whole lot of adultery. The Greco-Roman gods were a lousy example; Zeus wasn’t faithful to his wife at all. So how the Roman culture dealt with the problem was to accommodate it, and treat all kids as if they might not really be a man’s biological kids. Even if he totally trusted his wife and loved his kids, they technically weren’t his kids until he formally adopted them.

Once a Roman boy was adopted, he became his father’s heir. This didn’t mean he got his dad’s property when he died, although he’d do that too. This meant his dad’s stuff immediately became his stuff. (Really, it was considered family property; it wasn’t just one person’s property.) So everything his dad owned, he owned. The household seal on his dad’s finger, which the dad would use as his signature for everything?—the son was given a duplicate of that seal. Same seal. Same authority as his father. The household was the son’s household, same as the father’s. The slaves were his slaves. He could officially speak for the family, although his father could of course overrule him.

Some Romans would deliberately give their sons the same name as themselves, so it’d be easier to transfer property and authority this way. Romans regularly changed their kids’ names at their adoption. (Especially if you were adopted from another family.) So when the scriptures talk about God giving us a new name, [Rv 2.17] debatably this is what this means.

So when we belong to Christ, once we were baptized into Christ [Ga 3.27] and added to God’s family, we become heirs of God’s kingdom in the very same way as Roman kids inherited their father’s property. We don’t inherit it after God dies; he’s not dying again! We get all God the Father’s stuff now. It’s ours. You wanna access it?—you can. Although our Father could of course overrule us, which is why we gotta make sure our will conforms to our Father’s will. When we ask for stuff in Jesus’s name, we gotta legitimately want what Jesus wants.

Now before the Romans formally adopted their children, as long as the heir is a child, [Ga 4.1] functionally he differs in no way from a slave. Everybody gets to tell them what to do. Slaves, like the guardians and trustees [Ga 4.2] —people the child’s father owned—could boss them around. The kids were sorta lower than slaves.

Paul points out before we came to Jesus, when we were children, [Ga 4.3] when we were still slaves of sin, we were likewise bossed around by the elements of the world. These are the simplest, most basic things, of our world. Every little thing could turn us this way or that, [Jm 1.6-8] and mess us up. Some Christians interpret “elements” to mean spiritual forces. They could be, but I don’t think they have to be.

When the time came to completion. [Ga 4.4] Pharisees divided history into two parts: This present age, and the age to come. The age to come would be ruled by Messiah. And Paul was entirely sure the age to come had come, because Messiah had come. Jesus had come.

The ancient Christians were really sure he was coming back in their lifetimes! They figured when the angels told the Jesus would return in the same way he left, [Ac 1.11] they’d see him return this way. (They will, but they’ll be returning with him. [1Th 4.17]) We likewise are hoping Jesus will return in our lifetimes—but he may not. He’s delaying because he’s first trying to save as many people as he can. [2Pe 3.9] After all, Messiah came to save everybody.

Born under the law, to redeem those under the law. [Ga 4.5-6] Jesus never sinned, [He 4.15] which means he never broke the Mosaic law. He lived under it, but never broke it.

There are those who actually claim he did break it. They claim Jesus broke Sabbath all the time, ’cause he cured people on Sabbath, and let his disciples glean the edges of the fields; all these things are supposedly work. Or at least that’s what Pharisees accused Jesus of… and these Christians believe the Pharisees.

But no, Jesus didn’t break Sabbath at all. He only broke Pharisee custom. He disagreed with Pharisee interpretations about Sabbath. He’d provocatively violate those, but he never broke God’s commandment (and since Jesus is God, that’d be his own commandment). Curing the sick on Sabbath isn’t a sin. As Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees, they made a Sabbath exception for rescuing their farm animals, [Mt 12.11] so why can’t Jesus rescue people?

Likewise touching unclean people, like eating a meal with gentiles, isn’t a sin either. Jesus broke customs, but never broke the law. And because he never broke the law, he was never guilty under the law; never condemned under the law like we are. He can be a perfect sin-offering, and atone for every sin everywhere, all throughout history. So if the law condemns you, Christ redeems you.

So we might receive adoption as sons. [Ga 4.5] And if you’re worried your sins might stop God from adopting you, nope! He covered that. Sins aren’t a stumbling-block for him. Might be a stumbling-block for us, but never God.

So you are no longer a slave but a son. [Ga 4.7] Since the previous paragraph says there’s no male nor female in Christ Jesus, [Ga 3.28] I have a minor bone to pick with translations which don’t bother to remind us these passages apply to sons and daughters. If a passage in the scriptures is about men and women, males and females, alike—if it was the original intent of the prophets and apostles that men and women alike follow it equally—then it should be translated that way.

We call this “gender-inclusive translation.” There are people (usually sexists) who don’t like that idea, and call it “gender-neutral translation,” and make it sound like we’re gonna change all the bibles so God the Father has neutral pronouns. That’s not what it means, they know that’s not what it means, and it’s intellectually dishonest of them to suggest such a thing. (I’m not saying there aren’t loopy people out there who totally would create a gender-neutral translation if they could; just that those of us who prefer and make gender-inclusive translations aren’t them.)

Now yes, Roman laws about inheritance were sexist. Roman daughters weren’t granted the same power over their father’s property as sons were. Daughters were expected to marry into other families anyway, and rule over that property. But that’s not true of God’s kingdom! God’s adoptive daughters inherit his kingdom same as God’s adoptive sons.

So I would say the NIV’s “You are no longer a slave, but God’s child” is a better interpretation.