Heirs not Slaves

“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.” 

Galatians 4:1-5

You are a child of God. 

When we are adopted into God’s family, we become children of God. The slaves knew many of the laws of the family, but they were not a part of the family. No amount of law following can make a slave become a child, and nothing can demote a child to the status of slave (see the parable of the prodigal son). As a child, we will begin to do the “laws” of the family as we engage in the family culture.

Compared to God, you are nothing. Your sin is nothing; your righteousness is nothing. 

As children, we do not have to worry about paying taxes (Matthew 17:26) nor could we earn the required fee to reside in God’s kingdom. We cannot pay to be adopted into God’s family, and no sin we commit can take us out of God’s family. We can choose to disown ourselves, but the currency of righteousness we have can only be bought by God.

God declares Himself righteous. 

God made mankind in His image, bestowing upon him a measure of His righteousness. We decided to throw it away and yet God decided to buy us back and bring us back into a place of righteousness. As a receipt of His purchase, the Holy Spirit marks us and lives inside us. “we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (ephesians 1:13-14). When God looks at us, He sees us first as being made in His image and second as being marked by the Holy Spirit. When God looks at us, He sees Himself, and when He sees Himself, He has to declare Himself righteous.

God's righteousness is imputed to you through the work of Jesus.

We have been made as spotlessly righteous as Jesus is by the double imputation of our sins going to Him on the cross and His righteousness coming to us through the resurrection. We are not righteousness covered sin blobs—to put it another way, sugar-coated poop—that would never fly in God’s kingdom. We are no longer connected to our old sin, it is completely removed from us. We are righteous because God made us that way and recreated us that way when we tarnished His image.