December 29, 2024|The Promise Fulfilled |Galatians 4:1-7
John-Daniel Cutler
Click here for the sermon audio
This morning we come to the last message in our Christmas series entitled The Promise. So far we have looked at
Genesis 3 and the fall where the Promise was made, Genesis 12 and the call of Abraham where the promise was clarified, and last week Will led us to look at Exodus 12 and the Passover where we saw the Promise pictured in the provision of the passover lamb whose blood covered God’s people and spared them from his righteous judgment on the land of Egypt. This morning we fast forward some 1500 years from the Exodus to the birth of a Jewish boy in Bethlehem to a young virgin named Mary and to her husband Joseph.
This is the pinnacle of the season, right? This is what Christmas is all about, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. This Christmas season, like previous ones, we have sang about it, we have read the scriptural accounts of it, but this morning I want us to think about the implications of it. How is the birth of Christ the fulfillment of God’s promises and what that means for the gospel, for the world, and for us this morning. To do that, I want to take you to one of the Apostle Paul’s letters in the New Testament. Open your Bibles to Galatians, chapter 4 this morning. Let me briefly give you the context leading up to our scripture this morning.
Paul was writing to the churches in Galatia who were being tempted to distort or even abandon the gospel in favor of a legalistic gospel that said they had to become Jews and keep the law in order to be right with God. That salvation was found in Christ plus the law.
His main argument is that justification comes through faith and not keeping the law. Paul goes back to the promise we talked about in week 2 to support his argument.
3:7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For the Jews and those who were being led astray by Judaizers the question would be, what about the law? Paul’s answer is that it was given because of transgressions until the offspring of the promise came. Paul says the law was given to show the sinfulness of all men, that it functioned like a guardian until Christ came so that we would be justified by faith and not our own righteousness. Paul’s argument is essentially that the promise to Abraham precedes the law and in no way does the law negate the promise to Abraham that in his seed all the nations would be blessed. He invites the churches in Galatia to consider how salvation comes to men and women. If it is the law, we are all doomed, but if it is by grace, through faith in Christ, then not only are we saved but we have been united in Christ and in Christ we are all heirs according to the promise. We are no longer enslaved by the law but have been made sons, and not just sons, but firstborn sons, heirs, in Christ.
Think about that statement for a moment. Since Adam, men have been separated from God, unable to fully approach him because of sin, even those whom God chose to be his special people were in many ways still separated from Him. Only one of them, the high priest, could approach His holy of holies, and only then, once a year, and only if they followed God’s prescribed method to cover their sins, which were many as revealed by the standard of His holy law. Now, Paul is saying that men and women, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, could not only be assured that they belonged to God, but they should think of themselves as children of God, and not just children but sons, and not just sons, but firstborn sons, heirs. How could this radical change be explained and what are the implications of it?
This brings us to chapter 4 of Galatians, where Paul is going to point us to what God did so that we may be reconciled to Him. In terms of what we have been studying during this series, he is going to point us to how God kept his promise to bless all nations in Abraham and to crush the head of the enemy through the offspring of Eve.
Let’s read
Galatians 4:1-7 this morning and see what the Apostle Paul says here.
4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Verses 1 through 3 serves as the setup. Paul says whether Jew or Gentile, we were both enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. Whether Jew or Gentile, all were guilty before the law and therefore cursed, for Paul says in chapter 3 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law…
God had given his standard to be right before Him in the law, but rather than being able to establish our righteousness through the law, it revealed that none of us could.
But…God did not leave us there, he kept his promise. The first thing I want us to see this morning concerning the promise is…
THE FULFILLMENT
4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
Paul deals with two issues here in verse 4 concerning the promise, the time of its fulfillment and the subject of its fulfillment.
Why did God choose to send his Son when he sent his Son? Paul says, when the fullness of time had come. Of course, we first understand this to be simply because this is the time God willed for it to be. This is the ultimate answer. He came at the precise hour the Father had planned. Paul says as much in verse 2. ‘until the date set by his father’
But I think it is prudent, as much as we can probe the mind and will of God, to ask what led this moment to be the fullness of time? What may well be translated ‘the perfect time’. What made this the perfect time?
We may even ask beyond that, what makes good timing in general? Surely our kids understand this concept. They know that there are good times to ask for things and bad times to ask for things. For our kids, when you are looking for a ‘yes’ from your parents you learn early on that asking while there is a lot going on, for instance when the family is trying to get ready to leave, or loading the car at the grocery store, or when you are running late is not the right time. Your parents are distracted, maybe a little frustrated, and you learn these conditions are not favorable. So as they grow in wisdom and prudence, they learn that asking when things are calm, when emotions are favorable, when the circumstances are better, when the timing is right, these are the best times to ask for things or for permission to do things. But don’t think this applies only to our children, husbands and wives, you understand this as well. Many a request has been made after a favorite meal has been prepared and enjoyed, or after a particularly hard chore has been completed. We intuitively understand circumstances matter.
What were the unique circumstances that made the time of our Lord’s birth the right time? Socially and politically there were many factors that made this a suitable time. Through Roman conquest there was widespread peace through the region, under Roman rule, roads had been established, and the dominance of one language had spread across the empire. In addition to dispersion and the establishment of Jewish synagogues all over the empire. All of these things come together to make the spread of the gospel possible in ways that would not have been possible in earlier times.
These are important factors, but God could have spread his gospel without any of these things. What else would make this the perfect time? One commentator puts it beautifully when he says.
Had Christ come directly after the fall, the enormity and deadly fruits of sin would not have been realized fully by man, so as to feel his desperate state and need of a Saviour. Sin was fully developed. Man’s inability to save himself by obedience to the law, whether that of Moses, or that of conscience, was completely manifested; all the prophecies of various ages found their common center in this particular time: and Providence, by various arrangements in the social and political, as well as the moral world, had fully prepared the way for the coming Redeemer.
Not even with God’s intervention in establishing a people, not even with his direct revelation of himself and his standards, could sin be conquered. With the inability of man fully revealed, mankind was able to comprehend his need of a savior beyond himself. All of this and more lead us to understand that Christ came at the perfect time, the fullness of time, the completion, he came exactly as God had determined from eternity past. Let us turn our attention to Paul’s second thought of verse 4, the subject of the fulfillment.
…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, each one of the descriptors tells us something vital about our Lord.
God sent- notice with me that man did not ask for the Son to come, indeed, man did not even know what to ask. How could man ever possibly conceive of God stepping into his created order, the eternal son of the triune Godhead coming into the world created through him, the eternal word of God in order to accomplish God’s purposes of redemption. It is too ludicrous to even imagine. No, the sending of the Son for the redemption of mankind comes from the Father’s voluntarily, uncoerced, independent, providential, and sovereign will. Not only would the Father send, but the Son would voluntarily come. Redemption is only possible because God chose to make it possible.
His Son- Paul throughout the lead up to this verse has established in many ways the singular nature of Christ, he alone is God’s son and he alone is the promised offspring. But Paul is hardly alone in terms of scripture identifying Christ as unique in his relationship to the Father. In one of the most famous verses of scripture, Jesus tells Nicodemus that...
3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Jesus equates God giving his only son to God sending his son into the world. In another place, the Apostle John shows us the eternal nature of the Son.
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made….14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
All of that helps us understand when Paul says God sent his son, he is talking about the eternal Son, a fully divine part of the triune Godhead, who precedes the beginning.
The important thing to understand is that the scripture teaches both that Jesus is God and yet he is distinct from the Father, who is God, who are both distinct from the Holy Spirit who is God. Digging into the mystery of the eternal distinction in the Deity is not helpful and only leads into speculative theology, rather we accept by faith what has been divinely revealed, God the Father sent God the Son in order to fulfill the redemptive purpose for mankind.
The question is, how did he send him? Paul tells us.
Born of woman- Christ did not simply appear to be a man, he truly and genuinely entered his created order as a human being, like you and me, yet without sin. To accomplish this, Jesus was born miraculously by the power of God to a virgin. 35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
This fulfilled the first part of the promise we looked at in Genesis 3:15
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””
His full humanity is emphasized in various places. One is
Romans 8:3-4
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
God the son took on flesh, becoming in all ways like us, yet without sin. Why is this important? Because, as we saw last week in the passover and repeatedly in the sacrificial system, only a spotless lamb will work. To deny the deity of Christ is to deny the gospel, to deny the humanity of Christ is to deny the gospel. Although our minds can never fully reconcile the nature of Christ we are taught from God’s word that he was both fully God and fully man. In his humanity he accomplished what our first earthly father Adam failed to do. He perfectly obeyed the will of God. Which leads us to the last descriptor Paul gives.
Born under the law-Not only did Christ humbly submit to being born of woman, but he submitted to being born into a family bound by the Mosaic law. From the moment he was born, he was under the law. When he was eight days old and his parents took him to the temple to be circumcised it was publicly declared that he was under the law. During the rest of his life he observed the commands of God, not minimizing them in order to keep them, but expounding on their nature that gets to the very heart of man and declares him sinful. He despised the traditions of men but he always kept the law of God. In doing so, he was the only one who did not deserve the wrath of God against sin.
Which begs the question. Why did God send his son, why was he born of a woman, and born under the law? To be the perfect example of obedience to the law? To give us an example to follow? If that was the reason, we are not only still hopeless, but we are devastatingly so, because as Jesus clarified the law in his teaching, he showed that the gap between God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness is wider than we could even imagine. All of mankind stands utterly guilty and laid bare before the perfect law of God. Thank God that God sent his son for more than that. Let us turn this morning to our second division, and second verse, as we look at…
THE PURPOSE
4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
God sent his only son into the world, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law.
The word redeem in the greek speaks of obtaining release or freedom by means of payment. In the greco-roman world as well as the Jewish culture, slavery was imbedded into the culture as was the understanding for a slave to be released, payment must be made either by the slave themselves or by someone else. Theologically, Paul has already set this statement up in what he has said so far.
3:23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
and again in
4:3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world
held captive, imprisoned, enslaved- Paul has painted a desperate picture. The law did not bring life and freedom but rather death and enslavement.
To have a redemption, you need three things, someone who is enslaved, the enslaver, and the price.
We know who was enslaved, all of humanity. We know what they were enslaved to, sin as revealed in the law, and we know the price. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death” This price was made evident from the very beginning. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
One command-do not eat of this particular tree; one sin-eat of that tree; one punishment for sin-you shall surely die. We explored this death a little in our first week so we won’t go into too much detail, but yes physical death was a part of the curse, but it was spiritual death, a separation from God that was the immediate and more dire consequence of sin. If death is the just wages of sin, and we all have sinned, then we all deserve death. After Adam and Eve sinned, not only did all of humanity inherited this spiritual death, but we all sinned ourselves by our own volition. Sinners by birth and sinners by choice. And if one sin deserves death, how could the multitudes of sins in our lives ever be paid for?
We needed someone that could pay that price that didn’t deserve it.
All throughout the NT Christ is pointed to as the one who did not deserve death but willingly bore it in our place, but one of the places that is most powerful is in another of Paul’s letters. There he says, For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Last week, Will walked us through the passover and the way it pictures our Lord dying for us. What saved the Israelites from the just punishment and wrath of God against the land of Egypt and its inhabitants? Was it their goodness that saved them? Of course not. Was it their position as God’s people that saved them? No. Was it that God knew that they would be obedient to him when he saved them? No.
The only difference on the night of God’s wrath against wickedness was that the Israelites had applied the blood of the passover lamb to their doorposts. They were covered by the blood.
What will be the determining factor between men when they stand before a holy and righteous God on the day of judgement? Will it be that they were church members? Will it be that they tithed? Will it be that they said the right words? No, it will be whether they are covered by the blood of the lamb. That they by faith put their trust in God’s provision that they would not face the wrath against their sins because their debt had been paid.
How? Because Christ died for his people. Paul puts it this way in chapter 3.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
How did Christ redeem us? He became a curse for us. How? By dying the death we deserved. This is what Paul emphasizes in
Philippians 2
2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
God the Son becoming human, dying the excruciating death of the condemned in order that we who deserved death might live. This is how God fulfilled his promise to restore mankind to himself and to crush sin, satan, and death. Brother Buddy, a former pastor and mentor used to say, what the cross shows us is an infinite God dying a finite death so that we who are finite can live infinitely. This is the gospel, this is the good news of redemption, this is the message of Scripture.
Listen. If that was all, if somehow we could be made right with God, that would surely be enough, but Paul goes on to describe the purpose of our redemption. So that we might receive adoption as sons. In the same way that the original hearers would have understood slavery and redemption, adoption was common in the NT. In the Roman world, to be adopted was to receive a completely new identity and a complete break from your previous life. Imagine if you would a slave that was not only redeemed by a wealthy benefactor and set free but adopted that slave as a son and an heir to his estate.
I have always loved the language of adoption that the New Testament uses because I have experienced earthly adoption. When I was around 4 years old my step-father adopted my younger sister and I. In that moment all legal ties were broken with my biological father and from then on, for all legal and practical purposes, it was as though my adoptive father was my biological father. My name changed and all ties to who I was before were severed. I now bore his name and belonged to his family. His parents became my grandparents, his siblings my aunt and uncles. Right? It was a complete change of identity.
How much more rich is this language, when we understand that Paul is saying that when Christ redeemed us from the bondage of sin, death, and the kingdom of darkness, he brought us into the family of God? And not just as a child but as a son. Yes, this includes both woman and men. We talk about being sons and daughters of God, but Paul uses sons for a very specific reason. In both the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman world, inheritances passed to the oldest son. Paul’s immediate concern is why then would these Galatian believers ever go back and live as though they had not been adopted? Why would they enslave themselves back into the law now that they were sons? Why would those who are free, place themselves back under a guardian or master?
What I want you to see this morning is that the fulfillment of God’s promise, your redemption, is more than merely the forgiveness of your sins, although it is surely not less than that, it is a radical change in whose you are. You are a son of God, purchased by the precious blood of Christ. When God looks at you he sees a son. How wonderful is that?
This is why I abhor any message that boils the gospel down to an invitation to simply avoid hell. The invitation of the gospel is not simply to get out of Hell, it is an invitation to put on Christ, to belong to Him, to be adopted into the very family of God as a son. Amen?
God fulfilled his promise to redeem mankind by sending his one and only son, who bore the punishment for sins and bore the wrath of God for those who believe in him, for the purpose of freeing them from the kingdom of darkness and bondage of sin and placing them in the family of God now and forever. Which brings us to our final division this morning as Paul moves to…
THE RESULT
4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
What does being made a son of God through adoption mean for you and I?
Paul say, because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. Think about that for a minute. Not only has Paul said those who believe, those of the faith are one in Christ, but he says Christ is in us. Me in Christ and Christ in me. This is the complete and overwhelming reality of redemption in Christ. When God looks on me he sees Christ and simultaneously Christ is in me conforming me to His image day by day through the power of the Holy Spirit. I both already am and are becoming what God designed me to be.
Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” The result of your redemption is that you are conformed to the image of Christ.
When Jesus was speaking to his disciples in some of his last moments before his betrayal, he promised that he and the Father would come and dwell, make their home, with us through the Holy Spirit.
The indwelling of the Spirit has many implications.
We are told repeatedly that the filling of the Spirit enables and empowers us to proclaim the word and message of God. That He convicts us of sin, that His presence in us and fruit produced through us is assurance of our salvation and evidence of it to ourselves and others. Here in Galatians in chapter 4 Paul’s emphasis is the role of the Holy Spirit in securing our position as sons. In the same way God sent his Son into the world to redeem those under the law, God sends his Spirit into those who have been redeemed, so that within us the Spirit cries, Abba, Father.
Notice with me two things, one the Spirit is the one who cries from within our hearts, Abba! Father!. It is only by and through the Spirit that we are adopted into the family of God. There is no salvation apart from the work of the Spirit applying the work of the Son according to the will of the Father. Two, Paul uses specific language here, drawing from our Lord’s own words in the garden of Gethsemane when he said Mk 14:36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
What you may not realize is that Abba Father is not a joint statement but two distinct words from different languages. Abba- is transliterated from the Aramaic word for Father. Father- is translated from the Greek word for Father.
It is only used three times in scripture, once by Jesus and twice by the apostle Paul in his letters. I have heard many interpretations of it, some better than others. I don’t think this is permission for us to be overly familiar with God, using terms like ‘Daddy God’ or equally irreverent ways of addressing the creator of the universe. I do think it is supposed to teach us about something about our relationship to God. Let’s examine the usages in the NT.
Jesus is recorded using it in one of the most intimate times recorded for us between him and the Father. In his agony, wrestling with what the cup of wrath would mean for him and the weakness of his flesh. Uttered between himself and God only, which means the only way we know what happened is Jesus revealing it to his disciples. Jesus pulls the curtain back and shows the intimate relationship that he enjoys with the Father as the only Son of God.
Both times the apostle Paul uses it, it is in reference to both our adoption as sons and our receiving the spirit by whom and through whom we cry Abba! Father!. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Paul desperately wants us to understand that by receiving the Spirit we have entered a relationship with God that was not true for us prior to His indwelling presence, a relationship that belongs to Christ and Christ alone as the only begotten Son of God. That is to say, this is not prescriptive for us in that we are to address God as ‘Abba, Father,’ but descriptive of our relationship with the Father, in the Son, by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, if this is the way Jesus wanted us to pray, then why did he not tell his disciples to pray this way when they asked to be taught by Him. In that instance he taught them to approach God as ‘Our Father’.
Paul wants us to understand that in our redemption God did not just bring us into his house as slaves, but as sons, and if sons, then heirs. Additionally, Paul switches from the plural to the singular to drive home the fact that this is true of every believer everywhere. Listen to how he says this, taking into the tense of the words. 6 And because you (all-plural) are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our (plural) hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you (singular-each one of you) are no longer a slave, but a son (singular), and if a son, then an heir (singular) through God.
While all the implications of being a co-heir with Christ are difficult for us to wrap our mind around, scripture tells us that we are united to Christ and we will reign with him. But here is what I think we need to focus on this morning, two words, ‘through God’. Anything we experience in Christ now or in Eternity has nothing to do with us and everything to do with what Christ did and God’s acceptance of us in Christ. We owe everything we are to Christ and it is only ours because we have faith in his finished work on our behalf. There is nothing you can do to earn sonship, to earn adoption, or to earn the right to call God Father. What do we have in Christ? Everything. What do we have in Christ that we did not receive as a gift? Nothing.
What should Christmas elicit in believers as we reflect on the birth of our savior?
One- gratitude. Gratitude that Christ would willingly humble himself and enter his creation in order to live the perfect life of obedience that you and I could not. Gratitude that having lived that life, he submitted himself to the punishment of death, and not just any death but the agonizing death of a criminal. Let us never separate the miracle of his birth from the miracle of his death.
Two- faith. God did exactly what he promised he would do. He sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law. Even when we cannot possibly understand how God is going to work all things together for good for those who love him, even when we cannot possibly understand how God is going to fulfill all of his promises to believers, our faith is encouraged by thinking about his fulfillment of the single most impactful promise ever made. That he would crush satan and bless all the nations of the world through Abraham’s offspring, which is Christ.
Three- a sense of freedom. Paul is going to go on to say in
Galatians 5
that Christ has set us free and we should stand firm in that freedom, and not submit again to the yoke of slavery. He goes on to say in verse 13.
5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
We are free from the penalty of the law and being enslaved to the letter of the law, yes, but more importantly, in Christ we are free to pursue the spirit of the law, fulfilled in ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ How do we know what love is? We see it in the Father sending the son, we see it in the Son laying down his life while we were yet sinners. When we look at the manger, we ought to be reminded that this is how God loved us, sacrificially, selflessly, and completely, and we ought to be encouraged to use our freedom in Christ to love others as Christ loved us, ever increasingly as we are conformed into his image.
Technically, yes, the Christmas season is over, but these things, gratitude, faith, and a sense of freedom, these are ours in all seasons, on all days, and in all situations, as long as we keep our eyes on Christ, the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Let us pray.
Comments