Galatians 4:4-5 -- The Son Who Came to Make Sons

Today, let us consider four elements of his coming.

• When did he come?

• Where did he come from?

• How did he come?

• And why did he come?

Each of these questions is answered in our text.

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.

1. When He Arrived

4a But when the fullness of time had come...

Why was it the right time for Jesus to be born? Let's answer this in three ways.

The Historical Point of View

First, there is the historical point of view. Since Jesus was going to die and rise and then send out his messengers throughout the world, it was important for him to come at the time he did.

• The Roman Empire had forced a truce upon the civilized world.
• They had also hacked out a road system that facilitated ease of travel from nation to nation, city to city.
• And people had grown tired of the moral abyss of paganism and mythology -- many were without hope.
• And the Greek language was known everywhere.

Combine these elements, and you discover a perfect opportunity for the church.

The Biblical Point of View

Second, there is the biblical point of view. Throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, various clues were given as to the timing of the coming of the Christ. So the fullness of time pertained to the predicted moment the Messiah would arrive.

For instance, Psalm 22 predicted in fine detail the death of the Messiah. Written many years before crucifixion was created as a form of capital punishment, it describes the crucifixion of Jesus.

Or there is the astounding prophecy of Daniel 9. In it, Gabriel appears and tells Daniel about 490 future years. God told Daniel that there would be 483 years from the command to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the Christ, who would put an end to sin (Daniel 9:24-27). Years later, King Artaxerxes told Nehemiah to go rebuild the city, and 483 years later was the time of Christ (Nehemiah 2:1-10). He could arrive no later.

On top of these more prophetic elements, there was the general anticipation that future offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would arise to become a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:1-3).

So, from the biblical point of view, it was the right time for Jesus to come.

The Divine Point of View

Third, there is the divine point of view. God was ready.

In the previous passage, Paul wrote that, before Christ, we were "enslaved to the elementary principles of the world" (Galatians 4:3). There is debate as to what he meant by the phrase. Perhaps he was thinking of the pagan mythologies and religions that had dominated the earth by that time. Perhaps he was thinking of the basics of the law written on every human heart. Perhaps he was thinking exclusively of the ceremonial law and its demands on Jewish people only. Perhaps he was thinking of spiritual beings who exert their influence on the earth's inhabitants. Perhaps he was thinking of all these as a cluster of elementary principles that dominated humanity.

But what is clear is that God was ready to rescue. As we read, Paul said, " But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son..." (4). God was ready. To him, the time was full. The Son must be sent.

2. Where He Arrived From

4b ...God sent forth his Son...

Preexistent

The way Paul laid this out points to the preexistence of the Son. Jesus was not created. He had no starting point. He is the eternal -- always existent -- second person of the Triune God. He's always been.

This is why God sent forth his Son. He was not made. Instead, he stepped out of eternity and:

"Made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men..." (Philippians 2:7)

" 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, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us..." (Romans 8:3–4, ESV)

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." (1 John 4:9, ESV)

Divine

And this sending process was all God. He is the one who initiated the process. It was not mankind who initiated -- we could not. We were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3). We were under sin and unable to seek God (Romans 3:9-18). We had fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We were condemned with our ancestor Adam (Romans 5:12).

But God initiated with us by sending his beloved to save us -- and cause us to become his beloved.

Not only did God initiate, but this passage hints at God's conspiring. For the Father to have sent the Son indicates an agreement. And the New Testament bears witness to the submissive nature of Jesus. He had bowed himself to the plan of the Father, conspiring together with him to accomplish our salvation.

Inconceivable Method: Christmas

And how did God send his Son? In a way that is inconceivable to the mind of man. We would never have engineered such a tale. The Son of God was born in complete anonymity in Bethlehem. Though the angels sang on the outskirts of town, no one celebrated the monumental birth of the world's savior. Innocent and unknown, Christmas came, and the world knew it not. And he would grow into manhood out of the public eye, off the beaten path, in the nowhere town of Nazareth. God had become man, but, for the longest time, no one knew. God had sent his Son.

3. How He Arrived

4c ...born of woman, born under the law...

Human, Born of Woman

But why is it significant that the Son of God was born of a woman? Why was it necessary? How does it help us?

Since Jesus was born of a woman, he became human. He is fully God, yet fully man -- a divine mystery that theologians call the hypostatic union.

And since humanity was broken, we needed God to create a new humanity, one that is compatible with his holiness and majesty. The old humanity couldn't connect to God -- so Jesus died on the cross for old humanity's sins so that all who trust him could be forgiven and become new. But for a new humanity to be possible, we needed a new human. We'd had Adam, and we all copied his ways, but we needed another option. And Jesus is that option.

"Jesus abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace..." (Ephesians 2:15, ESV)

Human, Born Under the Law

But Paul also notes that Jesus was born under the law (4). The weight of human obligation was upon him. The moral law of the universe weighed on his mind. The ten commandments were guiding lights for him. The ceremonial law of Israel needed to be fulfilled by him. He was born under the law, subjected to the standard of holiness laid out in Scripture.

And Jesus is revealed as an obedient Son who fulfilled the law of God. He was not negligent in even one area.

"Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." (Hebrews 5:8, ESV)

4. Why He Arrived

5 ...to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Our Experience Under the Law

This verse shows us the fundamental way our relationship to the legal code of God's word shifted when we met Christ. He came to redeem those who were under the law (5). Redeem is a freedom word -- he came to set people free from the burden of the law. We were under it, condemned by it because we could never keep it in its entirety at all times. We could never keep it in our hearts. Evil always loomed within us. And the law was there to pronounce our guilt before God.

But Jesus came to set us free -- to redeem us -- from that kind of relationship with God. There was no reason for the Galatian Gentile converts to try to relate to God through the ceremonial law of God, just as there is no reason for us to try to relate to God that way today. We have been set free from that law.

Birth vs. Adoption

Having been redeemed from being under the law, we receive something else: adoption as sons (5).

In Roman society, the son was the one who would inherit the position and property. He was the heir of the father.

Now, our passage tells us that Jesus came so that we might receive the adoption as sons (5). Adoption.

Dismiss the idea of adoption as you know it. This word isn't talking about the adoption of babies or young children. We don't come into God's family that way. We come by the birth of regeneration -- we are born again (John 3:3).

But in Roman culture, adoption could happen to a full-grown adult servant who is given the rights and privileges of the son. The master of the estate would "adopt" the servant and treat them as they treated their own son.

This is what we have in Jesus! The Son came so that we might receive the adoption as sons. Before the Father, we have the position of the Son.

Sons

This is why our relationship with the law has been fundamentally changed. You cannot earn a better position before God because a better position does not exist. In Christ Jesus, you have the greatest standing you could ever hope to have. This is why it was important for Paul to point out God adopts all believers as "sons."

Notice how this doctrinal statement began: God sent forth his Son (4). Why did God do this? Why Christmas? To set us free from the law so that we might receive the adoption as sons (5).

See it? This little creed starts with the sending of the Son, and it ends with the adoption of many sons. The Son came to make sons. He came to bring you home.