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. (Galatians 4:4-5)
An Early Confession
The book of Galatians is one of Paul's earliest works. In it, he combatted the idea that faith plus works lead to salvation. He warned his audience about the danger of trying to obtain God's favor through the keeping of the law (and losing God's favor when disobeying the law).
And, here, to bolster his argument, Paul seems to have quoted an early Christian confession. There are some clues in the passage that this saying pre-dated Paul and that the early church proclaimed this statement. This formulaic saying was a way for believers to succinctly declare their beliefs, and it makes for a beautiful Christmas meditation because it considers 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, and we will take four weeks to meditate upon these answers. For this second week, we have our second question: where did Jesus come from?
Let's observe.
4b ...God sent forth his Son... (Galatians 4:4b)
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)
And this was a common refrain in the early church. They believed -- and we should believe -- that Jesus was no normal man, but the eternal Son of God who had been sent by the Father God.
As Paul said:
"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)
Or John:
"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)
This was the firm understanding of the early church. They knew Jesus had been sent from the Father.
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 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
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.
