Full Rights of Sonship in Christ

Transcript

GR 2097
10/01/2017
Full Rights of Sonship in Christ
Galatians 4:1-5
Gil Rugh

We are going to the book of Galatians in your Bibles. We are ready to go into chapter 4. So we have covered the first three chapters and now we begin the last three chapters. Obviously the most important foundational issue in the Word of God is the issue of salvation. How can a sinful human being be brought into right relationship with a holy and righteous God? And amazingly God has made provision for that and it always has been rather simple and on the same basis. We recognize our sin and we come to place our faith in Him and His provision for us. The fullness and clarity of that provision came when Jesus Christ came to earth and died on the cross and was raised from the dead.

Men and women were saved by faith before that time. They believed what God had revealed. They believed in Him and His Word that He had given. They did not have the clarity for their faith that we have but the focus was still the same, the living God and the truth He had revealed concerning Himself. That is why the foundational verse is that first statement with clarity in Genesis 15:6 “Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.”

In that sense nothing has changed. Faith has always been the means by which God’s provision of salvation for us has been provided and applied to us. The details of that become more clear and with the coming of Christ there is full clarity in how He has provided that and the cost that was entailed.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” And even in the Old Testament when they believed God and His promises – promise to save, promise to forgive, promise to be their Savior it was simply on the basis of what Christ would do. So He was saving them on the basis of what He planned in eternity past to do to provide redemption. So He is the Savior.

Now this confusion and that’s why we have a book like Galatians and it permeates the New Testament. If we get off track on the means of salvation, upon what basis can be avail ourselves of God’s salvation? Everything else becomes irrelevant. There are a lot of religious things and those kinds of activities but if you are not clear on how can I be a recipient of God’s salvation, everything else is just going through motions that accomplish nothing.

That is what the book of Galatians is about. Christ has come. Now there is clarity. God has revealed Himself with a fullness that had not been revealed before. He has revealed His plan of redemption, salvation with full clarity. God has become man, has come in the flesh, the Son of God. He has suffered and died to pay the penalty for our sin. Now all those sacrifices of the Old Testament become clear. They never were means of salvation. They were believing the promise of God that He would provide forgiveness. He would cleanse them and trusting Him to do what He promised. And when the sacrifice, the only sacrifice that would take away sin came, then everything is clear.

So “Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness” because God’s Son was going to die to pay the penalty for Abraham’s sin and that has always been the plan of salvation.

The corruption always comes in, always in the most subtle way it seems, when the truth of Christ is wed to other things. So you ask the average Protestant, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” Yes, yes. You ask the Roman Catholic, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” Of course. That is quote, ‘Christianity,’ broadly speaking. But the problem is, that won’t save you if you are not clear on what you mean to place your faith in Christ. It means there is nothing else, nothing more, nothing less than the finished work of Christ to pay the penalty in full for my sin.

Now the subtly comes as we talk about, you add other things. You can be saved by faith in Christ but you also have to be baptized or you are not saved. Well is that a major thing? And even we as Bible believing Christians think, well as long as they believe in Christ, His death, burial and resurrection, the other things are not that important. The book of Galatians is saying that they are important. It doesn’t get any stronger than the way Paul started out the book of Galatians when he said, “If anyone who adds to this message I have preached or takes away from it is cursed to hell. I don’t care if an angel came down from heaven and preached something different for the Gospel than I have preached, that angel is going to hell as well.” There is a clarity, a simplicity, a beauty and a finality to the Gospel.

Sometimes it may seem like, well, points are being labored here. The issue in writing to the Galatians is the Mosaic Law and you can understand how that confusion could be brought over. Israel was the nation that God chose for Himself. We have talked about that. He gave the Mosaic Law, if you will, as the constitution for that nation to govern all aspects of their life. It was for them. It was the only nation that He was dealing with. We have no instructions or information from God about how the Assyrians ought to conduct worship guiding their life. God has chosen the nation Israel and it was in that nation that He was revealing Himself and making Himself known. So He gave the Mosaic Law to govern the nation.

Now with the coming of Christ, and this is Paul’s argument that we have just been completing in chapter 3 and will continue into chapter 4, the Law served its purpose. It was to govern the nation Israel and their conduct to prepare them for the coming of Christ and be ready to respond to Him as their Messiah, their Savior.

The problem was Israel began very early, they transferred their faith into the rituals of the Law rather than in the God who gave the Law and so they thought that by going through the rituals that made them a righteous people. So now with the coming of Christ, certain Jews agreed that Jesus was the Messiah. The evidence was overwhelming even though most of the nation rejected Him. They agreed He was the Messiah. He came and died on the cross. He was raised from the dead but that is not enough. The Mosaic Law, they say, continues over and so we have a composite. You have faith in Christ as the Messiah who came and faith in the Mosaic Law and keeping its requirements. Paul said that is not the Gospel. You are not saved if that is what you trust, what you believe.

So he has been driving home the point because these Jewish teachers, we call them Judaizers made their way around wherever Paul went and preached, soon the Judaizers followed. Remember Paul would establish the Galatian churches on his first missionary journey then he moved on to other places. The Judaizers came in and said we are here to complete the Gospel for you. And pretty soon there is confusion. So we don’t have everything that is necessary in Christ? We must also be circumcised?

Well just like people today. You know you have to be baptized to be saved and if you believe in Christ that is great but if you haven’t been baptized, your sin hasn’t been washed away.

I had some teachers from one particular group come to my office and we spent a couple of sessions together on this very subject. Their position was you cannot be saved if you haven’t been baptized. Faith in Christ is absolutely essential, but that alone will not save you.

So it is the same kind of issue the Jews are arguing here. And they have some foundation. God gave the Mosaic Law. It was the Word of God. It was binding for the nation Israel. What they didn’t face up to was its limitation.

Alright, so we have looked through chapter 3 and in verse 23 “Before faith came” (in chapter 3) “we were kept in custody under the Law.” We were confined under the Law Paul writes for the nation Israel. That is the only one the Law applied to in the Old Testament. It was Law of Israel…..from the God of Israel. So they kept in custody. “Being shut up to the faith that was later to be revealed” didn’t mean they didn’t have faith. He has already dealt with that earlier in the chapter.

Abraham the father of the Jewish nation was saved by faith. The Law came 500 years after Abraham. So that didn’t change the way you are saved. It just served to confine Israel like rules and regulations do. We have rules and regulations that what? They confine our conduct, restrict us. So that is what the Law did for the nation Israel. “Therefore the Law” (verse 24) “becomes our tutor.”

We noted, that governor who had the full responsibility of the oversight of the child, his discipline. He wasn’t his teacher but he was the one responsible for his conduct and his immaturity. “To Christ,” that is where people get confused. It was “to Christ so that we might be justified by faith.”

Now again anyone who was saved under the Law in the Old Testament was saved by faith but the clarity of faith and the provision that God would make of faith comes with Christ. We noted that John’s Gospel chapter 1 “The Law came by Moses but grace and truth through Jesus Christ.” Well it was grace in the Old Testament. There was truth in the Old Testament but the fullness and clarity of that comes with Christ. Understand how blest we are. We have a clarity that Isaiah the prophet never had, that Daniel never had, that Moses couldn’t have in that sense with the fullness of the understanding of God’s provision but they still had to trust what God had revealed. They couldn’t explain it in detail.

God says He will save me. I trust Him and I manifest my trust in Him by following through on what He says to do. Following those guidelines was to prepare them. So they are prepared. I need a sacrifice for my sins. I need a priest who can offer that sacrifice which is acceptable to God but it couldn’t be an Aaronic Priesthood it couldn’t be an animal sacrifice but that focused them to prepare them for that. I am believing God will do to me, forgive me and cleanse me. I am trusting Him and I follow through on what He said that guided Israel.

“Now that faith has come,” verse 25, “we are no longer under a tutor.” That’s what the Law was to Israel, that overseer that governed their conduct, that controlled them, that confined them. That’s what it meant in verse 23, “Kept in custody.” They were closed in by the Law. Now they didn’t always keep the Law but they had that provision which the other nations didn’t have.

Alright, so verses 26 to 29 he made four points that we followed through. Verse 26 – there is only way of salvation for all people. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” What he is showing when he shows that the Jews weren’t saved by the Law and the Law has fulfilled its purpose for the nation Israel now that Christ has come. Why in the world would Gentiles like the churches at Galatia are, this is a Galatian region of the world, why would you Gentiles want to now put yourself under a Law that was given to Moses and was only operative until Christ came? So there is only one way of salvation and that is now the way the Jews have to be saved, by faith in Christ.

Verse 27, the baptism of the Spirit places you into the body of Christ. “You’ve all baptized into Christ. You have clothed yourselves with Christ.” See the point here is the Law isn’t adding or doing anything. When you placed your faith in Christ, I Corinthians 12:13 “By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” So we were made new creatures in Christ. We become spiritually identified with Him.

So verse 28, all believers belong to this one body by faith. So it is not a matter “for there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. You are all one in Christ.” And that salvation, the provision and its impact now is God is working. The nation Israel has been set aside as the focus of God’s program. They are under the judgment of God to this day and Jew and Gentile are bound together now by faith in Christ and it doesn’t matter whether you are a Jew or Gentile, whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are a slave or a master, none of those things. There is only one way of salvation for everyone and one result for everyone.

This is a change. In the Old Testament if a Gentile wanted to be saved really what did he do? He had to place his faith in the God of Israel. He becomes identified with the nation. It’s where God’s salvation was revealed, provided. I mean who is going to offer a sacrifice that God would accept? It had to be the Aaronic Priesthood, too bad for an Assyrian. You see the picture here but now in Christ none of these distinctions are operative.

So these Galatian Gentile believers should understand these Jews have to be saved the same way you do. They are telling you that you have to be saved the way they think you should be saved, keeping the Law. No. Those Jews have to understand it is only by faith in Christ and if you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s seed, descendants, heirs according to promise. Those who belong to Christ inherit the promise.

We noted the Abrahamic Covenant made provision for the salvation of Gentiles. Now that’s rare and exceptional in the Old Testament. We have those specific individuals who were Gentiles and were saved and play a key part sometimes in Israel’s history. But now anyone who has faith is a descendant of Abraham. That doesn’t mean the church and Gentiles have replaced Israel. Israel is now out of the picture. That is not the case because Jews who were going to inherit the promises given in the covenant to Abraham and it was a covenant given by promise, unconditional. Remember Abraham went to sleep and God promised here is what He would do and then he alone passed through the sacrifices to confirm the covenant, all while Abraham is asleep. All the promises are fulfilled to those who believe.

So the Jews, physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the only ones of those physical descendants who will inherit the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant are those who have the faith of Abraham and then there is provision in verse 8 of chapter 3 put that, the Gospel was there when part of the Abrahamic Covenant included “In you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” That salvation will extend out beyond just the physical descendants. Somewhere along the line, physical connections.

We can understand it. People were born into different families. Kids born into a Roman Catholic family, they have to go through the ritual, get those babies baptized and they raise up and they follow through the ritual in their home, they are saved of course. You know Protestant groups, Lutherans, different branches of Protestantism it can be a danger for our church. Kids here, born here, raised here, we parents want them to be saved.

Many years ago when we stopped baptizing kids it caused quite a stir. Why? If a young person has their faith in Christ alone they are saved. If they don’t they are not. Why would you die on the field of baptism? We as parents begin to often identify these rituals. There is a place for baptism. It is a matter of obedience. There are other things connected to obedience. We don’t want to put these into the context of salvation.

Alright, now we come into chapter 4. And you will note verse 29 said, “If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs of the promise,” the covenant given to Abraham and its promises. “Now I say as long as the heir,” so you see he is continuing. He talked about the heirs, then he is back and he is going to continue this same kind of argument he has had in the verses we just reviewed at the end of chapter 3. That’s why we took the time to walk through those. “Now I say, as long as the heir is a child he does not differ at all from a slave though he is owner of everything but is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.”

So we are going to clarify some of what he talked about in verses 23-29 of chapter 3 and drive them home. The Spirit of God is directing Paul here and it seems like, well boy, he is belaboring the details, but if we don’t have the details clear, fixed and correct in our mind, we begin to drift. So as long as the heir is a child then there were heirs of Abraham’s promise in the Old Testament.

Remember the state of childhood was the Mosaic Law. That is the picture that was up in verse 23. “Before faith came we were kept in custody under the Law.” Paul is there talking about himself as a Jew and the other Jews, those who were under the Law. Of course it is Israel because the Assyrians never were under the Mosaic Law and so on. “We were kept in custody under the Law.” Verse 24: “We had the Law as a tutor,” the one to control our conduct, to be the disciplinarian overseeing us. “As long as the heir is a child he does not differ at all from a slave though he is owner of everything.” That is the point. I mean it is simple. He has developed it at the last part of chapter 3. That child being raised in a home and in those days perhaps very wealthy parents, the father who has great resources, someday that child will inherit everything, but in that home there was a slave appointed as the governor of that child and he disciplined that child. He trained that child. He saw that child went to school so to speak, his lessons, was learning and didn’t get off the track. He would discipline the child if he did. So in that sense the child was no better than other servants in the house even though he is in verse 1, “the owner,” literally the lord of everything. Five, ten years down the road all the servants as slaves in that house are going to be under him. And he is going to be in that position but right now he is just like the lowly servants; when that paidago said “You will do your homework now. You will go to bed at this time.” He had to do it. So it would be just like the servants in the house.

“He is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.” The words here, ‘guardians and managers’ tie together with the tutor, the paidago up in chapter 3, verse 24. One commentator noted, “The paidagogos, that tutor was a harsh disciplinarian charged with supervising daily activities. The administrators and managers referred to here control the property and finances of the minor depriving him of all independent action” so that in reality his liberty is reduced to a slave.”

So maybe, potentially you would say there is – that little kid is going to be worth millions. They have trust funds set up for him and everything as we might talk today. You know what? He didn’t have access to anything. Those that had oversight over him determined what he could buy and not buy, what he could spend and not spend, that kind of thing.

So the application of this and obviously the picture is being under the Law is like being in that childhood state, the minor we would call him, underage whatever that age that would be set was.

So verse 3: “So also we, while we were children were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world,” so the application here. He talks about ‘we’ because the issue is those under the Law, these Judaizers come in and they had been under the Law and they were saying you continue under the Law. Paul could identify with that. He had lived under the Law. He had been raised under the Law. “So while we were children” and that was the state of the Jews before Christ came. They were children held in bondage up in verse 23 of chapter 3 “We were kept in custody,” confined. So we “were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.” Stoicheia, elemental things, basic principles foundational things. It was used in a different kind of context but it refers to those basic foundational things. Some refer to this like the A, B, C’s, the beginning things, the early things, the principles.

Down in verse 9: “Now that you have come to know God or rather be known by God how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things which you desire to be enslaved to all over again. You observe days and months and seasons and years.” You see why would you want to go back to those early childhood days living under that authority? And you can see the kinds of things he is talking about. The Law what? It required Israel to observe certain days, to have certain observances. Certain times of the year you had this season and that season and sacrifices and certain rituals associated with this. They were basic elemental things just like there are different sacrifices required for different kinds of purposes, for fellowship with God, for dealing with sin, these kind of things. Well they had special days. They had the Sabbath Day, they had to be set aside. They had other religious holidays that had to be observed but going back under that, there is no going back. You can’t decide, “well I will place my faith in God and I will only believe what happened up to this point.” You go back to that, you have rejected the fullness of the revelation God has given now. That is why Paul will say in verse 11: “I fear perhaps I have labored for you in vain. Maybe you never did understand and believe the truth.”

Come over to Colossians chapter 2. We have what we call the Colossian heresy and it is a mixture of bringing the Law in again. It is constant. You know there is something in us. We like something physical and tangible to grab on to in the religious realm. That is why you see they will build this cathedral kind of thing building. The Roman Catholics are great at this. They have this form and this ritual and there is just something that draws you in. I feel like I am worshipping. I feel the presence of God. So they build this majestic cathedral and it is awesome and it is awe inspiring and then we have priests that are dressed in certain ways and they wave incense and we gravitate toward this and even we, as Bible believing Christians, begin to identify the physical things and that’s what really makes it worship.

Some of you have come from a background like Lutheran and I have shared with you back in the days when we had many Lutherans coming in. A number of times different ones would say, “You know it was hard for me when we came to Indian Hills. We didn’t recite the Lord’s Prayer and I just didn’t feel like we worshipped.” And we get conditioned to think that is really a spiritual thing.

I’ve shared with you when I was a student and one of my professors said, “You know, your people will have their own ritual. Someday get up and preach your sermon first then sing the songs, then take an offering and see how many people get upset and say, “That is not the way we do worship.” And we do associate a form and there is nothing wrong with having form. There is something wrong if we identify that “That is what’s reality.” And the true spiritualness is you come in, you sit down, you have a song, have a prayer, we have another song and then you take the offering. If you change that you have just ruined my day. We didn’t have worship. We begin to associate ritual.

So here you have the Colossian heresy and they are mixing in all kinds of things. Verse 8 of chapter 2 of Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive.” See here is what happens again. You are being put under the authority and control of something “through philosophy, through deception according to the tradition of men. According to” (and here’s our word, ‘stoicheia,’ “the elementary principles of the world,” these basic things. And you fail to appreciate all the fullness of deity dwells in Christ and you are made full in Him. “We were dead in our trespasses and sin” (verse 13.) “He made us alive together with Christ, cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees which was hostile to us, nailed it to the cross.”

So down in verse 16: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink, respect to a festival, new moon or Sabbath Day.” Now you see some of these things pulled in with the Law, mixed with other things. These are things what, “are a mere shadow of things to come, the substance belongs to Christ.” Here now we are in the church at Colossae. We have moved from the region of Galatia. Now we are over in Asia Minor but the same problems the devil works to corrupt the Gospel, these kinds of physical things.

The Law served a purpose for Israel. It never was the purpose to provide salvation but for the people that He had chosen it was to govern their conduct until the Messiah would come, to keep them on track to mark them off.

Verse 18: “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize, delighting in self-abasement, the worship of angels.” This comes up a couple of times. We are told that the Law was given through the mediatorship of angels on Mt. Sinai. So angels became prominent, dominant figures often and then you have visions that they claim to have seen and they have other things mixed in here and the real problem is they are not holding fast to the head as part of the body. We lose our focus here and they try, the devil tries to turn our attention away from Christ and all we have in Him and His sufficiency and some of these other things seem good. Isn’t it good to discipline your body and somehow we get exercise programs that supposedly are tied into godliness. I am not against exercise. I even walked on a treadmill. I think it was yesterday. That covers the month of October cause that was close enough.

I am not against that but when you tie these things in to what godliness is, well you are going to begin to bring in some of this form of spirituality…..let’s go back and look at the early Monks and their asceticism and we say what? How they deprive themselves and I want to learn to deprive myself. It has nothing to do with providing godliness.

So verse 20: “If you have died with Christ through the elementary principles of the world,” these foundational beginning things, “why as if you were living in the world do you submit yourself to decrees like do not handle, do not taste, do not touch?” Some of these things are external things but somehow believers get drawn to these. In this thing where trying to create an atmosphere, darken things, have candles, all of this for what? We have lights, why have a candle? Well there is something about the atmosphere. We can create atmospheres for anything. That doesn’t make it worship. So we want to be careful we are focused on the person and work of Christ.

Come back to Galatians. There are other passages that refer to these elementary principles, Hebrews 5:12 being one of them but we won’t go there right now. These are foundational things and there were a lot of physical things. They were important for Israel, they governed their conduct. It doesn’t mean there are no physical things that we do. We get baptized as a testimony of our faith. We partake of the elements of communion. This is not part of our salvation. That is not part of our sanctification in that sense. It is a matter of obedience. We want to understand and be clear on what the Scripture says.

Back in Galatians chapter 4, verse 3: “While we were children we were in bondage to the elemental things of the world.” We were under the Law, the Jews were. Again, the Galatians never were. Most of them probably didn’t know much about the Law of Israel at all that governed Israel’s conduct but verse 4: “But when the fullness of the time came God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the Law so that He might redeem those who were under the Law so that we might receive the adoption as sons,” one of those great passages of Scripture. These two verses in a very tight compressed way present the foundation of our salvation, present the person and work of Christ in a tight condensed way and it makes clear here he had to come to save those who were under the Law. Now that doesn’t mean the Gentiles were under the Law but it means those who were under the Law, the Jews couldn’t be saved by keeping the Law. He had to come to those who were under the Law so He could save those who were under the Law. So being under the Law and trying to keep the Law never did save you. See what he says; “But when the fullness of time came.” Indicates that Christ’s coming was planned by the sovereign God and it was according to the date set by God.

So verse 2 said, “This child is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.” Now we have the Father in His sovereign plan. Here is the very time when we are going to move to maturity. Israel had lived under the Mosaic Law for 1,500 years. That was a time of childhood so to speak but “when the fullness of the time came,” the time appointed by the Father for full ‘son-ship’ to be displayed and entered into to. “God sent forth His Son.”

And one writer took the emphasis here and put it this way, “God no less sent His Son no less.” Here is God acting, sending His Son, so that those who believe in Him could enter into ‘son-ship’ and the fullness of what that meant and all the privileges and prerogatives that that meant. As we will see in verse 5: “Being placed as sons, having the Spirit” as he will go on in subsequent verses “indwelling them.” We are elevated now, those who believe in Christ and the Jews were, Paul being one of them.

So “when the fullness of time came God sent forth His Son.” I think this verse is some indication of the pre-existence of the Son. There are other verses that would be even more clear. It doesn’t have to prove the pre-existence of Christ before but it does indicate God sent forth His Son. But a passage like John’s Gospel, chapter 1: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and all things were created by Him and apart from Him nothing came into existence that exists.” Those kinds of passages talk about the pre-existence of Christ.

Come over to Philippians chapter 2. This is what we call the Kenosis passage because of the Greek word here for “He emptied Himself.” We are to follow the pattern of Christ. In verse 2 He is an example for us because we are to be conformed to Him and that is why we have been made new in Him. “If there is any consolation in Christ, any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Remember we have been made members of one body.

The sadness of the body tears itself apart, fighting against itself. Something is wrong. It is the intention of God that we manifest the character of Christ and manifest that we are “of the same mind, have the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.” You are not focused on yourself. You are focused on others. “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself.” That is why we call this the Kenosis passage. I was reading some material on it. “Taking the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men. Found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself, became obedient to the point of death even death on the cross” and God exalted Him.

So that pre-existence of Christ is made clear many times in Scripture and this passage would fit that back in Galatians 4 when it says “God sent forth His Son.” We know that meant His Son who was in His presence in glory, enthroned in glory. Remember Isaiah 6, “I saw the Lord lofty and exalted sitting on His throne. The train of His robe filled the temple” and so on. Then in John chapter 12 the Spirit of God directs John in writing the person that Isaiah saw was the pre-incarnate Christ.

So here, “God sent forth His Son Who emptied Himself.” He didn’t cease to be God because God, by definition, can’t cease to be but He set aside as we say the independent use of those attributes to function fully as a man without ceasing to be fully God. “In Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form” we have in Colossians.

What an amazing truth, the eternal “God sent forth His Son born of a woman.” I don’t think this is talking about the virgin birth. It is just talking about the reality of His humanity. Job chapter 14 verse 1 says, “Man, who is born of woman is short lived and full of turmoil.” And Matthew 11:11 concerning John the Baptist Jesus said, “Among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist.” So being born of a woman emphasizes humanity. Humans are born of a woman in spite of our terminology now where we say, “we are pregnant” and “we are going to give birth.” We men are pleased that that is all carried out by the woman’s side of the relationship.

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, fully completely human, a man. “Born under the Law.” He was not only a man, He was a Jewish man. We have His lineage given in Matthew and again in Luke both for both sides of the line as parentage. He is a descendant of Abraham. He had to be. He is a Jewish man who is the Jewish Messiah so He was born under the authority of the Law. And keep that in mind.

You know we break our Bible up into the New Testament and Old Testament, the New Covenant, the Old Covenant but the Law was still in force through the Gospels. I read commentators and they take it that the Gospel, we are still under the Law. The Law is in force until Jesus dies and is raised from the dead. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John record the life of Christ. He is a man who was born under the Law, lived under the Law, obeyed the Law. So that doesn’t mean, oh therefore if we want to be like Christ we should try to keep the Mosaic Law. No. Because in His humanity He was born a Jewish man under the Jewish Law that was in force but with His death and resurrection the Law would have served its purpose. The Law was to prepare Israel for the coming of the One who would be their Messiah as we have talked about repeatedly.

Why did Christ come? Why was He born under the Law? “So that He might redeem those who were under the Law.” We move as has been observed from Christology to Soteriology, from the study of the person of Christ to His work, His person. “God sent forth His Son born of a woman, born under the Law.” That tells you something. He is deity. If you understand in this, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.” That would be His humanity and He is under the Law. Now why did this happen? “That He might redeem those who were under the Law,” redemption and to establish a new relationship that we “might receive adoption as sons.”

Redemption is setting free by paying the price. Again study these words, a couple of different words used for redemption here; to set free by paying the price. That is what He did. He paid the price “that He might redeem those who were under the Law.”

Back up to chapter 3, verse 13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law having become a curse for us.” And the Law said, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” His crucifixion was evidence He was bearing the curse that was there under the Law because verse 12 the Law required perfection of practice and everybody failed. No one could keep the Law. The Law never was given as a way of salvation.

So the Jews, under the Law, could never have been saved by keeping the Law. That is why they are offering repeated sacrifices. They are reminded continually, you are a sinner. You are a sinner. You need a sacrifice. That is what the Law was doing, preparing them. That animal could never take their place. It could be a picture to remind them of their desperate condition and rely just on God’s grace and promise to forgive if they will believe and trust Him.

So He came “to redeem those who were under the Law.” That doesn’t mean salvation wasn’t provided for Gentiles but the whole argument here, remember, is the Law necessary for salvation and sanctification? Well no. Christ had to come so He could redeem those who were under the Law, meaning what? Those who had the Law couldn’t be saved by the Law. So where do we get this foolishness that now Gentiles need to go under the Law that could never save a Jew? Christ had to come and save the Jews who were under the curse of the Law. So there is no future in trying to keep the Law. It never could save anyone. “That He might redeem those who were under the Law.” That was the Jews so it should be obvious to these Gentile Galatians. If that was the Jewish condition, why would I listen to these Judaizers saying I have to go back under the Law? I am not going back under that Law. You couldn’t get any benefit for salvation under that Law. It didn’t save you. Your Messiah had to come, be born under the Law so He could save you who are under the Law.

The Law served a purpose for Israel. It is not needed for Gentiles. Their salvation is by faith in Christ. “That we might receive the adoption as sons.” Here is the culmination. Even the Jews now are going to be moved from guardianship, being underage to full sonship. That’s what it did for Israel. And for the Gentiles who believed they come right in to that position because remember in verse 26 of chapter 3 down through the end of the chapter what has happened? When you believe in Christ you are all sons of God through faith in Christ. So Christ came to redeem the Jews who were under the Law because remember He is the Jewish Messiah and the “Gospel is the power of God for all who believe. To the Jew first and then to the Greek” and the non-Jew. So here, “That we might receive the adoption as sons.” That is when you are placed with the full rights of sonship. This has been God’s eternal plan.

Turn over just after the book of Galatians, to the book of Ephesians chapter 1. This is one of Paul’s long sentences here. Verse 3 pronounces blessing. We give blessing and honor to God “Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.” There was the plan of God that we would be placed as sons with the full rights of sonship in Christ. That was the eternal plan. That was the plan according to verse 4 “before the foundation of the world.”

So again, the Law, God gave His promise to Abraham and then He gave the Law as a time to govern Israel until the time, to prepare them and so on but God’s eternal plan – to come to full sonship. We have that now. Before as a minor what? They came to God. Go, bring the right sacrifice, come to the priest. Now we don’t need that system. You come what? Right before the Father. You have the full rights of sonship. God has provided the way through His Son. Christ now has provided fullness so we come before the throne of grace. We don’t have to go to a priest and ask him to pray for us and then we have another higher priest who could have more authority. We just go right directly to the throne. Why? I have the full rights of sonship. He is my Father. Why do we want to go back under these rituals that are just connected to basic things and are associated with this world? The Law served a purpose for Israel. There is nothing wrong with the Law. Romans 7 makes that clear but it never was a way of salvation because we are guilty before we get started. It is filled with sacrifices because the law says we won’t keep it even though we should keep it but Christ came.

So the reminder and he is going to go on with where we will pick up. In verse 6 we have the Holy Spirit. Verse 7 we have the full rights of sonship as heirs in Christ. So we have it all. We have everything in Christ. Now that we are going, maturing – it doesn’t mean that we are done but we realize we have been made complete in Christ.

Back to Colossians, “In Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete,” full. All the fullness of deity dwells in Him and in Him we have made full. That doesn’t mean we have been made deity but we have everything God provides for us in Christ. So we hold on to this.

We are intolerant of those who add, “Well, do we have to be so narrow.” We have to be just as narrow as the Word of God because everything hinges on that. Otherwise what do we have? We have man creating his own way of salvation. Well he includes Christ, includes the death and resurrection of Christ. That is not enough to include it. It has to be everything and we have to realize, understand and believe that in Christ our salvation is complete. We are completely redeemed. The price has been fully paid to set us free. We have been cleansed. Aren’t you thankful for that?

You haven’t lived a day of your life without sinning in one way or another but the blood of His Son, I John, “keeps on cleansing us from all sin.” The beauty of all we have in Christ who is seated at the right hand and He makes intercession for us so that our access to God is sure and the on-going work of the salvation that we have in Christ is sure as well.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the wonder of our salvation. Lord we study the letter to the Galatians and we wonder how could they get so confused? Why would they allow this kind of teaching? Yet we realize in our own lives and walk we stumble, we fail to appreciate the fullness and completeness and finality of what we have in Christ. Lord we take away from the beauty and completeness of His work. We fail to appreciate all that He has done that has finished the work that we so desperately needed and easy for us to add things or take away things. Lord thank You for Your Word, Your patience as You walk us through the details to make it clear so we can have clarity in our thinking and fullness of our trust in You and what You have done for us in Christ. Bless us as we serve You in the days of the week ahead of us we pray in Christ’s name, amen.