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Sermon preached on Galatians 4:4-7 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Christmas Eve Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 12/24/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
While this is not the most traditional of Christmas passages, it indeed has a rich message for us this Christmas Eve. It even sets up the climactic moment of Christ’s birth by telling us when it happened. It says it happened, “When the fullness of time had come.” Children are born every day, but the birth of Jesus was no everyday type of occurrence. God had before the foundations of the world foreordained that one specific day Jesus would be born into this world. God had picked just the right time to initiate his divine rescue plan for his chosen people. We can appreciate his timing. From a world scene, Jesus came into this world at the time of Pax Romana. There was a great measure of peace. Roman roads allowed for easier travel than before. The Greek language was in widespread use among many people groups. These things would help the gospel message to spread quickly. Similarly, we can think of how Jewish synagogues had become widespread in the aftermath of Israelite dispersion, which also surely aided the spread of Christianity. We can also think of how God by that time already had Israel as a nation picture God’s bigger plan of redemption in its history. God made promises to Israel, redeemed them out of Egyptian bondage, brought them into the land, blessed them there, but then expelled them from the land in their rebellion. But God promised to restore them and bring them back to the land. All that had happened, and it was a typological picture of God’s ultimate plan of redemption for humanity. Jesus came when Israel had completed that story, and now it was time for the typology to give way to the reality that had been pre-figured. So, in so many ways, Jesus was born into this world at just the right time, for this climactic moment in human history and in God’s plan of redemption.
So, then we read here in verse 4 that God sent forth his Son. Please marvel with me at those simple words. God has a Son. There is God the Father, and there is God the Son. Of course, there is also God the Holy Spirit, and he is mentioned in verse 6. Three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. But here in verse 4 we are drawn specifically to consider the Father and the Son. This has a marvelous truth as we think of Jesus’ birth this evening. Before Jesus was born, before he was ever a human baby, Jesus eternally existed as the Son of God. These words that “God sent forth his Son” teach us of the divine nature and preexistence of the Son. As John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Likewise, Colossians 1 says that the Son of God was before all things, for he created all things. Or remember how Jesus was recorded praying in John 17:5, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” This is why the Son of God had to be sent into this world as verse 4 says. He came from his glory in the heavens as the Son of God, to be manifested in this world here on earth.
Yet, Paul goes on in verse 4 to explain how the Son came to this earth. Paul says, he was born of woman. To tell us that he was born of woman explains that the Son of God took on a human nature when he was conceived by the Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was ultimately born in Bethlehem on that Christmas night. This is what makes Jesus’ coming to earth so unique when it finally happened in that fullness of time. Prior to that, God had previously manifested himself on earth at different times and in different ways. There were various theophanies, but never this incarnation where the Son of Man permanently took on a human nature. The result is what we call the God-man. We celebrate the glorious reality that the Eternal Son of God became man, and after that happened, he was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.
Now when Paul tells us that Jesus was born of a woman, I believe Paul is not only telling us about how Jesus came to be on this earth. I believe he is also telling us something of his purpose for coming. We confess that Jesus is the promised redeemer. Remember when God first gave such a promise. It was back in Genesis 3:15 with that first gospel promise when God spoke of how one day there would come one born of a woman who would destroy the devil. It was the devil who deceived and tempted the first woman that led to man’s fall into sin. But since God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, the world had been waiting for the promised Seed of the Woman to do battle with the Seed of the Serpent. Indeed, as 1 Jn. 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” That promised savior – that Messiah — came into this world when Jesus was born.
Paul tells us yet further about Jesus’ purpose in coming when he adds in verse 4 that Jesus was also born under the law, having especially in mind the Mosaic Covenant. The word “under” there is important, because it speaks of being subject to the law and its governance. To be under the law, as such, is to be a servant or a slave of the law. Yet, from eternity, Jesus as the Son of God was not under the law, strictly speaking, in that sense. That is not to say that the Son of God didn’t himself always express the righteousness demanded in the law, for indeed he did. But the Son of God from eternity was not under the law as a covenant that he had to keep in order to either warrant blessing or cursing. Rather, as the divine Son of God, he was the lawgiver and the master, not the subject of the laws’ demands. For example, Matthew 17 describes the Jews asking Peter if Jesus paid the temple tax as the law required. Jesus pointed out to Peter that kings tax their subjects, not their sons. In other words, Jesus was telling Peter that, because he was the Son of God, he was not from the standpoint of his divinity required to pay that tax. Yet, Jesus then proceeded to pay the tax.
But you see, that is the point. Jesus was born into this world and willingly subjected himself to all the requirements of the Mosaic Covenant. He was the Son but made himself a servant or a slave to the law. That is why he paid the temple tax required by the law, because he had subjected himself to the law by being born under the law. That is why he was circumcised after his birth, and also baptized later, though he had no uncleanness to be removed as symbolized. He did it to fulfill all righteousness. He faithfully obeyed as a human all of the law of God. He is the only human every to have done that perfectly. This he did, so we could be saved. He kept the law on our behalf, so that all who believe on Jesus would have his righteousness accounted to them. If you believe on Jesus, it’s like you kept the law the way he did. He earned the blessings of law-keeping on behalf of all his people who would trust in him.
Similarly, Jesus also bore the curse of the law on our behalf. Though, he himself was perfect under the law, Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. Paul made that point earlier in Galatians 3:13, saying, “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’.” The law said that being hanged to death was a divine curse for breaking the law. But Jesus never broke the law. But we, his people, did. For all who would put their faith in him, Jesus was born under the law so he could endure the law’s curse in your place. So you could be saved.
Or to put it another way, so we could be redeemed from the law. That’s the language of verse 5, that he was born of a woman and born under the law in order to redeem us from the law. The language of redeem is the language of being set free, of being liberated. Before someone is redeemed, they are a slave. But when they are redeemed, they are set free. With regards to the law, before we were redeemed the law condemned us. It said that we didn’t measure up. It said our works would not justify us before God. But Jesus liberated us from that enslavement. By enduring the law’s curse for us, we are no longer under condemnation. By fulfilling all the law’s righteous demands for us, we are now deemed to be righteous before God. The law no longer has a hold on us in such matters.
This, of course, does not mean that Jesus liberated us from the law so we could keep living sinfully. Rather, now we are free to be able to pursue the righteousness taught in the law as sons not slaves. That’s what Paul goes on to say here in verse 5, that Jesus did all this so that we might receive adoption as sons. In Christ, we are not just liberated from the law, we are now received as sons of God. Sons of God love the righteous requirements of law and keep them. Let me note, that since we are adopted, we know by nature, we do not yet love the law perfectly as we ought. And yet that is why verse 6 says that God has now sent forth the Spirit of the Son to come into our hearts. Christ’s Spirit is beginning to fashion our hearts to be true to our adoption as Sons. The Spirit is working inside us to conform us to the image of the Son of God, that we would be righteous and holy.
So then, let us appreciate the wonderful picture our passage has given us in terms of Jesus being born into this world, and how that relates to us. It’s basically this. The Son of God came down from heaven to earth to become a slave under the law. He did this so we on earth who were slaves under the law could become sons of God and ultimately go to heaven. Jesus went as the Son to become a slave, so we slaves could become sons with Him. Praise be to God!
Let me conclude our message with an application from verse 6. There it speaks of God sending forth the Spirit of the Son into our hearts. That language of sending forth is the same used in verse 4 about God sending forth the Son into this world. In other words, these verses parallel each other. God’s sending of Jesus into the world is paralleled here with God’s sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts. They have a parallel significance. Take that application to heart. Christmas needs to not only be something historical fact you celebrate, but also something personal. If you celebrate the historical fact of Jesus’ birth, but haven’t yet celebrated his Spirit coming into your heart, then your celebration of Christmas is in vain. Don’t let another Christmas go by without having his Spirit come into your heart. Call upon him today in faith to be your redeemer, and his Spirit will come into your heart. Then you will know what Christmas is truly all about.
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
