Galatians 4:4-5 - Homiletics

The fulness of time with its blessings.

This corresponds with "the time appointed of the father." The nonage of the Church was past. The world had arrived at mature age. A new dispensation was at hand.

I. THE FITNESS OF THE TIME . The new dispensation was no abrupt phenomenon, for it came at the fittest time in the world's history.

1 . When all the prophecies of the Old Testament centred in Jesus Christ. When the whole economy of type had done its work in preparing a certain circle of ideas in which Christ's person and work would be thoroughly understood; when the Law had worked out its educational purpose.

2 . When a fair trial had been given to all other schemes of life. Not only art and education, culture and civilization, but Divine Law itself, had done their utmost for man, yet notwithstanding the knowledge of the true God was almost lost among the heathen, and true religion had almost died out among the Jews. The necessity of a new provision was thus demonstrated.

3 . It was an age of peace , in which the world had a breathing-space for thinking of higher things, in which the communications of the Roman empire facilitated the progress of the gospel, and in which the Greek language, being all but universal, was ready to become the vehicle of the new revelation. Thus the fulness of time was the turning-point of the world's history, in which Jesus Christ became its true Centre. Thus, as Schaff says, the way for Christianity was prepared by the Jewish religion, by Grecian culture, by Roman conquest; by the vainly attempted amalgamation of Jewish and heathen thought; by the exposed impotence of natural civilization, philosophy, art, political power; by the decay of old religions; by the universal distraction and hopeless misery of the age; and by the yearning of souls after the unknown God.

II. THE MISSION OF THE SON . "God sent forth his Son." These words imply the pre-existence as well as the Divine nature of Christ. The Son existed as a Divine Person with God before he came to be made of a woman. He was the eternal Son of God, as God the Father is the eternal Father. They are two distinct Persons, else the one could not send the other. He came, not without a commission, for the Father sent him; and he came to do the Father's will, and became "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." His mission was not the ransom, but the presupposition of the ransom, the possession of the Divine nature giving it an infinite value.

III. THE TRUE HUMANITY OF THE SON . "Made of a woman." This language implies the possession of a higher nature; for if the Son possessed no other than mere humanity, where would have been the necessity of saying that he was "made of a woman"? The phrase points significantly to his supernatural conception, for there is an exclusion of human fatherhood. The apostle teaches his true humanity. It is a significant fact that Mary is here called simply, not "virgin," or "mother of God," but "woman;" just as John in the phrase, "the Word became flesh," ignores the virgin-mother. There is nothing in Scripture to sanction the Mariolatry of the Church of Rome. The incarnation of the Lord is here represented as the deed of God the Father, as it is elsewhere spoken of as the Redeemer's own act ( 2 Corinthians 8:9 ). Without his sharing in our humanity he could possess neither the natural nor the legal union with his people which is presupposed in his representative character. Thus he becomes the second Man of the human race, or the last Adam.

IV. HIS PLACE UNDER LAW FOR MAN . "Made under the Law." This clause affirms that he was made under the Law for the sake of those under Law, and therefore not from any personal obligation of his own. We were born under Law as creatures; he took his place under Law for the ends of suretyship. The phrase does not signify merely that he was born a Jew. His subjection to the Law, as well as his mission, was in order to our redemption; the one was the way to the other, as appears from the particle which connects the last clause of the fourth verse with the first clause of the fifth. Both Jews and Gentiles were under Law as the condition of lifo by the fact of birth ( Romans 2:14 ; Romans 3:9 ). The meaning of the phrase is that he placed himself under Law with a view to that meritorious obedience by which we are accounted righteous ( Romans 5:19 ). Thus he fulfilled all the claims of the Law for us, both as to precept and penalty.

V. THE DESIGN OF THE MISSION OF THE SON . "To redeem them that were under the Law." His object was to redeem both Jews and Gentiles from the curse of the Law, and from subjection to it. He was visited with the penal consequences of sin, with its curse and wages ( Galatians 3:13 ), from the day he entered into humanity by incarnation. The deliverance wrought for us was the result of purchase. Thus we are entitled to regard the cross of Christ as the fulfilment of the Law, the expiation of sin, the ransom of the Church, the sacrificial blood which brings us near to God in worship.

VI. THE ULTIMATE RESULT OF THE REDEMPTION . "That we should receive the adoption of sons." This does not mean sonship, but son-position. Believers were even in Old Testament times true sons of God, but they were treated as servants. [Now they emerge into the true condition of sons. The adoption has three foundations. It is by free sovereign grace; for "we are predestinated to the adoption of children" ( Ephesians 1:6 ). It is by incarnation, according to the text; it is by resurrection. Jesus, the Son, is the Form, the Fountain-head, the Fulness from which they all proceed. We are chosen to be sons in him who is the eternal Son; we are regenerated by his Spirit; the basis and example of the work of sanctification is the Son of God, born into our nature by the same Spirit; and "the resurrection of the just," which the apostle himself strives to attain ( Philippians 3:11 ), and which is limited to the "sons of God" ( Luke 20:36 ), has its type in Jesus, the First-begotten from the dead.