Galatians 4:4-5 (NASB)
“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, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
Today is the first Sunday of Advent
What is Advent? Advent means arrival. But the season of Advent is all pointing toward an arrival, and, the arrival that we’re talking about is arrival of the day chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ!
And, boy, do we love celebrating the birth of Christ, or … at least … we love celebrating the holiday called Christmas.
But, how important was the actual birth date of Christ? In the time of Christ a date of birth was relatively unimportant. It was only used for tracking your age. They did not hold birthday parties. They did not buy birthday cards filled with mockery when you turned 40 or 50. You didn’t receive gifts or cakes or balloons on your birthday.
It was a very sad time … :-(
According to the Jewish calendar Jesus was born in the year 3758 which on our calendar would have been 3 or 4 BC. And, on the Gregorian calendar which we use, this year, 2012 would be 5773.
But, back to the question of how important was the actual birth date of Christ, or, how important to our eternal destinies was the actual birth of Christ?
In short, it was critical and non-critical! The fact that Jesus came to earth as a human is ultimately critical while the actual date itself is really only fun to think about.
So, what does the Bible itself say about the birth of Christ?
In Matthew chapter 1 the narrative of the birth of Christ is only eight verses long.
Mark doesn’t mention the birth at all.
Luke provides the most extensive account and even with the extra side stories about the birth of John the Baptist the account is covered in less than two chapters.
And, John doesn’t cover the account of the birth at all but jumps right into the majesty of the incarnation.
When doing a quick search of New Testament scriptures that are not directly related to the narratives of the birth I only found two other verses addressing the birth of Christ.
In John 18:37 when Jesus was having a private conversation with Pilate during His trial before His crucifixion
“Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.’”
And, then in Galatians 4:4-5 (NASB), our Scripture for today it says,
“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, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
However, when the amount of text about the birth of Christ is compared to the amount of text regarding the teachings, death and resurrection of Christ the difference is phenomenal! Still, the birth made the ultimate sacrifice of Christ on the cross possible. So, the two are both necessary and there are distinctive elements of the birth that are critical to our salvation.
When we take a look at the first two phrases of Galatians 4:4 it says:
“But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son …”
God did not use some haphazard time to send Jesus. He chose a time when a powerful empire ruled all of the Mediterranean area, the Roman government had built roads throughout the empire and a common form of Greek was spoken everywhere within the empire as a first or second language.
Not only that, but the fullness of time referred to the fulfillment of prophecies.
Michael Stark states in his sermon called “The Fullness of Time” -
“Daniel had clearly prophesied that the exact time of Messiah’s advent could be calculated from the issuing of the Persian decree to rebuild Jerusalem [DANIEL 9:25]. The Messiah was to come during the era of the fourth Gentile empire [DANIEL 2:31 45; 7:1 14]. First, Babylon, then Persia, followed by Greece and finally, Rome, had successively ruled over little Israel. The Magi recognized the significance of the era in which they lived, understanding that “the fullness of time had come,” but Jewish religious leaders were ignorant of those same times.”
The next phrases we want to look at is, “God sent forth His Son, born of a Woman …”
As you can see, the phrase, “God sent forth His Son” is important in both concepts. God was waiting for the fullness of time to send forth His Son and He sent forth His Son to be born of a woman.
There had been appearances of Christ in human form in the Old Testament but never born of a woman. Many scholars believe, for instance, that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the God the Son as well as was the fourth Man in the fire in the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego which is found in the beginning chapters of the Book of Daniel.
But, never had He appeared as the human born child of a woman! This, my friends, is the great incarnation! Here we see the miracle of the impossibility! 1 + 1 = 1! Jesus the Messiah, fully God and fully human, the God-man!
The manual interprets this great truth of Scripture in this way,
“We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father; that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man.”
Just look at these two verses from the Gospel of John
John 1:1, 14
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
This is THE amazing truth of Christmas, the incarnation!
Dear friends, as we look toward Christmas, as we wait for the arrival of Christmas, this is the grand prize of all gifts that we should be seeking; the fullness of the knowledge that God Himself came to us. God the Son set aside His heavenly majesty so that we might have eternal life!
Before Pastor Karenlee and I were in the ministry we used to gather with my family for Christmas Eve and usually my older brother Andy who is also a pastor would read the account of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke. Once that was completed the gift distribution and present opening would begin and it seemed as if our thoughts of the amazing incarnation of God the Son into humanity just vaporized.
Just imagine with me for a minute; what if we had the birth of Christ but not the record of His life? What if we had the birth but not the death? What if we had the birth but not the resurrection? Where would we be then?
That is why celebrating the birth of Christ is awesome and yet not complete.
If God the Son had come to earth in a human form but lived the life of a hermit, where would be the benefit? We would have never seen the perfect life. We would have never heard the words of truth. We would have never heard the beaconing call of the Savior saying, “Come unto Me all you who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” We would have never heard that God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.
If God the Son had come to earth in a human form and had not given His life to pay the penalty for our sin we would all be hopelessly lost for all of eternity. He would never have been pierced for our transgressions. He would never have been crushed for our iniquities. And, the punishment that would have brought us peace would never have been satisfied.
If God the Son had come to earth in a human form and had given His life for us but had never been resurrected bodily from the dead all hope would be lost and we Christians would be the most miserable of all humanity.
If God the Son had come to earth in human form and had given His life for us and had risen bodily from the dead but had not sent the Holy Spirit we would have had no one to draw us to Christ and point us to the way of salvation.
You see, the birth is awesome and worth celebrating. The incarnation is miraculous and should humble us, but, it’s just the beginning! What a plan! What an awesome plan put in place from the foundation of the world.
As we look toward Christmas through this Advent season there is only one gift that is really worth pondering. There is only one gift that is worthy of being a central focus in our hearts and minds. There is only one gift that will bring sense and peace and blessedness to a broken and hurting life and that is the gift of salvation that only comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. God the Son, who became human and made His dwelling among us.
If you have not yet come to know Christ as your Savior, you can do so right now. There’s no need to wait until Christmas Day or Resurrection Sunday!
Ask God to help you to turn away from your sin, ask for forgiveness and trust God for salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If you have already come to know Christ as your Savior please consider making this Advent season a time of reflection on your life. Are you living a life pleasing to God, is He your prime desire, do you love Him with all of your heart and soul and mind, is that love demonstrating itself by an outpouring of love for others?
Don’t settle for the status quo. Don’t settle for being a lukewarm Christian which is really no Christian at all.
Ask the Lord to give you a hunger and thirst for Him and His great gift of a life of harmony with Him through the power of the Holy Spirit.
