(Gal 4:4 NKJV) But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Last time we learned that the statement, "God sent forth His Son," pointed to the deity of Christ—meaning that Jesus is fully God. We learned that Jesus is not just the Son of God, He is God, the Son.
Jesus possesses all the unique characteristics of God. Quoting from Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23 says, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." According to both of these verses, Jesus was "God with us" when He walked upon this earth.
Jesus wasn't merely "God's chosen one with us" or “God’s representative with us”…
* I Timothy 3:16 states, "God was manifest in the flesh."
* John 1:14 tells us that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..."
The Bible presents Jesus Christ as much more than a great prophet and teacher. God's Word presents Jesus Christ as God incarnate.
* Zechariah 12:10 tells us that God said that He, Himself would be "pierced" by sinners and looked upon. Revelation 1:7 states that Jesus Christ Himself fulfilled this prophecy!
God's Word presents Jesus Christ as God incarnate.
This leads us to the next statement Paul makes in Galatians 4:4:“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law…”
The Son of God was “born of a woman”. Paul points his readers to the humanity of Jesus Christ--meaning Jesus was not only fully God but also fully man.
Jesus was “born of a woman.” Paul is alluding to the truth that Jesus was born by way of the virgin birth. The virgin birth is a reference to the biblical teaching that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary without a human father, by the miraculous action of God.
The word “virgin” is used of Mary, the mother of Jesus in Matthew 1:23 and Luke 1:27. From these passages comes the doctrine of the virgin birth.
Mary was a young woman betrothed (engaged) to Joseph.
Matthew gave the account from the viewpoint of Joseph. He was betrothed to Mary. Before they were married, she was discovered to be pregnant. Joseph planned to divorce her without public scandal. Only then did God reveal to Joseph that the child was conceived through the Holy Spirit.
Luke gave the events from the viewpoint of Mary. An angel appeared to her while she was still a virgin betrothed to Joseph. It was revealed to her that she would bear a son who would be called “the Son of the Highest” (Luke 1:32).
It is significant that in both the Matthew and Luke accounts the Holy Spirit leaves no room for doubt as to whether or not there is a human involved in the conception or "fathering" of Jesus:
* In the Matthew account Joseph says, "I'm not the man!"
* In the Luke account Mary says to the angel, "How can this be, since I'm still a virgin?"
The amazing thing is that God predicts thousands of years earlier that this kind of thing would happen. In Genesis 3:15 we find the words, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Notice the words, "her Seed" in verse 15. In these words there is a unique allusion to the virgin birth. Biology teaches that in conception, the seed or sperm is delivered by the man; but in the miraculous conception of the Messiah, the seed was the woman's!
Galatians 4:4 tells us that the Messiah, God the Son, would be “born of a woman.” Paul is not stating the obvious; he is alluding to the promise in Genesis 3:15 and to Mary being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and getting pregnant without the seed of a man.
Why the virgin birth?
The virgin conception of Christ guarantees the perfect union of two natures in one Person. This person is Jesus, the God-Man (cf. Isa. 7:14; 9:6, 7).
The Holy Spirit miraculously conceived this “body” in the womb of Mary, who had never known a man, and the result was the incarnation…God in the flesh, with sinless blood.
That is why I Peter 1:19 declares that we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Belief in the virgin birth is a central doctrine of Christian thought. The entire program of redemption and salvation stands or falls upon the foundation of the virgin birth.
The essence of this wonderful truth is magnified in the words of a Christmas carol that many are familiar with:
Christ, by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of the virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel,
Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King.
Dr. John MacArthur says,
"The virgin birth is an essential doctrine, for if Jesus had a human father, then the Bible is untrustworthy, because the Bible claims He did not have one…”
“His virgin birth, His substitutionary death, His bodily resurrection, and His Second Coming are a package of deity. You cannot isolate those truths, accepting only one and leaving the rest, or accepting them all but one. You must either believe all of those realities that are the manifestation of His deity or you are guilty of being inconsistent, because those truths are inseparably interrelated."
“There is no birth ever in the history of humanity that is as singularly spectacular as the birth of Jesus Christ. And any rejection of Christ's supernatural origin leaves His supernatural life, death, and resurrection inexplicable. You must have it all, or none of it makes sense. And if Jesus wasn't virgin born, then the claim that He can save is highly questionable.”
The Bible teaches that Christ, before coming to earth, was in the form of God (Philippians 2:6). The word form is the Greek word morphe which means “shape” or “nature.” The Bible in John 4:24 also reports that God is spirit. This means that God the Son had to become embodied because God had decreed in the councils of eternity that the blood . . . makes an atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11).
In the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed to provide a covering for sin. But animal blood was a temporary and inadequate covering that looked toward the day when Jesus would shed His own blood to cleanse away sin.
(Heb 9:12 NKJV) Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
This eternal offering had to be a sacrifice of blood. Could it have been the blood of a mere man? No. Why? Because man's blood was poisoned through Adam's sin (Romans 5:12).
(Rom 5:12 NKJV) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned;
Therefore, since animal blood was inadequate and man's blood was tainted, the only solution was that a member of the Godhead should take a body containing blood.
Now if God the Son were to come into the world the natural way, the seed of a man deposited into the womb of a woman, the tainted blood would then be passed on to the newborn Christ. So God planned and prepared a body for His Son:
(Heb 10:5 NKJV) Therefore, when He (Jesus) came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me.
The Holy Spirit miraculously conceived this “body” in the womb of the virgin, and the result was the incarnation -God in the flesh, with sinless blood. That is why I Peter 1:19 declares that we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Belief in the virgin birth is a central doctrine of Christian thought. There was no human father. Jesus was the Child of God. And, rather than coming to earth in the fullness of the glory of God, He came as a baby and grew up as a man who submitted all that He was to God the Father.
It was as a man that He was nailed to a Roman cross and suffered and died for our sins. It was as a man that He arose bodily from the grave and as Luke says in Acts 1, “presenting Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs.”
Back to our text…But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law…
This is telling us that Jesus Christ was reared in conformity to the Mosaic Law. Jesus was reared by a family that observed the law of God.
Jesus was circumcised according to the Law: “And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called JESUS, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” (Luke 2:21 NKJV)
After giving birth to Jesus, Mary was purified according to the Law
(Luke 2:22 NKJV) Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
(Luke 2:23 NKJV) (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the LORD"),
(Luke 2:24 NKJV) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, "A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
Why would there be concern that Jesus was born under the Law? The statement "Born under the Law" shows the humanity of Jesus.
In the Bible we find both the giving of the Law of God through Moses and we also find in the New Testament the reason the Law was given.
Romans 7:7-8 - “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet: but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from the law sin is dead.”
Galatians 3:24 – “So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
The Law accuses us and terrifies. It subjects to sin, death, and the wrath of God; and it condemns with its judgment.
The reformer Martin Luther said, “The Law did everything to Jesus that it did to us. It accused us and terrified us. It subjected us to sin, death, and the wrath of God; and it condemned us with its judgment . . . . It accused Him of blasphemy and sedition; it found Him guilty in the sight of God of all the sins of the entire world; finally it so saddened and frightened Him that He sweat blood, Luke 22:44; and eventually it sentenced Him to death, even death on a cross, Philippians 2:8.”
This is why Jesus was born under the law: “to redeem those who were under the law…”
While Jesus was “born under the law” and subjected to it, He never transgressed or broke any of the Old Testament laws or commandments.
(Isa 53:9 NKJV) And they made His grave with the wicked; But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
(Heb 4:15 NKJV) For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
(1 John 3:5 NKJV) And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
Jesus was “born under the law” - He was reared in conformity to the Mosaic Law. He kept the law in every point, thus qualifying to be God’s sacrifice for sin.
Jesus was the fitting sacrifice for paying the penalty of our sins because He never committed any sin—He never transgressed or broke any of the Old Testament commandments.
Jesus would be the perfect sacrifice for sin and would satisfy all the Old Testament requirements for a pure sacrifice. Paul writes in our text that Jesus was "born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law…" And Jesus was qualified to be our Redeemer!
In Galatians 4:5, the word “redeem” is exagorazo, ex-ag-or-ad'-zo and means “to buy up and to rescue from loss.” It was used when someone was purchased out from the slave market.
Remember, we were in bondage to the elements of the world. The Jews to their law and the Gentiles to their pagan rituals. Jesus’ death purchased out of slavery, those who would follow Him by faith.
Not only did He redeem the Christian from the slave market of sin, Paul goes on to record in Galatians 4:5 that Jesus made it so that we could be adopted.
Adoption is the act of God that places the believer in His family as an adult son (v. 23; 9:4; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5).
Scripture continues in Galatians 4:6 saying, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"”
"Abba" is Aramaic for "father" or "Daddy." You can’t cry out “Abba, Father!” unless you’ve been adopted!
You see, before the Christian’s adoption, he or she is alienated from God in their minds by wicked works. (Col 1:21) Before Christ, a person doesn’t want to have much if any to do with God. That’s not my personal opinion or observation.
Romans 3:10-12 says, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none that understands, There is none that seeks after God; They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not, so much as one.”
Yet people seek after something to fill the void they possess that only the one true God can fill. People create a god in their own image. He is as AA tells their participants, “The God of your own understanding.”
To others He’s “The Man upstairs.” He’s the one they call when they are in a pinch. He’s “OMG!” to them on social media when in vain they mention His name.
But when you come to Christ, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son in your heart and God now becomes to you, “Abba Father.”
No more fear; no more alienation; no more appeasement; no more bargaining; no more playing games; no more using Him as if He was a genie or butler…You are now His child and He is now your Father.
And it all happens because God entered humanity in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. He became one of us and identified with us in our struggle.
Micah Wilder, formally a Mormon who found Jesus and accepted the Gospel, testifies that "The gospel of Mormonism is very burdensome," Wilder told CP. In the Church of Latter-day Saints, "you're seeking to prove your worthiness to God. But in the Christian Gospel, God sent Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners." Wilder called the gospel of Mormonism burdensome, but explained that Jesus had borne that burden for him. He described a great liberation – his chains were unshackled – from all the laws and restrictions of religion.
Linda, a woman who studied the occult and was suicidal, was approached by a coworker who was a Christian. Linda says, “I remember him telling me, "Linda, Jesus loves you so much. I have not stopped praying for you and little Sara. I have prayed for both of you everyday since the time I told you that the Lord had placed a burden in my heart for you two. The Lord loves you so much and I just wish you could know just how much he loves you. He has such a good life planned for you and wants so much for you to just believe in Him. Please, please trust Him."
Linda recounts, “I was shocked. No one ever told me anything like this before. I think I was more moved by his tears and sincerity. No one ever cried for me before.”
One evening as Linda was watching a Christian TV ministry she says she, “out of total broken desperation, stood up in the middle of her living room, looked up and raised her hands to heaven and cried out, "Jesus, I’m so sorry, please, please forgive me.”
She screamed, “They said that if I call on You, You would save me. They said that if I confess You as my Lord and Savior that You would come into my life. Jesus, get me out of here! I believe You are the only one that has the power to reach into the depths of hell and save me. I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe You died for me and was raised from the dead. I confess with my mouth that You are the Lord and I believe with my whole heart. Please, forgive me. Please save me."
By this time, she was down on my knees. Suddenly, she stopped crying, got up and sat down in a chair. She noticed something was very different. She wasn’t laughing or gushing with joy at that moment but what she noticed is that for the very first time in her life -- the noise in her head stopped. All of the confusion was gone. She heard “quiet” for the first time. Linda’s Lord Jesus restored her to her right mind.
In order to bring people like Micah and Linda , God had to leave heaven’s glory and come down and take upon Himself a body and suffer in this body and die in this body and be raised from the dead in this body. This is the reason for the season.
Hebrews 2:14-15 (NIV) says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity (His birth) so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those (His resurrection) who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus shared in our humanity. It is for this reason that you and I cannot think that “God doesn’t know what we are going through.” God the Son, took upon Himself a body…He “shared in our humanity.”
Another verse, Hebrews 4:15, refers to this “humanity” when it says, "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities…"
The word "touched” comes from the Greek word, sumpatheo, soom-path-eh'-o; we get our English word, sympathize from it. To “sympathize” literally means having a fellow-feeling. It is a word meaning “to be affected” by something, hence “to feel,” that is, to have feelings stirred up within one by some circumstance.
The circumstance Jesus lowered Himself to be a part of, was humanity. This was one of the reasons He came to earth; this is one of the reasons we celebrate Christmas.
C.S. Lewis illustrates this “lowering” in a powerful way with the following observation:
Lying at your feet is your dog. Imagine, for the moment, that your dog and every dog is in deep distress. Some of us love dogs very much and can’t imagine them going through a lot of pain and distress.
C.S. Lewis says:
* If it would help all the dogs in the world for you to become like men, would you be willing to become a dog?
* Would you put down your human nature, leave your loved ones, your job, hobbies, your art and literature and music?
* Would you be willing to choose the poor substitute of looking into the face of your loved ones and wagging your tail, unable to smile or speak instead of the intimate communion with your beloved family and friends?
By becoming man, Christ limited the thing which to Him was the most precious thing in the world: His unrestricted, unhindered communion with the Father.
In Isaiah chapter six we get a vision of the glorified Messiah. Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.” Jesus, co-equal with the Father, “took off His robe of glory to put on a robe of flesh,” as the songwriter says, so He could share in our humanity and feel what we feel.
Some people use the expression, “Do you feel me?” Oh, the Bible is saying that Jesus can feel you! For He is “touched” with or can “sympathize” with every category of humanity that you and I could ever experience.
* Have you ever been betrayed? Jesus was.
* Have you ever experienced loneliness? Jesus did.
* Have you ever been mocked, ridiculed and scoffed at? Jesus was.
* Have you ever been physically attacked, beaten, whipped or spit upon? Jesus was.
* Have you ever been abandoned? Yup. So was Jesus.
* Have you ever experienced hunger? Jesus has.
* Jesus didn't even have a place where He could lay His head. Do you?
Jesus is touched with the feelings of our weaknesses. He knows our pain. He has felt how it feels to suffer.
Hebrews 4:15, says, "For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
It is followed by verse 16 that says, “Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.”
Because of Jesus, God the Son, entering into humanity, we can draw near to God.
The Spirit of God, through this text, is encouraging us to get near God and fellowship with Him. We who follow Jesus are not to be content with living the Christian life at a distance from God or that God would just be a thought.
The incarnation of Jesus is meant to spur us on toward a nearness to God, a fellowship with God and a communion with God.
John Piper says,
This drawing near is not a physical act. It's not building a tower of Babel, by your achievements, to get to heaven. It's not necessarily going to a church building. Or walking to an altar at the front. It is an invisible act of the heart. You can do it while standing absolutely still, or while lying in a hospital bed, or while sitting in a pew listening to a sermon.
Drawing near is not moving from one place to another. It is a directing of the heart into the presence of God who is as distant as the holy of holies in heaven, and yet as near as the door of faith. He is commanding us to come. To approach him. To draw near to him.
* Draw near to Jesus; He is God, the Son!
* Draw near to Jesus; He is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made (as the Nicene Creed says)
* Draw near to Jesus: He is God, manifest in the flesh!
* Draw near to Jesus; He was in all points tempted like we are…yet He didn’t sin.
* Draw near to Jesus; He knows our weaknesses and frailties yet still loves us.
* Draw near to Jesus; He is waiting…
