@ rrtulla

The Goal of Christmas

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4–6)

There are 4 phrases that I want to address from this passage Fullness of time Born of a woman Redeem those under the law Receive adoption as sons.

One of the attributes of God is what theologians call his “eternity” This means God is without beginning or end. He is free from all succession of time. He is outside of time. In fact he is the cause of time. from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2) And upon hearing this some Christians might make the mistake of thinking that God is not concerned with time. “Well since God is not bound by time like we are, he must be detached from it, or maybe disinterested”

But the opposite is actually true. The God of the Bible is extremely concerned with keeping time.

In Genesis 1: God defines what a constitutes a day. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. He decides how many days it will take him to create the world.
He uses the sun and the moon and the stars as “time-keepers”

And As we keep reading Genesis we come to long lists of names: specifically the descendants of Seth, and God tells us how many years they live.

All other events in the world are dated in relation to Seth.

But we can keep going: God teaches Israel to keep time. He gives them a calendar when they come out of Egypt. Referencing passover God says in exodus 12 “This month (march/April) shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you." (Exodus 12:2)

Pentecost comes in the third month. (Celebrating the giving of the law)

The 7th month was for celebrating the feast of booths, (when the people lived tents in the wilderness.)

On and on we could go, but the point I am trying to make is this: timing is everything.

You know that famous passage in Ecclesiastes 3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Our lives are patterned after different times.

Weeping and laughing Breaking down and building up. A time to speak and a time to keep silence.

And then after this run—on list Solomon says:

[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.(Ecclesiastes 3:11)

God governs time. He orchestrates the times. He has in his mind a divine time-table in which he has written all events and circumstances into his perfect story.

Down to the second.

And the great demonstration of this is the incarnation.

In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son. The Son of God entered into time to show us the father. And he did this without ceasing to be the LORD of time himself.

Theologian Peter Leithart writes: “God came to us in time, not to rescue us from time, but to redeem all times. God the Son entered time so that whatever time it is - a time to live, a time to die; a time to seek, a time to give up; a time to weep or a time to rejoice - each and every time is a time of encounter with God in Christ through the Spirit.”

You and I can talk with God, meet with him, commune with the father and with the son and with the Holy Spirit at any any time, because God has entered into our time in the person of his son.

Many have asked: why was Christ born 2000 years ago?

Scholars point to the common greek langauge shared by much of the world (making evangelization easier)

Some point to the centuries-long era known as the Pax Romana; (roman peace= where THE WORLD was by and large at free from major wars.

Others have observed that the mythological god’s of Greece and Rome had been tried and found wanting:

In other words, men and women everywhere were primed to hear and accept the one true religion. Historically, this is all true.

But if we think about this biblically, we see that the arrival of the Messiah was perfectly—timed. The law of Moses, ESTABLISHED 2000 YEARS PRIOR, had made it clear: human beings need a savior.! All of us are law breakers!

It had been hundreds of years since a true prophet had spoken.

All of Israel’s history was pointing forward to the promised “serpent—crusher” from genesis 3.

The people had been waiting CENTURIES for the SON who was promised. 
the anticipation kept building! Why?

Because, as theologian GK Beale writes: “no prior son had ever been able to put an end to the law’s condemning control!”

Nobody had shown up and proven themselves to be the SaVIOR.

And the entire OLD testament seems to have been written so that we would anticipate the Son of GoD.

Every lamb slaughtered pointed us to the TRUE LAMB.

Every bowl full of incense burned pointed to the fragrant offering of Christ.

Every King installed in Israel pointed to the one true King whose kingdom would have no end.

Every priest ordained pointed to the great high Priest, who would not offer up the blood of bulls and goats, but his very own blood.

God is the creator of TIME, and at Christmas we are invited to celebrate when he entered time.

And this leads us to the second phrase: “born of a woman”

Almost a 1000 years ago, a theologian by the name of Anselm wrote a book called “why God became a man”

He begins his book with a discussion of sin, which he defines as “not rendering to God what is his due” (namely the submission of our entire will to his)

When we do not submit to him, we are stealing from him, robbing his glory; we are dishonoring him. And God, who is perfectly JUST, cannot over look this.

Here then is the problem: if we are to be forgiven, we must repay what we owe, but we are incapable of doing this. “The price tag exceeds the capability of the fallen sons of Adam to pay.”

Anselm says: our present obedience and good works cannot make satisfaction for our sins, since these are required of us anyway.

“The sinner owes what he cannot repay, and unless he repays it he cannot be saved.” We cannot save ourselves.

And here is where Anselm begins to point out the solution to our dilemma.

“There is no one who can make this satisfaction [for sin] except God himself… But no one ought to make it except man; otherwise man does not make satisfaction… Therefore, it is necessary that one who is God—man should make it. It is needful that the very same person who is to make this satisfaction be perfect God and perfect man, since no one can do it, except one who is truly God, and no one ought to do it, except one who is truly man.”

John Stott summarizes this teaching well: “Jesus Christ is therefore the Only Savior, since he is the only person in whom the “should” and the “could” are united, being himself both God and man.”

I realize this is pretty ‘high’ theology…but it is my opinion that Christmas EVE is the perfect time to hear these precious doctrines once again.

The wages of sin is death. We know that. And if you and I were EVER going to be saved, it would be because God himself came to save us. But God cannot die. So the eternal son of God had to be made like us. He had to put on our human nature.

Christmas reminds us that Redemption required incarnation.

This leads us to the third phrase: Christ was born to Redeem those under the law.

God gave his people the law…and we were unable to keep it, unable to obey it. Earlier in his Galatians Paul said

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” (Galatians 3:10)

And then a few verses later he says that the God-man secured our redemption by becoming a curse for us. Cursed is everyone hanged on a tree. Bible readers know this: there are many examples.

Pharaoh’s baker was hung on a tree. (Gen. 40) The 5 kings of Canaan were hung on trees (josh. 10) David’s Rebel son Absalom died while hanging on a tree. The wicked Haman (from the story of Esther) was hung on a tree intended for another.

Christmas reminds us that the holy son of God, the only perfect man who ever lived, would grow up and receive the culminating shame of all those in the Scripture who were cursed by God.

The child in the manger would grow up to be cursed. The child the shepherds came to see, would, 33 years later, be forsaken by his Father.

Christ endured the curse of the law so that a mysterious, divine exchange might take place. He takes our curse that we might receive his blessing.

As one another puts it: “he became sin with our sin, so that we may become righteous with his righteousness.” (Stott)

This kind of talk can be a bit confusing for us. Its mystical not physical. It’s spiritual, not material. The exchange that has taken place in the soul of the believer is not something that we can see.

I came across an analogy from John Calvin that I had never before considered…you remember the story from genesis 27, when Isaac (who is very old and blind) blesses his younger son Jacob INSTEAD of Esau. ?

Rebekah knows that her husband wants to bless his firstborn son…and so when Esau leaves to go hunting, she makes a plan to cook up Isaac’s favorite dinner, and she convinces Jacob to bring his father the food and ‘steal the blessing’

And of course Jacob objects: “uh, Mother, this plan of yours won’t work….I am a smooth man. . . and my brother Esau is hairy!”

But Rebekah persuades him to put on Esau’s clothing. . .goat skins on his hands and on his neck.

Now: don’t ask me how this worked, because I don’t really know. . . but it works. And as I am fond of saying: every page of scripture points us to Christ, if we have eyes to see….and when we don’t have eyes to see, we can be assisted with saints who saw more than us:

John Calvin: “as Jacob did not of himself deserve the right of the first—born, concealed in his brothers clothing, and wearing his brothers coat, which gave out an agreeable odor, he ingratiated himself with his father, so that to his own benefit, he receive the blessing while impersonating another. And we, in like manner hide under the precious purity of our firstborn brother, Christ, so that we may be attested righteous in God sight… And this is, indeed, the truth, for in order that we may appear before God's face unto salvation we must smell sweetly with his odor, and our vices must be covered and buried by his perfection.”

The younger brother gets the blessing he doesn’t deserve because he’s wearing his brother’s clothes!

Here then is the gospel on Christmas Eve.

Christ Jesus the Lord voluntarily puts on your stinky garments, and by faith you get to put on his royal white linen!

Disobedient rebels can be clothed with the righteousness of the son.

Praise God.

And now we come to the purpose of Christmas.

when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son. . . so that we might receive adoption. . . (Galatians 4:4–5)

The goal of Christmas is adoption. At just the right time, God sent his son because he wanted a bigger family.

J.I. Packer wrote many years ago: “The revelation to the believer that God is his Father is in a sense the climax of the Bible.”

There can be no greater gift, no higher privilege than receiving a place in God’s own family. I can approach God without fear, because he is Father.

the fatherhood of God implies affection. He loves me like a perfect father loves his children.

I have his name placed upon me. I have his Spirit given to me. I have his inheritance waiting for me.

But Paul adds the phrase “as sons” in the text.

The goal of Christmas is to receive adoption “as sons”

Why doesn’t Paul say “receive adoption as sons & daughters!?” It’s not a mistake to leave out daughters. He doubles down in the next verse.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

Theologian Michael Reeves provides us with the glorious answer: (why daughters is not included)

“Paul is seeking to be as clear as he can that the status all believers are given is, quite specifically, the status of the son, himself. For God does not give us some exulted, but general standing before himself: the son shares with us, his own Sonship… Paul wants you and me to see that believers get to share the very cry of the son himself. In the garden of Gethsemane, talking in private to his father, Jesus had called him, “Abba, Father.”

Arguing that the Spirit of the Son makes us call out the very same words, Paul is demonstrating as intimately and visually as he can that in Christ, we get to share the very relationship with the father that the son himself has always enjoyed.

The personal name he has for his father we are allowed to share. We can come before the Almighty and say—or stutter!— with a beloved son’s own confidence, “Abba!” . . . The son of God became human that we humans might become sons of God.”

At the exact right time, time god sent his son, born of a woman…to redeem us and adopt us and give us his spirit and make us sons of God.

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. . . you loved me before the foundation of the world. . . . I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.” (John 17:22–26)

Redemption required the incarnation. The point of the incarnation was adoption. And adoption means God loves just like he loves his Eternal son. He has always has, and he always will.

This Christmas, rejoice in the truth that because the Son of God became a man…you and I are beloved sons of God.