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‘But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.’
Gal_4:4-5
(a) His pre-existence as the Son.
(b) The Divine origin of His Gospel.
(c) The infinite preciousness of His salvation.
II. The time of His mission, as here described, implies:—
(a) That God had fixed a definite time for it, which had to be reached by the filling-up of the period between the formation and the execution of the Divine decree.
(b) Until the fullness of the time came Christ could not come, and the world was not ready for Him. Man’s inability to save himself had to be amply and variously shown. Time had to be given to bring out the depths of depravity into which man could plunge. God’s long-suffering had to be manifested. The world had to be providentially prepared.
III. The condition under which His mission took place:—
(a) He was made, or ‘born,’ of a woman. Not created, like the first Adam, but born.
(b) Born under the law. A true member of the Jewish race; an Israelite indeed. The representative man belongs to the representative nation. The greatness of His condescension. His pledge to fulfil all righteousness for us.
IV. The object of His mission was:—
(a) To redeem them that were under the law. His primary purpose was to save the Jews, who were Abraham’s seed, and who were under those obligations which He willingly took on Himself. They were in bondage (Gal_4:3). He redeemed, delivered by ransom; gave Himself.
(b) To give us the adoption of sons.
Illustration
‘We are told it is superfluous to preach about these things; that they have been preached about for nearly nineteen hundred years, that every one knows them who cares to know them, and for the rest they have no interest; that it is time to attend to the real subjects of the day—to the calls of justice, to the redress of wrongs, to the wants and sufferings of the poor. But what if we are right in believing them to be true? And doubtless it will be a bad day for Christian preaching when it is not moved by wrong, or forgets the “comfortless troubles’ sake of the needy and the deep sighing of the poor,” and “the patient abiding of the meek.” It is always the time to do this—it is eminently the time to do it now. Who taught us this sympathy with suffering? Who but He Who came to make us the sons of God? He came also first of all to seek the lost. When for nearly nineteen hundred years men have done without Christ, and have risen to a higher morality and a more disinterested benevolence, it may be time to tell us to do without Him; but that time is not yet.’
THE CENTRAL FACT OF THE WORLD’S HISTORY
I. The period at which Christ came.—‘The fullness of the time.’ Christ came at the very period originally decreed by God—not a day later or earlier. Hence it is called ‘the fullness,’ or filling up, ‘of the time.’
(a) It was the fullness of prophecy.
(b) It was the fullness of preparation. Christ was ever ready to come, but man was not prepared to receive Him.
(c) It was also the fulness of expectation.
II. The manner in which Christ came.—He came:—
(a) By Divine commission. ‘God sent forth His Son.’
(b) In human nature. He was ‘made of a woman.’ By this we are to understand His assumption of our nature, His profession of true humanity.
(c) Under legal subjection. He was made under the law that He might endure its penalty and obey it for us, and fully satisfy all its claims.
III. The end for which Christ came.
(a) Redemption. ‘To redeem them that were under the law.’
(b) Adoption. He came also to secure for us adoption, ‘that we might receive the adoption of sons.’
Illustration
‘Man was made to know and to love the living God, and the living God, Who had made man, meant Himself to be known and loved by His creatures. Man was lifted up from being the head of the visible creation here, from being the noblest and most richly endowed with gifts and powers of all living beings on earth, to feel that he belonged to a world beyond the bounds of mortality and sight, that he had to do with the righteousness and the love of the Everlasting and the All-Merciful, that he might hope, in spite of sin and pain and death, to be of the family of the Holiest in the “land of the living.” Long before our Lord came the formation of man’s ideal was laid in the first and great Commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” ’