Sermon Tone Analysis

“On seeing a living slave offered in New Orleans on a slave block: “There was a rising hatred inside of me against slavery, and I swore if someday I could do something about it, I would do something about it.”

—Abraham Lincoln

When I read Abraham Lincoln quote, I cannot help but think back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve broke God’s command.

God made a promise Genesis 3:15

God faithfully kept his promise (Galatians 4:4a)

Paul says God kept that promise

God orchestrated the fullness of time

The fullness of time” emphasizes the realization of God’s saving promises (cf.

Mark 1:15).

In Eph 1:10 God has so designed history that his plan “for the fullness of the times” (lit.

trans. of τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν καιρῶν) was to unite all things in Christ.

Now that Christ has come, “the fulfillment of the ages has come” (τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων κατήντηκεν, 1 Cor 10:11).

Jesus came at “the appointed time of the Father” (Gal 4:2), for God sent him as his Son at the right time in the history of salvation.

Christmas reveals God’s faithfulness to send his Son in the flesh so that we can be His sons forever.

God sent His Son in the Flesh (Galatians 4b-d)

Paul says in verse 4

Galatians 4:4 (ESV)

God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

The phrase, “born of a woman” speaks to Jesus’ incarnation.

The incarnation of Christ’s means Jesus joined himself to humanity.

John 1:14 (ESV)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

At a glance, it might be tempting to think that John is saying Jesus changed into flesh, like the way a caterpillar changes into a butterfly during metamorphosis.

Or you might think that the divine mixed with the flesh, like a demigod in the Marvel Universe.

That is not the case.

John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.

Isaiah called the Messiah “mighty God” in Isaiah 9:6.

Paul says in Christ “all the fullness of deity dwells” Col 2:9.

Jesus himself said that he and the Father are one (John 10:30).

Most notably, Paul describes both Jesus human and divine nature in Phil 2:5-10; he was in the form of God, he took the form of flesh, and yet was fully God and fully man.

Therefore, nothing was subtracted from his deity, but his flesh was added.

In the incarnation, Dr. Stephen Wellum explains, the eternal Son who has always possessed the divine nature has not changed or set aside his deity.

Instead, he has added to himself a second nature, namely a human nature consisting of a human body and soul (Phil.

2:6-8).

As a result, the individual Jesus is one person—the Son—who now subsists in two natures, and thus is fully God and fully man.

And Paul says, he was a man “born under the law.”

God’s Son in the flesh was born under the law (Gal 4:4c-5a)

Paul is referring to the Mosiac law.

Timothy Keller rightly notes, that Jesus was born, as all human beings are, into a state of obligation to God’s law, and he lived, as Thomas Schriener describes, under the tyranny of the sin.

As an obligation to God’s law, Jesus was subject to God’s holy morality, and was charged to live it out perfectly.

As to the tyranny of sin Jesus suffered in the way we suffer the affects of sin on this world: disease, poverty, hunger, the oppression of evil, death, and the weight of judgment if any iota of the law is broken.

Jesus’ incarnation shows you that he became like us in every human capacity.

Songwriter Mark Altrogge wrote a song called, “Father, How Sweet.”

Its in part a meditation on Galatians 4:4-7.

He writes,

“Jesus, it fills our hearts with wonder

That You would leave Your heavenly place

To take on flesh to thirst and hunger

To save the ones who spurned Your grace

You came to forfeit every mercy

To die that mercy we would find

And then You hung alone in darkness

So in our hearts Your grace would shine” Mark Altrogge

What is the wonder of the incarnation?

The wonder of the incarnation is the how the depravity of our sin and the gravity of the Father’s love collide in the majesty of the Son’s incarnation.

The Depravity of our Sin.

Paul says in verse 5 we are born under the law.

That is, we are enslaved to the law.

The law reveals to us that we are utterly helpless under sins power.

The law shows us all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Falling short does not mean that with a little extra effort we can do better.

Falling short means we are helpless under sins power and God’s condemnation cannot be removed through our own obedience to the law.

We need a rescuing from the wages of sin which is God eternal judgement (Romans 6:23).

The depravity of our sin exposes our desperate need for a need for a rescuer, and God’s love delviered one in the flesh.

The Gravity of God’s Love

In verse 5, Paul explains how Jesus’ incarnation allows you to experience God’s gracious love through Jesus’ work of redemption.

Galatians 4:5 (ESV)

to redeem those who were under the law, .

The word for redeemed in verse 5, is the same word Paul used previously

To be redeemed means to release a slave from his owner by paying the slaves full price.

Here the slave master is the law.

Jesus pays your full price to the law.

He completely fulfills all the laws demands on you by living a perfectly incarnate life of obedience and dying an atoning death on the cross (Keller, Timothy.

2013.

Galatians for You.

God’s Word for You.

Purcellville, VA: The Good Book Company.)

Jesus’ incarnation allowed him to take the curse upon himself so that he can liberate you from the condemnation of the law, and he did it at the cost of his life.

The cross is where Jesus took your curse.

It is where he shed his blood.

The bible is clear

Not only did Jesus take your curse upon yourself but in exchange he gave you his righteousness.

Thomas Cranmer, a reformation theologian, explains the effect of your redemption well,

“Christ is now the righteousness of all those who truly do believe in him.

He for them paid their ransom by his death.

He for them fulfilled the law in his life.

So that now in him, and by him, every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the law, since that which their infirmity lacks, Christ’s justice has supplied.”

Thomas Cranmer

Haing his Son bear your curse on a cross was God’s design for your redemption.

It pleased the Father to crush his Son for your iniquity.

What was God’s motive for your redemption.

It was his deep, wondrous, out of this world love.

It is a love he set to lavish on you before the foundation of the world according to Paul (Ephesians 1:4-5), that sustained for you through your rebellion, while you were a sinner Jesus came and died for you (Romans 5:8), and it is a love that will never be separated from you, and it is a love that will see you all the way home.

What can separate you from the love God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or danger or sword?

Nothing can separate us from the the love of God in Christ Jesus our incarnate, crucified, and risen Lord (Romans 8:32-39).

It was God’s love that sent His Son into the world that whoever believes upon Him will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Mark Altrogge in the second verse of the same song, “Father, How Sweet,” expresses the depravity of our sin, the majesty Jesus’ incarnation, and the gravity of the Father’s love.

He sings,

“Father, what love You’ve shown to rebels

That You would send Your Son so dear

Into this world of grief and trouble

To bring unworthy sinners near