What Child Is This? The Great Son

The Official Roles of Jesus

Good morning! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas this past week. For this season of Advent, here in the month of December – our church in Mt Pleasant has been working through a special preaching series about the arrival of the son of God, 2000 years ago, and the official roles that he came to fulfill. God raised up three main types of leaders in the Old Testament for his people – prophets, priests, and kings. But all along he promised that he would one day raise up a greater prophet, a greater priest, and a greater king than all the others. And as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, that promise was fulfilled when Jesus was born on that very first Christmas.

But to close out our Series, this morning we’re going to consider one more official function that Jesus carries out – a rather unique role. We’re going to reflect on how Jesus is the great Son – the great Son of God, and a number of practical ways that this affects us. So if you haven’t already, please turn with me to Galatians, Chapter 4. But before I read from our text, let’s ask that God would really benefit us this morning, as we come to his word. Please pray with me:

[Pray and Read Text]

Are You Willing to Give Up Your Advantage?

Around Christmastime, when I get together with my mom’s side of the family, there’s a gift exchange game that we play. I’ve heard it called by a few different names. Some people call it Crazy Christmas. Other people call it Dirty Santa. But the idea is that everyone brings an unknown present, that’s wrapped up – all the gifts are laid out on a table. And then everyone draws a number, to determine the order of who goes first, second, and so on. The first person – who drew number 1, that person opens a gift from the table. And then the person who drew the number 2 – they can either take that gift (if they like what it is), or they can choose another random, unknown gift from the table. Then after that, person number 3 can either take gifts from one of the first two people, or they can open a mystery gift. And so on and so forth. So as you can figure out, the higher your number is, the better your position is – because more gifts have been opened at that point. You have more knowledge about the options you’re choosing from.

So imagine for a minute that you’re playing this game. Someone comes by with a hat, filled with numbers. And you reach in, and you draw the number 23. As it turns out, there are 23 people playing. And you’ve just drawn the highest number. So you’re all set to go last – to look at all the gifts at the end of the game, and to choose from all the opened gifts which one you like best. But then someone comes up and asks – Hey, can I trade with you? Can I trade numbers? And they show you – they’ve drawn a low number. They’re number 2. How would you respond?

Well, chances are, you’d probably say, “No, that’s all right. I like my number, thank you.” By and large, you and I – we wouldn’t want to trade down like that. When we have a good position, we normally want to hold on to it. This is often how we operate in other situations, too. If you’ve been waiting in line all night before Black Friday so you can be one of the first fifty customers through the door – because you want to win a free big-screen TV – you probably aren’t going to step out of line at the last minute to let someone else get the door prize in your place. Or if you’re at the airport, trying to get home for Christmas – you probably won’t voluntarily give up your ticket so that someone on standby can get home for Christmas instead.

You and I – we like making use of our rights, and our personal advantages. Whenever we have privileged status, we like making use of it for our personal advancement and enjoyment.

But here in this letter that the apostle Paul wrote – in this letter to the Galatian Christians, Chapter 4 – we see that God is different. This whole letter draws attention to the generousness and graciousness of God. We see that there’s a profound sense in which He’s willing to dis-advantage himself, so that we can be better off. But in our text this morning, specifically, this is put on display in the gift of God’s great Son. So we’ll give attention to four features of Jesus’s sonship, together, as we work through these verses in Galatians. First, we’ll consider the preciousness of the son; second, the poverty of the Son; third, the price paid by the Son; and fourth, our position with the Son. These will be my main four points this morning. (The preciousness of the son, the poverty of the Son, the price paid by the Son, and our position with the Son.

The Preciousness of the Son

So first, the preciousness of the Son. At the beginning of verse 4, we’re told that when the fullness of time had come – at the appointed time that God chose by his mysterious wisdom – he sent forth His Son. Of course, this is a reference to Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s Son.

But what does that really mean? I think some people have the idea that Jesus is called God’s son as a result of what happened at Christmas – because Jesus was born as a little boy. And so they imagine that he wasn’t really a son before, but he became God’s Son. But if you think carefully about this verse, you’ll see that Jesus’s birth isn’t where his Sonship begins. Jesus was the Son of God before he was born to Joseph and Mary. Our text doesn’t say that God sent a divine person or a spiritual being to become His Son. But instead we’re told that this person who was sent already had this identity. He was already the Son of God.

In fact, the Bible gives us reason to believe that God the Father has always had his divine Son. God isn’t in the process of becoming something new. It’s not as though God produced a Son who wasn’t there before, and became a Father. But in God the Father’s unchanging perfectness, he’s always been Father, and there’s always been a divine Son – and there’s always been a third divine person, too – the divine Holy Spirit, who’s mentioned in verse 6. Of course, this makes God pretty mysterious. In one sense, He’s just one perfect being. There’s just divine essence and nature. And yet in a different sense, God is three. The Bible speaks of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit as being three distinct persons, who are equally divine and eternal. So all three – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – have always existed together, with perfect love and fullness, and power.

But let’s get to the reason why that matters. It means that God the Father and God the Son have had an extraordinary relationship with each other. They’ve literally known each other forever. And yet over the whole span of their relationship, there’s never been a millisecond where there’s been any tension or bitterness. There’s just been shared commitment and approval and enjoyment, vast and unbroken. For all of eternity, they’ve had a relationship of perfect love.

And so this should affect how we read verse 4, here. Because if it was all the same, then God (God the Father) – he could have chosen to send something else. He could have sent us a talking donkey, or a standard Old Testament prophet, or if he really wanted to honor us – he could have even decided to send us one or two of his mighty archangels. And yet, the Bible clearly tells us that God sent forth his Son. His precious Son, the delight of his eyes, the perfect reflection of his Fatherly likeness and glory. God chose to send his precious Son for you, for me.

Sending off people we love isn’t an easy thing. Especially if you have an idea of the difficult task Jesus was sent off to accomplish – it’s similar to sending a child off to war. Just imagine a father, sending his only child – his son – to the front lines. Imagine how difficult it would be. The father understands that this son, that he loves so much, is likely to experience some horrible things. His son might get injured and come back traumatized and crippled. He may be captured and tortured. This dearly-loved son might even be shot and killed. We all have an idea of how precious a son would be to his father, and how difficult it would be to say goodbye.

And yet whatever magnitude of love you’re trying to imagine right now – it’s still doesn’t come anywhere close to the love that the divine Father has for his divine Son. You and I might have an idea of what it means to love someone for a matter of decades – how that love deepens and develops over time. But God the Father has loved His precious Son with an infinite love for all eternity! The intensity and immensity of that love must be a billion times greater than anything we can relate to. Nothing is more precious to God than his great Son.

And so it’s astonishing when we see, here in Galatians, that God doesn’t hold back this great treasure for himself. But he deploys his Son into the warzone for us – into a life-threatening mission. God proves to us the incredible realness of his generosity and grace, by giving us the most extravagant gift he could have possibly chosen to give. God sent forth His Son! His precious Son.

The Poverty of the Son

But later in our verse, we’re told what the divine Son does as he comes for us. We’re told how far down he stoops for our sake. This brings us to my second point, dealing with the poverty of the Son. In the second half of verse 4, there are two phrases that explain what Jesus did for us, in his coming. We’re told that the Son was “born of woman,” and that he was born “under the law.”

That first phrase, “born of woman” – it emphasizes that Jesus put on a true human nature, like ours. He didn’t just appear in some sort of ghostly form that looked like a human. He didn’t just supernaturally descend from the clouds, with the idealized body of a mature man – with a radiant complexion, a strong jaw line, and chiseled abs. But when he took on human flesh, he came in a very ordinary, very human way. He was born of woman.

The mighty, eternal deity, who ruled over space and time, and who radiated infinite glory in the sacred courts of heaven – he was carried in Mary’s womb for 40 weeks, he was born in a stable, and his weak little body was carried in the arms of a young, inexperienced mother. And when the Son chose to take on this new identity, to become man – when he took that full flight of stairs down into our earthly existence, he came into a world ruined with corruption and sin – a world plagued with disease, decay, and death.

During World War II, a Polish man, named Witold Pilecki (Vitold Piletski), did something somewhat similar. When the Nazi’s invaded Poland in 1939, Pilecki became a part of the underground resistance movement. And when he learned about a new, secretive prison camp that the Nazi’s were operating, called Auschwitz, Pilecki decided he would infiltrate the camp in order to learn what was happening there, and to transmit information to the Allied forces. Pilecki intentionally allowed the Nazis to find him with the ID of another man – a polish soldier. And by taking on the identity of a Polish soldier, Pilecki was labeled as a political enemy and was swiftly transported to Auschwitz. And for the two and a half years that he lived in the prison camp, he suffered along with the other prisoners – starvation, severe illness without rest or reprieve, sleep deprivation. And from his humble position, as a fellow prisoner, he quietly organized a resistance movement in the camp, occasionally arranging for prisoners to escape, smuggling information out to the Allies, and planning for ways to smuggle medicine and extra food in. His story is actually rather impressive.

And yet, even so – in 1943, when Pilecki realized that he was close to being found out, he decided to make a run for it. He made an escape plan, which involved taking a locked door off its hinges in the middle of the night and overpowering a Nazi guard. And Pilecki managed to get out of Auschwitz with two of his fellow prisoners.

But when Jesus left behind the comforts of heaven and took on the new identity of a true human nature – when he entered into the prison yard of our fallen world, filled with pain, disease and death – he stayed put. It wasn’t just a temporary visit. When the experience became too risky or painful, Jesus didn’t just save himself from the horrors of death – although he could have. But he entered into our human condition, with all its pain and poverty. And Jesus stayed there, to carry out his life mission, to the bitter end. He was born of woman – and he voluntarily made this decision and stayed in this condition, for us.

But our text also explains that Jesus entered into our poverty by coming under the law. Now, when the Bible refers to the law, here, it’s talking about the law that God handed down to the people of Israel when he made them into a nation. (You can find the law written out in the first five books of the Old Testament). And in this law, God laid out firm legal requirements that described his good standards, that defined sin, and that declared the curses and consequences people would face if they went against His good standards.

But despite the fact that people received these clear instructions and warnings from heaven, being under the law wasn’t of any practical benefit for them. Because even though they knew God’s rules, they weren’t willing and able to follow them. They were still corrupt and spiritually dead toward God. The law couldn’t transform or straighten out the warped hearts of people. Instead, being under God’s law just made it all the more obvious how crooked human hearts are, and how deserving we are of his curse.

And yet in Galatians 4, we’re told that Jesus became like us, in that he too came under the law alongside of us – he came under all its demands and duties. And yet, unlike us, when Jesus came under the law, he actually did everything that the law required. All of it! He never lied to his friends or family member. He never bullied or cheated people. He never said words that he later regretted. He never had desires that were improper or impure. But Jesus perfectly loved His Father and lived for him. As he came under the law, he successfully carried the burden of God’s law from the time of his birth to the time of his death – He stood up straight under a burden that no one else in human history had even been able to lift an inch off the ground. And because of this absolute obedience, the reward Jesus deserved was to receive the full measure of prosperity, health, and blessedness from His Father.

But instead of taking the reward for himself, Jesus chose to come under the law in a second way – he came under the curse of the law. And he did this so that the curse for our sin would fall on him instead of us. This is plainly stated earlier in this letter – back in Galatians Chapter 3, verse 13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…” He took on our identity of an accursed sinner under the law, so that we’d be able to take on his identity, as a precious child of God.

The Price Paid by the Son

And this work of Christ is reflected in our text. Up until this point, in verse 4, we’ve been told that the precious Son entered into our poverty. But in verse 5, we’re told why he did it – we’re told why he came to earth on that very first Christmas: “to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” I think that the idea of adoption is probably familiar enough to many of us – we’ll come back to that a bit later.

But what does it mean to redeem someone? Well, it’s helpful to understand, the word that the Bible uses here – it has to do with paying a cost. So when the Son comes from heaven to redeem those under the law – it means that there’s a price paid by the Son. This is my third main point – the price paid by the Son.

But to redeem something is more specific than simply paying a price. In particular, it means to pay the price that’s required to liberate a slave. And so when verse 5, here, says that the Son came to redeem those under the law – to purchase freedom for them – it’s essentially saying that people under the law were slaves.

It’s not that the law itself was evil or oppressive somehow. But the reason that being under the law led to slavery for us is because we couldn’t do what the law required. Our hearts were too corrupt. Our passions and desires were too far out of line with what God wanted. And so it was impossible for the law to free up our conscience, and give us peace. Instead, the law just constantly reminded us how inconsistent and evil we were. It revealed how great our bondage to sin was, and our desperate need for a redeemer to come who could pay the price for our freedom.

And at just the right time, God sent his great Son to do what the law couldn’t do – he sent his Son to redeem us – to pay the cost for our freedom. But that raises the question, then – what’s the cost that Jesus paid? Some people might think that the Son of God paid a great price simply by becoming human. After all, he went through the birth process, and had dirty diapers. He likely experienced intestinal parasites, puberty, fevers, and ten thousand other inconveniences! Certainly, the son of God paid a big price when he entered into the poverty of our earthly existence like this.

But being born of woman and being born under the law – those weren’t the things that purchased our freedom. But verse 5 says that he was born into our poverty, in order to redeem us – in order to make the payment. So his descent to earth wasn’t the redemption payment itself, but it’s what made the payment of the real redemption price possible. And that’s because ultimately, the great price Jesus had to pay to bring us freedom was himself – his life in exchange for ours. We needed a redeemer to enter into our human condition, to obey God’s law for us, and to suffer the death penalty for us – so that we could be redeemed from our slavery. And the Son of God stooped down and did it.

It’s incredible news, really – that he’d do something so generous for us – that he’d pay the full price for us, to set us free. And yet the tragic thing is that so many people today who feel their bondage and guilt under the law, they aren’t willing to accept God’s gift of a redeemer! They might try to cope with their shame by hiding what’s going on in their life. They might try running away from the Bible and Christians, to get away from the things that remind them of their spiritual bankruptcy. Or some people – they might try to deal with their shame by becoming hyper-involved with community service and church, because they’re still trying to pay God off on their own, by offering their hit-and-miss efforts at hard work and spirituality.

But none of those things can deal with the problem! And the Son of God has intervened in world history to do what you and I can’t do. He has paid the cost to end your slavery, and to establish your sonship in the household of God. Why would you reject such a wonderful gift?

I mean, honestly – over this past week, when someone handed you a Christmas gift – how many of you handed it back and said, “No thanks, I don’t want to touch it. No thanks, I’ll be just fine getting Christmas gifts for myself”? Did any of you say that? Of course not! It would be obnoxious and rude to do something like that. So don’t reject God’s Christmas gift to you. Receive the gift of the great Son, and the freedom he brings us from corruption and it’s legal consequences.

Our Position with the Son

But notice, when Jesus paid that price to redeem us – even though it was a good work in its own right – our verse indicates that redeeming us was also intended to be a step toward something else. Jesus’s mission wasn’t just to end our slavery, but even more than this, he came to establish our sonship. And this is brings us to my fourth and final point this morning, that deals with our position with the Son.

Look again at verse 5. We’re told that Jesus was born into our human condition, “to redeem those under the law, SO THAT we might receive adoption as sons.” And let me clarify what the text is saying – it’s not that Jesus redeemed us so that we might receive adoption as sons, as though there’s uncertainty there. But he came so that his people would receive adoption as sons. That’s actually the thrust of what’s being said here.

Now, with that being said, it might not seem clear to us how being redeemed and being adopted our related to each other. But in this letter, Paul’s actually explaining what Jesus has done for us by using a very specific analogy that his readers would have been familiar with.

Because in the ancient world, sometimes a wealthy man, with a large estate and a number of slaves in his home – sometimes a wealthy man like this wouldn’t have any children to carry on his family name and legacy. And so it wasn’t uncommon – if this wealthy man had a bondservant in his house who he really trusted or appreciated – he might decide to adopt that loyal slave, and give him the estate. But before the slave could officially become a part of the family tree, there was an important step that needed to be taken first. The slave needed to be legally set free. Because slaves had no status – they couldn’t have their own property, they weren’t considered to have any rights. For as long as someone remained a slave, it was impossible for them to be receive the rights and the inheritance of a son.

And so here in Galatians – that’s the analogy that’s in view. We were slaves. And so we needed to be set free from our slavery, so that we could be legally qualified for adoption.

But notice – when a master decided to adopt a child in the ancient Roman world, it was almost always because he was childless – because he had no one else to carry on his family line. But in this case, God already had a Son! A perfect Son.

Also, in ancient Rome, a master would generally adopt one of the slaves he had already owned for a while – whichever slave impressed him or pleased him the most. And he would simply manumit the slave – meaning that he simply grant the slave freedom. But in our text, our adoption is described differently. The people God adopts – they aren’t slaves from his household, who’ve done something to earn his special favor. He isn’t just releasing his own slaves, without the payment of a price. But God sends forth his son into the slave market. The slaves who were sold in those days were usually criminals, debtors, and prisoners of war – many of them came from shady, sinful backgrounds – just like us. You might expect that God would be reluctant to bring people like that into his household. And yet he comes to strange slaves like us, he chooses us without any reference to what we’ve done for him, and he buys us out of our slavery, so that we can be adopted into his family.

But actually, what’s even more surprising, is that it isn’t God the Father who pays the price, to bring us into the family. But it’s the Son! The Son is the one who pays, and who opens his arms to us. Now, if you think about it, you’d maybe expect that the Son would have a bad attitude about all this. Because now he has to share the Father’s attention with us. He has to split the inheritance with us.

And yet the great Son himself is the one who stoops down into our humiliation, so that we can be raised up into his household. Jesus doesn’t hold back his special status to himself, but he shares his sonship with us. He invites us into his inheritance. And because we’re raised up with Jesus, to share his position – because of our adoption – every Christian is just as truly a part of God’s family as Jesus is. Your place in paradise is just as secure as Jesus’s is. The inheritance of everlasting happiness and peace that belongs to Jesus is just as equally guaranteed for you. And you can confidently call out to God as your Father, knowing that he is forever for you, and not against you – all because of Jesus’s work to bring you redemption and adoption.

The great Son became a slave, so that slaves like us could become sons. That’s one of the most amazing mysteries and delights of Christmastime. Certainly, Jesus has done great work as our great prophet, our great priest, and our great king. He’s proclaimed God’s truth, he’s purified our hearts, and he’s presided over us in the best way possible. These are all great gifts. And yet the greatest news we could possible isn’t just we’ve heard God’s Word, or that we’ve been made acceptable worshippers, or even that we’ve been made citizens of the kingdom of heaven – but the great Son puts us in a position that’s even more wonderful. Because with Him – with Jesus – we’re beloved children of God. And in the same way that Jesus will never cease to be the Son of God – our closeness and intimate connection with God won’t ever end, either. So Merry Christmas. Those of you who are trusting in Jesus – by all means, enjoy the Father’s great love. Enjoy the gift purchased by your big brother. Let’s pray.

Fellowship Reformed Church is a bible-believing Presbyterian church in Mt Pleasant, MI.