December 21
“When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons,” Galatians 4:4-5.
We are rapidly approaching Christmas Day. We are rapidly approaching the end of the month of December and the close of the calendar year. However, we must remind ourselves that God is not bound by our calendar. God proceeds according to the times that He Himself sets. The apostle wrote, “When the fullness of the time had come!” We ask, “What time?” The time had come for God to fulfill the first promise to send a Savior, which he had promised to Adam and Eve.
Remember that when Adam and Eve listened to the devil and ate of the forbidden fruit, God gave His first promise to send a Savior. He said to the devil, “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,” Genesis 3:15. The promised Seed of the woman was the virgin-born Jesus, whom the Father sent to be our Savior. The virgin-born Jesus, the Son of Man, was also the Son of God. “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.” He was God and Man in one Person, who would crush the serpent’s head – that is, destroy the power of the devil. In the process, He would be bitten by the poisonous snake, and suffer and die. That happened on Calvary’s cross.
“God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,” for a specific purpose: “To redeem those who were under the Law.” With His sinless, perfect life, Jesus fulfilled the Law of God in our place. He fulfilled where you and I so miserably fail. Then, He redeemed us – “redeem” means “to buy back.” He paid the price for our redemption. Twice in his Epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote, “You were bought at a price,” 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23.
What price did He pay? The apostle Peter wrote, “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold . . . But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” 1 Peter 1:18-19. Jesus was the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.
Jesus fulfilled the Law in our place, and He took our sins upon Himself and paid the price to redeem us, “That we might receive the adoption as sons.” By faith and trust in Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior, we are adopted into God’s family. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul wrote, “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ,” Ephesians 2:13. Later, Peter wrote, “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone,” Ephesians 2:19-20.
All of the preceding took place according to God’s plan, “When the fullness of the time had come!” We celebrate that “fullness” at Christmas time! We pray:
“Now are the days fulfilled,
God’s Son is manifested,
Now His great majesty,
In human flesh is vested.
Behold the mighty God,
By whom all wrath is stilled,
The woman’s promised Seed –
Now are the days fulfilled.
Now are the days fulfilled,
The child of God rejoices;
No bondage of the Law,
No curses that it voices,
Can fill our hearts with fear;
On Christ our hope we build.
Behold the Prince of Peace –
Now are the days fulfilled.” Amen.