Galatians 4:4-6 ... "In the Fullness of Time"

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba Father’."

(1) Introduction – the “fullness of time”

> you can access the newspaper from the day of your birth
> we are each born into a pre-existing context
> the world went about its business before we came, and will likely continue after we’ve gone

> the 25th August 1959 … a red letter day … Sir Robert Menzies was prime minister of Australia; Eisenhower was US president (this was 2 months before the election of John F Kennedy); tensions were growing between the US and Russia; we exchanged goods for pounds, shillings and pence; shops weren’t open on Sundays; television had only been available for 3 years, Glen Iris was an outer suburb of Melbourne; Carlton hadn’t won a premiership for 14 years

> Jesus was born to a particular time in a distinct place, and that forms the context that we remember at Christmas through the various nativity scenes and plays
> the engagement and marriage of Mary and Joseph, the census, stable, shepherds and astrologers, as well as the political situation and the religious understanding of Israel, all form the cultural basis of the story we know and love
> Paul tells us that it was in the “fullness of time” that Jesus came … we’ll try and discover what he meant by this …

(2) But first, why did Jesus have to come at all (v.5)?

"… in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children"

From the earliest beginnings of the Hebrew nation, the people had been given a moral and ethical code under which to live – referred to here by Paul as the “law”. Keeping the “law” was to be the people of Israel’s right and proper response to the “covenant” of love God had made with God’s people on earth.

Whereas the sacrificial system attached to the “law” provided a way to express regret for sin and gain ‘atonement’, this “law” could never be described as life-changing. And if ever the people of God were really going to be the people they were created to be, and truly experience the depth of God’s love, something else (or indeed someone else) was going to have to fulfill and supercede this “law”.

In itself this “law” was powerless to make any real difference in a person’s life. A person could try harder to obey, but given this was dependent upon their own mortal efforts, it was a never-ending battle. There needed to be an avenue of personal inward change, so that lessons could be learned, and mistakes not repeated. This would need to be based, not on effort, but rather on a free gift of grace; where a desire for forgiveness could truly lead to a reformed life.

We perhaps could sense this from our own experience in life. Since our first acknowledgement of a “fall” from God’s best, it became very hard to actually make any spiritual, moral or ethical advancement in our own strength. We found life just too complicated, too problematical, and too easily fell into some sort of survival mode … just as long as we can access forgiveness when we need it. But, what we actually needed was a Saviour – someone to rescue us from this whole battle within ourselves!

God is interested in far more than survival mode. For we were created “very good”, and we have been called to make a positive difference as “salt and light” in the world. How are we going to reach this great God-given potential? The “law” was never going to do it – we needed a personal experience of the Divine Triune God. Human beings need to be able to identify with a person, not a set of rules.

So, in response to this, God sent Jesus (God’s own Son) to inhabit the earth. This Jesus was both fully God – the second person of the ‘Trinity’ (or ‘Community of God’), and fully human – “born of a woman”. Jesus would be the person who could and would identify with us, while bringing God’s invitation to identify with him.

God, in human form, could also model life as it should be lived, i.e. with integrity, faithfulness and compassion, becoming a friend to the outcast, offering healing of mind and body to the afflicted, teaching eternal truths and principles for living; and this in the face of great opposition. Jesus is able to reveal God to humanity – if you want to know what God is like … look at Jesus [John 14:9].

We read here also of a particular purpose of Jesus’ incarnation – to re-unite us with our loving creator parent (v.5). Each person needs to be in receipt of the sort of grace which will carry them beyond all the human limitations that had previously entrapped them. We need the ‘sinless Son of God’ to take away from us the fear of judgment and death!

We can then learn what ‘repentance’ really is, not just feeling sorry, but being willing to have a change of mindset in terms of how we shall live – a mindset open to new possibilities never before thought possible, empowered by the Holy Spirit traveling with us. We needed to be able to put our faith in something beyond ourselves, and be drawn out of drudgery into all sorts of exciting possibilities … of community, of ministry, and of mission.

Through Jesus, we were being redeemed back to God. This is like God going to “Cash Converters” to use the currency of Jesus to buy back what we had sold off – our very lives / our very souls! This is like God paying the ransom to the kidnapper that had taken us away from our Parent. [Our particular kidnapper could have been our selfish desires or our destructive behaviours or our feelings of hopelessness, and we had become enslaved to these things, yet Jesus has bought us out of these into freedom.]

And this act of redemption would be equally for all people, female and male, of all nations from all socio-economic backgrounds.

(3) Okay, so why did Jesus come at the time he did (v.4)?

Why did God choose the time in history He did to send Jesus into the world?

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law …"

In saying “born under the law”, Paul was referring to Jesus being born into the world in a specific time, culture, and religious & political atmosphere.

We could interpret this “fullness of time” phrase by suggesting that God chose exactly the right time. We know that this would undoubtedly be the case, yet we can also see some reasons why.

a. The Religious Malaise – i.e. God’s people were under various unhelpful influences at the time of Jesus’ actual coming – the ‘Pharisees’ were small-minded … fixated on petty detailed matters of the “law” & outward acts of piety; the ‘Sadducees’ preferred to maintain their acceptability to the Roman authorities rather than listen for God’s voice; the ‘Zealots’ perverted God’s intentions by resorting to violence; and the ‘Essenes’ withdrew from society rather than actively seeking a better world.

Many thoughtful Jews were dissatisfied with such a state of affairs, and longed for a religious movement without prejudice, such burdensome rules, political alignments, and violence. And certainly the ‘gods’ of the Roman world did not satisfy the longing hearts and hungering souls of others. May non-Jews had been attracted to the mono-theistic religion of the Jews, but were not admitted to the synagogue without circumcision – and so they would be ready to embrace the freedom Christianity would offer.

b. The “Pax Romana” – Jesus came at a time of unprecedented peace, civil harmony and political stability in the Roman Empire (even if that had come at a great price for some); thus there was such a freedom of movement that Jesus was able to travel around the various towns as he chose to share his message. (A century earlier, the then known world was intensely localized and subdivided, and suspicions & jealousies led to constant conflicts and closed borders.)

Ironically though, it was the same world setting that set the stage for Jesus’ coming that also set the scene for Jesus’ crucifixion. This was because the agenda and status of the religious elite was being threatened, which in turn could lead to a threat to the peace of Roman rule – the “Pax Romana”. But this could all be seen as being the “fullness of time”!

c. Subsequent Developments – Following Jesus’ 33 years on earth, due to the easy movement around Palestine (and the wide knowledge of the greek language), there would follow further time in which his disciples could be effective in spreading the gospel. Even as some were persecuted, they would be able to take the good news with them where they fled and eventually settled. As the gospel was shared and discussed on the highways and byways, those traveling for business would come into contact with it, receive it, and take the news of Jesus back to their own home towns. As the teaching about Jesus was shared with enthusiasm, courage, integrity and social conscience, many thousands had the opportunity to come to faith.

In a sense, God couldn’t wait any longer, and here was an opportunity where the arrival of Jesus would make a real impact for all time to come. The whole of history led up to this decisive moment. For those who had (properly) heard the prophets like Isaiah and were expectant – their waiting was over! Jesus himself said: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near… (Mark 1:15a).

(4) What does this mean for us (v.6)?

"And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba Father’."

Basically this means that we can live in relationship with Creator God. Through what Jesus has done, we can be forgiven, and live in unbroken harmony with God. Our humanness less and less limits our capacity to live according to God’s way. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, has come upon us, and through this inner knowledge of God’s presence and leading, we can worship God … responding to God with thanksgiving and praise. God is truly our heavenly parent that always has our best interests at heart.

If we ever come to think that God isn’t playing fair with us, then we need to try to reinterpret events in a way that acknowledges that God does completely care for his created beings. This admission should be the framework for our thinking. We may also have to consider our desires, and what we would think would obviously be God’s will, in terms of the fact that we don’t live in isolation … we live in community. This means two things:

a. only God has all the information to hand concerning the big picture of community life, we don’t have anywhere near the appreciation of the big picture that God has.

There was an obvious need for God’s intervention given that the ‘religious law’ had not really advanced humankind toward the purposes of God; however there would not have been much point if Jesus came at a time when there was no-one prepared to follow him. When God responded to the need of the world in sending Jesus, there had to be a realistic expectation that the fisherman and the tax collector and the zealot and the others would actually respond to the call to follow Jesus. There also had to be the expectation that Peter would preach on the ‘Day of Pentecost’ to inaugurate the church, and that Paul’s mindset would change towards being a missionary for Christ.

b. that other people can work against what God is trying to achieve on our behalf, and thus, in the short term, disrupt God’s plans (refer to the Psalms).

We probably don’t even understand our own personal needs clearly enough … let alone the needs of the world as a whole. This shouldn’t stop us praying, even praying specifically, yet we need to understand that God will answer and bring change in “the fullness of time” or ‘just at the right time’. Part of this ‘fullness of time’ however, may be our personal readiness to recognize God’s activity and our preparedness to cooperate with God (just like the 1st Century disciples).

This coming of Jesus had the purpose of re-uniting us with our loving creator; we have been “redeemed” into God’s (eternal) family – becoming a member of the household of God. So, we don’t have to strive to impress God anymore – just be trusting, open and ready to learn. We are loved as God’s child, and we can affectionately call God Daddy!

And God is not confined to any of the negative experiences of fatherhood we may have experienced. God never abuses, God never stops loving us, and God never fails us. God accepts us, God values us, and we belong to Jesus. God will honour the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.

So, we can acknowledge and embrace that we are children of God, and pray that the Holy Spirit within us will change us in every way toward being in the image of Christ Jesus; committing ourselves to our part of this process: prayerful communication with God, study of His Word, participation in the local church, involvement in witness and mission.

For any who are yet to experience being adopted into God’s family, today would be a good day to open yourselves afresh to becoming a child of God – to begin the wonderful journey of acceptance and nurture and purposeful living.