Date: December 14, 2025
Text: Galatians 4:1-6. Additional Texts: Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; Matthew 1:23; John 1:14, Romans 8:14-17, 23, Ephesians 1:3, Philippians 2:5-8; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 1:2, Revelation 1:15.
Many things change as the years go by. If you were a child in the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, toys were usually few and far between. In those years, the most sought-after Christmas gifts for children were the View Master Slide viewer, and the board games, Sorry, Monopoly, and Scrabble. During the war years of the 1940,s, the gifts that would please your children were Silly Putty (invented by a man who was trying to find a substitute for rubber) and the Slinky.
The 1950’s revealed a more imaginative time. For Christmas during that decade, children wanted Barbie, Play-Doh, a Hula Hoop, Yahtzee (board game), and Mr. Potato Head. For you children of the 1960’s, you no doubt remember the Etch a Sketch, the Easy Bake Oven, Rock-em, Sock-em Robots, and GI Joe. The 1970’s were a more sophisticated decade with the most popular Christmas gifts being, a Lite Bright, a Magic 8 Ball, The Pet Rock, and Silly String. I purchased many Christmas gifts for my children in the 1980’s and they included Cabbage Patch Kids, and My Little Pony. Also popular was the board game “Guess Who?” a Koosh Ball, My Pet Monster, Teddy Ruxpin, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Somewhere in my house, I think there still must be a Cabbage Patch Kid.
For Christmas in the 1990’s children wanted Beanie Babies, Furby, Pogs, and Tickle Me Elmo. I know you still remember the 2000’s when children wanted a Wii game console and little dolls known as “Bratz.” In later years, there were the stellar selections of Christmas gifts for children: the Leap Frog Leap Pad Ultra, Lego Legends of China, a Razor Crazy Cart, an X-Box One, Fur Real Friends Cuddles, My Giggly Monkey Pet, Big Hug Elmo, a Nintendo DS, 2DS or 3DS and if you still have money left over, smart phoned were on the marked. This year, Amazon tells us that the favorite gifts for children are the Glow in the dark blanket, the Miko 3 robot, a mini karaoke machine, a set of 4 laser tag guns, and Lego Christmas decoration.
With all of the changes in what we give as Christmas presents and in the ways we choose to celebrate Christmas, the essential character of Christmas has not changed. Christmas is the customary day we set aside to mark the incarnation of Jesus Christ, which is the moment when the eternal and all-powerful God became human, descended to Earth, and lived here with people. He entered the world by going through the normal process of birth and being born into a family. The incarnation was no accident, and it was not a last-minute plan because all else had failed. The coming of Jesus Christ into the world to redeem men, women, and children was God’s perfect plan all along. Today, rather than beginning with the Gospel accounts in either Matthew or Luke, I would like to look at Christmas from the perspective of the Apostle Paul, who wrote about Christmas years later. We will begin with God’s providential preparation.
THE PROVIDENTIAL PREPARATION. Galatians 4:4a
Paul’s Purpose for the Letter to the Galatians. You undoubtedly remember from your study of the book of Acts, that on his first missionary journey, that the Apostle Paul, along with Barnabas, traveled to the Galatian cities of Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium. In those cities, their preaching of the gospel brought people to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and they established churches. For a time, God blessed those churches and they grew in their faith. Inevitably, however, false teachers arrived and with their counterfeit message tried to persuade both Jewish and Gentile Christians that they must keep the requirements of the Mosaic Law in order to be saved. Paul knew that this would mean changing the true gospel of grace into a false gospel of law and that would destroy the message of the gospel. If such a teaching were accepted, grace would no longer be grace and the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ would be meaningless.
To correct this false teaching and to put a stop to these false teachers known as Judaizers, Paul wrote this epistle to the Galatians, which includes three major divisions. In chapters one and two, Paul defended his apostleship and the authority given to him by the Lord Jesus. In the first two chapters, he insisted that the gospel of grace came to him directly from God and not from man, and that his gospel message had been approved by the other apostles. In chapters three and four, Paul defended the gospel, first addressing the doctrinal issue of faith versus works. Next he pointed to the Old Testament patriarch Abraham and his faith and the blessing that comes by faith contrasted with the curse that comes from the law. Chapter four begins with the relationship that comes from being an heir and concludes with Paul’s passionate appeal to abandon the weak and worthless elemental things that came under law and embrace the promise and freedom granted by grace through faith in Christ. In chapters five and six, Paul pointed to the results of living in grace by showing the reality of godly living. In this part of Galatians, Paul presented the fact that justification (God’s forgiveness of our sins and His granting of eternal life through a restored relationship with Him) is granted only on the basis of faith. There is no way for anyone to earn their salvation by doing good things.
Children In Slavery. Growing up from childhood to adulthood was very different in the first century than in today’s twenty-first century and that it involved matters of great social and legal importance. In Jewish households, a boy passed from adolescence to manhood shortly after his twelfth birthday at which time he became a “son of the law.” Under Roman law, there was also a time for the coming of age of a son. But this was not a fixed time, but was at the age set by the father. Until then, the son (even if he were the sole heir of the father’s estate) was considered immature and unable to be recognized as an adult. During this time, the child was constrained to do exactly what the father had established, and be trained at his direction. The child was technically enslaved to the father’s wishes until the time when the child was recognized as an adult. In verse three, Paul tells us that is the condition every person is in until they receive Christ. Without Christ we are mere children who are incapable of understanding the truth and in desperate need of a Savior
The words, “But...God” in verse four marks the fact that divine intervention brought hope and freedom to mankind. As a human father chose the time for his child to become an adult son, so the heavenly Father chose the time for the coming of Christ to make provision for people’s transition from bondage under Law to spiritual sonship God prepared the world.
The Fullness of Time: When God Was Ready. This amazing global preparation by God included allowing the ancient Greeks to form an enormous empire and export their language so that by the first century Greek was the common trade language of the Roman Empire. This was also the time when the Roman civilization had brought peace throughout the Empire and built a road system which facilitated travel. Since the Romans ruled all of the area around the Mediterranean, a person could walk all the way from Jerusalem to Rome. These two aspects facilitated the early spread of the Gospel as evidenced by the journeys of the Apostle Paul. The Jews, after years in exile, had re-established monotheism and the messianic hope in the synagogues of the Mediterranean world. Belief in the coming of the promised Messiah was strongly held by many Jewish people, both within and outside of Palestine.
Before the world was created, God had a specific, well-planned schedule for bringing Jesus Christ into the world. He orchestrated events on both a global scale and an individual level to prepare things for the Son’s arrival. It was only then, after everything was ready, that God sent His Son, the preexistent One, out of heaven and to earth on a mission. God’s timing was absolutely perfect in every detail. The birth of Christ in Bethlehem occurred at the precise moment planned by God. God’s perfect timing is still in effect. Many wonder when the Lord Jesus Christ will return. Jesus will return at the precise moment planned by God.
THE PLAN FOR REDEMPTION. Galatians 4:4b
God Sent Forth His Son. God’s plan for redeeming people from the slavery of their sins involved the sending of His Son. The Son is the eternal God spoken of in Isaiah’s prophecy, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). He has always existed as the Second Person of the Divine Trinity. God sent Him to the earth to offer Himself as the Redeemer. The Old Testament prophet Micah recognized Christ, who was born in Bethlehem, as the eternal God: “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Micah 5:2).
Redemption Was the Mission of the Trinity. The Father and the Son are mentioned in verse four, while the Spirit is mentioned in verse six. This mission of redemption required the efforts of all three members of the Trinity. The redemption they produced is perfect and eternal. This combined ministry is emphasized by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:2. “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.” The Father established it in eternity past in His foreknowledge. The Spirit sanctifies those who come to Christ in faith. The Son completes this redemption through offering His own blood.
THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. Galatians 4:4c
Born of a Woman. The eternal God, Jesus Christ, entered the world the same way all other people have–by being born. He came into the world the same way any ordinary person does. These words emphasize the virgin birth of Christ mention in Matthew 1:23: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which translated means, "God with us.” All of the events of His birth recorded by Matthew and Luke show how strikingly normal His arrival was. The devote a minimum of words to describe the birth. That is because Christ’s actual birth was no different from anyone else’s. That was God’s plan.
The Eternal God Became Human. The Apostle John wrote, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus is completely human. He was 100% human and 100% God at the same time. This incredible truth is a divine mystery and a human paradox.
The Bible calls Jesus’ incarnation “The Mystery of Godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16). This mystery is explained by Paul in Philippians 2:5-8: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Jesus Christ has always existed as God. He “laid His glories by” by temporarily veiling them in human flesh. At every moment during His earthly ministry and every day since and will on through eternity, He will always be God Almighty.
Born Under the Law. This means that Jesus was born a Jew in fulfillment of all of the prophecies written in the Old Testament. He was born to a Jewish mother in a Jewish village. He lived His entire earthly existence as a Jew. Because of the human race’s fall from grace through sin, all people (with the single exception of Jesus Christ) come into the world with a sin nature. God gave the Law, not so that people could keep and become perfect–God knew they could not. He gave the Law so that people would have a scale to measure the reality of their sinfulness. The Law could not save anyone; it was designed to show them exactly what they had always been–sinners with no hope of pleasing God.
THE BENEFITS FOR BELIEVERS. Galatians 4:5
Redemption. God sees the human race as being in the slave market of sin. “Redeem” (ekagorazo) refers to God’s plan to purchase those slaves from the sin market and rescue them by divine grace. There are great benefits in the redemption of Jesus Christ. First, Jesus redeems us from our slavery to sin, He is the One “who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood” (Revelation 1:5). According to Galatians 3:13, Jesus redeems us from the curse of the Law. Third, Jesus redeems us from Satan’s power. In Colossians 1:13, the redeemed are “rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” Fourth, Jesus redeems us from the coming judgment. (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Jesus redeems us from death. (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Purposes of the Redemption of Jesus Christ. Redemption grants us forgiveness from sins. (Ephesians 1:7). Redemption enables our purity. (Titus 2:14). Redemption gives us God’s promises. (Galatians 3:14). Redemption secures our final glorification as Paul wrote in Romans 8:23, we “eagerly wait for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
Adoption. Adoption is God’s action that places the believer into His divine family as an adult son, with all of the attending rights, privileges and responsibilities. Every believer is “born again” as an infant believer and subsequently grows in grace and develop spiritual strength. Yet even from spiritual infancy each Christian is granted the status as a fully grown spiritual adult adopted into God’s family. This transaction is judicial in nature and cannot be changed and is protected by divine omnipotence.
This wonderful status of adoption, like our salvation, is granted entirely by God on the grounds of His matchless grace. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Also, by God’s decree, this adoption is complete. There is nothing further to be added, and nothing can ever be subtracted.
This week as you celebrate Christmas with family and friends, take a few moments and recognize the changeless character of Christmas. Christmas is all about our Savior, Jesus Christ. When my children were small, we often had a birthday cake for Jesus, to impress on them that despite all of the presents and fun, Christmas was about our Savior, not about us. It is, I believe, very important to wrestle our thoughts away from the celebrations and presents and focus on the Person from this day has been established. Jesus must come to have the preeminence in everything and most especially on Christmas day.
I would be remiss if I did not tell you that God sent His Son for the purpose of forgiving sinners of their sin and granting eternal life. This gracious gift is available to anyone regardless of their background or status. The Bible tells us that God loves us, despite our sinful ways and, while recognizing our sins deserve eternal punishment, offers us redemption through Jesus Christ. This offer of mercy is made to those who will believe in Jesus. Have you received Christ into your life? Please consider doing that right now.
