God sent his Son to make peace
God created and set the times
God knows what is happening – in the world, in life, everywhere – at all times, God knows
Paul said: Acts 17:26 …he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
He knows exactly what is happening.
Like a woman expecting a child – there are moments of great anticipation full of excitement and wonder, and moments of discomfort- where hours seem like days and day seem like years; there are moments of waiting and wondering; times of uncertainties and fears; but at some moment her pregnancy ends. Usually this is after the point that she is ready for it to end, but there is nothing she can do to make it end any sooner, those times are up to God.
God knows not only what is going on in any particular persons life, but also the great seasons of time, in the cultures of our world. Nations rise and fall according to the seasons of God’s time. Economies flourish and crash according to the boundaries God places upon them. God is the God of all things in this world. He also holds the cosmos to the plans of his time. Stars are born and die according to his seasons, galaxies come to be as he determines, entire universes are under his determinations. He know what is happening.
There are also things that we do not know, and will not know.
Deut 29:29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
There are things, plans, purposes of the Lord we are not privy to. Some of those things may affect us directly and when they do we tend to get anxious, we think we have a right to know all that may effect us.
There are times in our lives when we wish a season would change, whether it is a pregnancy, or joblessness, or illness or lack of finances. Maybe it is a relationship struggle, or a difficult family time, but we wonder ‘when will this be over’, ‘does any one notice what I am going through?, Does God see what’s going on here?”
God is fully aware of time and the times of not only our individual lives but all of humanity and he responds in His time.
“But, when the time had fully come” –
The day and time of God’s own choosing. One of the great and guarded secrets of God is when and how he will come to interact with humanity.
Jesus speaking of his own return – his ‘second’ coming he said…
Matt 24:36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
But at the time, occasion, the season of His purposes
“God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law”
God had been promising for many years he would re-establish a relationship with humanity. He had something in store, an idea, a way to reveal himself and redeem his creation. The promise God gave to Abraham, now he was fulfilling
Galatians 3:16
16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. NIV
What! I thought the promise to Abraham was about having a home, a promised land, where all his decendents would live, That God made good on that promise when he delivered His people to the ‘promise land’ after wandering the desert with Moses.
God has always promised his people a home, a place to live, with Him and in his ways.
Remember, He banished Adam and Eve from the garden, they could not live with him because they would not live in His ways, trusting in Him.
God delivered His people – the Israelites – into the promised land, a place they could live, and where God would dwell with them, where eventually His temple would be established – Where God would dwell with them (notice not they with Him – He came to dwell with them, for they could not return to the place where He was)
God also delivered them into the Promised Land with His Law – the WAY his people were to live.
But, delivering on that promise that He did thousands of years ago, was not all that God had in mind, instead it was a foretaste of the fulfillment of the complete revelation of His love. He had much more in mind.
God knew what He had in store for them, and all people in all times.
Isa 49:5-6
5 And now the Lord says —
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength —
6 he says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
God has much in mind and in store for all humanity. It was more than bringing Israel into a promised land, it was more than establishing a place for him to dwell with his people, but it was to completely redeem all who would trust Him and return to Him in a trust relationship. He had an inheritance in mind that was much more significant and valuable than a piece of land or anything else you or I could hold.
A promised inheritance is realized by faith (or there is no promise)
Gal 3:6-9 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
It is an inheritance that changes our lives and changes the way we live because we will live as his children, children trusting in our Father for everything and enjoying every good thing the Father has for us.
An Inheritance that he has promised for everyone, whether Jew or Gentile. An Inheritance that would be delivered by His Son
- Inheritance that signifies a relationship
- Inheritance is redeemed upon death
Col 3:24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
And He was going to do it by sending His Son, born of a woman
See how Paul defines Christ = son of God, born of a woman
Person of Christ: Consist of divine and human nature – very God and very man
God, the Son, set aside all his glory to take up flesh and blood and to be found as a man
Phil 2:6-8
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
An amazing – and puzzling thing about God is he seems to prefer to reveal Himself through human flesh. He likes to use us to make himself known. That is not really all that puzzeling, He created us in His image, to be people who reflect him, look like him more than we look like ourselves.
But in Jesus he had much more in mind when he sent his Son to be born of a woman. God himself, in all his perfection, holiness, divinity was now coming to earth, into human existence to be found as a human.
Paul does not speak here that the woman was Mary, or a virgin, or that he came as a baby or any aspect of the nativity in this passage, he simply says born of a woman. He was God, who used a woman he chose of and for his own purposes. The emphasis was on His Son, not the attraction of the way. It was who he was and what he was about.
God was sending his Son because we needed him. ALL of us, regardless of race, or class, or standing or gender. Regardless of time setting, be it thousands of years ago or today, we all need him.
The Son of God was born of a woman, born under law, the demands and expectations we all live under.
It is interesting here Paul does not use a definite article – he does not say born under THE law, but simply law. Paul knew THE LAW, he was raised Jewish, trained as a young man under the best teachers around. He described himself as a Jew among Jews. This was not a slip of the tongue.
Jesus did not come simply for the Jews, to redeem them, but he came for all people. Everyone needs Jesus.
Isa 49:6 "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
When God gave the Law to the Jews He was ‘re-applying’ His image on mankind.
Lev 26:3 "'If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
Lev 26:11-12
11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
He was giving them a way to live as His people. To the Jew THE Law was the Ten Commandments, but also more than that, it was all the teachings of Moses, the rules and regulations of righteous living. The law was to establish the way God’s people were to live.
The Law was also given to show the Jew their sin, It gave definition to where they missed the mark of living as God’s people. Without God it is impossible to live looking like him. Without a trusted relationship with God no one can live with the image of God upon us.
But what if you weren’t Jewish, you didn’t have THE LAW, what then?
Even then a persons own heart condemns them, when they have not lived rightly as they could or should. Each person knows good and evil, it may not be clearly defined by the Law that the Jews had, but each person knows when they have hurt someone else, when they have taken advantage of someone, have promoted themselves at the expense of someone else.
Rom 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Each person knows what good and evil are – in their hearts – and our hearts confirm or condemn us.
Rom 2:14-16
4 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
When God sent his son, born of a woman, under law – he was sending his son to bear the wrath of God for all humanity, for all humanity lives under this law of sin, this terminal, continual, perpetual not living up to who I could be, should be
2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, so that Jesus could become our peace, peace between us and God, to reconcile the descrepencies between who I think I am and how I have been living and who he has made me to be and wants me to live, looking like Him, in our world today.
By being born under law, God was sending his son to die for us, in our place inorder to reconcile everything.
Col 1:19-20
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
NIV
Until Christ we had a promise of an unredeemed inheritance with no way to receive it
- Like winning the lottery that cannot be redeeme
Eph 2:14-18
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.