and turn to Galatians 3. We're gonna start reading actually in verse 21 and read through verse 7 of Galatians 4. We're really only going to be spending our time on verses 4 and 5, or primarily spending our time on verses 4 and 5 of Galatians 4. Reading John Calvin again this week on this passage, Calvin gets crabby in his commentary about the chapter break that was made here because he believes that it was woefully incorrect. So we do know, I hope, that chapter breaks and verses are not inspired. Those are man-created. The authors of the Scriptures did not have chapters and verses, those were brought later on. So we don't believe in the inspiration of the chapters and verses, we believe in the inspiration of the words. And Calvin would adamantly not believe in the inspiration of the chapters and verses in Galatians. And hopefully you'll see why as we read, the argument really flows right from chapter 3 into 4. So it's really an artificial break. We are concentrating on four and five, but you'll need the context for the argument. So starting verse 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be received. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he's under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who, under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son than an heir through God. So if you remember from last week, we looked at article 17 of the Belgic, which deals with the recovery of fallen man. The article talks about that sinful man is fleeing from God and that God is seeking and finding specifically Adam in the garden, but representative of us all. The final sentence of that article says this, and God comforted him, sinful man, Adam, promising to give him his son born of a woman, quoting from Galatians four, our text for this morning, to crush the head of the serpent and to make him blast. And the last phrase making blast is the sense of where we're at in our texts this morning. What's the blessing? The blessing is that we are no longer slaves, that we're sons, heirs of Christ Jesus. And we looked at this article as we studied Luke 15, the father seeking his lost sons. One commentator on Luke 15 says this, that God the father runs to us on the legs of Jesus Christ. Article 17 ends on promise and hope. Article 18 continues that theme. And what Article 18 is doing is expanding and explaining the promise of the son born of a woman who will not only defeat the enemies of God, but also How the coming of the sun into the world, how the incarnation is the means by which God is able to bless us. So if you think about the tie between chapter three of Galatians into chapter four, there's all connected. You have to think of the articles of the Belgic in the same way that they're connected. The sinful man is in trouble, fleeing from God, hiding from God, unable to do anything that will allow them to be reconciled to God. And God knows it. And in mercy, he comes and he seeks his wayward sinful child and makes a promise. and provides them with this wonderful good news that there is a way back to God and it has nothing to do with what they can do. It has everything to do with what God will do. And so we want to think about these themes using two points this morning. First, Promises made. And then second promises fulfilled. So first promises made. Up until this point in the book of Galatians, Paul has been correcting errors that the Judaizers had with regard to the law. And he's making a contrast between the old covenant and the new, especially with regard to the law. And the difficulty is to misread the book of Galatians and to misread the book of Galatians is to demonize the law, to actually think that the law is something negative. Paul never actually demonizes the law. He always speaks of the law as something good, but we can all take something good and use it wrongly. And we can take something good and by our wrong use of it, end up in sinful behaviors and sinful practices. And that's what had happened in this region with the Judaizers. They had taken a good gift of God, the Law, and distorted it and used it in a sinful way. And that sinful way was, in a way, to try to justify themselves. To earn their salvation. That if we keep the Law, then all is well. And that's how we get right with God. And Paul is correcting that in chapter 3. We looked at that and he's saying, well, no, if you can actually find salvation through the law, then Christ is not necessary. That if righteousness can be obtained by obedience, why was there need of a promise? As he concludes his argument in chapter 3, he ends with this phrase. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise. And that's the contrast, right? You're not heirs according to the law. You're not heirs according to your work. You're not heirs because of merit. Your heirs according to promise. That's why we loop back to verse 21. It's promised by faith in Jesus Christ. Coming faith would be revealed. Faith has come. In Jesus, you are all sons. This is promise language. This is gift language. This is about belief, about trusting in the work of another. That's the language that Paul is using here. He's trying to get you and I as readers to say it's about believing God and specifically believing what? Promises made. Paul expands on what he means by heir according to promise. In verse 1 of chapter 4, he says that the oldest son is the heir of all things, Lord of all. Everything was his according to title, but not yet an actual possession. Do you understand what he's saying? That the heir has everything by promise. He doesn't have it yet. But he's a son, and it will be his someday, but not yet. It's all promise. As a minor, to say it a different way, he didn't have any legal rights at all. He was under a guardian that governed his affairs and his behavior and his business. And that's why Paul can say, In some ways, he's really no different than a slave. He is different, but not in some ways. Just like a slave, he has no legal rights yet. Just like a slave, he can't determine his own destiny, if you will. He's underneath the governance of somebody else until he gets to be a certain age. And that's how he's different than a slave, right? Doesn't matter how old you are as a slave, as long as you're a slave, you're a slave. Somebody's governing over you, telling you what you can or can't do. And he's saying that's not like it is with Jesus. I mean, I'm sorry, that's not what it's like to be an heir. It's only for a while that you're under a guardian. And then Paul's point is, that the law plays a similar role in the story of salvation. In verse three, it says, in the same way, enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. Now the elementary principles of the world can actually have two meanings. And it's difficult to determine which is right. It could be a both and more than an either or I'm going to start with the one that I don't think it is. And then I'm going to end on the one that I do think Paul is saying. I think the one that it's maybe not is pagan worship. That's how Paul will use it in verse nine. It's really would be referring to. Satan's control of the Gentiles it could be that I'm not saying that it's not I'm just saying that I don't think it's that The context would allow for both of these so you can make a choice. I choose the second option and The second option is that it's another way of describing the law He mentions the law both before and after using the phrase so that's the tighter context seems to suggest this. And in Greek, the elementary principles would be the essential components or basic teachings. So we would talk about this not by saying the elementary principles, we would say that these are the ABCs. These are the foundational beliefs or teaching and learning aspects. And so the way that I think Paul is using this is he's saying that the Old Testament law was like the elementary school for the people of God. That Israel under the law didn't know the full appreciation, beauty, and breadth of gospel freedom. Now that's different than saying that they didn't know about the gospel. They did. People in the Old Testament are saved exactly the same way we are, by faith in Jesus Christ. So salvation is not different in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. So I'm not saying that they didn't have an understanding of the gospel. What I'm saying is that just like elementary kids don't have a full understanding of mathematics, and they develop that, and grow into a fuller understanding of the riches of, just go along with this, of mathematics, it's okay to admit that there's a richness to mathematics. But you grow into it. You develop an understanding over time. And that's what the Old Testament church was like. They had an understanding, but it was elementary, if you will. It was the ABCs. To continue in my math analogy, it would be simple arithmetic. They would grow to understand calculus. But they just knew the basics. Hebrews 9 says, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink in various washings, regulations for the body, and posed until the time of reformation. What the author of Hebrews is saying, that these are necessary for a time, but they're not the reality forever. They're the building blocks to get us to the full revelation that's coming. And keeping the requirements of the Old Testament, which included the law, is like being in grammar school. But we eventually outgrow elementary education. Once you master the alphabet, you move to composition. You begin to write. You grow and develop. The other way to say this is God raised his children on the law. To prepare them for the gospel. William Perkins says this, he describes Israel as a little school set up in a corner of the world. The law of Moses was as it were an ABC or primer in which Christ was revealed to the world in dark and obscure manner, especially to the Jews. The Old Testament was an age of partial light as opposed to the age of fullness. The Old Testament revealed Christ, but in shadows. Several years ago, I preached an Advent series through the Lord's Day. I knew it didn't land when somebody says to me after the series was done, that was interesting. That's just funny. But in Lord's Day 6, it's talking about the fact that we need a mediator, and that mediator has to be truly God and truly man. And the last question in the answer of Lord's Day 6 asks, how do you come to know this? How do you come to know your need for a mediator that's truly God and truly man? And the answer is, The holy gospel tells me God himself began to reveal the gospel already in paradise. Later he proclaimed it by the holy patriarchs and prophets and foreshadowed it by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of law. And finally he fulfilled it through his own beloved son. I thought it was a wonderful advent because we went paradise patriarchs, prophets, pictures, and person, all Ps. And I got zero points for creativity. But it's the idea that the gospel was already revealed beginning with the great gospel promise of Genesis 3.15. That God would send the seed of the woman to crush the seed of the serpent. And then really what you have in the entire rest of the Old Testament is the development of that promise. If you remember when we worked our way through the book of Genesis, when after this great gospel promise in Genesis 3.15, Adam and Eve give birth to a son and in Genesis 4 verse 1, Eve expresses this incredible hope. This is the one. The Messiah is born. Well, we don't have to wait very long to find out that she was wrong in her assessment. Cain was not the promised one. But as the book of Genesis unfolds, it becomes clear that the promised one would come from the line of Shem and to Terah and to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob through the tribe of Judah. And the promise kept being reiterated in different forms. until eventually we get to David, that David is given the promise that one of his sons will reign forever on the throne. And so what's the hope? What's the promises that are being held on to as we move from the old covenant into the new covenant, and the Old Testament into the New Testament, that one, the son of David is here. That we are children of Abraham. Why children of Abraham? Because they're children of promise. following that great promise of the gospel that was given by person to person to person to person, but also pictured throughout the entire Old Testament. And this is the promises that God has made. And that's what we find in the Belgic. If you look at Belgic article 18, in some ways it mirrors the teaching of Lord's Day Six. So this, I'm gonna be reading on page 861. Maybe I should do a Belgic Christmas. Because I live to have people say, that's interesting. Article 18 says this. So then, We confess that God fulfilled the promise which he had made to the early fathers by the mouth of his holy prophets when he sent his only and eternal son into the world at a time set by him. The son took the form of a servant was made in the likeness of man, truly assuming a real human nature with all its weaknesses, except for sin. being conceived in the womb of the Blessed Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit without male participation and he not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul in order that he might be a real human being." Heidelberg would talk about him as being truly man same idea just different framing For since the soul had been lost as well as the body, he had to assume them both to save them both together. Therefore, we confess against the heresy of the Anabaptists who deny that Christ assumed human flesh from his mother, that he shared the very flesh and blood of children, that he is, and then here is the way that the Belgic goes through all of the categories of the Heidelberg. Remember the Heidelberg talks about the promise made in the garden that is proclaimed by the patriarchs and the prophets and the pictures, now this is the Belgics way of capturing that same idea. is fruit of the loins of David according to the flesh born of the seed of David according to the flesh fruit of the womb of the Virgin Mary born of a woman the seed of David a shoot from the root of Jesse the offspring of Judah having descended from the Jews according to the flesh from the seed of Abraham for he assumed Abraham's seed and was made like his brothers except for sin in this way he truly is Emmanuel God with us. All of that is just trying to say Jesus was promised. And he's promised all throughout the Old Testament. And the promise was about bringing salvation. And all of that leads us to this idea of fulfillment, which is our second point promises fulfilled. we come to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, God's son. Entire Old Testament was preparation for and expectation of this moment. And we're gonna look at this promise fulfilled in six sub points, timing, origin, manner, condition, and purpose. And purpose is number five and six. So timing, origin, manner, condition, and purpose first. Timing and this is where we're going to settle in on verses four and five of chapter four. The timing number one is the fullness of time. Calvin writes when the time which had been ordained by the providence of God was seasonable and fit. God determined the exact moment that Jesus Christ would be conceived in the womb of Mary. The fullness of time. It's not that he just had a general sense of what it would be. It would be when the time is full. And the idea is that you have this glass and that the water is just overflowing, that it comes to the point of absolute fullness, which it has to come about. And God ordained this moment when the world was exactly ready for it. I mean, just from a history standpoint, when you begin to think about the moment that Jesus Christ came into the world, you have a common language with the Greek language. You've got peace and prosperity in the land, an infrastructure created by the Roman world that allow for accessibility all across the the Roman Empire that was all across the world. And you've got a moment in time where the religious environment of the age was ready. Coincidence that that's when Jesus Christ was born? No. At this moment when Jesus Christ came into the world, what happens is that with the ascension and Pentecost and the giving of the Spirit, it means that the gospel can go all over the world. Which, go back a hundred years, not possible. Go forward a hundred years, not possible. But at this moment it was. the fullness of time. Second, the origin. God sent forth his son. This is about existence. Jesus's origin was his being the eternal son of God. His incarnation was not becoming the son of God. He always was. The language that he is sent can't be used if it is when he becomes. You can't send something that isn't. So when it says that he sent forth his son, it's actually given us a little theological construct here. That it is actually referring to the eternal generation of the Son, that Jesus Christ always is, and always was, and always will be the Son of God. Philippians 2 verse 6 says, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped or held on to. He was already in the form of God. Colossians 1, he's the image of the invisible God the firstborn of all creation, Hebrews 1. He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by his word of power. After making purification for sin, he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. So first timing, second origin, third manner. Born of a woman. He had a normal birth. He didn't have a normal conception. But he had a normal birth. Jesus Christ was born just like every other baby is born. He was born of a woman. He was a real human being. He had a body and a soul. God can't redeem what he did not become. So in order to redeem sinful humanity, he has to assume our nature, body and soul. In the Incarnation, God became a man. He truly took on our flesh and our nature. 2 and 3 in our list just really summarizes what the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 6, starts with saying, that he is truly God and that he is truly man. Fourth, what's the condition? He's born under the law. This really deals with the theological construct of the active obedience of Jesus Christ. In order for us to have a salvation that's secure. Because remember we're born in the law. We're born with an obligation to perfectly obey what God has commanded. That's the covenant of works. God can't change his mind. So in the garden of Eden, God set before Adam and Eve the requirement that they had to give him perfect obedience to his commandments. Sometimes we mistakenly think that the covenant of works stopped. Once God engages in something, he can't change it. So the covenant of works actually is binding for all time. Sometimes we think, well, there is a covenant of works, now we have the covenant of grace. No, we have the covenant of works and we have the covenant of grace. And the covenant of grace works because Jesus Christ fulfilled the covenant of works. Jesus Christ did what the first Adam failed to do. And so he had to be born under the law. And he had to perfectly fulfill all of the demands of the law. J. Gresham Machen used to teach at Westminster Seminary really probably close to 100 years ago now. Jay Gresham Machen was going to speak in North Dakota, comes down with pneumonia, and he eventually will actually die from this. And as he's on his deathbed, he sends a telegraph to John Murray, also at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. And in his telegraph, he's on his deathbed, And he says this, John, I am so thankful for the active obedience of Jesus. Stop. No hope without it. Stop. Some of his last words on this side of eternity, is rejoicing in the active obedience of Jesus Christ. Can you imagine having that as a mindset that you live by saying, my salvation so depends not on what I do, but my salvation depends entirely on what Jesus Christ has done on my behalf, and there's no hope without it. But by implication, what does it mean? That there's every hope with it. that I'm secure. Why? Because my salvation doesn't depend on my works. My salvation depends on the one who was born of a woman born under the law and perfectly obeyed the law. So that those that are in Christ Jesus, those that have faith, those that trust in the promised one, have a righteousness that can stand up to the scrutiny of God. And it's the active obedience of Jesus Christ that allows us into heaven. Points five and six are the same, purpose. So number five, purpose. So what we have in verse five of our text is a double purpose clause. The first one is that Jesus Christ was born under the law To redeem those under the law. To redeem, buy back. Redemption, this atonement, Jesus paid the price for our freedom. Back in the beginning of Galatians verse 4 says, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and father. And this redemption involves both his active and passive obedience. His active obedience is going to Calvary's cross, shedding his blood and being the propitiation for our sins. The atoning sacrifice that he absorbs and takes the entire wrath of God that is due us for our sins. And he instead takes it upon himself. His active obedience and his passive obedience. I think I just told you the passive obedience, I meant to say passive. One commentator writes this, as an atoning, propitiatory sacrifice for sin. The second purpose is so that we might receive adoption. I don't think this is hyperbole, but this might be one of the greatest truths of the Bible. Because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, we have been made sons and daughters of God. If you think about where we were back in article 17, sinful man, running from God, hiding from God, rejecting God's authority, living in rebellion to God. And what does God do? On the legs of Jesus Christ, he comes running to lost sinners. And he brings them home. See, this is last week's message, right? That's what he's driving home in Luke 15. This is my son. And what does he do? He lavishes on all these gifts. Why? Because he wants everybody to know, this is my son. Galatians 4 is just another way of talking about Luke 15. Jesus Christ comes running to lost sinners. And lost sinners are saying, but I want to earn my salvation. Don't take me as a son. I'll just be a slave. And God says, absolutely not. You're not a slave. You're my son. All of the blessings are yours because you're in my son. You've believed the promise of God. You've trusted and put your faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. And what that means is that we're eternally loved by the Father. And we know this because it has been sealed to us by the Holy Spirit. That's where eventually Paul goes in this passage that he has given us his Holy Spirit that cries out to God, Abba Father. See, we're loved by God. We're chosen by him. We're redeemed by him through the person and work of Jesus Christ, so that we have all the blessings of being his children. And so what it means is we don't have to serve out of fear and duty. We serve out of love and freedom. We're not earning the affection of our Father. We have it. Why? Because Jesus Christ had it. And lived and died as one that was truly man. So that all of that joy and freedom can be ours. We're heirs according to promise. We're Abraham's offspring. The inheritance is ours. And the inheritance is sure. So one question remains. Will you live in the fullness of that salvation? Will you live as one that trusts in the finished and complete and perfect work of Jesus Christ, the one that is truly man and truly God? Will you trust in the one that was born of a woman, born under the law, What's the other option? The other option is trusting yourself. I know myself well enough that I don't want that option. And I know most of you well enough that you don't want that option either. God made a promise and he kept it. Jesus has come. Jesus, the one that saves us from our sin. Trust in him. Trust in his perfect work on behalf of lost sinners. And live as sons and daughters of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the redemption that is ours as your children. We thank you for your perfect work on our behalf through Jesus Christ, that he was willing to come and not only live among us, but he was willing to come and perfectly fulfill your demands and then go to Calvary's cross and give of his life so that we might experience the forgiveness of sins in life as your children. Father, we pray that we would believe your promises, that we would trust in them, and that we would live in the fullness of them. And we ask and pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.