2. The Redeemer assumes the nature and condition of those He redeems.—“Made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (vers. 4, 5). Christ was born of woman as other men are, and, like them, was at first a weak and dependent babe. His child-life has for ever beautified and consecrated child-nature. He was born under law—not the law as a mere Jew, which would have limited His redeeming work to the Jewish nation, but under law in its widest application. He submitted not only to the general moral demands of the Divine law for men, but to all the duties and proprieties incident to His position as a man, even to those ritual ordinances which His coming was to abolish. The purpose of His being sent was “to redeem them that were under the law”—to buy them out of their bondage. He voluntarily entered into the condition of the enslaved that He might emancipate them.
3. The sonship acquired through redemption is not by merit or legal right, but by adoption.—“That we might receive the adoption of sons” (ver. 5). The sonship is by grace, not of nature. Man lost his sonship by sin; by grace he gets it back again. Adoption we do not get back; we simply receive it. It is an act of God’s free grace.
III. The attainment of sonship is a conscious reality.—1. Made evident by the Spirit of God witnessing in us and crying to Him as to a Father. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (ver. 6). God sent forth His Son into the world of men: He sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their individual hearts. The filial consciousness was born within them, supernaturally inspired. When they believed in Christ, when they saw in Him the Son of God, their Redeemer, they were stirred with a new ecstatic impulse; a Divine glow of love and joy kindled in their breasts; a voice not their own spoke to their spirit; their soul leaped forth upon their lips, crying to God “Father, Father!” They were children of God and knew it.
2. Confirmed by the heirship that results from the Divine adoption.—“If a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (ver. 7). The nonage, the period of servitude and subjection, is passed. It gives place to the unrivalled privilege of a maturer spiritual manhood, and the heirship to an inheritance of indescribable and imperishable blessedness.
Lessons.—1. The law held the world in bondage. 2. The Gospel is a message of liberty by redemption. 3. Redemption by Christ confers distinguished privileges.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.
Vers. 4, 5. Christ’s Mission for the Adoption of Sons in the Fulness of Time.
I. The mission of Jesus Christ and the manner in which He manifested Himself.—“God sent forth His Son.” These words present the great fact of Christ’s mission from the Father and His appearance in the world. To denote the inexpressible dignity of Jesus, as being one with the Father in His most essential prerogatives and perfections, He is here styled, “His Son.” He was “made of a woman.” The circumstances of His incarnation placed Him at an immeasurable distance from all other parts of the human race. He was the immediate production of God, by His Divine power He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and thereby completely exempted from the taint of original sin. He was the holy thing born of a virgin. He was by constitution placed in the same state as our first parents. He underwent a similar but severer trial and maintained His innocence against all the assaults of Satan. He was “made under the law”; whereas all other creatures are under it by the very terms of their existence, by the condition of their nature. He was made under the ceremonial law, under the moral law, under the mediatorial law.
II. The design of Christ’s mission.—“To redeem.” He came not merely to exemplify a rule of life, but to satisfy its violation; not to explain the statutes of heaven, but to pay the penalty arising from the curse announced against their transgression. He came essentially to change the moral situation of mankind. Christ has added to our original brightness; He has not only redeemed us from the first transgression, but accumulated blessings which man, even in innocence, could never have obtained.
III. The fitness of the season at which Christ was manifested.—“The fulness of time.” 1. It was the period foretold by the prophets. Hence the general expectation of His coming. 2. It was a period of advancement in politics, legislation, science, and arts, and manners; an age of scepticism. 3. It was a period of toleration. The epoch will arrive when this world shall be thought of as nothing but as it furnished a stage for the manifestation of the Son of God.—Robert Hall.