THE GLORY OF THE INCARNATION Galatians 4:4-7
Pastor Dennis Bone
12-25-16
I remember the first time I heard the word “incarnation” at church, I thought it had something to do with milk. (like Carnation milk?) It was not a word commonly used in the circles I traveled, and still today I often wonder how many people truly know what the word incarnation means and how significant it truly is, not only to our understanding of Christmas, but to the entire Christian faith. This morning we celebrate the birth of Christ, a birth unlike any other birth, because God entered this world and appeared to us “incarnate.” This is the Latin term meaning: “in the flesh.”
As the great hymn writer Charles Wesley so eloquently penned in the hymn we just sung together: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity. Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the new born King!” The essence of our Christian faith, as well as the Christmas story, is the glory of the incarnation; and God the Son coming in the flesh and taking on our human nature, without losing His divine nature. As the Apostle Paul so clearly and beautifully states in Colossians 2:9, “For in Christ, all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”
I want us to explore this morning the wonder and the glory of this deep and profound theological truth of the incarnation of Christ, and how the personal and practical application of this great truth should continue to impact our lives today. Let’s begin by reading the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 – 7 as he reflects upon the glory of the incarnation of Christ:
But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
In four verses Paul sets forth for us the glory of the incarnation, from the beginning of God’s plan to the final result of His plan; and as we study this passage I want you to see four important truths about this glory that we can know and experience because of Christ’s incarnation. The first truth to consider is: the planning for the incarnation. In verse 4 we read: “When the time had fully come.” What time? The time God had planned or appointed. It was God the Father’s plan to send His Son at just the right time. It was not an accident or a reaction to something or someone, but a plan pre-set and preordained in the eternal counsels of God before the beginning of time. So the first thing to know about the divine planning process of Christ’s coming is that it was planned by a Sovereign. The Sovereign God, the Everlasting Father, is the one who planned to put this glorious and miraculous event on; and when it was His time, He sent His Son.
And we also know that His Son was in on this planning because He is God the Son, and He was present in the beginning with the Father. His name will be called Immanuel because He is “God with us.” Jesus Himself tells us about this planning in John 17 when He says: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Jesus came into the world at Christmas because of the plan He and the Father had before the world began. This is why the angels declare: “Glory to God in the highest.” The time for the Son to be incarnate has now come and all of the angels worship Him. So the second point to see about this divine planning is that it was planned around a perfect setting. The incarnation occurred at just the right time; the appropriate time in God’s sovereign providence; and the everything was in its right place for this divine event. It was set in the town of Bethlehem, even as the prophet Micah said, around a manager with angels, shepherds and a Roman census to lead Mary and Joseph to that little town of Bethlehem.
It had been a long time coming, since the first promise of a Savior; and a lot had been written in Old Testament history about this time. The Messiah came, not in a setting that anyone would have expected, but certainly in a setting and at the time that God Himself had planned. Thus this glorious incarnation was planned by a perfect Sovereign and planned around a perfect setting; and third, planned for a perfect Substitute. The incarnation of Christ was planned for a specific purpose. It’s a purpose that was first revealed in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve sinned; a purpose given to sinful man in a promise of one who would come to crush the head of the serpent in order to remove the curse of sin by becoming a curse for us. He would be our substitute; He would take our place. This is why John the Baptist, when he sees Jesus says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” This is also why the apostle John says in Revelation that Jesus is the Lamb of God slain from before the creation of the world.
In a few minutes I will talk more about this purpose, but this point speaks to the planning of the incarnation. It teaches us that from the beginning of time Jesus Christ had been ordained to be our substitute, and the entire Old Testament sacrificial system illustrated for us what was to come when God sent forth His Son. And as the book of Hebrews tells us, this salvation that Jesus came to bring by dying on the cross to forgive our sins as our substitute (and do what the old covenant could not do nor was intended to do), could only happen because of the incarnation. We read in Hebrews 10: “When Christ came into the world he said: ‘Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me . . . I have come to do your will, O God.” Thus God sent His Son into the world to take on our human body; to be in the flesh, because this was the perfect plan all along; and when the time had fully come, God executed on His plan.
Second, as Paul writes about how God executed His plan, we see the power of the incarnation. “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.” We see the power of God demonstrated in the way God performs or carries out this plan. First, we see a powerful method: Jesus is “born of a woman.” God uses a method or a mode that was necessary for His Son to take on our flesh and experience our human nature, and as such we see His power and glory in the virgin birth. Jesus took upon Himself our flesh but did not inherit our sin, thus He could perform and accomplish the work God sent Him to do as both God and Man, both divine and human. This is the power of the incarnation; it’s not man’s work, it’s God’s work. It’s supernatural which is why it’s glorious, as well as mysterious.
Second, we see a powerful ministry: Jesus is “born under law.” This means that Jesus took on the task and responsibility of keeping the requirements of God’s law as the perfect man; an obligation that sinful man could not do. This was an essential part of His powerful ministry, to do what no man could ever do, but to do it as the perfect substitute. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul says that the ministry of the old covenant led to death, because the people could not keep God’s law. In contrast the ministry of the new covenant, which Jesus initiated by His coming, is glorious, because He fulfills the keeping of God’s law for us. In Romans 8 Paul says, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature (the law can’t save us because we can’t keep it), God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering . . . in order that the righteous requirements of the law may be met in us.” We receive the benefit through faith in Christ.
This is true because third, we see a powerful meditator: Jesus is born “to redeem those under law.” This is the work of ministry that He came to do and to accomplish for sinners like us. As Paul says, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” This is the glory of Christmas and the power of the incarnation. God sent His Son to save us from sin.
Jesus is the only mediator, meaning that He is the only way for man to get to God; and it’s the incarnation of Christ that creates this way. No religion or good deeds or Christmas cheer can forgive your sins; only Christ the Savior can do that for you; and for anyone who calls upon His name, and by faith trusts in this powerful work of salvation He came to achieve for sinners like us at the first Christmas. The application of this great truth of the incarnation comes when you receive God’s Spirit through faith in Christ and as a result, the privilege of being in the family of God. This then leads us to consider the third main point of our passage from verses 5 & 6: the purpose of the incarnation.
Paul writes these words: “To redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” God’s purpose in sending His Son was to make us His sons. God sent His perfect Son to redeem imperfect sinners. His purpose was not just to show us the way; or to just give us an example of love to follow; or to just be one of many prophets that can teach you how to live better. No, Christ is the way, and the only way for disobedient and wayward sinners to be redeemed, meaning to be bought and brought to God. Thus first, God’s purpose was to purchase us. The word “redeem” means to buy in the marketplace or to set free and deliver from one place to another. Sinful man is under law, and the wages or result will be death, but Christ redeems us from that state of affairs; and makes peace with God for us.
He moves us from the world’s family, and out from under law, and into God’s family by keeping the law for us (in His perfect life and ministry) and by paying the penalty or wages for our sin as our mediator upon the cross. Christ redeemed us by making atonement for our sin, so as to make peace with God the Father for us. So we see second, God’s purpose was to adopt us. Christ makes us sons of God because of His redemptive work on our behalf.
God’s purpose is to give us a new status or position that we did not have and could not get apart from Christ. Why? “For God so loved the world that He gave us His Son.” “God demonstrates His love for us that even though we are sinners, Christ died for us.” “In love, God predestined us to be adopted as His sons, through Jesus Christ.” God’s purpose has nothing to do with us, but all to do with Christ, and the divine love that declares His glory. God is the one glorified at Christmas, and because of His gracious love, we can reap the benefits. And we are able to receive these benefits because third, God’s purpose was to change us. God didn’t love us and do this so we could just stay the same. Christ makes us new.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation – you have been changed – the old has gone, the new has come.” If you personally apply the purpose of Christ’s incarnation to your life you will be changed; you cannot stay the same, because God will send the Spirit of His Son into your heart; and you will know for certain that God is your Father. This is what changes people, not trying harder to be better or just going to church, but truly being changed by the power of the gospel and faith in Christ your Savior. In verse 7 Paul sums things up be expanding on this application of what it means to be changed by Christ; and what the glory of the incarnation provides for us as God’s children living in this world as Christians.
So the fourth main point we see in this passage, from verse 7, is the promise from the incarnation. The promise of the incarnation of Christ came at Advent; the promise of God was fulfilled: Jesus Christ was born in the flesh; He lived, died and rose again to redeem His people. And now as a part of His redeemed people, we now live in the reality of this promise fulfilled. As Christians we experience that through Christ we are now children of God, for this is what He has made us, and we experience what Christ continues to give us as a result of Him sending His Spirit into our hearts.
One day we will experience what Christ has in store for us in the future when we see Him face to face. All of this is ours because of the glory of the incarnation, thus Paul says in verse 7: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also a heir.” The promise from the incarnation is both present and future. First, it’s the promise of a new person; our status has changed from slave to son. In Christ we have a new identity; we are no longer spiritually dead and slaves to sin, but by faith we are now alive in Christ and children of God. Jesus came in the flesh in order to set us free from the sin that dominates and controls our lives. Peter says that Jesus was put to death in the body – His incarnate body – upon the cross; the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring us to God.
This promise of a new person leads us secondly to the promise of a new purpose. Our new purpose is to serve God, not ourselves; and because God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, we now have the desire and the ability to love God as our Father and to serve Him as our King. The promise of the new covenant, that God would give us new hearts and would send His Spirit to live in us, rests upon the glory of the incarnation through which God applies these divine promises to us through the work of His Son. So you see, God’s purpose in the incarnation is designed to give us purpose in our lives. If you don’t understand your purpose, then you really don’t understand Christmas.
But third, our purpose as Christians is to not only worship and serve God here on earth, but it’s to worship and serve God forever, thus we see the promise of a new place. This place in which we live and serve now is temporal, but God’s promise to us as His children is that we are kingdom heirs. Paul says, “Since you are a son, God has made you also a heir.” An heir is someone who has something great coming, and now that God is our Father because of Christ, we inherit eternal life and a place called heaven. We have become joint heirs with Christ of this great and glorious kingdom to come.
Why? Why are all these things true for us who are Christians? It’s all because of the incarnation. Jesus came into this world at Christmas to take upon Himself our flesh, so that when we leave this world we will take on His glory (not based upon anything we did, but solely on the basis of what He did). Without the incarnation there is no cross and there is no resurrection for Christ; and there is no forgiveness or hope for us.
But thankfully today, we rejoice and agree with the good news of great joy the angels proclaimed and sung on that first Christmas Day: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord! Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
©You’re welcome to recycle these resources for your church free of charge. However, if you find them useful, please consider making a donation to the ministry of GCC.
Pastor Dennis Bone
12-25-16
I remember the first time I heard the word “incarnation” at church, I thought it had something to do with milk. (like Carnation milk?) It was not a word commonly used in the circles I traveled, and still today I often wonder how many people truly know what the word incarnation means and how significant it truly is, not only to our understanding of Christmas, but to the entire Christian faith. This morning we celebrate the birth of Christ, a birth unlike any other birth, because God entered this world and appeared to us “incarnate.” This is the Latin term meaning: “in the flesh.”
As the great hymn writer Charles Wesley so eloquently penned in the hymn we just sung together: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity. Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the new born King!” The essence of our Christian faith, as well as the Christmas story, is the glory of the incarnation; and God the Son coming in the flesh and taking on our human nature, without losing His divine nature. As the Apostle Paul so clearly and beautifully states in Colossians 2:9, “For in Christ, all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”
I want us to explore this morning the wonder and the glory of this deep and profound theological truth of the incarnation of Christ, and how the personal and practical application of this great truth should continue to impact our lives today. Let’s begin by reading the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 – 7 as he reflects upon the glory of the incarnation of Christ:
But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
In four verses Paul sets forth for us the glory of the incarnation, from the beginning of God’s plan to the final result of His plan; and as we study this passage I want you to see four important truths about this glory that we can know and experience because of Christ’s incarnation. The first truth to consider is: the planning for the incarnation. In verse 4 we read: “When the time had fully come.” What time? The time God had planned or appointed. It was God the Father’s plan to send His Son at just the right time. It was not an accident or a reaction to something or someone, but a plan pre-set and preordained in the eternal counsels of God before the beginning of time. So the first thing to know about the divine planning process of Christ’s coming is that it was planned by a Sovereign. The Sovereign God, the Everlasting Father, is the one who planned to put this glorious and miraculous event on; and when it was His time, He sent His Son.
And we also know that His Son was in on this planning because He is God the Son, and He was present in the beginning with the Father. His name will be called Immanuel because He is “God with us.” Jesus Himself tells us about this planning in John 17 when He says: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Jesus came into the world at Christmas because of the plan He and the Father had before the world began. This is why the angels declare: “Glory to God in the highest.” The time for the Son to be incarnate has now come and all of the angels worship Him. So the second point to see about this divine planning is that it was planned around a perfect setting. The incarnation occurred at just the right time; the appropriate time in God’s sovereign providence; and the everything was in its right place for this divine event. It was set in the town of Bethlehem, even as the prophet Micah said, around a manager with angels, shepherds and a Roman census to lead Mary and Joseph to that little town of Bethlehem.
It had been a long time coming, since the first promise of a Savior; and a lot had been written in Old Testament history about this time. The Messiah came, not in a setting that anyone would have expected, but certainly in a setting and at the time that God Himself had planned. Thus this glorious incarnation was planned by a perfect Sovereign and planned around a perfect setting; and third, planned for a perfect Substitute. The incarnation of Christ was planned for a specific purpose. It’s a purpose that was first revealed in Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve sinned; a purpose given to sinful man in a promise of one who would come to crush the head of the serpent in order to remove the curse of sin by becoming a curse for us. He would be our substitute; He would take our place. This is why John the Baptist, when he sees Jesus says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” This is also why the apostle John says in Revelation that Jesus is the Lamb of God slain from before the creation of the world.
In a few minutes I will talk more about this purpose, but this point speaks to the planning of the incarnation. It teaches us that from the beginning of time Jesus Christ had been ordained to be our substitute, and the entire Old Testament sacrificial system illustrated for us what was to come when God sent forth His Son. And as the book of Hebrews tells us, this salvation that Jesus came to bring by dying on the cross to forgive our sins as our substitute (and do what the old covenant could not do nor was intended to do), could only happen because of the incarnation. We read in Hebrews 10: “When Christ came into the world he said: ‘Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me . . . I have come to do your will, O God.” Thus God sent His Son into the world to take on our human body; to be in the flesh, because this was the perfect plan all along; and when the time had fully come, God executed on His plan.
Second, as Paul writes about how God executed His plan, we see the power of the incarnation. “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.” We see the power of God demonstrated in the way God performs or carries out this plan. First, we see a powerful method: Jesus is “born of a woman.” God uses a method or a mode that was necessary for His Son to take on our flesh and experience our human nature, and as such we see His power and glory in the virgin birth. Jesus took upon Himself our flesh but did not inherit our sin, thus He could perform and accomplish the work God sent Him to do as both God and Man, both divine and human. This is the power of the incarnation; it’s not man’s work, it’s God’s work. It’s supernatural which is why it’s glorious, as well as mysterious.
Second, we see a powerful ministry: Jesus is “born under law.” This means that Jesus took on the task and responsibility of keeping the requirements of God’s law as the perfect man; an obligation that sinful man could not do. This was an essential part of His powerful ministry, to do what no man could ever do, but to do it as the perfect substitute. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul says that the ministry of the old covenant led to death, because the people could not keep God’s law. In contrast the ministry of the new covenant, which Jesus initiated by His coming, is glorious, because He fulfills the keeping of God’s law for us. In Romans 8 Paul says, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature (the law can’t save us because we can’t keep it), God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering . . . in order that the righteous requirements of the law may be met in us.” We receive the benefit through faith in Christ.
This is true because third, we see a powerful meditator: Jesus is born “to redeem those under law.” This is the work of ministry that He came to do and to accomplish for sinners like us. As Paul says, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” This is the glory of Christmas and the power of the incarnation. God sent His Son to save us from sin.
Jesus is the only mediator, meaning that He is the only way for man to get to God; and it’s the incarnation of Christ that creates this way. No religion or good deeds or Christmas cheer can forgive your sins; only Christ the Savior can do that for you; and for anyone who calls upon His name, and by faith trusts in this powerful work of salvation He came to achieve for sinners like us at the first Christmas. The application of this great truth of the incarnation comes when you receive God’s Spirit through faith in Christ and as a result, the privilege of being in the family of God. This then leads us to consider the third main point of our passage from verses 5 & 6: the purpose of the incarnation.
Paul writes these words: “To redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” God’s purpose in sending His Son was to make us His sons. God sent His perfect Son to redeem imperfect sinners. His purpose was not just to show us the way; or to just give us an example of love to follow; or to just be one of many prophets that can teach you how to live better. No, Christ is the way, and the only way for disobedient and wayward sinners to be redeemed, meaning to be bought and brought to God. Thus first, God’s purpose was to purchase us. The word “redeem” means to buy in the marketplace or to set free and deliver from one place to another. Sinful man is under law, and the wages or result will be death, but Christ redeems us from that state of affairs; and makes peace with God for us.
He moves us from the world’s family, and out from under law, and into God’s family by keeping the law for us (in His perfect life and ministry) and by paying the penalty or wages for our sin as our mediator upon the cross. Christ redeemed us by making atonement for our sin, so as to make peace with God the Father for us. So we see second, God’s purpose was to adopt us. Christ makes us sons of God because of His redemptive work on our behalf.
God’s purpose is to give us a new status or position that we did not have and could not get apart from Christ. Why? “For God so loved the world that He gave us His Son.” “God demonstrates His love for us that even though we are sinners, Christ died for us.” “In love, God predestined us to be adopted as His sons, through Jesus Christ.” God’s purpose has nothing to do with us, but all to do with Christ, and the divine love that declares His glory. God is the one glorified at Christmas, and because of His gracious love, we can reap the benefits. And we are able to receive these benefits because third, God’s purpose was to change us. God didn’t love us and do this so we could just stay the same. Christ makes us new.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation – you have been changed – the old has gone, the new has come.” If you personally apply the purpose of Christ’s incarnation to your life you will be changed; you cannot stay the same, because God will send the Spirit of His Son into your heart; and you will know for certain that God is your Father. This is what changes people, not trying harder to be better or just going to church, but truly being changed by the power of the gospel and faith in Christ your Savior. In verse 7 Paul sums things up be expanding on this application of what it means to be changed by Christ; and what the glory of the incarnation provides for us as God’s children living in this world as Christians.
So the fourth main point we see in this passage, from verse 7, is the promise from the incarnation. The promise of the incarnation of Christ came at Advent; the promise of God was fulfilled: Jesus Christ was born in the flesh; He lived, died and rose again to redeem His people. And now as a part of His redeemed people, we now live in the reality of this promise fulfilled. As Christians we experience that through Christ we are now children of God, for this is what He has made us, and we experience what Christ continues to give us as a result of Him sending His Spirit into our hearts.
One day we will experience what Christ has in store for us in the future when we see Him face to face. All of this is ours because of the glory of the incarnation, thus Paul says in verse 7: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also a heir.” The promise from the incarnation is both present and future. First, it’s the promise of a new person; our status has changed from slave to son. In Christ we have a new identity; we are no longer spiritually dead and slaves to sin, but by faith we are now alive in Christ and children of God. Jesus came in the flesh in order to set us free from the sin that dominates and controls our lives. Peter says that Jesus was put to death in the body – His incarnate body – upon the cross; the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring us to God.
This promise of a new person leads us secondly to the promise of a new purpose. Our new purpose is to serve God, not ourselves; and because God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, we now have the desire and the ability to love God as our Father and to serve Him as our King. The promise of the new covenant, that God would give us new hearts and would send His Spirit to live in us, rests upon the glory of the incarnation through which God applies these divine promises to us through the work of His Son. So you see, God’s purpose in the incarnation is designed to give us purpose in our lives. If you don’t understand your purpose, then you really don’t understand Christmas.
But third, our purpose as Christians is to not only worship and serve God here on earth, but it’s to worship and serve God forever, thus we see the promise of a new place. This place in which we live and serve now is temporal, but God’s promise to us as His children is that we are kingdom heirs. Paul says, “Since you are a son, God has made you also a heir.” An heir is someone who has something great coming, and now that God is our Father because of Christ, we inherit eternal life and a place called heaven. We have become joint heirs with Christ of this great and glorious kingdom to come.
Why? Why are all these things true for us who are Christians? It’s all because of the incarnation. Jesus came into this world at Christmas to take upon Himself our flesh, so that when we leave this world we will take on His glory (not based upon anything we did, but solely on the basis of what He did). Without the incarnation there is no cross and there is no resurrection for Christ; and there is no forgiveness or hope for us.
But thankfully today, we rejoice and agree with the good news of great joy the angels proclaimed and sung on that first Christmas Day: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord! Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
©You’re welcome to recycle these resources for your church free of charge. However, if you find them useful, please consider making a donation to the ministry of GCC.
