When the Time Had Fully Come

A child in a children's home looks up as the door opens. Someone has come for her. Not to visit. To adopt. To give her a new name, a new home, a family that is hers for ever. Paul says that is what Christmas was for.

Paul had travelled through the region of Galatia, in what is now central Turkey, telling people about Jesus. Churches had sprung up. Many of the new believers were not Jewish. Then, after Paul moved on, some teachers arrived who said: believing in Jesus is not enough. To really belong to God's family, you must also keep the whole law of Moses and be circumcised. Paul hears about it and is alarmed. He writes a fiery, heartfelt letter, and in the middle of his argument he tells the story of Christmas in a few short lines.

First Paul paints a picture. Imagine a child who will one day inherit a great estate. While he is little, he is no different from a servant in the house. He is under guardians and managers until the day his father has set. That, Paul says, is what it was like for God's people. They were like children waiting, kept by rules, longing for the day when they would truly come into their inheritance. And then the day came.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Notice every part. When the time had fully come: God was not late, and he was not early. God sent his Son: the Son was with God before he came. Born of a woman: a real birth, a real mother, Mary in Bethlehem. Born under the law: a Jewish baby boy, circumcised on the eighth day, presented in the temple, keeping the law his whole life. Why? Paul tells us. To redeem those who were under the law, to buy them back, so that we might receive adoption as children.

And here is the most tender part. Because you are his children, Paul writes, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Abba is the Aramaic word Jesus himself used when he prayed. It is the word a child would use at home, warm and close. God's Spirit teaches us to speak to God the way Jesus did. So you are no longer a slave, Paul says, but a child. And if a child, then an heir of God through Christ. The Son came down, so that we could be brought in.

In the Roman world, adoption was a serious legal act. An adopted son received his new father's name and full rights of inheritance, just like a natural-born son. The most famous example was Octavian. Julius Caesar adopted him in his will, and Octavian went on to become the emperor Augustus, the very emperor who ruled when Jesus was born.

When the Time Had Fully Come. You'll find it in Galatians chapter four, verses four to seven. Christians read it at Christmas because it tells, in a single sentence, why the Son was born. So here is a question to carry with you. What would change if you truly believed God calls you his child, and that you can call him Father?