Born Under the Law

Galatians 4:4 NKJV  

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law...

I want to take an entry here to talk about a concept that is critical for us to remember as we consider the life and times of Jesus in the Gospels.  Galatians 4:4 is the key.  This verse is from the letter of Paul to the believers in Galatia.  As we work through the Gospels, we will come back to the truth of Galatians many times, but for now we are focusing on just this one verse.

“But when the fullness of the time had come...” If time were a jar and each moment a grain of sand, we would see that jar full to the brim when Jesus was born in Bethlehem that wonder-filled night.  When God created the earth and placed Adam and Eve in the garden, the jar began to receive the steady drop of grains.   

From the very start, God revealed Himself to mankind. When God promised Abram that He would make him a great nation, He also told Abram that his people would be in Egyptian bondage.  After 430 years in Egyptian slavery, God raised up Moses to be the deliverer who would set them free.  They entered Egypt as a family; they left Egypt as a nation.  Through Moses, God gave a system of laws that would govern how the nation would worship Him, and how they would live together.  God also promised them that He would raise up a Prophet like Moses through whom God would speak.

Over time the Israelites went through cycles of loyal, obedient worship of God, to idolatry and disobedience.  After years of warnings through many prophets, God brought the Assyrian and the Babylonian kingdoms to take the Israelites away into captivity. 

From the Babylonians to the Persians to the Greeks and finally the Romans, Israel was under foreign occupation.  During all that time, faithful Israelites waited for the fullness of time—the arrival of the One who would be anointed to set them free and reign as king. 

From the time of Moses—about 1400 years, Israel lived under “the Law of Moses”.  These were not laws agreed upon by men, or laws established by an earthly ruler.  This was the Law that God gave to Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses.  God made a solemn agreement, a covenant, with Israel when they accepted His law.

“The Law” refers to the Torah, Pentateuch or the first five books of the Old Testament.  It can also refer to the entire Old Testament, and the commandments of God including the Ten Commandments.  When Galatians 4:4 states that Jesus was “born under the Law”, it means that Jesus was subject to all the Law of the Old Testament including the sacrificial system of the Temple.  Jesus would later say that He did not come to abolish the Law, but that He would fulfill it.    He also said that all the Law could be summed up in two commandments—to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

God had spoken through the prophet Ezekiel that the law delivered through Moses was written on stone, but there would come a time that the law would be written on fleshy tablets of the heart.  (Eze. 36:26)  No one other than Jesus has ever kept the Law perfectly.  No one can.  God established His Law for 1400 years to be a teacher or “school master” (Gal. 3:24) to bring us to God, showing us that we can never keep that Law.  Our sinfulness can never attain the righteousness of God.

Jesus obeyed the law and kept it perfectly—100%.  He then submitted Himself to death on the cross to pay the penalty for the unkept law—the penalty that we could not pay ourselves.  His sacrifice was accepted by God the Father when God raised Him from the dead.  When we receive that sacrifice by faith, God the Holy Spirit indwells our hearts.  We no longer strive to keep the Law by our own efforts.  Instead, the Holy Spirit in us teaches our hearts and empowers us to live by grace—the law written on the believer’s heart.

As we watch the Gospels unfold before us, we will see how Jesus taught and lived to prepare the people for the time when the Spirit of the Living God would write upon tablets of the heart.  May our hearts be quick to believe and respond to the Holy Spirit as we receive the Word by faith.
Next:     Luke 2:21-49