Please allow me a lighter day. We have suffered the loss of my father-in-law. I am sharing some thoughts, taken from W. E. Vine and C. F. Hogg in Vine’s Expository Commentary on Galatians. I believe you will find them encouraging.
·
4:5: might receive the adoption of sons. … adoption is here preferred to that of birth
… in order to distinguish the sonship of the believer from that of the Lord
Jesus, and to remind the reader that the relationship in the former case is the
result of an act of God in grace. Adoption
is thus “the assumption into sonship by an act of God’s grace as distinct form
the sonship that results from birth.”
·
It is significant, however that in the NT the
Lord is not said to have kept the law.
That would be an understatement of the character of His life, for He not
merely “kept the commandments of God,” He always did “the things that are well
pleasing in His sight,” 1 John 3:22, cp. John 5:30.
·
There is a figure of speech involved in vv. 4
and 5 which may be displayed thus:
a, born of a woman,
b, born under the law,
b, that He might redeem
them which were under the law,
a, that we might receive
the adoption of sins.
The first and fourth lines refer to mankind,
without distinction of nation or race, the second and third to the Jews alone.
·
The purpose of God in sending His Son is elsewhere
said to be:
o
that the world might be saved through Him, John
3:17.
o
that He might give life to the world, John
6:32,33.
o
that He might be an offering for sin, Romans
8:3.
o
that men might live through Him, 1 John 4:9.
o
that He might be the propitiation for our sins,
1 John 4:10.
o
that He might be the Savior of the world, 1 John
4:14.
o
In a few passages the phrase “He was manifested”
is found: to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Hebrews 9:26; as the
Lamb of God, 1 Peter 1:19,20; to take away sins, 1 John 3:5.
o
Other direct and categorical statements of the
objects before the Lord Jesus in His coming into the world found in the NT are:
§
to call sinners, Matthew 9:13;
§
to seek and to save that which was lost, Luke
19:10;
§
to do the will of the Father, John 6:38, cp.
Hebrews 10:7,9;
§
for judgment, that they which see not may see;
and that they which see might become blind, John 9:39;
§
that they [the sheep] might have abundant life,
John 10:10;
§
in order to die, John 12:27; Hebrews 2:9;
§
that whosoever believeth on Him may not abide in
the darkness, Jn. 12:46;
§
to bear witness to the truth, John 18:37;
§
to save sinners, 1 Timothy 1:15;
§
to die, and through death to destroy the devil,
Hebrews 2:14;
§
to deliver those who were in fear of death,
Hebrews 2:15;
§ to
be a high priest, and so to make propitiation for sins, Hebrews 2:17.
·
4:6: Abba. Properly an Aramaic word, but one which
appears in most languages in a form somewhat similar, cp. English “papa,”
e.g. It occurs again in Mark 14:36;
Romans 8:15. In the Gemara (a rabbinical
commentary on the Mishna, or traditional teaching of the Jews) it is stated
that slaves were forbidden to address by this title the head of the family to
which they belonged.
(Personal note: Jesus called His Father “Abba”
in the Garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14:36: “Abba, Father, all things are
possible for You. Take this cup away
from Me, nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.
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