Why Christ Was Born Under the Law — Galatians Chapter 4

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, now we're glad to see everybody back, and I know that you've come from near and far. And for our television audience, always remember we tape four of these programs in succession, and if you're ever in the Tulsa area on the first Wednesday of a month, you just call us and we'll make arrangements that you can come in and be part of our studio class. And again, we always appreciate hearing from you. We love your letters and your comments, and we just praise the Lord for whatever He's accomplishing through us. Now again, for those of you in the studio audience, we'll be starting in Galatians 4, verse 1. And I guess I better keep reminding people that everything that's been on television is available on video, audio, and the little printed page books which are word-for-word from the program. And if you're interested in any of that, of course, you call us or write to us and we'll give you the information. All right, this is a Bible study, and that's why we like to use every minute we possibly can. So if we'll look at Galatians 4, verse 1. Now again, for a bit of review and background, Galatians was written to that group of churches up in Asia Minor, which was called Galatia, which was central Turkey, for the precise purpose of correcting their going back under legalism. And so I think it became such an urgent thing for the Apostle Paul that he didn't even really wait for a secretary, to our amanuensis, I guess is the word they call it, to do the writing for him as he does on all of his other epistles. But this was so urgent that we have to feel that he wrote this in his own hand, even in spite of an eye problem, which I still think was his thorn in the flesh. And as blind people do, he no doubt had to print with large figures, and he makes mention of the fact that you see what large letter I write. And I think that was all in regard to his ability not to be able to see the small print, but had to, because of his blindness, print in large figures. So the whole little letter, Galatians, is written with this in view, that you're not under law, you're under grace. And of course, it's still appropriate today, because most of Christendom is so saturated with legalism that it is so hard for people to break away. And I know that tongue-in-cheek people have asked me, well, why do you suppose it took the Lord three years to show Paul at that retreat in Arabia all the things of grace? And I said, like I said, tongue-in -cheek, that it probably took three and a half years to get Judaism out of him, because it's just human nature that when we are so brainwashed with religion and tradition, even as Paul was in Judaism, so also everybody today is ingrained with legalism of one sort or another. And so this little letter is just as appropriate for us today as it was the day that it was written, that we are not under law, we're under grace. Now, grace, remember, means total freedom, total liberty. But again, I always follow that with, it's not license. But so far as being confined to any legal system, any idea of you can't do this, you can't do that, we've been set free from all of it. And now through the power of the Holy Spirit, which, of course, the law had nothing of, but now through the power of the Holy Spirit, we under grace can live and be pleasing in God's eyes without rules and regulations to tell us what we can or cannot do. And so this is the whole idea of this little letter. Verse 1 of chapter 4, Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant or a slave, though he be lord, small l remember, though he be lord of all. Now, this is not so much from the Hebrew or the Jewish background, but it is from the Roman and the Greek. And of course, Paul uses the whole spectrum when it comes to illustrating and so forth. So now he dips into the Greek and the Roman culture, not Jewish, that the wealthy Romans and Greeks would hire tutors. And the sole purpose of these tutors was to prepare that child, that legal son who was an heir, but as long as he's a child, he differeth nothing from a slave, even though, like he says, he be lord of all, which means he was a blood heir of the father, but until he has finished his time of tutoring, he has no more authority in the family than a slave. And so this is what he's drawing, that these Greek and Roman children were under the responsibility of tutors, learning, preparing for the day, when, of course, as you see in verse 2, this child is under tutors and governors until, there again, we don't know how long, it wasn't always the same, I'm sure, but approximately when the child was old enough to take on family responsibility, business responsibility, but that was set by the father. And the father would say, all right, you take this child of mine and you teach him, you tutor him until such and such an age, whatever the case may have been. And so these Roman and Greek kids were under these tutors and governors until the father was satisfied that they had now reached the time of becoming full heir with the father. Now then, verse 3, this shows it's only an illustration. Even so, in like manner, so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. Now, of course, I think in the pronoun we, in verse 3, Paul is referring to himself as a Jew. So he's not including the Gentiles, per se, but Jews who were under the law. And remember, the Gentile world was never under the law of Moses, only the children of Israel. And so he says, even so, just like these Roman and Greek kids were under the rule of a tutor and the father paid very little attention to them, so also, or in like manner, Israel, when we were children, that is, under the law, were in, what's the word, bondage. Now, I just keep hammering away at people. To live under the law is always a bondage. It's like Peter said, in fact, let's go back and look at it so that you know what I'm talking about. Come all the way back to Acts chapter 15. Acts chapter 15, when Peter finally realizes, after all the trials and tribulations the Judaizers had been giving the apostle Paul, that his gospel was not sufficient unless they also became keepers of the law, practitioners of circumcision. But finally, Peter wakes up and he comes to the defense of Paul, which, as I've said so often, had he not done Paul's gospel, Christianity as we know it, would have died right then and there. Now, I know God is sovereign and He could have done something else, but as we understand the unfolding here, had it not been for Peter finally coming to his senses and defending the fact that Gentiles could be saved without coming under the law of Moses, Christianity would have never survived. But now look what Peter says. Verse 10, "...now therefore," since Gentiles are not under the law of Moses, "...now therefore why tempt or test God?" Now look at it, "...to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples," or the believers, "...a yoke which neither our fathers nor we," even Peter and the eleven, "...had to chafe under the demands of the Mosaic law." It was severe. I've made that comment more than once. The law was severe if they were really going to keep it. It had demands on the human race that were almost impossible to keep, and the reason being that God had to show mankind that there was no way they could measure up to His standard of holiness and righteousness. So the law, you see, became then a yoke which neither the forefathers back in Old Testament days nor the Jews of Peter's day were able to bear. All right, now then when you come back to Galatians, we're going to see before we go too far in chapter 4 that Paul also refers to them as almost the same kind of thing, that they were beggarly. They begged to be something better than it was. The law could not do anything to bring a person out of his sin. All it could do was convince him of his sin, remember, as we've pointed out so often all the way back to Romans chapter 3. All right, so now then verse 3 again, "...even so we as children of Israel," when we were children, when they were still into that Old Testament economy and we were in bondage under the elements of the world, that is the whole world system. Now you've got to remember, Israel as a nation when they came out of Egypt and had been surrounded with all of that pagan culture, when God gave them the law at Mount Sinai, God didn't lift them out of the world. They had to still live and move and eat and sleep in the midst of all that paganism, and so the whole world system was still working even though Israel was now under the law. In other words, God didn't suddenly transport them into a whole spiritual world all their own, and that's why they failed so often. They failed miserably, and it was always because of their unbelief, but nevertheless they were in bondage under the elements or the workings of the world around them. And oh, how long had they been under it? 1,500 years. Now remember, Abraham was called out of Ur at 2,000 B.C., 500 years later, 490 if you want to be exact, Moses led him out of the land of Egypt, and God gave the law. So you're talking in terms of about 1 ,500 B.C. from the giving of the law to Israel until the time of Christ at what we now refer to as zero. So there was 1,500 years that Israel labored under this yoke of bondage. You know, you look at it, and it's no wonder that they were in such rank unbelief. I suppose a lot of the time they just gave up, can't keep it anyway. And of course, that's what legalism does. Legalism I think just destroys the incentive, because that's what, oh, I've had people come into my class where they've been under some of these abject teachings and preachings, and that's what they'll tell me. Why, when I was young and I heard all that preaching, I just thought, what's the use? I can't measure up to that. Well, that's what legalism has always done. And so even Israel, God's covenant people, how many times didn't they go into abject sin and unbelief? And I think the reason was they just couldn't hack it. They couldn't keep it anyway. All right, but now verse 4, what's the first word? Oh, like one lady wrote, and she said, but, and then in parenthesis she says, one of your favorite words. Well, indeed it is, because if it weren't for the flip side of all this, where would we be? Oh, we'd be back where they were. And so even though Israel had been 1 ,500 years under the law, in bondage, but the flip side, all of a sudden God stepped in and changed the format. Now it's been a long time since I've rehearsed this. I hope my listening audience realizes that as you come up through human history, how many times God changed the format, totally, although He Himself never changed, yet the format was changing. I always like to go back all the way to the Garden of Eden. Garden of Eden living was totally different than it was out of a garden, wasn't it? All you have to do is just stop and think. What was life like in the garden? Oh, it was easy, no sin, no opposition, no weeds, no thorns. It was just a beautiful lifestyle. What was it like after the garden? Just the opposite. All of a sudden now they're confronted with all the opposition of nature, weeds and thistles and briars and thorns, insects, and that was the curse, totally different. But had God changed? No. God hasn't changed. All right, then you take that whole economy up to the flood, and then the flood comes and Noah and the family comes off the ark, and again I would like to draw the analogy. Was it the same after the flood as it was before? Why heavens no! Everything was different. God's whole economy for man was now going to be set up differently, whereas before the flood there was no law and order, there was no system of worship prescribed and they couldn't eat meat. They didn't. They didn't kill anything to eat it. They ate of everything that grew naturally. But now as soon as they come out of the ark, what did God tell them? Now you can kill and eat. Whatever moves and lives is for you to partake of, and you can kill and eat. But He also instituted, of course, capital punishment. For the man that killeth another man, he must be put to death. A whole new economy. Has God changed? No. Not a bit. All right, then we come to the call of Abraham, and again God does something totally different without ever changing Himself. And now Abraham, or God says to Abraham, I'm going to make of you a little separate race of people. I'm going to let the vast majority just go on their way. But I'm going to work through this little nation that will come through you and your wife. And so all the promises that God made to Abraham, even though they took five hundred years to come to fruition, there they came. And the nation of Israel makes its appearance, and then God does something again totally different. What did He do? Put them under the law. Put them under the law. Now listen, that was something totally, totally different from anything that had happened in the previous fifteen hundred years. Now God sets down these ten commandments, and He puts down the priesthood, the temple, and all of its ritual, and He tells Israel by instruction explicitly everything that they were having to do. Not only in their, what we would call their religious life, you know I hate the word, I think I'll prefer to use the word spiritual, whether it was in their spiritual life or in their everyday life of living, everything was now prescribed. Everything was laid down, what they couldn't do, what they could not do, what they could eat, and what they couldn't eat. Now listen, that's all different, all different. Now then, Israel lived under those circumstances up until the work of the cross was finished, but the work of the cross couldn't be finished until first Christ had to be born at Bethlehem. And that's now what we got in verse four. But, see, but after four thousand years of varying types of responsibility, all of a sudden God does something totally, totally different. And how does it begin? With the fulfillment of a promise that He made way back in Genesis chapter three, verse fifteen. But, let's read verse four before we go back and look at that, but in spite of four thousand years of all these various activities, when the fullness of the time was come. You know what that means? That according to God's schedule, at the exact right day and hour and year, the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. Now you know, whenever I look at this verse, I have to remember, someone asked his pastor one time why he didn't spend more time in Paul and leave off all that time in the four Gospels. And his answer was, well, if I leave the Gospels, then I haven't got anything to say about the Christmas story. Well now, how ridiculous can you get? What is this? This is the Christmas story, if you want to call it that. This is referring to Christ's birth in Bethlehem, but of course Paul doesn't have to rehearse all the details of Joseph and Mary, because that's already been implied, it was prophesied. But now he brings us right to the crucial point of Christ's birth in Bethlehem. Why did it happen? Because it was in God's timetable. It was all part and parcel of God's plan for the ages, and that at the exact right moment in time, born of a woman, came the fullness of time. The God, the Son, was made of a woman, made under the law. All right, now let's go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3. We look at these verses, but you know, in our trip out to Indiana, and we've been speaking to literally hundreds of people, and yet it just constantly reminds me that you cannot repeat these things often enough. You know, I have to tell people constantly, you know, I hate to repeat, because I feel that once I've said it, they've got it. But it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way, and I don't imagine it would work if I were out there instead of up here, because that's just part of our human makeup. It takes a long time for these things to get socked in, and we have to be reminded of them from time to time. All right, in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, where the Lord is now dealing with the serpent, Satan, after Eve and Adam have fallen, and He comes right back, as Romans 8 makes it so plain, immediately He comes back with hope for the race, and that is the promise of a Redeemer. And I, God says, will put enmity between thee, now remember, He's talking to Satan through the serpent, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, now what is implied there? The seed of the woman. And between the seed of the woman, thy seed, I'm sorry, and her seed, which is the seed of the woman, it, the seed of the woman, the Christ, the Son of God, who, like Paul just said in Galatians, at the fullness of time should come. So the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head, and thou, Satan, shall bruise his heel. Now, we've explained this verse before, but of course, this is the promise of the coming Redeemer. That as soon as man sinned, God comes right back with the remedy, and it's the only remedy, and it's going to be the seed of the woman. Now how will the seed of the woman be a remedy for man's sin? By being crushed, or by being put to death at the cross, whereby His power of resurrection and all that it implied would bruise Satan's head, and would be put into a place of defeat, but Satan would still come back and bruise his heel, in other words, cause the suffering that he had to go through for our salvation. So to clarify it again, I may have goofed a little bit, that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. You know, that's the only place you can really kill a snake, is to crush his head. And so the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent, but the serpent got his licks in, of course, by causing Christ to suffer so inexorably. All right, now then, as you come back to Galatians chapter 4, we see then that in the fullness of time, right on God's timetable, my, I was just explaining to someone tonight, when you watch the timing of things back in the Old Testament, you know God was never a day late. God was never a day early, and I can always give examples. You take Abraham, at exactly the right time, God brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and set him on his path towards going into Canaan and becoming the father of the Jewish race. And exactly 430 years after is the night of the Passover in Egypt, and Moses is ready to lead Israel out of captivity. Now we also know that there was to be a 40 year span of time from the time they left Egypt until they would finally get into the Promised Land, which, of course, was 40 years to the day. Now, as I was studying this some years ago, it's just amazing. Do you realize that on the Passover night in Egypt, it was the same day and the same month of the year, but 40 years later, when they celebrated the Passover with Joshua leading them across the Jordan River. All God's timing is right on. And I think it was Sir Robert Anderson was one of the first to suddenly realize that from the decree to Nehemiah to go back and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, as it's recorded in Nehemiah 2, from that date until the triumphal entry or Palm Sunday, exactly 483 years as it was prophesied. Not 484, not 482, 483 years. God is always right on schedule. Now, according to Paul then, Christ's birth, the same way, at the exact moment in human history when the fullness of time was now fulfilled, Christ was born in Bethlehem. Not an accident, but totally according to God's program. All right, now then, the other part that is so amazing, of course, that not only was the Son made of a woman, but under the what? Under the law. Under the law. And oh, I wish people would understand that. That everything concerning Christ's first coming, the law was in place. And we're going to see in an allegory, if not during these four programs, why surely in the next four, but we're going to see the allegory that as Paul wrote this book of Galatians, the temple was operating full speed ahead there in Jerusalem. The priests were performing their rites. They were bringing the animal sacrifices. The law was under, or the nation of Israel was under the law, albeit it was a degenerated religious system, totally degenerated. Instead of now operating under the basic Ten Commandments, you want to remember that temple worship at the time of Christ was now under 613 rules and regulations, which comprised the law. And that's what made it all the harder. Instead of Ten Commandments to keep, they now had 613. Well, you know, that's almost a lifelong education to learn 613 rules and regulations. But that was the law under which Christ came. And He never, never once did Jesus tell the Jews of His day to forget keeping the law, that they're under grace. He never said it. And He couldn't, because you see, Israel was not yet in a place where the law could be set away. That couldn't happen until He died. The cross is where the law was finally crucified. But, oh, the nation of Israel was under the law at the time of Christ's birth, and they could see nothing but their own self-righteousness, and they could brag about how they were law-keepers. You can just see those Pharisees, can't you? How they could brag of how impeccably they had kept the law. Oh, but it was under that that Christ came. It was under that that Christ came.