Christmas according to Paul

The Incarnation in Galatians

But when the fullness of time arrived, God sent out his Son, happening from a woman, happening under law, so that He might buy out those under law, so that we might receive sonship. And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father! So then you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an inheritor through God. Galatians 4:4-7

Three years ago when I was writing on another platform, I posted an Advent series, Christmas Stories in the Bible. Although I will continue with my Revelation posts this month, I thought it would be good to revise several of those and put them up on In Plain Sight as an Advent Series. So here goes:

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Advent Season is here again. Growing up we simply called it Christmas time, but over the years I have come to appreciate Advent as a more descriptive and meaningful way to think about the weeks leading up to Christmas. 

Those four weeks are anticipatory and, similar to the Lenten Season as preparation for Passion Week before Easter, help those of us who have put our trust in Christ to think, meditate, or celebrate on the wonder that God chose to reveal himself through a human. 

There are numerous approaches to Advent (candles, calendars …), but one approach is to consider what the Bible has to say about the Incarnation.

Every Christmas growing up, the only two stories I normally heard during Christmas were the accounts of Jesus’s birth in Matthew 1 and Luke 2. Sometimes Luke 1 was included with Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary.

That was it, unless we heard (or sung in) Handel’s Messiah, that quite amazing tapestry of Old and New Testament passages of the entire life of Jesus Christ from birth to exaltation set to music (including Revelation’s own Hallelujah Chorus). 

Over the years I have discovered that the story of the Messiah’s entrance to the world is spoken of in many places throughout the New Testament. 

Hints or direct references to the birth of Jesus appear in Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, Galatians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, and Revelation.

Tucked away in Gal 4:4, Paul writes, “But when the fullness of time arrived, God sent out his Son, happening from a woman, happening under the law, so that he might buy out those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” 

Such a  short passage, but so “pregnant” with meaning.

In Galatians 4:4-7 Paul gives the gospel and its purposes in a wondrously succinct way.

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“But when the fullness of time arrived” 

In Galatians 3 and 4 one of the major topics Paul discussed was the role of the Jewish law. If Jesus has done everything for us, why did God give the Torah?

One of Paul’s answers to the Torah question (in Gal 4:1-3) was that God gave the Law as a guide or tutor for the Jewish people until Jesus came. 

And this was how the law really functioned. 

The law guided the Jewish people in a way that regulated their lives (and showed their deficits). 

But the law could not bring salvation. 

Only God could do that. 

How? 

In Galatian 4:4, Paul concisely wrote of the Incarnation, the arrival of Jesus as a human. 

First, the Incarnation happened “when the fullness of time arrived”—Jesus arrived at the end of the precise timeline that God had set—no earlier and no later.

In God’s wisdom, Jesus arrived on earth at the exact moment in the history of humanity that would fulfill God’s promise to Abraham, have the greatest impact for the message that God’s kingdom was nigh, and lead to events precipitating Jesus’s death and resurrection. 

No time prior to nor since would have worked in God’s eternal perspective.

And as we look back, history was ripe for the Messiah.

The Jewish people were longing for deliverance from the hand of the Romans.

At the same time, the Roman Empire was essentially at peace (the “Pax Romana”), allowing for the spread of the gospel message by the followers of Jesus, and especially Paul.

Finally, there was a particular collaboration between the Jewish priesthood and the Romans that precipitated the events of Jesus’s public death by crucifixion.

The time was “full” and Paul knew it—from the Scriptures themselves and from his own personal knowledge.

“God sent out his Son” 

This verse is one of only two places among his letters that Paul referred to God sending Jesus (the other is Romans 8:3—and there Paul addressed the law and the incarnation, too). The term Paul uses here, exapesteilen, is different than Roman 8:3—there he uses pempsas—and has the particular idea of “sent out.”

Jesus became the ambassador of the trinitarian God, sent out to represent God to humanity (here God sent out Jesus; in Philippians 2:6-7, Jesus voluntarily laid aside divine attributes, humbled himself, and became like a human—two sides of the same coin!)

In Romans 1 (another Christmas story!), Paul spoke of Jesus’s lineage, but not that God “sent” him. Here in Galatians we are very close to the “send” language of John 3:16-18, and 1 John 4:9, 10, and 14. 

Like John, Paul had a very robust idea of Jesus as the preexistent Son who came to do the will of God (Romans 5:6-11, Philippians 2:6-9, Colossians 1:12-20). 

Paul mostly focused on the cross, rather than the incarnation, but he knew that without the incarnation, there was no cross.

“Happening from a woman” 

Most translations have “born of a woman;” a scant few use “made” or “come.”

The translations are possible, but Paul used the verb normally translated as “happen” or “come” or “become” (Greek ginomai).

Paul emphasized Jesus’s appearance to humanity rather than the birth process.

Paul did use the normal verb for “born” later in 4:23 and 29 (Gr. gennao), so his choice of “happening” was deliberate.

Translating with the term “born” leads many to see in the verse proof for the virginal conception. Though consistent with this doctrine, only Matthew and Luke are affirmative sources for Mary’s virginity. Their affirmation is enough. That is not Paul’s focus.

His focus is not on the birth of Jesus, but the event of Jesus: the Incarnation event happened from a woman as all humans, though he was sent out from God (cf. Romans 8:3: “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”). 

Jesus was the true God-man—fully God and fully human.

“Happening under the law” 

Once again “born” is the usual translation for “coming,” but Paul’s focus was on circumstances in which he arrived: Jesus’s arrival happened under law. 

For Jesus to be the savior of all people, both Jews and Gentiles, Jesus had to come as a Jew. 

The Messiah would come through the Jews (see John 4:22). 

Only a Jew could perfectly fulfill the Torah. 

Only by a Jew could the promise to Abraham be fully accomplished. 

But at the same time, Jesus could be the savior of all peoples as the seed of Abraham, to whom God made the promise, “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3, cf. Gal 3:8).

These “happenstances” of woman and Law were the perfect timing of God to send out his Son.

“so that he might buy out those under law”

In Gal 4:4, Paul referred to the Christmas event proper, but in v. 5 he compactly said why—he gave the reason (for the season): “so that he might buy out those under law, so that we might receive sonship.” 

Earlier in Galatians 3:13, Paul had pointed out that “Christ bought us out from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us … so that the blessing of Abraham might happen to the nations in Messiah Jesus, so we might receive the promise of the Spirit through (his) faithfulness.” 

In using “bought out” (Gr. exagorazo, usually rendered “redeemed”) Paul did not use Old Testament redemption language, but the language of the marketplace, and particularly the buying and selling of slaves.

In just the previous verse, Paul described all people—Jews and Gentiles—as enslaved to “the elements of the world” or as the CEB puts it, “this world’s system.” In our natural state we are slaves to—we are owned by—the world, slaves to sin, slaves to Satan—and the law can do nothing to free us.

Satan contractually owned us because of sin; Jesus bought out that contract on the cross.

Jesus bought us from the curse of the law and from slavery to sin and from slavery to Satan.

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“so that we might receive sonship”

But he not only bought our freedom, he made us his adopted children.

In order for all peoples to be blessed, the Jewish people had first to be freed, which Jesus accomplished (hence Paul’s frequent phrase in Romans, “to the Jew first, then to the Greeks (aka gentiles).” 

But the scope of Jesus’s death was so much broader: “so that we might receive sonship,” is inclusive of the gentiles.

Sonship is the same as adoption as many translations have it.

“We”—the collection of all people who have placed their trust in Jesus—are now adopted sons and inheritors of all the riches of his Son Jesus.

Paul reiterates the results of Jesus’s work on the cross in verses 6-7: “And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, also an inheritor through God.”

God sent out (exapesteilen) the Spirit to us, just like God sent out (exapesteilen) his Son Jesus into the world—good news if I have ever heard it.

There we have it, Paul’s version of the Christmas story in Galatians. 

Paul was very close to John 3:16–18 in these verses, and to the announcement of the angel in Luke 2:10–11: “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” 

Observations on the Greek Text of Galatians

Galatians 4:4–7 ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου, ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμον, ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον ἐξαγοράσῃ, ἵνα τὴν υἱοθεσίαν ἀπολάβωμεν. Ὅτι δέ ἐστε υἱοί, ἐξαπέστειλεν ⸋ὁ θεὸς⸌ τὸ πνεῦμα ⸋τοῦ υἱοῦ⸌ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὰς καρδίας ⸀ἡμῶν κρᾶζον· αββα ὁ πατήρ ὥστε οὐκέτι °εἶ δοῦλος ἀλλ’ υἱός—εἰ δὲ υἱός, καὶ κληρονόμος ⸂διὰ θεοῦ⸃.

Sometimes a useful approach to a passage from Paul is to diagram it and label the functions of each phrase in his argument: