Galatians 4:5 Commentary and Bible Study

Paul seems to write as if every member of the nation of Israel received the adoption of sons, but elsewhere he makes clear this was not the case. All the preparatory work which the Lord did through Israel during their time in subjection to the law has reached its goal, not because every Israelite has come to faith, but because the elect from that nation together with the elect Gentiles have believed. Paul therefore does not hesitate to include the Galatians to whom he is writing: ‘to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’. Believers have become sons and daughters of God by means of adoption. The sonship of national Israel was only an external sonship giving them access to the external privileges of the Abrahamic covenant, but to become true sons of Abraham and sons of God, they had to have faith as Abraham. Before we could become sons we had to be released from the law because all who stand in a legal relation to God are not sons but slaves. But how could we be released from the law when we all have outstanding obligations to the law both positive and negative? Here is the reason why Christ was ‘made of a woman, made under the law’. The only way that he could redeem us was to take our place under the law and to take our obligations to the law upon himself. The law demands a perfect obedience which as sinners we are incapable of delivering, and it holds us accountable for past sins which cannot be undone and are part of our personal record. Since it is an expression of the character of God it cannot be cancelled, nor can its severity be diminished. Christ therefore redeemed us from the law not by abolishing it, but by fulfilling it as our representative. Negatively he suffered the punishment of sin due to each one of us, and positively he kept the law perfectly as our representative. But to do this he had to take our nature and our status under the law; he had to be subject to the law from the start of his life, so that he should not have an advantage that we do not have. We enter the world under the law and he too had to do the same, and his childhood was also subject to testing. If he was to give us his righteousness, it had to be a righteousness awarded by the law upon a complete life. Because we are united with him by faith in the covenant of grace, his death is treated as our death, and we pass immediately from a legal relationship with God into a gracious relationship.