"Conceived by the Holy Spirit" (Gal 4:1-7)

Transcript:

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the day set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent 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, then an heir through God. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed. I love this day. It reminds me what we do every Sunday. And I wonder if we couldn't start saying, he is risen indeed every Sunday because he's still risen. Or as a pastor friend of mine used to like to say, they still haven't found the body.

What a wonderful day, and what a great season and a great reason to gather for worship and for celebration.

I also love the coming of springtime. Things are growing, they're blooming. There's signs of new life all over the place, even in this Chicagoland region. Trees are starting to leaf out again. Got daffodils, We've got some hyacinths in the house, thanks to my wife's cutting garden.

I'm going to have to start mowing the lawn again.

And it's no coincidence that the resurrection happened in the spring after Passover, because after a winter of dormancy, there's new life. And it's all about new life in Christ.

As we look at the Heidelberg Catechism this evening, we're talking about the portion of the Apostles Creed that speaks of the conception of. Of Jesus, how he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. So the catechism questions ask, what does that mean? And what benefits come to us as believers because of it?

There is a tradition in the ancient church that you may be aware of. It's called the Integral age theory. And it said that prophets or other special people, sometimes those who were anointed like kings, would be conceived on the same calendar date as the day that they died. So the tradition says that Jesus died on March 25th. So if you assume that he was conceived on that Same calendar day 33 years prior, and then you add nine months to that date of conception, that means he would have been born on December 25th.

That's the theory. That's where we get December 25th as the date of Jesus birth. It's an interesting tradition as it relates to talking about the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit near the calendar date upon which we are remembering his crucifixion. Interesting, but not likely to be true. In fact, it's not scriptural at all.

It's really not even necessary. But still we celebrate December 25th anyway, because it's a tradition.

What is true is that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin named Mary. And this is found in numerous places in the Scriptures. But this evening we're going to look at a reference to Jesus being born of a woman in Galatians 4. The passage that we just read is in the middle of a letter. So to set it up and to show us the relevance for what we're talking about tonight, I would like to give a short summary of what Paul has been saying up to this point.

It's not a whole series on Galatians. I'm not going to attempt to cover every bit of it, but I do want to give enough detail so you understand where Paul is in his argument. It's actually this first portion of Galatians is a very strong summary of the Gospel. So here's what's happened. Here's why Paul wrote the letter.

Some false teachers had come into the churches in the region of Galatia and they were preaching what Paul calls a different gospel. Sounds a little bit like what we might hear in our culture as well. Right. There's a different gospel going on around us. We don't know exactly what it was, but it probably had a lot to do with trying to get new converts from among the Gentiles to submit to circumcision and then after that, to get them to submit to law keeping as a way to be made right with God.

Paul counters in his letter with the true Gospel saying that no one can be made right with God by doing works of the law, but only by trusting in Jesus and what he did in perfectly fulfilling the law. God's law is not bad. It's just that if you're trying to keep the law to be righteous, you are going to have to keep all of it. And no one can. Only Jesus did.

So this is what we mean when we say that we are justified or made right with God by faith and not by works. Nothing anyone does can undo the sin stain that is on us. It's only by trusting in Jesus and in what he did that we or anyone can ever be declared right with God or what we mean when we say righteous. Everyone is under what Paul calls this present evil age. So there is nothing available to us or to the Galatians in the law to get us from this present evil age to the new creation that is promised in God's word.

So what Paul is doing in this letter is he's flipping the faith and works relationship, saying that trust in Jesus grows in the believer, leading to right, living as Christ lives in us, in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is where Paul says, I am crucified with Christ and yet I no longer live. It is Christ who lives in me. So Paul's reminding the Galatians and he's reminding us that the Holy Spirit comes to us by faith. In the passage that we just read, he says, God has sent the Spirit of his Son and that starts the work in us.

The Spirit comes by our hearing the Gospel and by believing it. So you can't use good works as your reason for thinking that you are forgiven.

Paul tells us it's those who believe in Jesus who are the sons of Abraham. What does that mean? That means Abraham was remembered as the one who believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. God counted Abraham's trust in him, that God's promises were true and Abraham relied on God's promise. And God says to Abraham, because you believe me, I'm counting that to you as a right relationship with me.

Righteousness, trying to keep the law will not make you righteous. In fact, Paul says in this letter that the law was over God's people like a guardian or a schoolmaster or a tutor until Christ came. Paul says that we had the law which could never accomplish our righteousness. And now we have faith in Christ. Now all who believe are sons of God through faith.

And he calls us heirs. Not a I r s, but H e I r s. Heirs like you're going to receive an inheritance according to God's promise that the righteous will live by faith. We're going to receive an inheritance. And then we come to these verses in chapter four, and this is how we're going to talk about the catechism questions about the importance of the fact that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary and how that leads to his work as a mediator to redeem us. So Paul has set the stage for us by talking about how in a family, and here you can imagine, perhaps think of a rich family.

I don't know what you mean by Rich, because in this culture we all would be considered very rich. You have a reliable food supply, you have a warm place to sleep, you have a roof over your head. You're rich. Or you have a car, you have a house for your car. We're very rich according to the standards of the first century.

But by any means. Consider a rich family where the heir H E I R, when he's a child, is subject to the orders of guardians and managers who tell him what to do. Even though he is the future owner of everything, he's the heir, but he's under those managers and guardians to tell him what to do. That's what the law Paul says was put in place to do to basically keep people like slaves to its requirements, like children under the rule of a schoolmaster. And here Paul refers to the law by a very broad term.

He uses the word elementary principles. Then that could also include religious teaching that actually goes beyond God's law, like traditions or even preferences of the teachers. It could also include religious laws that the Gentile Christians had to obey in their former religious life before they were converted to Christianity. It could also include legalistic prescriptions for how to live that tried to control the followers, but only served to show that the way to the promised inheritance is now blocked because no one can keep the law perfectly. He calls those requirements weak and worthless in verse nine, because they can't save us no matter how hard you try to keep them.

And then Paul opens the door to hope in Christ in verse 4. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Verse 5. Why? To redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Sons that is like a mini Gospel soundbite right there. The law couldn't save, it can only condemn, it can't bring us close to God. It can only separate us from God because we can't keep it by our own efforts. We're unable to get to God through keeping the law by faith, that is, by trusting in Jesus and what he did for us. We are set free from the curse that comes to those who don't keep the law.

He redeems us. How? By paying the penalty for our sin. Redeem in this context is a word, a term that would be used for buying someone out of slavery. We were enslaved under sin, similar to the Egyptian captivity of Israel.

And they were in slavery and bondage in Egypt. And God delivered them by a Redeemer who came to set them free from their bondage.

We were enslaved under sin by the law. We deserve death. And yet by faith in Jesus, we receive not death, not just a pardon. We receive adoption. And as an adopted child, we receive an inheritance as sons and daughters of God.

So the big takeaway from the first three chapters of Galatians is the rules don't make you righteous.

But we still have the problem. We've all fallen short of God's standard and we can't get out of it ourselves. We need help or we're doomed. Now remember, friends, the law does have a purpose. In fact, there are three purposes that some theologians have talked about.

One is that it's a mirror. You can look at the law and you can go, nope, I don't. Really, I don't. Yeah, I don't. I need help.

That's one way, sort of a mirror. The other is kind of like a restraint, like a tether to hold you back from doing the wrong thing. I know that's wrong, and I see the law, and I really don't. I really ought to not do that. There might be a threat of punishment, but the best way of the law for us as believers is more like a tuner.

It's like the right note that you want to tune yourself to. Right. You don't want the law to conform to you. You want yourself to be conformed to the standard. That's not how you're saved.

But that's a great use of the law to know what is the right thing to do. And I love God, so I want to do it.

It's just that the law can never by itself set us free from the penalty or our continuing slavery to sin. And that's why Jesus came. That's why he was born of a woman sent by God. The Son of God came to save us. And to do that, he came as a human.

But since all humans descended from Adam are all alike, under sin tainted Jesus was conceived in a special way by the Holy Spirit to a woman who had never been with a man. Now, let me tell you, this is probably the point you've been waiting for. Let me tell you exactly how that happened.

I can't.

It's a miracle.

But God's word says that it happened. And I believe it. And it matters because it says that Jesus was not like all of the rest of humanity. As in Adam. We're all under sin.

We're all tainted with Adam's original sin. Jesus was not.

Even Mary had no words for what happened to her. She just pondered these things in her Heart. I got a lot of respect for that, young lady. A virgin can't conceive, just like a sinner can't save himself, right? It has to come from somewhere else.

So here's the summary. The gospel so far. In Galatians, humanity was in slavery to sin, stuck under the requirements of the law, unable to escape, unable to fix ourselves. Then in love, in love, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons, sons and daughters.

So now let's take a couple of minutes and see how Jesus and the Mediator and the believer relate to themselves, as the catechism teaches us. First, let's take a moment and to look at Jesus, his role in this sort of transaction. First, God sent him to us, and he sent him to us out of love. Out of love. I think sometimes in the Christian church, broadly speaking, the picture is of man is utterly sinful.

And they get that right. And God is a God who demands justice and is a God of perfect righteousness. But what they get wrong is that they get the conception that somehow God is so angry with us that he has to send Jesus so that he can start to love us. And now that Jesus has come and paid the penalty and risen from the dead, God's wrath is cooled and his anger is averted. And finally he can start loving us because of what Jesus did.

But that's not what it says in John 3:16. And I think some of you might know that one by heart. It's for God, so was angry. No, that's not what it says, is it?

No. Thank you. For God, so help me. Loved. For God so loved the world that he gave.

He loved, so he gave.

That's what he's doing in sending his son born of a woman, to redeem those who were in slavery. Then it says Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, which is a miracle. He was not of Adam's line. So he is holy from conception. He doesn't become holy.

He takes on the human nature of a person, a human person. He has a perfectly divine nature that has always existed as the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God. But he takes upon himself a human nature. So we have the divine nature and the human nature in one person. But he has always been holy, always from conception and before.

Then he comes into the womb of a young girl named Mary, a virgin, just like was promised in Isaiah, chapter seven. Right? Behold, you say this at Christmas, a virgin shall conceive and bear A son. This is supposed to be a sign, an indication that God's favor is on his people. I'll show you what I'll do.

God says, I'll make a miracle. And he does fulfills this in coming to a virgin. Jesus was born sinless as a true human baby, but also as the holy sinless Son of God. And again, he did not become holy. He was always holy.

He came by the Father's plan.

And that's where it says, in the fullness of time, when the fullness of time had come, God has been waiting for the. For that moment to send his Son.

And it had always been God's plan that Jesus would come in human form because his coming was to reconcile us to God. And we're going to talk more about that in a minute under the mediator. But Jesus was going to have to live a perfect life and he was going to have to die a sacrificial death. That was part of the plan. And he was going to have to not sin so.

So that he could be that perfect sacrifice.

He came as a man in part so that he could bleed and die, because God can't die, but man can. And the wages of sin is.

So. He had to come as a man, because without the shedding of blood, there could be no forgiveness of sin. He had to bleed, he had to die, And he became one of us so that we could become like him. Adopted, inheriting, even holy, blameless, above reproach. It says in Colossians, he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

He lived, he died, he rose, he ascended to heaven. He is seated at the right hand of God. He is interceding for us now, and he is coming again in glory. Amen. And lastly, see that in all this, the plan of God from Jesus, miraculous conception.

He did not stay an embryo, friends. He grew, as all healthy living things do, like the daffodils in the yard. They're healthy, they're alive, so they grow. More on that in a minute. Alright, that's looking at Jesus conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Let's look briefly at his role as mediator. What is that? So a mediator brings two sides together, like settling a conflict or maybe even conducting a negotiation. You're bringing two sides together. A mediator has to represent both parties.

It's not like one lawyer against another. The mediator comes in the middle and represents both parties. Jesus as our mediator is a living, direct link between God and man. A mediator also has to understand both parties positions, right? So on our behalf, he understands that there's a debt that we owe, but we cannot pay it.

And he also understands that God is indeed a God of justice and he must always do what is right. That sounds like an unsolvable problem from our standpoint. So Jesus as mediator came and chose to pay the price for our sin as a sacrifice himself. He took our punishment for sin. The sacrifice had to be sinless.

As we said before, according to God's law, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Lamb has to be spotless, right? And we're thinking back now to Exodus, where you slaughter the Passover lamb and you sprinkle the lintel and the two side posts of the door with the blood of the Lamb so that the angel of death will pass over. Jesus is enacting the Passover with his own blood.

His sacrifice had to be spotless. And that's why we could never pay our own debt. As a mediator, he understands both positions.

And as a mediator, his death satisfies God's wrath against our sin. It meets the righteous requirements of the law that the wages of sin is death, but it also preserves God's mercy. Do you see this? God the Father spares the guilty by placing our sin on His Son. Can you ever get enough of that?

I've known that for a long time and it still blows me away.

Maybe because I know how unworthy I truly am.

He spares the guilty, placing our sin on His Son. And yet his steadfast love never ceases.

But he not only accomplishes the payment, he changes our hearts. And this is what it means, that he has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts. He gives us the Holy Spirit sending the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Because if you read Genesis 6, 5, right before the flood in Noah, it's not a good news report. It says man's only inclination is to do evil all the time.

That's a bad report card right there. And if that's who we are, were, let's say, if that's who we were, we need a new heart. So that's Jesus, and that's his work as a mediator. Now we're going to look thirdly at who we are as another part of the benefit that we receive from Christ's conception and his perfect hope, holiness, and Christ's work as a mediator. So for the believer, we receive all the benefits only by faith, not by trying to keep the law.

We got to keep that straight? Because we're always apt to try to think my law keeping is part of my salvation. It's not. It's not works that save us, except the perfect works that Jesus has done on behalf of all who believe. So if someone ever asks you, they say, hey, are you saved by works?

You could say, well, it depends. Not my works, but his works. His works. His perfect works are my salvation. He lived a perfect life.

He imputes that righteousness to me. He pays my debt, takes it away, gives me a new heart. That's a lot of work. It's not work I could do, but it is work and I benefit from it. So, yes, I am saved by his works and his works alone.

Now, Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. We've talked about that. But we too. In this passage in Galatians, I love this part of it. It says, we too are given the Holy Spirit as a gift.

It's not earned, it's not deserved. But there it is, verse six. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, abba Father.

God, in his great love, takes the initiative to make this happen, right? We only cry abba Father, because His Spirit is in us. We don't cry abba Father and get him to act right. We cry abba Father, because we are adopted. It's been done.

Now we can cry to him as his children. And that's what's promised in the new covenant in Jeremiah, chapter 31. I encourage you to read it again and again. That he's going to give us a new heart, he says, because you couldn't keep the old covenant. So I'm going to make a new one, one that you can't break, because I'm going to give you a new heart.

And that's what he does here. And we receive that just by faith, like the faith of a child, as a gift. Then for us believers, because of his mediatorial work, we're regarded as sons, daughters, inheritors of a massive inheritance.

And as his children believer, he wants his children to reflect his character. That's why he gives us a new heart. Not so that we would become sons, daughters, but that we would live like his children. What does that look like? Children love their father.

Good children love their siblings. This is a church that loves God and loves each other. I'm glad to be here. Spread it around. Turn up the volume.

Go an extra mile. That's not how you're saved, but that's what you do when you're a child. Of the King. We don't just love Him. We don't just love people, we love the lost.

And so we proclaim his goodness to those who don't know him. And we declare it when we gather for Lord's Day worship. And as children, we reflect his character by enjoying him because he enjoys us. He says of Jesus, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And in Christ you are well pleasing to God your Father.

And to reflect his character means to love his law, not to fear Him. The psalmist says, oh, how I love youe law. Psalm 1. On his law he meditates day and night. Not a chore, a delight.

And then to reflect his character, there's one more thing we can do that God doesn't actually do, and that's to grow. Because God doesn't change, but he wants us to grow into his likeness. Think of it this way, friends. In Galatians 6, it says, Whatever you sow that you will reap. You know that passage?

And if any of you ever anybody plant plants, flowers. Plants, yeah. Whatever you put in the ground, that kind of is what comes out, right? Well, if God has sown the seed of the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, what will he reap?

I guess that depends on the soil. Right?

But that's a parable for another day then. To reflect God's character is also to be wary of importing man made traditions into our worship of God. Like that integral age theory that I talked about, dying on the same day you were conceived. Right. We don't want to place unbiblical yokes on people or enslave them to rules that are taught by men.

We want the Word.

And then as a believer, part of our benefit is actually the opportunity to exert effort. It's not how we're saved. But once we're saved, we do have to exert some effort. We are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. So remember this, only those who have the Holy Spirit can act like they have the Holy Spirit.

You can kind of pretend, but expecting someone who doesn't have faith in God to behave like a Christian before they are saved is just irrational. It's like looking at the dirt going, come on, make some corn. It can't, it can't. It doesn't have the seed. But if it has the seed, you would expect that it would grow, right?

Only those who believe who have the Holy Spirit can love the Law like sons.

And still, even in all of our efforts, remember that it's God who's the one working in us, right? Philippians 2. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work within you. God who is at work within you to will and to act according to his good pleasure. So it is our effort, but he's at work within us to make it happen.

And we will stumble as believers. We will be tempted, we will have tribulation, we will experience hardship, we will experience persecution. And all the list that's in Romans 8 that says we will survive and we will be more than conquerors, but we're still going to experience danger and trouble. Is that not true? Have you not had bad days?

It's not forever, but for this place. One of the promises we don't like to claim as Christians is John 16:33. It's not a promise we like to claim, but Jesus promises, in this world you will have tribulation. You will. He's promising it, but he says, be of good courage.

I have overcome the world.

And then as believers, we are now heirs who love the Father, and not just for his benefits.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Forget not all his benefits. But can you imagine a heaven without Jesus?

That would be no heaven.

Love the Father, not just for his benefits.

And as such, then we are no longer slaves under a guardian. But we must grow in love and in service. And he is near us, in us, to help us, even crying out through us. Abba, Father, as beloved children. So to kind of wrap it all up.

As the Holy Spirit came to the virgin, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. That changes our relationship to the law. We can now love the law.

We can meditate on it all day because we don't fear its demands. Jesus has met all the righteous demands of the law on our behalf, and we are righteous in his sight because of what Jesus has done and finished his work. We have the Spirit of Christ, that is the Spirit of His Son, because God has sent it into our hearts. So similar to Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Spirit in us should grow, making us more like Christ. We grow as individuals and we grow as the body of Christ together.

That's. That's why we're together as a church, with pastors and leaders and teachers. We're not under the elementary principles or traditions or mere human reason or personal preference, ruled by things other than the Spirit of God working in our hearts. And that's what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4. I will read a few verses just to remind us of what we're trying to do.

Paul writes here in Ephesians 4. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, shepherds and teachers. He gave your leaders to equip the saints. That's all y' all for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, we're supposed to grow to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

We're supposed to grow like Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love. We're to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. We're supposed to grow.

Jesus was born of the Spirit, and he grew more as a human to accomplish the purposes of God. Blood, death, and more. And we too are born of the Spirit. So if your faith is in Jesus, and we also must grow to be more like Christ to accomplish his purposes. So since this is the day that we focus most specifically on the resurrection, let's conclude with just a look at the life of Jesus as it relates to what we've been talking about today.

Just another moment. From the beginning of his earthly life, he was conceived to the end of his earthly life when he was crucified. His unformed body was implanted in Mary's womb. His lifeless body was planted in Joseph's tomb. From borrowed womb to borrowed tomb, he was born in Bethlehem, announced by angels, seen by shepherds.

He rose from the dead outside Jerusalem, announced by angels and seen by his disciples. As a child, he grew up into a man while still being the eternal Son of God. As our risen Savior, he ascended up into heaven, still truly man and truly God. In his earthly life. He served and gave his life as a ransom for many.

And in his heavenly session, where he is seated at the right hand of God, he continues to serve us. He continues to serve us, interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. This is the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, our Mediator, our Savior, our risen and reigning king. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let's pray.

Your word is truth.

May we believe it. May we be conformed to it. May we be transformed by it. May we be bold to share it with others. May we search it and seek it and love it and meditate on it day and night.

But, Lord, most of all, let us not fall prey to the temptation to think that it is because of our works that we are acceptable in your sight, but only because of what Jesus has done for us and our faith in him that enables you to declare about us that we are holy and blameless and above reproach in him. Amen.