The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 245

asks, "children or full-grown men?" It also condemns the J adaists for going back to" elements of the world," which hacl their place and use only in a condition of nonacre; "Yet the pope and Mahomct have tried to bring back the race, free and of full age, to its minority again.'' Vers. 4, 5.-ThefulnesB of time with its blessings. This corresponds with" the time appointed of the father." The nonage of the Church was past. The world bad arrived at mature age. A new dispensation was at band. I. THE ·FITNESS OF THE TIME. 'l'be new dispensation was no abrupt phenomenon, for it came at the :fittest time in the world's history. 1. When all the prophedes of the Old Testament centred in Jesus 0/irist. When the whole economy of type hacl done its work in preparing a certain circle of ideas in which Christ's person and work would be thoroughly understood; when the Law had worked out its educational purpose. 2. When a fair trial had been given to all other schemes of life. Not only art and education, culture and civilization, but Divine Law itself, had done their utmost for man, yet notwithstanding the knowledge of the true God was almost lost among the heathen, and true religion bad almost died out among the Jews. The necessity of a new provision was thus demonstrated. 3. It was an age of peace, in which the world had a breathing-space for thinking of higher things, in which the communications of the Roman empire facilitated the progress of the gospel; and in which the Greek language, being all but universal, was ready to become the vehicle of the new reve~tion. Thus the fulness of time was the.turning-point of the world's history, in which Jesus Christ became its true Centre. Thus, as Schaff says, the way for Christianity was prepared by the Jewish religion, by Grecian culture, by Roman conquest; by the vainly attempted amalgamation of Jewish• and heathen thought; by the exposed impotence of natural civilization, philosophy, art, political; power; by the decay of old religions; by the universal distraction and hopeless misery of the age; and by the yearning of souls after the unknown God. . II. THE MISSION OF T.HE SoN. "God sent forth his Son."· These words imply the pre-existence as well as the Divine nature of Christ. The Son existed as a Divine Person with God before he came to be made of a woman. He was the eternal Son of God, as God the Father is the eternal Father. 'l'hey are two distinct Persons, else the one could not send the other. He came, not without a commission, for the Father sent him; and he came to do the Father's will, and became "obedient unto death, even the death of the crnss." His mission was not the ransom, but the presupposition of the ransom, the -possession of the Divine nature giving it nn infinite value. III. THE TRUE HUMANITY OF THE SoN. " Made of a woman." This language implies the possession of a higher nature; for if the Son possessed no other than mere humanity, where would have been the necessity of saying that he was "made of a woman"? The: phrase. points significantly to his supernatural conception, for there is an exclusion of human fatherhood. The apostle teaches his true humanity. It is a significant fact-that Mary is here called simply, not "virgin," or" mother of God,'' but " woman;" just as John in the phrase, " the Word became flesh,'' ignores the virgin-mother. There is nothing in Scripture to sanction the Mariolatry of the Church of Rome. The incarnation of the Lord is here represented as the deed of God the Father, as it is elsewhere spoken of as the Uedeemer's own act (2 Cor. viii. 9). Without his sharing in our humanity he could possess neither the natural nor the legal union with his people which is presupposed in his representative character. Thus he becomes the second Man of the human race, or the last Adam. IV. His PLACE UNDER LAW FOR MAN. "Made under the Law." This clause affirms that he was made under the Law for the sake of those under Law, and therefore not from any personal obligation of his own. We were born under Law as creatures ; he took his place under Law for the ends of suretyship. Tho phrase does not signify merely that he was born a Jew. His subjection to the Law, as well as his mission, was in order to our redemption; the one was the way to the. other, as appears from tho particle which connects the last clause of the fonrfo verse with the first clause of the :fifth. Both Jews and Gentiles wPre under Law as the condition of lifo by the fact of birth (Rci!)J 1i. 14 i iii. 9). 'l'he meaning of the phrase is that he 1,1!ace,l himself under · Law with a view to that meritorious obodience by which we are  212 THE El'IS'l'LE TO THE GA.LATIAN!::1. [Oll, IV. 1-31.