Christmas according to Paul (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a 4-Part Advent sermon series titled “Christmas according to Paul” preached at Mt. Gilead UMC in Georgetown, KY. The whole worship service is in the link below titled “Sermon Video,” and the sermon begins at minute marker 10:17. For Part 2, click here. 

Sermon Video

Introduction

1. Usually Christmas according to the Gospels (Matt 1-2 and Luke 1-2). But they mostly describe the events and do not exactly explain the meaning and significance. So often Paul explains the meaning and significance.
2. Paul does not speak of Christmas or the birth of Jesus very much. In fact, the NT doesn’t either.
   • Like so many ancient biographies, the Gospels don’t focus upon the birth of Jesus. Instead, ancient biographies focused on the words, deeds, and death of the person that they’re describing. That’s why it’s not strange that Mark and John don’t mention Christmas, though John, like Paul, explains the meaning and significance of Christ taking on flesh and becoming a human (John 1).
   • Instead, Paul and the NT writers focus much more upon the second advent or second coming of Jesus. And that’s what our focus as Christians should be. In fact, while Easter was celebrated immediately in the early church, Christmas wasn’t officially celebrated by the church until the year 336 AD, some 300 years after the first Noel.
3. But Paul does talk about Christmas, at least in passing, in two places: in Gal 4:4 and Phil 2. So during this advent season, we will be spending Christmas with the Apostle Paul as he explains the meaning and significance of Christmas, of Christ coming in the flesh.

Paul and the Law in Galatians

1. Paul viewed the OT law as a paidagogos, which was a temporary disciplinarian or tutor of young boys in school during ancient times. The paidagogos accompanied the boy to and from school, made him do his homework and study, and disciplined him whenever the boy’s morals would slip. However, a paidagogos was only needed until the boy reached maturity; once this boy became of age and matured up, he didn’t need anyone to force him to do his homework or hold his tongue; the boy/child had now moved into the freedom of sonship. Before, he was under a taskmaster, so to speak, or the slavery of the paidagogos. But now he is free, because he has grown up and learned the ways that his paidagogos taught him.
2. This is how Paul views the OT law; it was a paidagogos. It disciplined God’s people, showed them the truth and ways of God, and when the time was right and his people grew up, then the paidagogos was no longer needed, because God’s people now had the law written upon their hearts and could live according to the whole law of God.
3. It is this coming of age and moving from slavery to sonship that Paul calls “the fullness of time” in Gal 4:4. “When the fullness of time arrived, God sent his Son…” And so the time of maturity and fullness comes, the law—the paidagogos—is no longer needed. Instead, the fulfillment of that law has himself come in the flesh, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the FULL rights as sons and heirs of God.
4. You see, as long as the child or boy was under the paidagogos, he could not receive his full inheritance as the rightful heir. He had to come of age; he had to grow up. And so Paul is saying that, yes, the OT law is good, right, and holy, and the inspired Word of God, but its purpose was always pointing forward to the time of Christ. Historically, it served its purpose, and its reigning power over the people of God as their mode of operation was only temporary. The OT law’s reign over the people of God was temporary until Christ would come. So let’s look at what Paul says about Christ’s coming, his first advent, “the fullness of time” as he calls it.

The Fullness of Time (Gal 4:4-5)

1. It is no accident by God that he sent Jesus when he did. It was not only the fullness of time, but it was the right time. During the reign of the first Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, there was what historians call the Pax Romana or “Roman peace.” This was a time unique time during Rome’s history when there was peace throughout the Roman world. The Romans were a bloody people; they loved war and conquering nations; that was their God-given gift, if you could call it that. And so, it is no accident by God that, as Luke records, Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, the emperor known for ushering in this time of peace throughout the Roman world.
2. Now this Roman peace wasn’t just an absence of war; there was more.
   • NT scholar, John R. W. Stott, notes that “Various factors combined to make it such. For instance, it was the time when Rome had conquered and subdued the known inhabited earth, when Roman roads had been built to facilitate travel and Roman legions had been stationed to guard them. It was also the time when the Greek language and culture had given a certain cohesion to society. At the same time, the old mythological gods of Greece and Rome were losing their hold on the common people, so that the hearts and minds of men everywhere were hungry for a religion that was real and satisfying. Further, it was the time when the law of Moses had done its work of preparing men for Christ, holding them under its tutelage and in its prison, so that they longed ardently for the freedom with which Christ could make them free” (Stott, Galatians, 105-06).
3. So, when the time was right, when the stage was set, when the world was ripe for the picking, God sent Jesus. And so will it be at his second advent, his second coming. Things will be just right, in God’s timing, and no one knows when that day will be, not even Jesus himself; only the Father knows. So we are called to be ready and waiting for our master to return.

Sons of the Promise, Heirs of the Inheritance (Gal 4:6-7)

1. And that is what Paul continues to say. In his rendition of Christmas, not only does he mention how Christ came at the perfect time, not only was he born of a woman – the virgin Mary, not only was he born to redeem Israel under the slavery of the law, its paidagogos, but Paul says that Christmas happened for the purpose “that we might receive the full rights as sons” at the end of verse 5.
2. But what does “full rights as sons” mean? And what is this “son” business? This is the age of gender inclusivity, Paul. Shouldn’t he have said something generic like children? Get with the program, Paul! Well, actually in Paul’s time, only male sons inherited property from their father. Unfortunately, women and daughters in the ancient world were more like pieces of property. And so, Paul’s language is exactly right and on par. Sons inherit. Sons are heirs. Sons have a coming inheritance. And that is precisely the point that Paul is making here. As Christians, both male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, we are all one in Christ, and we are all “sons,” sons of the promise, which means that we are heirs of an inheritance. That’s why he says in verses 6-7, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who call out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
3. But an heir of what? Paul isn’t super explicit here in Galatians, but in a parallel passage in Romans 8:12-25, Paul makes clear that our inheritance as the sons and daughters of God is nothing less than the glory of resurrection bodies in the new heavens and new earth when Christ comes back a second time, his second advent, and rules and reign in final victory over his enemies, the last enemy being death. He says…
4. You see, we are inheriting a treasure that can never perish, spoil, or fade. And the whole creation waits and groans and is contracting like a woman in labor waiting for God to send his Son once again. As we remember the first advent of Christ, may our hearts be moved to long, yearn, and pray for his second advent. The time is coming. O God, may we be ready. Let’s pray.