Our Lord's lowliness is described in the two clauses which we have just
been considering. They express His identification with us from a double
point of view, and that double point of view is continued in the final
clauses of our text which state the double purpose of God in sending His
Son. He became one with us that we might become one with Him. The two
elements of this double purpose are stated in the reverse order to the
two elements of Christ's lowliness. The redemption of them that were
under law is presented as the reason for His being born under law, and
our reception of the 'adoption of sons' is the purpose of the Son's
being sent and born of a woman. The order in which Paul here deals with
the two parts of the divine purpose is not to be put down to mere
rhetorical ornament, but corresponds to the order in which these two
elements are realised by men. For there must be redemption from law
before there is the adoption of sons.
We have already had occasion to point out that 'law' here must be taken
in the wide sense and not restricted to the Jewish law. It is a
world-wide redemption which the Father's love had in view in sending His
Son, but that all-comprehending, fatherly love could not reach its aim
by the mere forth-putting of its own energy. A process was needed if the
divine heart was to accomplish its desire, and the majestic stages in
that process are set forth here by Paul. The world was under law in a
very sad fashion, and though Jesus has come to redeem them that are
under law, the crushing weight of commandments flouted, of duties
neglected, of sins done, presses heavily upon many of us. And yet how
many of us there are who do not know the burden that we carry and have
had no personal experience like that of Bunyan's Christian with the pack
on his back all but weighing him down? Jesus Christ has become one of
us, and in His sinless life has 'magnified the law and made it
honourable,' and in His sinless death He endures the consequences of
sin, not as due to Himself, but because they are man's. But we must
carefully keep in view, that as we have already pointed out, we are to
think of Christ's mission as His coming as well as the Father's sending,
and that therefore we do not grasp the full idea of our Lord's enduring
the consequences of sin unless we take it as meaning His voluntary
identification of Himself in love with us sinful men. His obedience was
perfect all His life long, and His last and highest act of obedience was
when He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
This is the only means by which the burden of law in any of its forms
can be taken away from us. For a law which is not loved will be heavy
and hard however holy and just and good it may be, and a law which we
have broken will become sooner or later its own avenger. Faithful in
_Pilgrim's Progress_ tells how 'So soon as a man overtook me he was but
a word and a blow, for down he knocked me and laid me for dead. . . . He
struck me another deadly blow on the breast and beat me down backward,
so I lay at his foot as dead as before, so when I came to myself again I
cried him "Mercy," but he said, "I know not how to show mercy," and with
that knocked me down again; he had doubtless made an end of me but that
one came by and bid him forbear. . . . I did not know him at first, but as
he went by I perceived the holes in his hands and in his sides.' He was
born under law that He might redeem them that were under law.
The slaves bought into freedom are received into the great family. The
Son has become flesh that they who dwell in the flesh may rise to be
sons, but the Son stands alone even in the midst of His identification
with us, and of the great results which follow for us from it. He is the
Son by nature; we are sons by adoption. He became man that we might
share in the possession of God. When the burden of law is lifted off it
is possible to bestow the further blessing of sonship, but that blessing
is only possible through Him in whom, and from whom, we derive a life
which is divine life. There is a profound truth in the prophetic
sentence, 'Behold I and the children which God hath given me!' for, in
one aspect, believers are the children of Christ, and in another, they
are sons of God.
We have been speaking of the Son's identification with us in His
mission, and our identification with Him, but that identification
depends on ourselves and is only an accomplished fact through our faith.
When we trust in Him it is true that all His--His righteousness, His
Sonship, His union with the Father--is ours, and that all ours--our
sins, our guilt, our alienation from God and our dwelling in the far-off
land of rags and vice--is His. In His voluntary identification with us,
He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. It is for us to
determine whether we will lay on Him our iniquities, as the Father has
already laid the iniquities of us all. Are we by faith in Him who was
born of a woman, born under law, making our very own the redemption from
the law which He has wrought and the adoption of sons which He bestows?