Law-Subjected

God sent His Son…subject to the law. (Galatians 4:4)

Don’t you think that someone born:

Under such exceptional circumstances

Long-promised and long-expected

The one identified as the Son of God…

Don’t you think that he could set his own rules? He wouldn’t have to be “under law”, or any other regulation, for that matter? I mean, he was in charge, right (like, of the whole universe)?! How does the one who set up the whole universe possibly get restricted by a set of laws? Jewish laws, at that, which often seem to be filled with food, clothing, and worship restrictions and instructions?

He chose to. He chose to be born in, and under, such an environment. And from that position of being subject to law, he had opportunity to teach and demonstrate the real purpose of the law, and what fulfillment of the law meant. He didn’t set it aside and mimic a huckster by saying, “Hey, I’m scrapping the law you’ve always followed! Let me show you a new way, one that is completely unrelated to anything you’ve known before! My friends, listen well, for I only pass this way but once! And if you call now….angels are standing by…!”

He didn’t do that. His position of being subject, or underneath the law, was to fulfill it. He demonstrated that the new covenant was indeed better than the old. And he made a way for His own people, who were law-obsessed, to find the Father, through the law-fulfilling Messiah, and live with the Holy Spirit.

To my finite way of thinking, as I try to engage with his un-finite, or infinite way of thinking, that certainly sounds like a plan to me.

“Father, thank you for your plan that Jesus would come and live under the law, fulfilling what you intended when you gave the law to your people.”