Meditations in Galatians #22,  Monday, June 22, 2009    Galatians 4:1-7   "The Date"
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"Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So also we, while we were children, were held in  bondage under the elemental things of the world, but when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption a Sons. Because you are Sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a Son; then an heir through God. "

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Abba! Father! You sent Your Son's Spirit at Pentecost, the Hebrew festival which celebrates the year's first harvest. That is certainly an appropropriate time. Since we understand the Mosaic Law to be a shadow of the things to come, and Pentecost was created by the Mosaic Law, then all agricultural harvests are just shadows of the ultimate Harvest of souls. I guess this is what the old time preachers meant by  "foreshadowing."  The shadow comes before the reality. Oh, the shadow does not precede the reality, it precedes the revelation of the reality. And the reality is always the Spiritual. OK. So Pentecost was  given to Israel by Moses, but was created by God Himself just so this event could take the meaning of the earthly harvest and show its real meaning, thus "fulfilling it."  So the Mosaic Pentecost holy day was itself a kind of prophecy, awaiting fulfillment. You had planned long ago for that day to be the occasion when You would send Jesus' Spirit to enter all of the hearts that were ready to be harvested. So the replacement of the Mosaic Law by Your Son's indwelling Spirit was designed into the Mosaic Law itself in the form of this holy day. Wow!  I can't wait to see what all of the other feasts might mean. 

But Paul was actually talking about something else, wasn't he?  I don't see how the metaphor of childhood really describes anything historical or Biblical. When Jesus was born, I just don't see how this relates to the fragmented, subserviant remains of a defeated Jewish clan, with most of the house of Israel still lost in the Assyrian Assimilation and the Babylonian Diaspora. So, Paul is not talking about the nation. Could he be talking about Leviticus 26? Since my friends may not be familiar with Leviticus 26, please help me to explain to them why I think this might be true. 

In Leviticus 26, Moses began by summarizing the many great material blessings You promised to give to Israel while they kept their part of the Covenant.  Then Moses described the process by which You would seek to motivate their recommittment to You and Your Covenant through many punishments if they rebelled. Then finally, Moses describes the climax of all Your punishments resulting in the destruction of the nation and everything associated with the Mosiac Covenant, including the Temple and the city of Jerusalem itself. Then Your Spirit explained all of this to Jeremiah, and he understood that the Babylonian captivity's 70 years was foretold here. Then Daniel, tracking down what he had learned from Jeremiah about the 70 years, responded by praying the great prayer which he recorded in Daniel 9, which is a virtual paraphrase of the description of the repentance God required in Leviticus 26. It may not be too much to say that this prayer, alone, is all that stood between the Return from Babylon and the premature final disintegration of Israel. It looks like the prophecy of the 70 weeks was the answer to this prayer, and like the prayer, was itself clearly based on Leviticus 26. In fact, I have seen that  every Hebrew Prophet who wrote about the Fall of the two Kingdoms, Israel in 722 BC and Judah in 587 BC, and Jesus' death, seemed to point to Leviticus 26.

Let me summarize this: Leviticus 26 describes the transition from the Old Covenant of Moses to the New Covenant of Jesus, which is based on the promises God made to Abraham. The 70th week of Daniel describes that transition, centered on the death of the Messiah, which literally took place during the 70th week of Daniel. That transition took place when the time had fully come. This is what Your servant Paul meant by "the fullness of time."   Many Jews knew this timetable correctly, as evidenced by the prophecies of John The Baptist's father and the man Simeon when Jesus was 40 days old. Even Jesus' mother, Mary, in her song called the "Magnificat" seems to know all of this. 

The remnant of Israel, those who had endured all of Your chastisements, were finally to become Sons, and enter into the spiritual inheritance promised to Abraham.  This is why their  "childhood" tutorial bondage to Moses ended when it did. Your Son redeemed those under the Law in the "fullness of time." The transition foretold in Leviticus 26, and given a timeline in Daniel 9,  was accomplished by Jesus death' at Passover, and His return in Spirit for the Harvest at Pentecost. And we, still living in that Pentecost, cry out  "Abba! (Daddy!), Father!" by the presence of Jesus' Spirit in our hearts.                   


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Thank You for giving me a few minutes of your time. Galatians is a unique letter. It will take some time to get into Paul's mind, and from there to understand what God has chosen to reveal through the disaster that the congregation at Galatia was experiencing.

The effect of these Meditations will be cumulative, and the real benefit may have nothing to do with what I have written. I believe that the discipline of having a brief daily conversation with God about the meaning of a variety of Bible passages over a period of a few weeks, even if you come to some very different conclusions, will still be a wonderful and enlightening experience for you. At DeadRight.net, under the Yellow Pages, is some background info about Galatians. If you missed an earlier Meditation, you can still read it at DeadRight.net by going to the homepage, clicking on Newsletter, and clicking on "browse previous newsletters"