Timing is everything. A successful comedian knows the value of the right moment. A great punch line delivered in the wrong rhythm gets no laughs. Timing is everything.
I might do something outstanding but if I do it at the wrong time, then it is a waste of time. Timing is everything.
But God’s timing is perfect. Every time. As the song says, He’s never early and He’s never late. And that’s exactly what Paul tells us here at the beginning of chapter four.
The apostle begins by fleshing out his inheritance analogy he has just dropped on the Galatians. Jesus has broken down all the barriers between races, gender and social status so that everyone is eligible for adoption into God’s family (Gal 3:26-28).
As a result of adoption into God’s family, we are now heirs to the royal estate that God promised to Abraham millennia ago (Gal 3:29; Gen 12:3).
Paul compares us as infants under the care of a nanny. “The heir, as long as he is a child is no different from a slave, though he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father” (v1-2).
We’re fully rightful heirs to the family fortune but we just don’t realize it yet. This may be an inference to divine election. We’re assured inclusion into God’s family through Jesus. We just don’t realize it yet.
In Roman culture, families would place their children under the care of household servants and slaves. Paul alluded to that in Galatians 3:24.
In verse two, he uses two other Greek terms that describe servants that the parents place over their young children to ensure their upbringing and safety.
The apostle tells us that this nanny arrangement has an end date, “until the date set by the father” (v2). In ancient Roman, Greek and Jewish cultures, there was a particular moment set by the dad when a boy would step into manhood.
For Jews, that’s the bar mitzvah. The caregivers knew that they had a deadline to have the boy’s training complete. They had an appointed day or a fixed time. A date had been circled on the calendar. Because timing is everything.
Paul draws the comparison to our status before coming to faith in Jesus. “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world” (v3).
What in the world are these “elementary principles of the world?” He uses the very same phrase in verse nine. He dusts off the same words when he writes to the folks in Colossae (Col 2:8, 20). It simply means rudimentary elements.
He may be talking about the elementary truths of natural religion, the elementary rules and regulations or even the elementary spirits (the spiritual forces behind the world). According to MacArthur, it’s probably best understood as “the basic elements and rituals of human religion.”
Man developed religion and myth to explain the unexplainable. But since there is no divine revelation involved, it’s just a guess. We need God to free us from the slavery of this futile teaching.
God sets us free at just the right time. That’s because His timing is perfect. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son” (v4). The Greek here uses the term πλερομα/pleroma. It means a space or a hole that has been filled up.
That particular hole in this case is time or χρονος/chronos. God had prepared the entire universe for the arrival of His Son at this very specific moment in history.
Everything was ready. He didn’t show up early. He didn’t arrive late. He was right on time. His timing is absolutely perfect.
Timing is everything.
And God’s timing is still spot on to this very day. He’s right on time in my life as well. I need to trust Him to be on time. I might think I need Him to do something now. I’m desperate for Him to move. For Him to do something. Yet, all I get are crickets when I call.
That’s because His timing is perfect. He knows just the right moment to move. He knows just the right moment to act. He knows just the right moment to step in. He knows just the right moment to speak. His timing is perfect.
Timing is everything.
©2012
Jay Jennings
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