2. _The Redeemer assumes the nature and condition of those He redeems._--"Made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (vers. 4, 5). Christ was born of woman as other men are, and, like them, was at first a weak and dependent babe. His child-life has for ever beautified and consecrated child-nature. He was born under law--not the law as a mere Jew, which would have limited His redeeming work to the Jewish nation, but under law in its widest application. He submitted not only to the general moral demands of the Divine law for men, but to all the duties and proprieties incident to His position as a man, even to those ritual ordinances which His coming was to abolish. The purpose of His being sent was "to redeem them that were under the law"--to buy them out of their bondage. He voluntarily entered into the condition of the enslaved that He might emancipate them. 3. _The sonship acquired through redemption is not by merit or legal right, but by adoption._--"That we might receive the adoption of sons" (ver. 5). The sonship is by grace, not of nature. Man lost his sonship by sin; by grace he gets it back again. Adoption we do not get back; we simply receive it. It is an act of God's free grace. +III. The attainment of sonship is a conscious reality.+--1. _Made evident by the Spirit of God witnessing in us and crying to Him as to a Father._ "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (ver. 6). God sent forth His Son into the world of men: He sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their individual hearts. The filial consciousness was born within them, supernaturally inspired. When they believed in Christ, when they saw in Him the Son of God, their Redeemer, they were stirred with a new ecstatic impulse; a Divine glow of love and joy kindled in their breasts; a voice not their own spoke to their spirit; their soul leaped forth upon their lips, crying to God "Father, Father!" They were children of God and knew it. 2. _Confirmed by the heirship that results from the Divine adoption._--"If a son, then an heir of God through Christ" (ver. 7). The nonage, the period of servitude and subjection, is passed. It gives place to the unrivalled privilege of a maturer spiritual manhood, and the heirship to an inheritance of indescribable and imperishable blessedness. +Lessons.+--1. _The law held the world in bondage._ 2. _The Gospel is a message of liberty by redemption._ 3. _Redemption by Christ confers distinguished privileges._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Vers. 4, 5. _Christ's Mission for the Adoption of Sons in the Fulness of Time._