Now I say, As long as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a bondman, though he be lord of all;
Paul has just told the Galatians that faith, not law, makes a person Abraham's heir. Now he pictures a boy who owns a whole estate yet lives like a slave in the house — the position of God's people before Christ came.
The illustration turns on the boy's age. He is not just young. He is below the age at which the law lets a person act.
"I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything." This principle is true of believers under what we may call the old covenant. They were heirs, no doubt, and blessing is to be their portion. But the heir is no more than the bondman or slave as long as he is an "infant." That is the force of the word "child." The ancients used the word, as our legal term still does, for a person under legal age, who cannot make contracts and agreements or act for himself. He really is to have a part in the kingdom of Christ, to reign with Christ. But if we ask what his condition is while he is in this world, we find it described here as the place of a servant.
The comparison is not about worth. It is about daily life. The boy takes orders, and the freedom of the house is not yet his.
A child may be the heir, yet he is still kept in a place of subjection, under rules and regulations. In that respect he differs nothing from a servant. His father cannot yet trust him with the freedom of the house. When he comes of age, however, everything changes. He leaves the nursery routine behind, and his time under guardians is over. He takes his place as a son, in the liberty and nearness that fits that intimate relationship.
Many stumble here. If believers of every age are saved the same way, must their experience be the same too?
I dwell on this, because many find it very hard to understand how this can be. The way of being saved is the same, and yet the state of those who are saved can be different. The heir, while he is a child, is under guardians and managers. He has no free and direct communication with the father's mind, and no understanding of the father's interests.
Law gives orders but no power to obey them. That leaves the son far from the father whose estate he will inherit.
Anyone can understand a law that tells us what to do and what not to do. Anyone can understand that our blessing depends on obeying that law. It is a principle on which the world seeks to regulate all its affairs. To the believer, however, it is bondage. It ties us down to obey so that we may get blessing, but it gives us no strength to carry out the demands of law. Moreover it gives no knowledge of the heart of the Father, nor access to the Father — the source of all blessing.
No one should read this as a comment on how godly the Old Testament believers were. It describes the arrangement they lived under, not their personal standing.
It was not a question of how outstanding they were as saints of God. It was a question of the age they lived in. No greater man than John the Baptist was ever born, yet as the Lord has told us, "he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matt. 11:11). In their days God had not yet made Himself fully known. Redemption was not yet accomplished. God had not yet given the Spirit. Until these three great things happened, the people of God could not "come of age."
Teachers were pulling the Galatians back under religious rules. Paul asks them what that move really costs.
This was their place. Accomplished redemption had changed their position: they were now in communication and close dealings with God, as children with a father. And so he asks, "Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" To take up again the place of distance that belonged to those under the law would sweep the whole thing away. The redemption of the Son of God had brought them into that position.
- Heir — the boy owns the whole estate already; his title is never in question, only his access to it.
- Infant — the word means a legal minor. He cannot act for himself, so the estate is his in name while others direct his day.
- Servant — law treated believers like servants. It gave orders, no strength to keep them, and no nearness to the Father's mind.
- Fulness — childhood ended when God made Himself fully known, accomplished redemption, and gave the Spirit.
- Backwards — to go back under rules after that is to trade a son's nearness for a minor's distance.
but he is under guardians and stewards until the period fixed by the father.
Paul is still running the picture he began in the previous chapter: an heir who owns his father's whole estate but cannot touch it while he is a child. So who are these guardians and managers, and who fixes the date when the waiting ends?
The verse names two kinds of oversight, not one. Roman custom also kept an heir waiting a long time for his freedom.
The heir to the property, while still a child, did not have liberty. He himself was under a guardian, and his possessions were under a steward. When he came of age he would be master of everything. But while he is still a minor, he has no right to the possessions, and no liberty to do what he wishes. As far as the law is concerned, it places him in the same position as a slave. A slave had no legal right to anything, and his master had full authority over him. It is said that the Roman child ended his "babyhood" at seven years old. But he was not counted a full-grown man until he was 25.
The word behind "managers" names a household job: the manager of a house, a steward. It is the same word translated "steward" elsewhere in the New Testament (The Christian's Friend).
The restraint fits what the child can bear. His father already knows the day it ends.
While the heir to the estate is still a small child, he lives under restraint, just as the servants do. Tutors and governors hold him in what feels to him like bondage. He simply has to do as he is told, and he does not yet know the reason why. He cannot yet have the full liberty of his father's house and estate, because his character and understanding are not yet formed enough. But his father knows when the time will come, and the day is fixed when he will come of age.
What the minor lacked was not comfort but closeness. Orders came with no explanation.
He compares the believer before the coming of Christ to a child under age. That child has no direct share in his father's thinking. He receives his father's orders the way a servant would, without his father explaining them to him. He is under tutors and governors until the time the father has appointed. So the Jews, although they were heirs of the promises, were not in touch with the Father and His purposes in Jesus. They were held like children under principles that belonged to the system of the present world.
Another writer traces that same lack to what law can and cannot do:
The law, however, is bondage to the believer. It ties us down to obey so that we may gain blessing, yet it gives us no strength to meet its demands. It also gives no knowledge of the Father's heart, and no access to the Father — the source of all blessing.
The "infancy" was not merely for the distant past. One commentator extends it right up to the cross, including the men who walked with Jesus.
The blessing in view is that of the believer in Old Testament times, or of someone who knew Christ during His life on earth. There was no real difference between them: Peter, James, and John were all children then. True, Christ was present in person, and blessing had grown immensely. Their eyes saw and their ears heard what prophets and kings had longed to see. Still, they were children. They were not set free from the law. They were still held down by its commands and rules.
The clock in this verse is not the child's. Paul later names what that appointed date turned out to be.
This lasted "until the date set by his father" (v.2). Then comes, so to speak, graduation from the child's place to the place of a son, from bondage to liberty, from mere submission to understanding, approving and enjoying that will. This is proper maturity… "The fullness of time" (v.4) is the date the Father set, when "God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
The date has passed, yet the old habits linger. One writer sees believers still living under tutors and schoolmasters.
Tutors and governors still exist. People still turn to the schoolmaster too, though his special office ended when Christ brought His people out from under the law, and out of the school of doing and of death. In far too many cases God's own blood-bought people — His children by birth, His sons by adoption — are not in spirit what they really are in fact.
- The picture. A minor heir has a guardian over his person and a steward over his property — he owns everything and controls nothing.
- The purpose. The restraint fits his immaturity, not his standing. He obeys orders without being told why.
- The loss. Law gives no access to the Father's heart and no strength to meet its own demands.
- The date. The child's progress does not end it. The Father's fixed day does — and it came when God sent His Son.
- The claim. That day has passed. Going back to guardians and schoolmasters is living below what you already are.
So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the principles of the world;
Paul compares God's people before Christ to an heir who is still a child. He owns everything, yet lives like a slave — and the puzzle here is how a law God Himself gave can count as one of the world's basic principles.
The word "children" here points to age and legal standing.
They were heirs, no doubt, and blessing is to be their portion. But the heir is no more than a slave as long as he is an "infant," which is the force of the word "child." Among the ancients, as in our legal language still, the word meant a person under legal age, unable to make contracts and engagements or to act for himself. That was exactly the position of a believer of old under the law. He had not arrived at full age; he was really an heir, destined to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The word behind "elementary principles" means basic principles. The shock is what it describes here: the law God Himself gave.
The word translated "elements" has the force of "principles," and is so translated in Hebrews 5:12. At first we may wonder that such terms — almost contemptuous terms — should be used of the law, which God Himself gave. But the "we" of Galatians 4:3 means Jews, just as the "you" of verse 6 means the Galatian Gentiles. Both were under bondage to the principles of the world, and the law of Moses made no difference. The law brought in the demands of God, but men had to meet them on the world's principles. The root principle of the law was this: the favour men received from God depended entirely on what they rendered to Him in obedience. This is altogether a principle of the world, whereas grace is not. The law brought in no principles that lie outside the world altogether, as Christianity does.
(Older translations read "elements of the world" where the ESV has "elementary principles.")
The old order worked through things a natural man could see, hear and touch. That is what made it worldly.
The institutions of the law were suited to man in the flesh — to men of the world. They were all outward: a magnificent temple, beautiful clothes for the priests, jewels and gold, trumpets, music, sweet incense, altars and sacrifices. Men could see all of it with their natural eyes. All these things formed what the Epistle to the Hebrews calls "a worldly sanctuary" (Hebrews 9:1). God gave all of it so that man in the flesh might be in relationship with God... Christians, on the other hand, are a heavenly people. They do not see the Object whom they adore, except by faith.
The system was not cruel. It could not give what it demanded.
Every natural man can understand a law. It tells us what to do and not to do, and it says our blessing depends on obeying it. It is a principle on which the world seeks to regulate all its affairs. It is, however, bondage to the believer. It binds us down to obey in order to get blessing, but gives us no strength to meet the demands of law. Moreover it gives no knowledge of the heart of the Father, nor access to the Father — the source of all blessing.
This condition lasted right up to the cross, and the closest disciples were not exempt from it.
The blessing of the Old Testament saint is in view, or of one who knew Christ in the days of His flesh, because there was no substantial difference between them: Peter, James and John were all infants then... they were not delivered from the law; they were still kept bound down by its injunctions and ordinances, and the terror arising from it always kept them in a measure of uncertainty and darkness — and it ought to have been so. A man under the law was not entitled to be thoroughly happy.
God appointed this system for Israel. It now goes by the name "elements of the world," and people still reach back for it.
As a nation God put them under law, under the priesthood of Levi, under outward sacrifices, under rules for the body. All this was part of what they had to go through, and great truths lay hidden under these simple pictures. Christendom has taken up the things that were right enough for a Jew, but which are now called "the elements of the world," as in truth they are. Now they are called elements of the world, but they were not so before Christ died.
This childhood came to an end when God acted.
Now God had sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law. So they had received the adoption of sons. And because they were sons, God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. They were therefore no longer servants, but sons; and if sons, heirs of God through Christ. What folly, then, to give up their sonship, with its liberty, privileges and prospects, and get tangled again in the yoke of bondage!
- Minor — "Children" here means legal minors. The heir owned everything but enjoyed nothing.
- Principles — "Elements" means basic principles. Under law, God's favour depended on what you rendered Him — the world's way of doing business, not grace.
- Outward — Temple, robes, incense, sacrifices: a system built for the eye. Christians now see the One they adore by faith alone.
- Powerless — The bondage was not harshness but inability. Law commands obedience for blessing, gives no strength to obey, and leaves the Father unknown.
- Released — God sent His Son to redeem those under law, and the Spirit makes them sons who cry "Abba, Father." Going back is folly.
but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law,
Paul has just pictured heirs who were still children, kept under guardians. Here he marks the moment God stepped in, and every phrase counts: the timing, the sending, the woman, the law.
Why then, and not sooner?
With "the fullness of time" all is changed. Did it not come when man had fully shown the evil of his heart, and had failed completely to meet his responsibilities? It was proved that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and that all was over on man's side. Then God acted in pure sovereign grace and sent forth His Son, come of a woman, come under law.
God was also preparing the world His Son would enter.
God had chosen the exact time to send forth His Son, and He prepared everything for it... God allowed the Romans to have a strong government. They controlled all that part of the world, with Palestine at its centre. They made good roads and kept a great deal of order. This made it possible to preach the gospel in very many places. God had also arranged that all that part of the world should understand Greek. That helped greatly in spreading the good news.
Some have read "sent forth" as though Christ only became Son at His birth. One writer answers them from this same passage.
So it is worth noticing that this passage uses exactly the same expression of the Holy Spirit. We read, "God sent forth the Spirit of His Son." No one would dare to argue that this means the Holy Spirit was not sent forth from heaven, or that the words only apply after He had come to earth. Is it not plain, to anyone who submits to God's word, that the Holy Spirit "sent forth" from heaven was the Spirit before He came? In the same way, does not this passage prove that the Son was sent forth from heaven, and was the Son before He became Man?
The wording is unusual, and one writer builds a great deal on it. (Older translations read "made of a woman.")
It is very significant that the letters of the New Testament never speak of the virgin birth, except in Galatians 4:4. There we are told the Lord was "made of a woman." This expression would have been meaningless if it only referred to the way that all children come into the world. "Made of a woman" surely limits the human parentage of our Lord to the mother's side. It is the affirmation of the virgin birth.
What kind of Man was born this way?
The virgin birth means that the Lord Jesus, while truly Man, was yet a Man of a new order.
Birth under the law set Him inside Israel, and the reason given is not the one many expect.
The Lord Jesus came "made of a woman" — that is, really and truly Man. He came "made under the law" — that is, born of Israel, the chosen people, whom God had placed under the law's rule. He came under the law — but not to keep it for us, and not to atone that way for our failure to keep it. He came to redeem those who were under it.
Writers place the stress differently. Darby gives the same reason from the text, then adds a further point.
Besides, He magnified the law and made it honourable — and that carries real moral weight. It mattered to honour the law, the measure of what God requires from His creature. And it mattered just then, when He was about to take man out from under it altogether and set him free from it.
His birth opens the verse. It is not where God's work stops.
But was God's business done when the Son was here, come of a woman, come under the law? By no means. His coming as Man was only the means, not the end. Redemption was the great point to which God turned. So the Son was sent, and came "to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
- Timing — the fullness of time came when man had fully shown his heart and failed; only then did God act, in pure grace.
- Sending — the same expression describes the Spirit's sending in this passage, so the Son was Son before God sent Him from heaven.
- Woman — "of a woman" traces His humanity to His mother alone; He was truly Man, yet a Man of a new order.
- Law — He came under law to redeem those under it, and He honoured the law at the very moment God was about to free us from it.
- Purpose — His birth was the means, not the end: redemption first, then adoption as sons.
that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship.
Galatians 4:5 gives the reason God sent His Son — not simply to be born under the law, but to buy out those held there and place them as sons. Two questions sit at the centre. What does this redemption free people from? And what is the "adoption" they receive instead?
The verse names the goal of the sending. One writer presses the point that the birth at Bethlehem was a step toward something else:
It is true that then the fullness of the time had come for God to send forth His Son. The very children were enslaved under the basic principles of the world, and all were shut up under sin. Man had proved that he could ruin himself under the law of God, and all the more easily because the law was good and he was bad. But was God's business done when the Son was here, come of a woman, come under the law? Not at all. The Incarnation was only the means, not the end. Redemption was the great point to which God turned.
Another writer sets His law-keeping beside His death:
That law was no bondage for Him. He fully worked out the righteousness of the law. Yet His righteous and holy life could not redeem those under the law. Redemption from the curse of the law was accomplished in the death of the cross.
The Greek word behind "redeem" in this verse is discussed directly. It is not the general word for deliverance:
The word here may go a little further. Yet it is not properly "redeem," but buying up or retrieving, as in Galatians 3:13 and Galatians 4:5. It is not the state of deliverance we enjoy, though that is the result for the believer. The point is that Christ bought out from under the law those once under it, to make them His own.
Galatians 3:13 had already spoken of redemption from the law's curse. This verse adds something:
By death, then, we are redeemed from the curse of the law. Galatians 4:5, however, carries us a step further. We are redeemed not only from the law's curse but also from its rule. In receiving the "adoption of sons," we are set free from the schoolmaster's rule and from the schoolroom routine. We leave the schoolroom for the freedom of the grown-up son. He knows his father's mind, and he moves without restriction in every room of the house.
The word translated "adoption" carries the sense of sonship — a position given, with everything that belongs to it:
The result of redemption is "that we might receive sonship." Here again, the "we" is Jewish and Gentile believers brought into a position of sonship, or "adopted" to be sons. Sonship is a word not often used. It is the contrast to the picture before it: the child who is like an infant, kept under the law, in a position of immaturity... Adopted to be sons means to be placed in a position of sonship, and that goes with maturity and with dignity. It is a wonderful position — not under the law, as under a jailer or a tutor. It is a place of dignity in God's presence, and it includes fellowship with God.
Paul writes "them" for those under law, then switches to "we" for those who receive the sonship. That shift is deliberate:
He came to redeem those that were under the law, so that believers (whoever they may be) should receive the adoption. The sending of the Spirit proved that Gentile believers now shared that adoption, for the Spirit made them cry, "Abba, Father"... The Gentile was a stranger to the house. The Jew, while under age, was no different from a servant. Yet each had now taken the position of a son in direct relation with the Father. The Holy Spirit was the power and the witness of that relation. All this came from the redemption the Son carried out on their behalf. The Jew under the law needed it as much as the Gentile in his sins.
- Purpose — The incarnation was the means, not the end. The cross is where the buying-out happened.
- Price — "Redeem" means bought out from under. Those once held by the law became Christ's own.
- Reach — Redemption starts with those under law. Then the "we" widens: Jew and Gentile receive the same sonship.
- Place — Adoption does not make you a servant. It places you as a son: maturity, dignity, and fellowship in God's presence.
- Liberty — The result is the end of the schoolroom; the freed son knows his Father's mind and moves freely in the house.
But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
God sent His Son to redeem; now He sends the Spirit of that Son into the hearts of people He has already made sons. Everything turns on one small word — because — which settles whether the Spirit makes us sons or comes to us because we already are.
The verse begins with a reason, not a condition. That order decides how a believer reads his own standing.
He does not give the Spirit to make you a son. He gives you the Spirit because you are a son. The one who believes in Christ Jesus is a child of God, "for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith" (Gal. 3:26).
Verse 5 speaks of receiving the place of sons. Verse 6 adds something to that place — the ability to enjoy it.
Think carefully about this: it was in the mind of God to have sons before Him and not servants. He sent His Son so that He might have sons. But this is not a mere name or position. He has also sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, so that we might know and enjoy the relationship.
The enjoyment can fade while the standing stays. Paul wrote to people who had slipped back toward law-keeping, and he still told them plainly what they were.
The Spirit does not give the relationship, but the conscious response to the relationship. The Galatians had made little progress in themselves. As a whole they had in fact slipped back into legalism, and had "fallen away from grace." Still the Apostle does not hesitate to press on their hearts the truth of what they were, and that twice over, saying not only, "you are sons," but also, "So you are no longer a slave, but a son."
The verse calls Him "the Spirit of His Son." That title explains what He does.
The Holy Spirit is called here "the Spirit of His Son" for this reason. The Lord Jesus took up His place as God's Son, even as Man in this world (see Luke 1:35), in the power of the Spirit. That same Spirit is the source and power of the life, the thoughts and the feelings of a son of God in each believer He lives in. By Him we cry "Abba, Father." He gives us the awareness of the relationship and a fitting response to the Father's love. A rich man might lift a poor child out of some charity home and adopt him as his son by law. But he could not produce in him the proper feelings of a son of his… What man cannot do, God has done.
Two words for one relationship stand side by side, and the first one is not translated.
The Greek form is abba, father. It is the same as Ab in Hebrew, but people said Abba in the time of our Saviour. It appears three times in the New Testament, always followed by "father," and translated Abba Father. So the "abba" is copied over, not translated; if it were translated it would read "Father Father."… The only other time it appears is when the Lord speaks to His Father this way, Mark 14:36; and the Spirit in the hearts of believers puts the very words He used into their lips. Some have suggested that in the two words the Jew and the Gentile each say "Father" in his own language.
The sound of the word matters too. It is a mercy to the weakest believer.
It is a word made with the lips only. So a very small child, who has no teeth yet, could say it… This tells us of the welcome God gives to even the smallest, the youngest, the weakest believer. He may not know how to pray. But God has given even such a person the Spirit of His Son, and he can look up to heaven and cry, "Abba!" No one but a child has the right to this word.
Paul moves from "we" in verse 5 to "you" in verse 6. Commentators see the change as deliberate.
But even that does not satisfy Him. There might still have been the thought that the adoption of sons was only for believers in Israel… But the apostle turns to the Gentiles and says, "And because you are sons," changing the person, and addressing the Galatians in a very pointed way… Here we learn plainly that the Jew, by the law, only got into a position of bondage. That was all the law could do for him… But now Christ came, and in Christ there is power to set free, and this is what ruined man needs.
- Because. God does not send the Spirit to make sons. He sends the Spirit because those who believe in Christ Jesus are already sons.
- Sent. God sent the Son, and God sent the Spirit. Both acts are His, so the relationship rests on Him.
- His Son's. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, so He works a son's thoughts and feelings inside the believer, not just a title outside him.
- Abba. The cry is the very word the Lord used to His own Father (Mark 14:36), simple enough for the weakest believer to say.
- You. Paul aims it at Gentiles as well as Jews. The law could only give bondage; Christ makes sons who are no longer slaves.
So thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also through God.
Paul has just said that God sent His Son to redeem those under law, and then sent the Spirit of His Son into their hearts. Verse 7 draws the conclusion: what you are no longer, what you now are, and what that settles about your future.
The verse is a conclusion. It closes an argument running back into the previous chapter, where the law acts as guardian over a household of minors.
Read the whole passage, Galatians 3:21 to 4:7. You will see the Apostle's argument: the coming of Christ has started a new era. Before He came, the law ruled, and it showed only part of God. Believers then were like minors in a family, under a tutor. Now He has come, and redemption has been accomplished as a result. We are like children who have grown up, set free from the nursery routine and living in the full liberty of the Father's house.
Paul turns from a whole region to one person. And he speaks about now, not about heaven later.
The conclusion follows from all the reasoning: "So you are no longer a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Notice, it is not what they shall be. It is not that they stay infants in this world and get their blessing in heaven. It is, "you are no longer a servant but a son." If you were a Jew, you would be the servant of the law. But now, no matter what you were — even if you had been an idolater — in receiving Christ you have passed into the fullness of the blessing that is due from God to His beloved Son.
Older versions say "servant" where the ESV says "slave." Ending slavery does not end serving.
A son is the acknowledged child, the child given the child's place, and that is what belongs to Christianity. How then, asks the apostle in effect, is it possible, in such a place, to be a servant any longer — that is, a slave? It is the bondage of slavery he is speaking about. Servants, of course, we are in a true sense, by the very fact that we are sons. We serve as such. God has title to service, surely, from all His sons, but there is no bondage in this.
Sonship is not just a warmer feeling; it carries property. Note that translations differ on the closing phrase: some render it "an heir of God through Christ," others "an heir through God."
Being sons and having the Spirit, we are no longer servants... This is far higher than angels will ever know. They are servants, His ministers who do what pleases Him. But they cannot say "Father," and they cannot join in redemption's song. God kept this for sinners, whom His sovereign grace picked up. Men sometimes have sons who are not heirs, because they choose not to give them a portion. But there are none such in the family of God. All will share with the Only-begotten Son. When He takes up His rights and takes charge of all things, we shall be with Him as sharers through grace.
The little phrase at the end guards against any thought that we arranged this ourselves.
In Galatians 4, the believer is no longer a slave but a son. And if a son, then an heir too, through God — certainly not through man, whether himself or others. So we learn the double truth: that by faith, not by works of law, we are heirs of God, and this through God.
The Galatians were slipping back under law. That turns the son's place into a question of honour.
Having this place, why would we want a servant's place? Would it not dishonour any father to have his full-grown son cringing before him as a slave? God has prepared the best He has for His sons, and has given them "the best robe." Can He be honoured when they take the cold, distant place of serving Him as if for wages? This was the folly of the Galatians.
The Spirit lives in God's sons, and His work there is never to bring fear back.
He is not within us as the Spirit of bondage, not as a Spirit leading us to fear, but to liberty. He does not lead us to put ourselves under the terror of law... We are not led by the Spirit to doubt our Father's love, or to question whether we are His children. We are not led by the Spirit to dread that, after all, we shall miss His home in glory.
- Redemption first. Sonship rests on the finished work of Christ, not on how far you have come. Even a former idolater passes straight into the full blessing.
- Sonship now. The verse states a present fact, not a future hope: not what you will be in heaven, but what you already are on earth.
- Slavery ends, service doesn't. Bondage is over. Sons still serve, but they serve as sons, and there is no bondage in it.
- Heirship follows. In God's family there are no sons without a portion. The inheritance is God Himself, shared with His Son.
- Liberty is the test. The Spirit leads to liberty, never back into fear. Cringing religion is what looks out of place, not confidence.
But then indeed, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods;
Paul has just shown the Galatians how high the grace of God has lifted them. Now he turns their eyes back to what they were before the good news reached them, and the look back carries a warning.
The pronoun is deliberate. Paul writes "you" here, not "we," and the two groups had different pasts.
It is plain he means the Gentiles. He does not say, when we did not know God — because the Jews did have a certain knowledge of God under the law. But "when you did not know God" points plainly to the pagan nations.
This was not a failure of intelligence. Some of them knew the finest thinking of their world.
See the scorn the apostle pours on their old pagan gods! And see how strongly he speaks of the people who worshipped them! Though many of them were philosophers, they did not know God. They might be full of the wisdom of this world, and able to talk about right and wrong. But towards God their hearts were hardened and their understanding darkened. They were totally ignorant of Him.
Paul's phrase "by nature are not gods" says the objects were nothing. But he does not say the religion cost them nothing.
They now stand at a new and unmatched height as believers in the grace of God. From there he turns their thoughts back to their natural condition as Gentiles in the flesh. That was a state of darkness, ignorance and spiritual death. In it they had once served a hard service of emptiness and shame. The objects of their worship were imaginary. Their gods were no gods. But the service they gave to these lying shadows was both real and costly… They were governed, but not blessed. They had lords many and gods many, but not one single gleam of truth, or light, or love. The gods they had were at best only projections of themselves. Far more often they were just idealised pictures of their strongest and most evil desires.
"Governed, but not blessed" catches the whole verse: the idols gave nothing back, yet demanded everything.
Their ignorance had a history behind it, and it still describes people today.
The Gentiles, we are told, once knew God, but they willingly ignored Him. This came from the instinctive dislike that sin must have for holiness… And this, let us remember, is essentially the state of every unconverted person. If he does not have the true God and eternal life in Christ the Son of the Father, he does not have God at all. His days may be spent in sincere and hard religious exercises, but they are empty and completely false.
Slavery to nothing is still slavery. Only one thing ends it.
In those former days they did not know God. They only served their dumb idols, and knew nothing better. Those idols were not gods, and yet they were slaves to them. But now they have learned to know the true and living God — or rather, the true and living God knows them. Now they have tasted the liberty of His service.
Paul does not raise their past for its own sake. The shock lands in one short phrase.
Notice these words: "turning back again." They had left their idols, and now they are turning to the law. No man would have written these words, "turning back again." But the Holy Spirit did. In God's sight, for the Galatians to turn from the good news they had received to the law is just the same as turning back again to those weak and poverty-stricken principles they once served. They are wishing to be enslaved by them all over again.
A change of religion does not always change the motive underneath it.
Their motives in paganism had been selfish, and they had tried to cover this by worshipping false gods… After the true God has been revealed, after receiving infinite blessing from Him, these Galatians dared to return to their motives of selfishness. They thought that adding the law gave Christianity a more brilliant light. Instead it fed the same principles of self-pleasing and self-exaltation as the paganism they had given up. In practice the only difference was that the outward worship of the true God now covered these motives.
after
The danger did not stop with Galatia.
You do not have to be a converted person to observe days and seasons. This is a solemn thing for the Christian world to weigh. It has largely fallen into the same error as the Galatians, turning back once again to outward ceremonies and man-made holy days.
- Ignorance. Their old religion began where all idolatry begins: they did not know God. Learning and philosophy never closed that gap.
- Emptiness. The gods were imaginary, often just their own worst desires made large. Such gods governed them, but never blessed them.
- Bondage. Unreal gods still held real slaves. The service cost them everything and gave back nothing.
- Liberty. Knowing God — and being known by God — is what broke the chain, not a better set of observances.
- Relapse. Going back to days and ceremonies is not a step forward but a step back. The old self-serving motive just takes on the true God's name.
but now, knowing God, but rather being known by God, how do ye turn again to the weak and beggarly principles to which ye desire to be again anew in bondage?
God had brought the Galatians out of idol worship into the knowledge of Himself. Now they were drifting into Jewish law-keeping, and Paul treats that as a return to the slavery they had left.
Paul starts to say they know God, then corrects himself and points to God's knowledge of them.
With loving appeal he writes to them, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God." What an appeal, to turn from their knowledge of God to His knowledge of them! At best our knowledge of God is very imperfect. But He has taken us up in the perfect knowledge of all that we were and all that we would be. He has justified us by His grace as a free gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Their conduct gave him little to rest on. So he turned from what he saw in them to the God who had called them.
When people fall away, he does what David did and finds his strength in God (1 Samuel 30:6). He turns for comfort from the work to the Workman: from sheep who were called but are changeable and careless, to the One who called them and never takes back His call. That they were "known by God" assured his own spirit more than anything he ever saw in them.
The ESV calls them "elementary principles" and "weak and worthless"; older translations say "elements" and "beggarly." The word is not an insult in itself — it points to first lessons.
The word applies to children at the start of their training. It applies also to the law, the early way God dealt with Israel. But now the law is called "beggarly": it has lost its glory through the failure of man and the coming of Christ Himself.
Calling the law weak and beggarly sounds harsh until you ask what it is being measured against.
The law was holy, just and good. Yet the moon is a weak and beggarly thing next to the sun, and so is the law next to the grace and power of the gospel. Think of the great story in Luke 15. The Father had welcomed the Galatians into His house and given them the place of a son, not the place of a hired servant. Yet here they were, going back with false humility — not quite to the care of the pigs in the far country, but to the drudgery of kitchen servants. They acted as if that were the way to keep the love the Father had showered on them.
These readers were Gentiles. They had never kept the law of Moses, so the word "again" is startling.
This must have shocked the Galatian saints. Turning again to idolatry! How could this be? They might say, We are only taking up the principle of the law: do you call this the weak and beggarly elements? The apostle answers: before your conversion you worshipped false gods — idols. But if you, as Christians, take up Jewish principles, even these feast days or other principles of the law, then in principle you are idolaters. You are turning back to the very idolatry God rescued you from. It is not that the law in itself could be idolatrous. But these things had lost all their meaning, and a Gentile had nothing to do with them. They had their value as a shadow of Christ, before Christ came. To turn back from Christ risen from the dead to these mere shadows was, in God's sight, going back to idolatry.
The next verse names what Paul had noticed. Each item traces back to something God Himself had once commanded Israel.
The sabbath day is the seventh day of the week, the day God commanded in the law. Who would have suspected that keeping it was so evil a thing? Yet it was just this that frightened the apostle Paul about the Galatians. It meant slavery under the law. That is what made it so evil.
Religion of that kind misses something about God's own character.
People still think that God must be served by human hands, as though He needed something. They do not know Him in His character as Giver, and so they do not come to Him to receive.
- Known. Your standing rests on God's grasp of you, not your grasp of Him. He took you up knowing all you were and all you would ever be.
- Freed. God brought them out of the service of false gods and set them in the place of sons in the Father's house.
- Weak. The law was holy. But beside the gospel it is moonlight beside the sun, and its glory is gone now that Christ has come.
- Backwards. Taking up law-keeping after Christ is not progress. Paul calls it going back, in principle, to the idolatry they had left.
- Bondage. Even the sabbath, a day God once commanded, becomes slavery when you keep it to secure His love.
Ye observe days and months and times and years.
Paul points to one thing the Galatians were doing: they were keeping a religious calendar. Why should that alarm an apostle, when God Himself once commanded those days?
The list is not vague. Each term points to a fixed part of Israel's calendar. One writer names them one by one, then says what going back to them meant:
For example, the days would be keeping the Sabbath. The months would be the new moon. The seasons would be the different festivals we find in Leviticus 23. The years would be the sabbatical year every seven years, or the year of jubilee. They wanted to put themselves under all these regulations... The shadows given in the Old Testament pointed to Christ. But here the Galatians were going back to shadows Christ had already fulfilled. They were turning their backs on the sun and looking at the moon instead.
These were not invented customs. God Himself commanded them once, which is why the danger here is easy to miss:
Who would have suspected that keeping the sabbath day was so evil a thing? It was the seventh day of the week, the day God commanded in the law. Yet it was just this that frightened the apostle Paul about the Galatians. It meant slavery under the law; that is what made it so evil.
The Galatians were taking up a system God Himself once set up. One writer still gives that move a hard name:
Judaism was a system set up and once owned by God, being an expression of Christ in all its parts... But now Christ has come, and the substance of it all is here. Heavenly realities have come in. So a Judaism kept going by self-willed, blinded men is now idolatry. It is a religion of the senses, one the flesh can join in and enjoy. Things that once spoke of Christ are now weak and worthless elements, and the whole atmosphere is one of bondage.
Treating some days as holier carries a hidden assumption. It also changes how a person treats every other day:
This is formalism, designed to draw attention to themselves. It assumes that God required more righteousness of them at some times than at others. Such actions quietly excuse unrighteousness on "ordinary" days. How much of this we see in Christendom today! There are holy days and holy seasons, kept with great claims of spirituality — a spirituality thrown to the winds in ordinary life, and even in wild parties just before the holy days.
The same practice did not carry the same weight for every believer:
A Jewish believer might be excused for holding on to the customs of his forefathers, though the Spirit of grace still warns him (Rom. 14:3 and following). But for a converted Gentile to take them up was to show a basic ignorance of the grace in which he stood... Christ, the body and fullness of everything those shadows pictured, is the one continual festival of the saints. Days, months, seasons and years have dropped away, with all other legal burdens, from the cleansed conscience of the true worshipper of the Father.
Outward religion proves nothing about the heart. Anyone at all can keep a ritual:
If the Apostle looked at these Galatians only by what they were doing, he might well doubt whether they were true Christians. You do not have to be converted to observe days and seasons. This is a solemn thing for Christendom. Much of it has fallen into the same Galatian error, turning back again to outward ceremonies and to man-made holy days.
The verse frees the Christian from a sacred calendar. But one writer marks off the first day of the week as standing on different ground:
The believer is completely free from keeping "days and months and seasons and years." Being joined to a risen Christ has taken him right out of all such superstitious observances. Yet while this is wonderfully true, we see that "the first day of the week" has a place in the New Testament that no other day has. Let the Christian give it that place. It is a sweet and happy privilege, not a grievous yoke.
- Shadow — days, months, seasons and years meant sabbath, new moon, the feasts of Leviticus 23, and the sabbatical year. They were shadows pointing to Christ before He came.
- Substance — Christ has come, so going back to the shadow means turning your back on the sun to stare at the moon. He is now the one continual festival of His people.
- Slavery — even a day God Himself once commanded turns into bondage once you keep it as law.
- Idolatry — a system God once owned, kept up after Christ has come, is now idolatry — a religion of the senses that the flesh can enjoy.
- Liberty — anyone can keep a calendar without being converted, so the outward act proves nothing. The first day of the week remains, not as a yoke, but as a privilege.