17. The Failure of Legalism: From Danger of Reaction - 4:8-11

The Failure of Legalism: From Danger of Reaction - 4:8-11 “But then indeed, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods …” (4:8)

Now we want to move on to the next section, where Paul presents another proof. The proof of sonship is very important doctrinally to show how we are not under the law but under grace and also what that means practically, but then he comes to a further proof and that is in connection with how the Galatians reacted. The Galatians had reacted in the wrong way. The original position was, “Ye (the Galatians) were in bondage,”that is they were idol worshippers, “as pagans to those who by nature are no gods.”Idols are sometimes called in Scripture “nothing”; but of course we know at the same time that behind these idols there are demonic powers at work, and in that sense we could not say they are nothing.

“…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?” (4:9)

Knowing God is from our side but being known by God is from His side and this is more important. It establishes the intimate relationship of sonship. Knowing God means in a relationship of love, as we find also in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. This intimate relationship we have with God is stressed many times in the Scriptures. For example in 1 John 5:20 instead of enjoying this intimacy what were the Galatians doing? They had turned again to the weak and beggarly principles desiring to be in bondage again. What was Paul talking about? As pagans they were once under the beggarly principles or rudiments of the world and they were thus in bondage, but they had been delivered from that bondage, they had been set free. “You were in bondage to those who by nature are no gods, and now you turn to the law.”This is the point we have to grasp, ‘By turning to the law,’Paul said, ‘you are going back to the weak and beggarly principles to which you were earlier in bondage.’So having enjoyed the liberty of sonship and then going back to the law of Moses (which was given to man in the flesh) they were going back to the same level as they were before as pagans, in bondage to idols. That was his argument. The law, as it was given to man in the flesh, stood on the same level before God whether the people were pagans in bondage to idolatry or whether they were under the law of Sinai in bondage. God viewed them both in bondage and they were both lost. If as believers they went back to the law, they would go back to the same beggarly, poor principles they once were under, they would fall back into immaturity and all the other things that we have seen, although they would not loose their salvation, they would loose the joy and God would loose His portion for the time being. However, they had been brought from idolatry to Christ and now they were in the process of going back to Judaism, but as a system this would separate them from Christ, just as they were separated from Christ when, as pagans, they had practiced idolatry. This is Paul’s argument, and he supports this argument in the next verse by giving some details about what they were doing.

“Ye observe days and months and times and years.” (4:10) The law of Moses was completely fulfilled in the Lord Jesus in His Person and work. The shadows given in the Old Testament pointed to Christ (e.g. Romans 10:4) but here the Galatians were going back to the shadows which had been fulfilled, they were turning their backs to the sun and looking instead to the moon. The Epistle to the Hebrews shows this in great detail. This is what they were doing by “observing days, and months, and times, and years,”they were replacing the One who had fulfilled all the shadows by going back to those things that had earlier, before the Lord came, pointed to Him. The days, for example, would be keeping the Sabbath, the months would be the new moon, the times would be the different festivals as we have in Leviticus 23:1-44 and the years would be the sabbatical year every seven years or the year of jubilee. They wanted to put themselves under all these regulations.

“I am afraid of you, lest indeed I have laboured in vain as to you.” (4:11)

Paul had worked hard, the word he used here means “working very hard,”but now, he said, it may have been in vain. How sad to see that what the Galatians did has been repeated on a large scale in the history of the church in introducing all these regulations from a very early date, not only in the Roman Catholic church but also in Protestant churches. We have to understand that here it is not the same issue that Paul brought out in Romans 14:1-23 regarding the weak believer. A weak believer is one who would not eat certain meat, somehow being under the law, perhaps a Jewish believer who would only eat kosher meat, or who wanted to keep certain days. Paul said in Romans 14:1-23 to the strong ones that they should bear with this, but he also said to the weak ones that they should not judge the strong ones, who had liberty not to keep those laws and regulations. However this is not the issue here, the issue here is far different and more serious. Here it is a matter of systematically bringing all the believers under such order of law. In the Colossian Epistle it is even more of a mixture, being paganism and pagan philosophy mixed with Judaistic principles. However, some parallels exist between Galatians and Colossians. At the end of Colossians 2:1-23 Paul describes they were doing similar things we have here in Galatians as a result of law-keeping.