07-The third paragraph from Galatians
The third paragraph from Galatians (Chapter 4:1-11) In chap. 3. we were told that the Law-in that case plainly the Law of Moses-was a παιδαγωγός, a temporary παιδαγωγός, till ‘faith’ should come, that is definite Christian faith, and release from such discipline. This state of tutelage has now been merged in ‘sonship.’ It is past and gone for ever. But we have not exhausted the topic. It reappears in chap. 4. For the Apostle is anxious exceedingly to make it clear to his readers, that this bygone state of tutelage was tantamount to ‘bondage.’ The freedom of the Christian is ever a prominent feature of his teaching. In the next section we are puzzled by two difficult questions. The first is, to what extent the terms the Apostle employs are strictly technical-a comparatively small matter: the other, what class of converts he has in view, whether Jews primarily, or Gentiles. From the record in Acts we should gather that the Churches of Galatia were predominantly Gentile. In the earlier part of Acts 13, it is true, we have record of a discourse made to Jews and Jewish sympathisers, in the course of which (by the way), in vv. 38 and 39, we have a doctrinal statement, which is closely parallel to the teaching of this letter:
“Be it known unto you therefore, Sirs and brethren, that through Him remission of sins is proclaimed to you, and that in Him everyone that believes is cleared” (δικαιοῦται apparently means ‘is acquitted’) “from all those things, wherefrom ye could not be cleared by Moses’ Law.” The form of this last statement is worthy of remark, ‘οὐκ ἠδυνήθητε δικαιωθῆναι.’ It dwells upon the inefficacy of Law in regard to setting man right with God, as a condition of things now over, a condition that has given place to a something new and better. Possibly the sense of δικαιοῦσθαι is not so plainly ‘technical,’ as it is in Galatians, but the general drift of the teaching is obviously identical.
Passing on to v. 49 we should gather that in Antioch Gentile Christians far outnumbered the Israelitish converts. In Iconium, on the other hand, the proportion of the two classes was much more equal (Acts 14:2). Yet the general effect, produced upon the reader by 13 and 14 together, is of a Church far more largely Gentile. Let us assume that it is so. In Gal. 4 it is hard to determine, at any given point, whether the Apostle is speaking to Jews, or speaking to Gentiles. He seems to pass almost imperceptibly from the one sort to the other. This will appear as we deal with the text.
4:1. “Now mark! as long as the heir is not grown up, he differs no whit from a slave, although he be absolute owner; but is controlled by tutors and guardians, till the time his father has appointed.” The language here, I should hold, must not be regarded as drawn, with any sort of accuracy, from strictly legal sources. It is neither Roman law, nor is it Greek. Νήπιος (after the Pauline manner) is broadly opposed to ἀνήρ (as ‘minor’ to one of full age). Προθεσμία is a good Greek term for a fixed or settled day, a day appointed for payment, or the like. But there is no reason to suppose that, in a general way, whether in Galatia or elsewhere, coming of age depended on a father’s will. But it does (as all will admit) in the case of the Heavenly Father. The ‘appointed day’ accordingly must be regarded as a necessary modification of detail imported into the image by the writer. The two words used for ‘guardian’ cannot be accurately distinguished: the whole phrase is merely equivalent to ‘guardians of one sort or another.’ The more definite ‘guardian’ in this chapter takes the place of the ‘paedagogue’ (for whom we have a female analogue in a ‘nursery governess’) set before us in chap. 3.
4:3-5. “So we too, in our childish days, were under the ‘worldly rudiments’ in a state of slavery. But when the full time was come, God sent forth His own Son, born of a woman, born under Law, that He might redeem them that were under Law, that we might receive the intended adoption.” Is the wording of these verses intentionally vague? Is ‘we’ Jews, or Gentiles, or both? Is the phrase the ‘worldly rudiments’ so designed as to cover effectually both the Jewish discipline of Law (the Mosaic Law), as well as such Gentile ‘propaideia’ as is set forth in Romans 1:19-20? Or, does the thought of the Gentiles not enter in, till the person of the verb is altered in v. 8 (for the second time)? These are all questions far more easy to ask than to get answered.
There seems to be little doubt that στοιχεῖα (as in Hebrews 5:12) means ‘A B C,’ or ‘rudiments.’1 [Note: Colossians 2:8; Colossians 2:20.] And plainly the phrase is disparaging, as we gather from the two places where it occurs in the Colossian Epistle. It marks, as Lightfoot says, an intellectual stage, and an intellectual stage that is obviously ‘unspiritual.’ St Paul (as a matter of fact) does not definitely identify this rudimentary (and ‘worldly’) discipline with the Law. But it is difficult not to believe that was uppermost in his mind. In Colossians the phrase would seem to have decisively wider reference. Yet even in that passage ‘sabbaths’ and ‘new moons’ are mentioned, so that it is hard to disentangle an asceticism, which might be heathen, from distinctly Jewish ordinances. Δεδουλωμένοι comes in at the end of the clause, with independent weight, as who should say, ‘bondsmen, bound hand and foot.’ About “the fulness of time” (where the ‘the’ of R.V.-I should say-is nothing but a mistake: you can’t say, in Greek anyhow, τὸ πλήρωμα χρόνου) a good deal might be said, but it is not necessary. In regard to ἐξαπέστειλεν, I don’t think we need be concerned to find a special force for each of the prepositions in the double compound. “Born of a woman,” one would say, must mark the humiliation involved in the Incarnation. This particular phase of the verb (γενόμενος or ἐγένετο) is specially associated with that prodigious event. The anarthrous νόμον that follows is puzzling enough. Is it anarthrous because ‘woman’ before it has no article? This is wholly conceivable. Or, because (as Lightfoot thinks) ‘law’ is meant to cover more than merely the Law of Moses? I should say that 1 Corinthians 9:20 -though there again Lightfoot detects the same extension-tells somewhat against this alternative. In view of what has gone before, it is hard to attach any other force to ἵνα τοὺς ὑπὸ νόμον ἐξαγοράσῃ than simply this; that it is meant to set before us the ‘redemption’ of believing Israel from the bondage of the Law of Moses-in fact, just such a redemption as St Paul had himself experienced. On the whole it seems wisest to say that till v. 5 is ended, St Paul has Jews in view. In v. 6 the ἐστέ covers Jews and Gentiles. Υἱοθεσία reminds us that the ‘sonship,’ wherewith we are ‘sons,’ is not as the Sonship of Christ. The word is itself late Greek. The preposition in ἀπολάβωμεν doubtless points to an age-long purpose in the mind of the All Father. Or, to put it otherwise, the ἀπό regards the promise made centuries before. Anyhow, it is just and right to lay stress on the normal sense of this particular compound.
4:6, 7. “And because ye are sons, God hath sent the spirit of His own Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father. So that thou art no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, also an heir through God.” In these two verses we have an unusually striking example of the tendency of St Paul to pass from person to person. We start with “Ye are”; there follows one line after “into our hearts,” and the very next verse begins “and so thou art no longer.” Ἡμῶν and ὑμῶν, of course, are frequently confused. Yet the editors are of opinion that ἡμῶν is right. Ἐξαπέστειλεν must be translated not ‘sent,’ but ‘has sent.’ The aorist is an indefinite past tense, not a definite. The verb here merely states what has happened, whether it be long ago or lately. The ‘seeding’ of this ‘spirit’ is just an event in the past We note the double compound once again (as in v. 4). ‘Has sent from afar’ may be right (compare Acts 22:21). “The spirit of His own Son” must not, I think, be regarded as a definite reference to the gift of Pentecost. It describes rather that essential attitude of ‘son’ to ‘father,’ which has its supreme manifestation in the relation of the Eternal Son towards the Eternal Father. This relation towards the Father is precisely what we note in the Gospel story as specially inculcated by Our Lord. No doubt, the actual mission of the Spirit it was, that implanted it in man. But it is not the same thing. It is just a vivid consciousness that God is Father-Our Father. And yet one can hardly say ‘consciousness’; for that indeed goes too far. From Romans 8:26 we should rather gather that there is in the true believer a Something which pleads earnestly (and intelligibly to God), yet unbeknown to him. And if a critic should say, Nay, but that is the Holy Spirit, as commonly understood: one must answer, In ‘Romans’ possibly; but the words ‘His own’ would seem to exclude identification here. Κρᾶζον recalls to our minds Romans 8:15, where we are told that ‘in’ (or, through) ‘the spirit of adoption’ (that is, ‘the spirit of adopted sons’) we ‘cry’ (as here). Moreover we cannot forget the κραυγὴ ἰσχυρά of Hebrews 5:7. The formula Ἀββᾶ ὁ Πατήρ (attributed in St Mark to Our Lord Himself) reminds us that Christ was ‘bilingual’; and so was the early Church of Jerusalem. In view of the sacred memory attaching to the phrase, it is curious that it should ever have dropped from use; for once apparently it was in use. In v. 7 the change to the singular illustrates a Pauline tendency, exhibited elsewhere, to lay stress on the ‘individual’ aspect of the new life in Christ. He is speaking to all conscious believers, ‘You … and you … and you.’ The Church, as a whole, has the life, but only because its members are truly ‘alive.’ The reading at the end of the verse is curiously wavering. Editors read what I have translated. The lection “heir of God, through Christ” is too simple to be taken, as against the strange “heir through God.” The Apostle himself claims, at the opening of the letter, to have received his commission “through Jesus Christ and God the Father that raised Him from the dead.” That however is hardly the same. Διά, in Pauline usage, essentially belongs to the Incarnate Son. Yet one could hardly without misgiving assume it is the Son, that is meant in the words “through God.”
Up till this point St Paul has been speaking to Jew-Christians, or all Christians; but now he turns his thoughts to that Gentile element, which was probably predominant in the Churches of Galatia. The ἀλλά, with which the new section starts, is not very luminous. “Howbeit” says our English: but it would puzzle one to find where any sense of logical opposition enters in. Γάρ or οὖν would appear to be far more natural particles to introduce the new sentence. In translation it were better to take no account of the ἀλλά.
4:8-11. “In old days, not knowing God, you were slaves to what are really” (this seems to be the meaning of φύσει) “no gods at all. Now, having come to the knowledge of God, or rather to His knowledge of you-why do ye turn once more to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereto ye want to be slaves all over again? Ye are closely observing days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid of you, that all my pains over you are gone for nothing.”
Plainly Gentiles are here addressed. Yet the old phrase, slightly varied, appears once more, the phrase about the “rudiments.” It would seem St Paul regarded all close attention to minute details as having in it something of the ‘heathenish,’ or ‘worldly’; what he styles the ‘rudimentary.’ Religion is, for him (as in the famous teaching of St John 4:23), a matter of ‘spirit’ and ‘truth.’ All that is not ‘spiritual,’ all that is not ‘true,’ partakes of the nature of slavery. Into such a slavery he feared they were drifting back. But is it not, for us, an astonishing thing that he should (to all appearance) place in one category the nullities of heathenism and the unprofitable ‘rudimentary’ ordinances that formed, for the ordinary Jew, the heart of his religion? Strictly speaking, these Gentile Christian Galatians were not returning to ‘heathenism,’ in any sense; they were only substituting for vital Christianity a system of forms and rules and trivial ordinances. Yet he speaks, we must observe, as if this conduct of theirs were virtually a ‘reversion’ (and nothing else) even for them. For the “really no gods” of v. 8, one compares the λεγόμενοι θεοί of 1 Corinthians 8:5. The amended statement (“but rather known of God”) recalls 1 Corinthians 8:2; 1 Corinthians 13:12. It is characteristic of St Paul to keep before men’s minds the weighty truth, that religion starts with God and not with us. The adjectives ‘weak’ and ‘beggarly’ describe the essential unprofitableness of all religion that stands in ‘forms,’ under two vigorous figures. It is ‘weak’ because it has no effect; it is ‘poor’ (or ‘beggarly’) because there is ‘nothing in it.’ No one is one penny the better for it. Remember how the Apostle loves to speak of ‘spiritual’ things under metaphors derived from wealth or riches. ‘Beggarly’ (in our English) is not altogether happy. It sounds as if it were mere abuse and vituperation. Of course, it is not. In v. 10 we should not say ‘observe,’ but ‘narrowly observe.’ That is the verb’s proper meaning. For the catalogue of things the ‘Galatians’ were wrongly ‘observing’ (that is, ‘observing’ as if they were matters of first-rate importance; for clearly the Apostle himself did not wholly disregard forms, as witness what he says about the need of orderly worship) one must compare that other list in Colossians 2:16. There we have, in addition to ‘meat’ and ‘drink,’ ‘feast days,’ ‘new moons’ and ‘sabbaths.’ ‘Months’ In this place (one is tempted to think) should rather be ‘moons.’ The ‘seasons’ is somewhat odd, because one would have thought that ‘days’ would cover it. But the ‘years’ is odder still. Of course, there were ‘Sabbatic’ and ‘Jubilee’ years in the Code; but one would have hardly thought that any would have wished to impose such institutions upon the Gentile converts in far Galatia. The “pains” (κεκοπίακα) of v. 11 remind us that the Apostle regularly speaks of his mission labours as very heavy and onerous. Nor is any likely to question the justice of his claim, who follows with care his story.