Galatians 4

29. The Scriptures furnish us with sufficient evidence to prove that the Abrahamic covenant was never abrogated, and consequently that it was made with that Church which is to continue to the end of time. It was not annulled at the introduction of the Levitical dispensation, as the apostle strongly affirms, when arguing for the continuance of its promises: “And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, can not disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.” For the same reason, it could not be annulled at the introduction of the Christian economy, when the ceremonial ritual was abrogated. The apostle expressly argues the calling of the Gentiles, after this period, from the existence and terms of the covenant with Abraham (vs. 14-16). “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,” he maintains that “to Abraham and his seed were the promises made: not to seeds, as of many, but as of one (and to thy seed), which is Christ”; whence he draws the legitimate and consoling inference, “Ye are all one in Christ Jesus, and if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” W. S.

1. Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, 2 though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the 3 father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the 4 world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a 5 woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might re- 6 ceive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 7 Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. 8 Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no 9 gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye 10 again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye 11 observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed 12 upon you labour in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye 13 have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the 14 gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, 15 nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have 16 plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your ene- 17 my, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would 18 exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a 19 good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I 20 travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. 21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, 22 that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he 23 who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by 24 promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from 25 the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her 26 children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is 27 written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest 28 not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, 29 brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the 30 flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman 31 shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

EVEN sincere Christians may oftentimes feel in duty more of the friction of self-denial than the free-motion of delight. As love to Christ deepens in the soul that is truly given to him, the work which it prompts us to do for him loses the feeling of effort, and passes into pleasure. Less and less of set purpose do we need to constrain the mind to think of him, or to approach him in the formal attitude of devotion. The idea of Christ in the holy mind becomes gradually blended with all the actions of its daily life; thought goes out to him as by a divine instinct; an ever-acting attraction draws the heart upward to its great and first object, and life becomes an unconscious yet continuous prayer. Caird.

2. “Tutors and governors” would be more correctly expressed “guardians and stewards”; and in verse 3, “rudiments” would be nearer the sense than “elements”; as also in verse 9. A.—Here Paul calls the law rudiments, because it is not able to perform that righteousness which it requires. For, whereas it earnestly requires a heart and mind given to godliness, nature is not able to satisfy it. Herein it makes a man feel his poverty, and acknowledge his infirmity; it requires that of him by right which he has not, neither is able to have. Paul calls them the rudiments of the world, which, not being renewed by the Spirit, only perform worldly things. Luther.

4. The fulness of time. There were three chosen nations in ancient history, the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans; and three cities of special importance, Gressalem, Athens, and Rome. The Jews were chosen with reference to eternal things; the Greeks and Romans, with reference to temporal; but time must serve eternity, and earth carry out the designs of heaven. “Greek cultivation,” says Arnold, “and Roman polity prepared men for Christianity.” The great historian of Switzerland, John von Müller, confessed toward the close of his life, after repeated and most careful study of ancient literature: “When I read the classics, I observed everywhere a wonderful preparation for Christianity; everything was exactly fitted to the design of God, as made known by the apostles.” P. S.—All experiments had been tried. All the forces which could be relied on to give men a fuller knowledge of God, to preserve and make effective that which was originally intended for man’s salvation, had been tried, and tried on a large and varied scale. They were all failures. The world was sinking into utter chaos, night, corruption; nothing was left for it but to go on degenerating lower and lower. Truth was gone, faith was dying; and the passions of men, without these, overleaped the boundaries set by a refined selfishness, and the end was death. It was time for a new creation, for a new revelation of God, for the divine Redeemer to appear. The fullness of time had come. S. W. T.—Among the unnumbered and careful preordinations of God in relation to the personal office and achievements of Christ in the great event of human history, the precise time, place, and other similar circumstances, even to the minutest particular, were every one of them matters of divine forethought and prescription. When we find not only the country of his birth foretokened, but the very city of it; when we find not only his descent from Abraham proclaimed, but his descent from a special tribe of Abraham’s family; and not only from this special tribe, but from a particular royal line; when we find the state of the general world at his coming not obscurely shadowed forth; and, still more, the very year of his great sacrifice predicted, and the accompanying condition of the former but forsaken nation of God declared; can we doubt that the world was duly prepared for him no less than he for the world; that the precise condition of the people among whom he came, and no other condition of that people, and no other people of any condition, suited the exact designs of Heaven? W. A. B.

5. Adoption is one of the most comprehensive terms of the evangelical system. It includes the pardon of sin and the acceptance of our persons before God, which are the constituents of justification. It includes the new birth, through the quickening power of the Holy Ghost, which is the doctrine of regeneration. It includes the believer’s growth in holiness, until he attains “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” which is sanctification. And finally, it involves the saint’s translation to heaven, to take possession of the child’s inheritance, which is glorification. All therefore that the word salvation implies—in deliverance from the guilt, the stain, the dominion, and the being of sin—is potentially included in the idea of ADOPTION; and is in every particular wrought out when that idea comes to be realized in its final results. Whoever undertakes the full exposition of the word, finds himself carried around the entire circle of revealed religion; and touches as he swings the doctrines of sovereign election by the Father, of redemption by the Son, of the indwelling of the Spirit, of union with Christ by faith, and of joint heirship with him in eternal glory. If the gospel has any term that is generic, in which is logically contained all that constitutes the experience of the Christian, it is ADOPTION. B. M. P.

6. Here we see plainly that the Holy Ghost cometh to the saints, not by works, but by faith alone. Sons believe, while servants only work; sons are free from the law, servants are held under the law, as appears by those things that have been before spoken. Now, if the Father give unto us his Spirit, he will make us his true sons and heirs, that we may with confidence cry with Christ, Abba, Father, being his brethren and fellow-heirs. Luther.—Believers are in Christ, and so are sons of God, but, having become so, they find that Christ also is in them, giving them the mind of sons and the sense of their sonship. “The Spirit itself witnesseth with our spirit that we are the children of God.” T. D. B.—Fatherhood speaks of the communication of a life and the reciprocity of love. It rests upon a divine act, and it involves a human emotion. It involves that the father and the child shall have kindred life—the father bestowing and the child possessing a life which is derived; and because derived, kindred; and because kindred, unfolding itself in likeness to the father that gave it. And it requires that between the father’s heart and the child’s heart there shall pass, in blessed interchange and quick correspondence, answering love. A. M.

7. When a man is under a covenant of works, the testimony of his conscience is suitable to that covenant, and his spirit is servile, and all that he does he does as a bondman; but, when by grace he is brought under a different dispensation, he is also brought into a different disposition, and his spirit becomes more filial, more trusting, more childlike; he acts as a son, with liberty and confidence. The new covenant gives another spirit, and provides another inheritance. T. M.—In the quality of sons we are heirs of God’s kingdom. And that honorable relation we have upon a double account, by adoption and regeneration. Bates.—There is no inheritance without sonship, there is no sonship without a spiritual birth, there is no spiritual birth without Christ, and there is no Christ for us without faith. No inheritance without sonship. For who can possess God but they who love him? Who can love but they who know his love? Where can he make his temple except in the upright heart and pure? How can there be fellowship betwixt him and any one except the man who is a son because he hath received of the divine nature, and in whom that divine nature is growing up into a divine likeness? A. M.

Avoid all which can make you mean, low, selfish, cruel. Cling to all which can fill your mind with lofty, kindly, generous, loyal thoughts; and so in God’s good time you will enter into the meaning of those great words, Abba, Father. The more you give up your hearts to such good feelings, the more you will understand of God; the more nobleness there is in you, the more you will see of God’s nobleness, God’s justice, God’s love, God’s true glory. The more you become like God’s Son, the more you will understand how God can stoop to call himself your Father, and the more you will understand what a Father, what a perfect Father, God is. C. K.

9. Indignant that Christian believers should retreat back to the Mosaic observances, Paul styles them “weak and beggarly elements,” or rudiments, which the gospel has left behind. G. P. F.—After “knowing God,” were they “to turn again to the weak and beggarly elements” of a superseded dispensation! To shut the inward eye against the divine forms of the good and the true, presented by the facts of the evangelical economy to reason and faith, was to cease to be “men in understanding”; to be absorbed in the ceremonies and formalities of external religion as if they were all-important, was to go back to the playthings and primers of the child. T. B.

14. There can be no doubt but that “the temptation which was in the flesh,” and “the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him,” mentioned in the Epistle to the Corinthians, were intended to denote the same things. In both Epistles, the notice of his infirmity is suited to the place in which it is found. In the Epistle to the Corinthians, the train of thought draws up to the circumstance by a regular approximation. In this Epistle, it is suggested by the subject and occasion of the Epistle itself. Paley.

16. Error is touchy; carnal affections are loth to have the judgment informed; they take away the light of reason, and leave us only the pride of reason; therefore none so angry as those that are seduced into an erroneous opinion by interest; their sore must not be touched. Usually, conviction and reproof beget hatred: “Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” This should not be so. David counted the smiting of the righteous as a “chief oil.” Faithful reproof and counsel is like a sword anointed with balsam that wounds and heals at the same time. T. M.—It can not be but that plain truth (by whatever voice) must say many things that are unpleasing. All censure hurts that most quick and delicate and constant of all feelings, self-love. And who dares to say in how many points the full unmitigated application of truth to him would not be censure? Who dares to say how many of these points might not be struck upon by a clear-sighted friend that should unreservedly express “the truth”? Hence the disposition to regard him as an “enemy.” Is it a wise self-love that would draw a protective and inviolable line round everything that is ours; round all the defects and faults we may have, which are our closest and most mischievous enemies? As if a garrison should make a point of most sacredly protecting the very traitors it knows or suspects it has within, because they belong to their town! The right disposition of mind is that which desires earnestly “the truth!"—“THE TRUTH!” in whatever manner it may come to us. Not that the manner of its being conveyed is quite indifferent; far from it: but “the truth,” howsoever it come, has its own intrinsic, eternal value. Even from an avowed enemy, as it has often been said, we ought to be willing to learn; but surely, then, when it is from a friend, a Christian friend! J. F.

In verse 17, “affect” does not convey much meaning to the modern reader; “court” would express the sense better. The same applies to the next verse.