Galatians 4
SIBVer. 1, 2. Now to illustrate the preference of the gospel dispensation to the legal by a familiar similitude, ye know that the heir of a rich estate, during his minority, has no more liberty of enjoying the inheritance, to which he has a full right, than if he were a mere servant, but is under the direction and discipline of masters to educate him, and the government of guardians and tutors, and of trustees, to manage his estate for him, that he may be fitted to enter upon the possession of it at the time appointed by his father
Galatians 4:3
In like manner we, who are Jewish believers, during the infant state of the legal dispensation, were, like minors, subjected to its servile and obscure discipline, enslaved by its terrors, and tied down to its typical observances, which consisted of dim and obscure resemblances, taken from worldly things, and which were in their nature carnal and earthly, little calculated to carry our thoughts, hopes, or affections, beyond the things of this world to our spiritual and eternal inheritance
Galatians 4:4
But when the time appointed in his purpose, and marked in his promises and predictions, was arrived; the time when men’s degeneracy and wickedness, which was come to the greatest height, and their extensive expectations, rendered the superaboundings of mercy and a reformation peculiarly necessary, God, in the riches of his infinite wisdom and grace, sent forth his own eternal pre-existent Son by special manifestation into our world, that he might, in a marvellous manner, assume our nature into a personal union with his own divine nature, being conceived and born of the Virgin Mary; and that he, as God-man, might be placed under the precept of the law as a covenant of works, which we had broken, and under its curse and penalty which we had incurred
Galatians 4:5
That, by his obedience and sufferings, he might fully satisfy all its demands, and perfectly deliver us from it as a covenant in its commanding and condemning power, and even from the rigorous ceremonial dispensation; and render us abundant partakers of all the privileges of the gospel state which pertain to the adult children of God
Galatians 4:6
And, in consequence of his graciously adopting you, Jews or Gentiles, into this dignified state of sonship, he has sent forth his Holy Spirit, which proceeds from, and is communicated by his Son, to dwell in your souls with far richer abundance of gifts and graces than were ordinarily vouchsafed under the Mosaic dispensation, to form you into the temper of his children, and bear witness with your spirits that ye are such;—and to give you an humble liberty and familiar boldness in your dealings with himself, and enable you to claim and call upon him, and stand affected towards him, with faith, love, desire, delight, reverence, filial obedience, and holy confidence in his care and kindness, and with zeal for his honour as your heavenly Father
Galatians 4:7
Whoever of you therefore truly believe in Christ are no longer, as servants, kept at a distance, and subjected to severe discipline, but, as children of riper age, are entered on a large possession of your inheritance, as an earnest of your quickly enjoying the full riches and glory thereof,—yea, are heirs of the all-sufficient God himself as your portion, in the right and for the sake of, and together with, Jesus Christ, who as his eternal Son, is heir of all things.—Why then should ye abandon these high and sure privileges, to seek happiness by your works of obedience to the law as a covenant?
Galatians 4:8-11
Since God, in his infinite mercy, pitied you while ye were plunged in the grossest ignorance and most shocking idolatries, slavishly worshipping stocks and stones, or other creatures real or imaginary, even the most base or abominable, instead of the true God; and, by the light and power of his gospel, found you out, brought you to the knowledge of himself through Jesus Christ, owned you as his, and rendered you accepted in the beloved; what must be your infatuation and ingratitude, if ye turn from this light and grace of the gospel, and all its holy and delightful liberties and honours, to a state of servile subjection to the dark hints and severe injunctions of the Mosaic law, which are utterly insufficient to make your peace with God, purge your conscience from guilt, secure you from wrath, procure your acceptance to life, or to enrich you with any spiritual knowledge, grace, or comfort! Has God delivered you from Heathen bondage, that ye, who had originally no attachment to the Jewish ceremonies, should, in contempt of Christ’s fulfilment of them and of the gospel deliverance from them, be fond of such servitude, and be zealous to observe their sacred seasons, and other rites, in order to render you accepted with God! Truly, when I think on this your conduct, I am greatly afraid that all the pains I took to acquaint you with and persuade you to embrace the gospel, have been lost upon most of you, and will only serve as an occasion to enhance your guilt, and increase your eternal misery
Galatians 4:12
Let me therefore earnestly beseech you, my beloved brethren, by every thing serious, solemn, or endearing, to abide in the same sentiments, relative to the justification of a sinner before God, which I, who was once as proud and obstinate a legalist as any of you, now heartily embrace; and exercise the same affection towards me as I do towards you; for I am ready to bear with you in every thing consistent with the truth of the gospel and the welfare of your souls; and indeed I have no reason to disregard you, as ye never injured me; or, if ye did, I have heartily forgiven it. 13, 14. Such, ye know, was my affection to you, that, with the utmost concern for your salvation, under great difficulties, sufferings, reproaches, and much bodily weakness and despicable appearances, I laboured in explaining and recommending to you the gospel of Christ; and such was your affection to me, that notwithstanding these infirmities and humming circumstances, ye neither slighted my person nor rejected my doctrine, but entertained and embraced it, and me for its sake, with readiness and pleasure, as an ambassador of Christ, yea, as if I had been an holy angel sent down from heaven, or even the Messiah himself. 15, 16. Where are now those expressions of gratitude to me for my labours? or that happiness ye then professed to have and hope for in my ministrations? For such was your fervour of love and joy, that, if it could have been of any advantage to me, ye would have gladly undergone the most painful severities and inconveniences for my sake. Why then are ye now giving up those very doctrines which ye then so much esteemed? why are ye become so cool in your affection to me, who still affectionately regard you? I appeal to your consciences, if ye ought to hold me as your enemy because I have plainly and faithfully maintained the truth and importance of gospel doctrines, and warned you of your infinite danger in mixing the works of the law with faith in Christ for your justification
Galatians 4:17
As for these your new teachers, who pretend so great concern for your welfare, they act with us Christian candour or honour, but seek to decoy you from all regard to me or my opustoxic authority, in order that ye may blindly submit to them, and bestow all your esteem, honour, and applause, upon them
Galatians 4:18
Remember therefore that it is a very beautiful and laudable temper to be always zealously and uniformly attached to that which is truly worthy and important, and not merely when I am among you
Galatians 4:19
My dear, but weak, children in the faith, whom I thought I had instrumentally begotten to Christ, through the gospel, my soul is still as earnestly concerned that the pure doctrines of the gospel, and Jesus Christ therein, as made of God to you, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, may be really fixed in your minds and hearts as ever I was to have you converted from your heathenish ignorance and idolatry
Galatians 4:20
Earnestly I wish that I were but present with you to confirm the truth, to answer your objections and scruples by word of mouth, and to vary my discourse into encouragement or rebuke, as the occasions should require, and gladly should I find ground to encourage you; for truly I now greatly suspect that many of you have never been really converted to Christ, and may at length utterly apostatize from his truth and ways
Galatians 4:21
But I earnestly beg that ye, who seem so fond of being under the law for justification by your own obedience, would seriously tell me, as before the judgment seat of Christ, if ever ye have truly considered what the law demands, or what it denounces against the least transgression,—or what a wide difference even these writings of Moses mark out between those that seek justification by their own works and those who seek it only by faith in Christ. 22, 23. For there it is recorded that Abraham, the friend of God, had two sons, who were typical of different dispensations, and different sorts of persons; the one Ishmael, who was born, by Hagar his bond slave, according to the common law of generation: and the other Isaac, by Sarah his proper wife, in an extraordinary and miraculous manner, at an unexpected time of life, and as an accomplishment of God’s free promise. 24, 25. Now these things were intended by God as figurative representations of the miserable condition of those who are under the law as a covenant of works, and of the happiness of those who are under the covenant of grace. Hagar represented the covenant made between God and the Israelites at Sinai, which, by its terrible manner of delivery, strictness of precepts, and severity of curses, tended to beget a servile temper of spirit, and subjected its votaries to everlasting destruction, if left without the gospel relief promised to Abraham;—and she and her son, cast out from Abraham’s family, represented the Jews and other legalists, abandoned by God for their unbelief, and left in bondage to Satan and their lusts. 26, 27. But the gospel church of true believers in Christ, which is of a heavenly original, nature, and tendency, and highly privileged with the unnumbered liberties and blessings of the new covenant, and by the oracles and ordinances of which we are born to Christ, was typified by Sarah and her son:—for, in allusion to Sarah and Hagar, the prophet Isaiah foretold that the Gentile nations, after being long abandoned by God to heathenism, should at last, with great joy, afford more children to him than the Jewish nation, which in Abraham, and afterwards at Sinai, was solemnly espoused to him as his peculiar people
Galatians 4:28
This being the case, we members of the gospel church are, like Isaac, begotten to God by virtue of the free promises of the gospel, and are entitled to all the blessings of the new covenant. 29, 30. But as in that age Ishmael who was born according to the ordinary course of nature, and had only temporal advantages, with his mocking and malignant tongue, persecuted Isaac, who was born by an extraordinary operation of the Spirit of God, and was heir of all the promises made to his father: so in this the Jewish zealots and self-justiciaries rage at and persecute us, who are born of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven.—And, as Hagar and Ishmael were expelled from the family of Abraham, and deprived of the covenant blessings thereof, so shall God expel those zealots, and all self-justiciaries, from his kingdom of grace and glory, and deny them the blessings of his children
Galatians 4:31
Since then we, who believe on Christ alone for justification to eternal life, are not of those who shall be excluded from the gospel state and heavenly inheritance, or promised blessings of grace and glory, but are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, we have nothing to do with the Mosaic servile dispensation, nor are any of its ceremonial observances necessary to our acceptance with God
REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. IV.—Great and glorious are the advantages of the New Testament church, brought in by the incarnation, obedience, and suffering, of the Son of God, above the dark and servile state of the Old. What a large and firm foundation of mercy and hope is the manifestation of God in our nature, and in our law, room, and stead! Happy are they who are marked as his fellow heirs of eternal life by the inhabitation and influence of his Spirit; and who are hereby enabled to enjoy the most familiar intimacy with God. Marvellous is his grace in calling gross idolaters to his favour and service! and base their ingratitude, and dreadful their danger, who, after making a fair profession of his gospel, apostatize from him, and deny the imputation of his righteousness for our justification before him. It is painful for faithful ministers to behold such events. But highly necessary at such a time honestly to contend for the truth, though it should make our kindest friends become our furious enemies. For artful are the methods, and high the pretences, of affection or piety by which seducers alienate men from the truth, and from their faithful, beloved, and affectionate, ministers.—With great concern ought ministers, by prayers and instructions, to promote the conversion and edification of their hearers. It is vain to think that Christ can be formed in the heart where self-righteousness and self-dependance habitually prevail and reign. Whatever we may wish, we ought never to think all well where what we see is evidently evil. Ministers ought carefully to explain and apply the law of God to the consciences of those who are disposed to trust to their own works. And it is needful to look further than the letter, in order to understand the scripture. It is not according to our external privileges, but according as we rely on our own works, or adhere by faith to God’s free promises, that we shall be damned or saved. The true children of God are generally persecuted by legal hypocrites. But it is enough to make them rich and everlasting amends, that they may rejoice in hope of the glory of God