CHAPTER 4

(A.D. 58)

HEIRSHIP ILLUSTRATED

¹Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all (Paul continues the argument for the inferiority of the condition under Law using an illustration from contemporary life);

²But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. (This refers to the fixed time when he would be of legal age and, therefore, able to accept the inheritance.)

³Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world (refer to passions and pride which enslave humanity):

⁴But when the fulness of the time was come (which completed the time designated by God that should elapse before the Son of God would come), God sent forth His Son (it was God who acted; the Law required man to act; this requirement demonstrated mans impotency; the Son of God requires nothing from man other than his confidence), made of a woman (pertains to the Incarnation, God becoming man), made under the Law (refers to the Mosaic Law; Jesus was subject to the Jewish legal economy, which He had to be, that is if He was to redeem fallen humanity; in other words, He had to keep the Law perfectly, which no human being had ever done, but He did),

⁵To redeem them who were under the Law (in effect, all of humanity is under the Law of God which man, due to his fallen condition, could not keep; but Jesus came and redeemed us by keeping the Law perfectly, and above all satisfying its penalty on the Cross, which was death), that we might receive the adoption of sons (that we could become the sons of God by adoption, which is carried out by Faith in Christ and what He did at the Cross).

⁶And because you are sons (we now have many privileges), God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts (because we are sons, the Holy Spirit has been sent to take up His permanent residence in our hearts), crying, Abba, Father. (This means it is the Holy Spirit Who is doing the crying, and does so to the Father on our behalf.)

⁷Wherefore you are no more a servant, but a son (refers to the standing one has in Christ because of ones Faith in Christ); and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (This proclaims the fact that all the privileges, which belong to Christ, now belong to us as well.)

LEGALISM

⁸Howbeit then, when you knew not God (refers to the former unredeemed state), you did service unto them which by nature are no gods. (They were slaves to heathenistic superstition.)

⁹But now, after that you have known God (refers to Saving Grace, Knowing God through the acceptance of Jesus Christ, which is the only way He can be known), or rather are known of God (refers to the Lord knowing us in a saving way), how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements (when the substance is reached and sonship established, going back to the rudiments, i.e., symbols and sacraments, is not progress, but ignorance), whereunto you desire again to be in bondage? (Bondage to the sin nature! It refers to leaving the Cross, and making other things the object of Faith.)

¹⁰You observe days, and months, and times, and years. (The Judaizers were attempting to get the Galatians to go into Law-keeping in conjunction with Christ, which cannot work.)

¹¹I am afraid of you (afraid for your spiritual welfare), lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. (If one leaves Faith in Christ and the Cross and embraces other things, which means to look to those other things for life and victory, the Holy Spirit will have bestowed upon such a person labor in vain.)

¹²Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am(free from all the bondage of Salvation by works and sacraments, which is no Salvation at all); for I am as you are(means that even though he is an Apostle, he is subject to the same Biblical Doctrines as they are): you have not injured me at all. (My motive is not one of personal complaint, but because of the great harm that could come to you.)

¹³You know how through infirmity of the flesh (doesnt say what it is) I preached the Gospel unto you at the first (evidently, when these Churches were first founded).

¹⁴And my temptation which was in my flesh you despised not, nor rejected (should have been translated, my trial; but once again, we do not know what it was, so speculation is useless); but received me as an Angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. (They accepted him and what he preached.)

¹⁵Where is then the blessedness you spoke of? (This speaks of the wonderful prosperity of Salvation, which had come to them as a result of Paul bringing the Gospel to this region.) for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. (This doesnt necessarily mean Paul had an eye disease, as some claim. This was an idiom used often to express extreme affliction.)

¹⁶Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? (A real friend is one who will tell his friend the truth, even though it hurts.)

¹⁷They zealously affect you (speaks of the Judaizers attempting to subvert the Galatians in order to win them over to themselves), but not well (not for your good); yes, they would exclude you (they would shut the Galatians out from the benefits of the Gospel of Grace), that you might affect them (means to be drawn to their side).

¹⁸But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing(Paul wanted the Galatians to be as zealous over Christ and the Cross as it seems they were tending to be over false doctrine), and not only when I am present with you. (Their zeal for the right thing should be present at all times.)

¹⁹My little children (presents the language of deep affection and emotion), of whom I travail in birth again (deliver to you again the rudiments of the great Message of Christ and Him Crucified, as though you had never heard it to begin with) until Christ be formed in you (presents the work only the Holy Spirit can do, and does exclusively within the parameters of the Sacrifice of Christ, which must always be the Object of our Faith),

²⁰I desire to be present with you now (as a loving parent wants to be at the side of a sick child), and to change my voice (refers to the fact that his true love for them would more profitably come through were he only standing before them in person); for I stand in doubt of you. (The Apostle was perplexed as to how the Galatians could have forsaken the Holy Spirit, substituting in His Place the cold issues of dead Law. Any Christian who presently has as his object of Faith anything but the Cross is following the same course as the Galatians of old.)

HAGAR AND SARAH

²¹Tell me, you who desire to be under the Law (the Law of Moses or any type of Law), do you not hear the Law? (Do you actually know what the Law demands?)

²²For it is written (Gen. 16:15; 21:2-3), that Abraham had two sons (Ishmael and Isaac), the one by a bondmaid (Hagar), the other by a freewoman (Sarah).

²³But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh (by the scheming of Abraham and Sarah); but he of the freewoman was by Promise (by an action of the Holy Spirit).

²⁴Which things are an allegory (a figure of speech in which spiritual facts are presented in physical terms): for these are the two Covenants (represents Law [Hagar] and Grace [Sarah]); the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. (This presents the Apostle plainly saying he is using Hagar as a symbol of the Law of Moses. As is obvious, it was given at Mt. Sinai.)

²⁵For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is (refers to that city at the time of Paul; it was subject to Laws, rites, and customs, according to the Law of Moses), and is in bondage with her children. (Israel was in bondage to sin because of having rejected Christ.)

²⁶But Jerusalem which is above is free (presents the origin of Salvation, which is Heaven, and proclaims its results, which are freedom), which is the mother of us all. (This refers to all who are true Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles.)

²⁷For it is written (Isa. 54:1), Rejoice, you barren who bears not; break forth and cry, you who travail not (speaks of the Church, grafted in because of Grace, in the place of Israel, which demanded Law and which God would not accept): for the desolate has many more children than she which has an husband. (This pertains to Sarah who was barren which, in one sense of the word and the culture of that day, was the same as not having a husband, even though she was married to Abraham. It also refers to the Church, which, in effect, had no husband, as did Israel, i.e., God. The Church has many more children than Israel ever had!)

²⁸Now we (Believers), Brethren, as Isaac was, are the Children of Promise. (The Promise is a picture of the Messiah, Who came through the lineage of Isaac to grant deliverance to people bound in sin.)

²⁹But as then he who was born after the flesh (Ishmael) persecuted him who was born after the Spirit (Isaac), even so it is now. (Isaac and Ishmael symbolized the new and the old nature in the Believer. Hagar and Sarah typified the two Covenants of works and Grace, of bondage and Liberty, even as Paul is explaining here.)

³⁰Nevertheless what says the Scripture? (Gen. 21:10) Cast out the bondwoman and her son (the birth of the new nature demands the expulsion of the old; it is impossible to improve the old nature; it must be cast out, i.e., placed in a dormant position; this can only be done by the Believer evidencing constant Faith in the Cross, which then gives the Holy Spirit latitude to bring about this necessary work): for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. (Paul is giving a dramatic illustration of the irreconcilable conflict between Salvation by works and Salvation by Faith.)

³¹So then, Brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman (Hagar, Ishmael, and the Law), but of the free. (We are not children of the Law, but rather free children of Faith.)