Galatians 4

Paul’s Concluding Arguments for The Galatian Christians’ Freedom from The Old Covenant And The Mosaic Law

In this section, Paul continued illustrating how the coming of the Messiah had initiated a new era of spiritual freedom for both Christian Jews and Gentiles.  

Summary of Galatians 4:1-11 - After reaching the climax of his argument about oneness and setting out of view of the role of the law, Paul now turns to deal with an aspect of the specifics of what at least some of the Galatians are now doing, contrary to his teaching. To reach this issue, he needs to introduce a new factor, “the elements of the world." He explains how we were once enslaved under these elements (4:1-3), but now God has sent his Son, who brings freedom and sonship (4:4-7).  The Galatians had been under such slavery but now know God (4:8-9a).  Paul is then incredulous that they have adopted calendrical observances of various kinds. He presents this as a return to slavery under the elements.          - Peter Oakes

Sons And Heirs

This section begins with Paul continuing to illustrate the temporary and preparatory nature of the Mosaic law in anticipation of the Messiah’s coming.  He picked up his argument by illustrating the concept of an “heir” to an inheritance. 

Under a Guardian

Vs. 1-2 - Now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.

In Galatians 3:29, the apostle Paul declared that if you are in Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, which means you are an heir of the promise.  Being an heir means that you have rights to the inheritance.

Paul’s illustration concerning an heir continues in the first verse of the fourth chapter. When the heir is still a child, the heir really is no different from a slave. Everything still belongs to the father. The heir is under guardians and managers just as a slave is under restraint. But there is a date that is set when that will change for the child. Under Roman custom, the father would set a particular date for maturity. We do not have this custom today. I do not determine the age of maturity for my children when they will no longer be treated as minors. But this is what would happen in Roman culture. Paul uses this illustration from Roman society to show that this is the same situation for the world spiritually.           

The point is that all people were in a time of being childish, awaiting maturity so as to enjoy the privileges of being an heir. Everyone was waiting for freedom.                     - Brent Kercheville

Paul gives another example, similar to the first, to illustrate the law’s function. A child who inherits his father’s property cannot do as he likes with it until he has reached the age of an adult. Though legally the owner, in reality he is little different from a slave, being under the control of guardians who manage his affairs for him (4:1-2). This illustrates the position of those previously under the law. They were like children receiving instruction. But Christ came and fulfilled the law’s requirements, so that those under its control could be released to enjoy their inheritance as adult sons of God.               - Don Fleming

Elements of The World

Vs. 3 - In the same way we also, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world.

Commentators note that Paul’s use of the phrase “elements of the world” is a broadening, in this section of the letter, to include all Galatian Christians, Jewish and Gentile, into Paul’s explanation of the universal need for spiritual freedom (inheritance as sons). 

In 4:1-3, an effect of Paul broadening his canvas from constraint under the law (3:19-25) to constraint under “the elements of the world" (which includes constraint of the law) is to bring all the world into his chronological scheme, rather than just Jews. The whole world faced a slavery and did not realize that this was in fact a temporary constraint imposed by God while the people of the world were in “childhood.”

God then produced freedom from this constraint through the actions of Christ.              - Peter Oakes

The Son And Spirit

Vs. 4 - When the time came to completion…

“The fullness of time” is the date that was set by the Father before the foundation of the world for the arrival of Christ. The new era in salvation history began with the arrival of the Son. Therefore, this was the time that the Father planned and established for the children to no longer be enslaved but to receive adoption as sons.             - Brent Kercheville

Vs. 4-5 - God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Commentators note that this verse reads like an early creedal statement, a concentrated explanation of soteriology. 

“Born of a woman” - Jesus’ humanity was emphasized with the inclusion of his birth. 

“Born under the law” - Paul noted that the Messiah Himself was born “under” the same Mosaic law from which he will declare the Galatian Christians to be free (5:1). 

“To redeem” - Commentators note this concept of redemption, considered culturally and contextually, referred to buying back someone out of slavery. 

“Adoption” - For house-church members, the idea of being adopted into God's own family represented a meteoric jump in their concept of their status.                - Peter Oakes

Vs. 6 - And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 

In 3:2-3, Paul already referenced the Galatian Christians’ reception of God’s Holy Spirit through faith.  Here again, the apostle highlighted the mysterious prophetic fulfillment that all “heirs” or “sons” of God had been made spiritually alive through the gift of Jesus’ Spirit into their “hearts.” 

Paul made similar statements in his letter to Rome, connecting Christian assurance to the “testimony” of the Holy Spirit. 

Romans 8:15-16 - For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children

The way sonship is expressed is in a form that, in itself, unites Jewish and Gentile Christians in the doubled Aramaic and Greek expression, Abba ho pater.             - Peter Oakes

Heir or Slave

Vs. 7 - So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

Paul emphasized that the waiting period (4:2) had ended for these Galatian Christians.  The Messiah had come, and they were now sons with full access to their inheritance.  Again, the apostle wrote a similar explanation in his letter to the churches in Rome. 

Romans 8:17 - And if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Weak And Worthless Elements

Vs. 9 - But now, since you know God, or rather have become known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elements? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?

The point of Paul’s inheritance illustration is here.  Because these Galatian Christians had received the truth about the Messiah, received the Holy Spirit, and had moved from the status of slave to sons, Paul asked why they would now think it necessary to return to their previous conditions, to alter their current status.  (Note about “worthless elements below)

Vs. 10-11 - You are observing special days, months, seasons, and years. I am fearful for you, that perhaps my labor for you has been wasted.

Paul mentioned in 2:3-4 that “false brothers” were attempting to “enslave” the Galatian Christians.  And we gather from his references to Titus, circumcision, and the works of the law, that Paul has been primarily arguing against the need for Gentile Christians to think it necessary to convert to Judaism through Mosaic law-keeping in an effort to achieve justification before God (2:16).

Here, the apostle made mention of certain calendrical observances that concerned him.  Because Paul’s audience was both Jewish and Gentile, many commentators note how the apostle’s arguments seem to broaden as the letter progresses, adding to the layered and culturally complicated nature of this passage.  

For example, the additional concern for certain “elements” (3:3,9) mentioned in this chapter seem to be an effort by Paul to apply his teaching to both Jews and Gentiles.  A warning to abandon weak and worthless things would be relevant to his entire audience.  For this reason, the “special days” that concerned the apostle could have been either Jewish, Greco-Roman, or a combination of the two.  

Paul is seeing Jewish law-keeping and Greco-Roman cultic observances as both being forms of slavery. Christ has brought the Galatians freedom from their former Gentile cultic slavery. They should not replace it with Jewish cultic slavery, a slavery that no longer has relevant function.           - Peter Oakes

Have I Become Your Enemy?

The apostle paused his logical and theological appeal here for a personal one.  Paul had lived and labored with these Christians, and now he compared his efforts to bring them to maturity to that of a mother bringing a child into the world (4:19).  He expressed grief here that these Christians would so quickly reject what they had learned from him. 

I Have Become As You Are

Vs. 12 - I beg you, brothers and sisters: Become as I am, for I also have become as you are.

“Be as I am” is an exhortation to the Galatians to become Christians in the same sense as Paul is a Christian, one who is not bound by the Jewish law.              - Morris

Most commentators interpret this statement to be the former Pharisee’s admission that he had abandoned most Mosaic law-keeping that had once so strictly governed his life.  We are not told why he decided to do this, but from statements like Galatians 3:25, it would seem that Paul, the Jewish Christian apostle, desired to personally demonstrate to Gentile believers that God had now completed His purposes for the Mosaic law.

Where Is Your Blessing?

Vs. 14a-15 - You did not despise or reject me though my physical condition was a trial for you.  Where, then, is your blessing? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 

Vs. 16 - So then, have I become your enemy because I told you the truth?

At some time in the past, the Galatian church had cared for Paul and learned from him. (Commentators speculate on exactly when these visits may have occurred.)  So, at the writing of this letter, Paul is perplexed that they have been so quickly deceived into believing a “different gospel” (1:6) and so skeptical of apostolic teaching they had received. 

Apparently, Paul was compelled to travel into the region of Galatia because of some type of physical infirmity he suffered while on his first missionary journey. The book of Acts doesn’t tell us as much about this as we would like to know, but we can piece together a few facts.

We know that when Paul was in the region of south Galatia, persecutors tried to execute him by stoning in the city of Lystra (Acts 14:19-20). His attackers gave him up for dead, yet he miraculously survived. Some think that this was the cause of the physical infirmity he mentions. But Paul was already in the region of Galatia when that happened; his wording in Galatians 4 suggests that he came into the region because of a physical infirmity.             - David Guzik

Abrahamic Allegory

In 4:21, Paul returns to the theme of 4:1-11, calling the Galatians to stay clear of bondage. He emphasizes the Galatians’ inheritance of freedom in an extended passage that treats the story of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory of current circumstances.             - Peter Oakes

Jewish History

Vs. 21 - Tell me, you who want to be under the law, don’t you hear the law? 

Paul explicitly uses the rhetorical technique that he has persistently turned to since 2:16, using the law, meaning the text of scripture, against arguments calling for Gentile allegiance to the law, meaning the commands of scripture. As in 4:5,  the use of “under” with law probably carries, in itself, a connotation of subjection to a form of slavery.            - Peter Oakes

Paul asked the Galatians to fully consider what it meant to bring oneself “under” the Mosaic mandates from which he believed they had been freed. 

Vs. 22 - For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and the other by a free woman.

An interesting consideration is the level of familiarity with Jewish history that Paul seemed to expect from his audience.  He returned again to the Abrahamic account to further convince his audience that God had always related with men on the basis of faith. 

For the background to the illustration that follows, read Genesis 15:1-6; Genesis 16:1-16; Genesis 17:15-22; Genesis 18:1-15; Genesis 21:1-21. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael, who was born as a result of human arrangements that lacked any exercise of faith, and Isaac, who was born in fulfillment of God’s promise. The mother of Ishmael was the slave woman Hagar; the mother of Isaac was Abraham’s true wife Sarah.               - Don Fleming

Two Women, Two Sons, Two Covenants

Vs. 24 - The women represent two covenants.

Vs. 28 - Now you too, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.

In his illustration, Paul referenced two women, two sons, two covenants, and two Jerusalems, but his primary point was simple - God’s promise came through faith. 

In the scriptural record of the birth of these two sons of Abraham, Paul recognizes the same opposition between reliance on self (’according to the flesh’) and reliance on God (’through promise’) as exists between those who would be justified by legal works and those who are justified by faith.        - Ronald Y. K. Fung

Two Jerusalems

Vs. 25-26 - Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Going even deeper into his allegory, Paul compared Hagar and her son (born of human effort) to non-Christian Jews of Jerusalem who had been pressuring Gentile Christians into law-keeping.  He reminded his audience that they belonged to a heavenly Jerusalem “above.”

A key effect of this appropriation is that, once again, it encourages the hearers to ignore the calls for circumcision, viewed as a means of joining the ethnic community focused on Jerusalem. For Paul, that movement would be in a mistaken direction, to an earthly entity that is enslaved. The Galatian Christians already belong to the free Jerusalem, which is not in Judea but in heaven.          - Peter Oakes

Promised Multiplication

Paul then quoted a passage from Isaiah to illustrate how God’s family of faith would grow exponentially.  The original context described a future day of blessing and multiplication for Israel.  Paul applied it here to the spiritual descendants of the father of faith. 

Isaiah 54:1 - “Rejoice, childless one, who did not give birth; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.

Persecuted Children

Vs. 29 - But just as then the child born as a result of the flesh persecuted the one born as a result of the Spirit, so also now.

Before stating his conclusion in verse 31, Paul drew one more comparison from the Abrahamic allegory.  He compared the way Hagar’s son, Ishmael, had mocked Sarah’s son, Isaac, to the way that the non-Christian Jews (children of slavery/human effort) were troubling Christian Jews and Gentiles (children of faith/promise).  

Genesis 21:8-10 - The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. So she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave with her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac!”

The fact that non-Christian Jews have persecuted Christian Jews such as Paul puts them into the category of the son of Hagar, who taunted Isaac and was excluded from the inheritance. It is, therefore. foolish for the Galatians to put themselves under Jewish law, because not only is that putting themselves into the family of slavery, but it also excludes them from the inheritance of Abraham that they have been promised in Christ (3:29).            - Peter Oakes 

Significantly, Sarah could live with Hagar and Ishmael until the son of promise was born. Once Isaac was born, then Hagar and Ishmael had to go. In the same way, a person could relate to the law one way before the promise of the gospel was made clear in Jesus Christ.            - David Guzik

Summary of the Abrahamic allegory 

Paul drew three applications from his interpretation. (Thomas Constable)

• First, Christians are similar to Isaac in that they experience a supernatural birth and are part of the fulfillment of God’s promise. Therefore they should not live as enslaved sons.

• Second, so-called brethren, whose origin is different from our own, persecute believers, as Ishmael persecuted Isaac. Legalists persecute those living in liberty.

• Third, Christians should exclude legalists from their midst since legalists have no inheritance with the legitimate sons of God. As Abraham cast Ishmael out of his household, so the Galatians should cast the Judaizers out of the church.