Galatians Chapter 4.

Galatians CHAPTER 4.

Chapters 3 and 4 form the second part of our Epistle.  The aim of this section is to give Biblical proof of the truth of the Gospel.  Paul had preached the Gospel to the Galatians, but he now finds it necessary to confirm the Gospel. Chapter 3:1-5 provides an introduction to this section and the Galatians are made aware of the menace of the Judaizing Teacher.

1.  3:6-29.  The Law and the Faith.

2.  4:1-31.  The Law and the Grace.

           

Chapter 4 could be subdivided:-

a.   The slavery of the Law and the Gratuitousness of the adoption.         4:1-11.

b.   The Galatians have experienced the blessedness of Grace.               4:12-20.

c.   Hagar and Sarah, types of the legal covenant , and of Grace.            4:21-31.

           

In chapter 4 we note the fundamental opposition between the period of the law now past and the period of faith inaugurated by Jesus Christ.  Paul shows that the Law is even more opposed to grace than it is to faith. This is brought out in two essential themes of Pauline thought, they are the themes of filial adoption (4:1-11), and that of the covenant of grace (4:21-31).  But between these two theological themes or developments, he writes in a personal manner and reminds the Galatians of the grace they had experienced, when they had received Paul's preaching with great fervour (4:12-20).

           

4:1.  "But I say."   These words are a frequent formula with Paul.  He does not use them to make a new affirmation, nor to correct what has preceded, but rather when making a repetition of what has preceded.  After having used the illustration of the pedagogue, Paul now turns to that of an infant, one who is an irresponsible minor. Paul does not continue to describe the period of the Law, especially the role of the Law itself as a pedagogue, but Paul now emphasizes the state of minority that belongs to man under the Law. 

           

The infant who is a minor, although he possesses all the wealth of his father, yet does not differ from a slave.  He is provisionally an heir but reduced to a state of servitude.  Mankind has reached its full age by the coming of Christ, (3:19).  Strictly for the infant to be in possession of all goods the father must die, but this point has no correspondence with the theological position of Paul.  For Paul would almost say that he thought the Jewish people and with them the entire human race had received adulthood by the arrival of Christ.  This of course, becomes actually true by our being united with Christ.

           

4:2.  Paul continues his illustration and begins to apply it to us in verse 3.  The boy is not free to live his own life, but is ruled by tutors and his goods are managed by a manager.   It is not clear that Paul presupposes the death of the father.  But the father has fixed the date when the son should gain his majority and receive his inheritance.  Roman law fixed the majority at 25 years, but Paul appears to refer to Greek custom.  But we can only conjecture on this point. But Paul does make clear:-

1/   That the heir though he inherits all the riches of the father, does not enter into their enjoyment until he reaches his majority.

2/   It is the father himself who fixes the moment of the judicial and economic majority of his son.  So mankind (the Jews first) did not reach their `majority' by a natural process, but by a decisive liberation that God effected in sending His Son and by Him the possibility of faith.

           

4:3.  Here the illustration found in verses 1 and 2 is applied to believers.

"So we also."  The `we' means all believers, pagans as well as Jewish Christians.  Paul unites Jews and pagans as in the same position and a miserable position until Christ came.  We were subject to the rudiments of the world.  These seem to be enslaving authorities that correspond with the tutors and managers of verse 2.  What are these rudiments, elements or authorities?  There are three principle interpretations, which do not entirely exclude each other :-

           

1/   We can give the word elements its more general and current sense of elementary principles, that is, of juvenile knowledge such as the letters of the alphabet.  In this sense Paul would affirm that Jews and pagans before Christ came were serving imperfect religious principles, these principles represented a way of living far inferior to the new life in Christ.  But it is difficult to give this sense where the word occurs elsewhere in Paul's letters such as Col.2:8,20.  Besides, it makes these elements or moral and religious conceptions to be opposed to Christ by their imperfection alone.  But in the thought of Paul, Christ has only made mankind advance beyond imperfect conceptions to perfect conceptions, but Christ has brought them from mortal slavery into liberty.  Besides all this, this interpretation hardly explains the genitive, `tou kosmou'  And besides, Paul never elsewhere applies to the law the term, "the elements of the world."

           

2/   Or we may give this expression the one current among the Stoic philosophers, among whom it was used of the elements constituting the universe.  These elements were four in number; water, earth, fire and air.  But this meaning is rejected here.

           

3/   Finally, we may refer to the stars or the spirits which govern them.  Bonnard favours this view and gives several reasons in support of it, but he agrees that Paul makes no reference to any worship of these spirits before their Conversion.  He says nothing about either Jews or pagans worshipping them before Conversion, but simply says that they ruled mankind before Christ came.  But Ridderbos rejects this view.  He says that the expression which Paul uses can be found nowhere else.  One cannot speak of an established linguistic practice, and it is doubtful that the spirits are called `stoicheia'.  How could Paul conceive his former life as a Jew under law, as a life lived under the `aegis' of star-spirits?  In Col.2:8, it is used synonymously with the tradition of men.

           

Guthrie does not find it easy to decide between the alternatives.  In one instance it may mean the elementary rules of natural religion, or it may refer to spiritual agencies, some good, some evil, that affected men's destinies.  This second meaning has support in the genitive "of the universe."   But one difficulty with this view is that there is no evidence that the word `stoicheia' bore this meaning in the first century A.D., although it certainly did at a later period.   It is not easy to decide between these two alternatives.  Verses 9 and 10 would favour rudimentary rules, but would be relevant in that case only to those who had already been subject to them, i.e. Jews.  But a wider application to include Gentiles is preferable, in which case, the second interpretation must be chosen.  It involves Paul classing all the non-Christian world as being in slavery to powers utterly beyond their control.  The implication is that Jews are included and therefore any submission to Jewish scruples would be a return to their former slavery.

           

4:4.  The "fullness of times," has no reference to the spiritual maturity of the people, on the contrary, they were at that time full of revolt.  But the "fullness of times" was the moment or time fixed by God for the sending of the Son.  This moment had arrived when the Son of God was sent. 

Paul does not elsewhere employ the verb `exapastello' (sent off, dispatched), which he here uses to describe the mission of the Son for the Father.  The verse suggests the pre-existence of the Son with the Father, before His Incarnation.  The verb centrally describes the activity of God and it insists on His Sovereignty over History.

           

The two following expressions (born of woman, born under law) insist on the perfect identity between the historical state of Christ on earth and that of men in general.  This condition or situation is at first characterized by His beginning or commencement; the Son is born of a woman.  But Paul is not interested in the fact of birth as much, but he is interested that the Son has arrived.  The Son did not come as a dazzling, gliding meteor alone.  But his humanity, his way of life, his destiny or earthly history was like that of the history of all men.

           

In the second clause, the humanity is underlined by the words "under the law"; they apply to Christ the numerous expressions used previously to describe the slavery of mankind under the  `authorities', the Son became a slave with the slaves.  He became a feeble babe with the babes, all His destiny has been marked by the mortal tragedy of the human condition.  Not only has He entered into the human state but He himself is sustained to the end, that is to say, until the Cross.  (Phil.2:5-11).

           

The phrase, "the fullness of times," suggests that God had a plan and He is in control of the times.  He determines the moment of its fullness.  When He determined its fullness He deemed it the most fitting moment to send His Son.  (see Ridderbos).  "When the time had fully come."  It draws attention to the critical importance of His advent. The word "sent-forth," involves more than just a commissioning.  It involves a sending out from a previous state, and must in this case imply the pre-existence of the Son.

           

4:5.  While verse 4 describes the state assumed by the Son when He came into the bosom of humanity, verse 5 shows for what task He came as a man among men.  He came according to the plan and purpose of God in order to redeem those who are under the Law.  Notice the `ina',  (see 3:14,22,24).  We have already met the verb `redeemed'.  It involves the complex idea of the redemption of a slave in a public place.  And Paul uses it to describe the final aim of the redemptive work of Christ.  It was the liberation of those who were enslaved to law and sin.  It is not necessary to think of God himself withholding man as His slave under the law and negotiating the price of  His liberation, because:-

a.   It was God himself who sent the Son as the Liberator, so the redemptive work of the Son is          the expression of the loving purpose of the Father.

b.   The redemptive work was from the Divine curse on sin, expressed in the words of the Law.           But even this curse was already in the service of the Divine purpose of mercy.

c.   The redemptive work of Christ was of the nature of the submission of the Son to this merciful                 Divine curse.  As the Substitute, the Son took the weight of our condemnation.  The Cross is              not merely an escape from condemnation, but it is His participation for us in an ignominious                  death. 

           

This is what is signified in baptism.  For in the rite of baptism the condemnation is applied to the believer.  Jesus Christ has redeemed humanity in the baptism with Him in the Divine condemnation.  But here Paul does not insist on the solidarity which unites Christ condemned and the believer baptized, for here all the work of Christ aims to enable us to receive the filial adoption.  The work of Christ is not an act of initiation to make man divine, but His work is an objective and historical act which makes possible the gift of filial dignity to all believers. 

           

The phrase `adoption' is not frequently used and it is difficult to know exactly what it corresponds to in the thought of the apostle.  Were not the minors under the law sons?  To maintain the `son' imagery Paul now drops the idea of adoption for that of a declaration that they had reached their majority.  Paul had spoken of adoption to indicate that those who were infants under the law were fallen infants and deprived of their natural rights to the inheritance.  They were accursed, and now, only a judicial decision, new and merciful, can reinstate them to the dignity of sons; this decision was accomplished in Jesus Christ. 

           

Therefore only Divine Justification can bring us into the blessing of Sonship.  But the Pauline idea of adoption went much further; for it is not only the Divine declaration on the justification of man a sinner, but it is above all the beginning of a new and personal relationship between the Father and His children, but it is also a relationship full of confidence and of love, and that has been sealed by His Spirit.  Adoption then insists on three aspects of the Pauline conception of justification:-

1/   The adoption is first of all, a sovereign act of the pure grace of God, for mankind has no claim or right to it.  (see Bonnard).

2/   The adoption is after this, a relation of love which unites in the Church of God the Father and His redeemed children as the union is effective by the indwelling Spirit.

3/   Finally, the adoption is the renewal of the promise made to, and in Abraham, and that, to all believers.  It shall continue to bear fruit until the moment when the eschatological inheritance of salvation shall be reached by the faithful. - Bonnard.

           

Guthrie remarks there is no definite article before law, for Christ's redemptive work reaches beyond the Jewish people.  Redemption has a double aspect:   deliverance from bondage to the law, and deliverance to something better - here Sonship. "So that we might receive the adoption as Sons."   This is the positive aspect of redemption.

           

4:6.  "And because you are sons."   Verses 6-7, describe the life of the adopted sons of God; the life concerning which verse 5 has laid down the objective foundation:  the declaration of the Divine adoption received by faith.  What is the force of `oti'?   Does it mean that because believers are sons they have received the Spirit?  Or does it mean they are sons because they have received the Spirit?    Commentators can be quoted for both views, and the grammar agrees with either construction, but the context clearly recommends the first. 

           

Paul spoke first of the adoption, then on the basis of the adoption, speaks of the Coming of the Holy Spirit.  In verse 4, `exapesteilen' is used to describe the sending of the Son and the word is used in verse 6 to describe the sending of the Holy Spirit into the heart of the believer;  in this second case the verb insists on the Sovereignty of God.  It is not a consequence of cause and effect between the adoption and the Gift of the Holy Spirit, but God in both cases acted freely.  The free sovereign action of God is underlined, both in the sending of His Son and the Holy Spirit.

           

"The Spirit of His Son."  - The Genitive indicates that the Spirit belongs to His Son, that the Spirit represents the Son himself, Sent into the hearts of the faithful,  2.Cor.3:17;  Rom.8:9,15.  Note the aorist, "God sent."   Paul does not here use the Perfect tense, nor the Present of continuous action. But the sending of the Spirit is an historical event as was that of the sending of the Son. The heart is the centre of the believer.  And from the heart springs prayer and the moral decisions of the believer.  The Spirit does not invade the intelligence nor the feelings of the man, but his entire personality.  God reaches the entire man through a personal experience.

           

The first consequence of the adoption received by faith and sealed by the Spirit is that he cries in prayer.  This prayer is neither the elevation of love towards a terrible Divinity of Darkness, but it is the confident and confiding response of a child recognizing his father.  And in his praying both the liberty and dignity of a son is recovered.  The cry of prayer, the filial cry, is not one of surprise or astonishment, but it is a cry inspired by the Spirit.  And the prayer is the activity and utterance of the Spirit in the man.

           

"Father," can signify "my Father," or "our Father."   There may be a reminiscent of the teaching of Jesus to his disciples.  We have probably in this Pauline formula an echo of the primitive Christianity.  Sonship is the basis on which the Spirit is given.  But it is also true that the full realization of sonship becomes a reality through the Spirit.  Adoption and the possession of the Spirit are concomitant (Guthrie).  The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the indisputable proof of sonship.  "The Spirit of His Son."   Guthrie compares with Romans 8:9, "The Spirit of Christ."    "Crying," suggests the shamefulness of our approach to God.

           

4:7.  Paul brings to a conclusion the theme of the inheritance brought before us at the beginning of chapter 4.

           

In writing "thou art," Paul makes an appeal to the Galatians, they ought to have believed that which had been preached to them by the apostles.  In the words "no longer a slave but a son," is gathered up, the whole Epistle to the Galatians. By saying in verse 6, "you are," that is, "you are sons," Paul writes of something given to the Galatians, and that had been given to them once for all by the Cross of Christ and the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  They are, then, sons.  They cannot seek to become such by legal observances.  They are then the heirs of the promises made to Abraham.  They were heirs through God.  The R.S.V. has, "so through God."   Our inheritance is due to the gracious action of God on our behalf.

           

The Christian experience of our filial relation to God could not have occurred apart from the initiative of God.  See Guthrie.  Ridderbos writes that "through God" points to God as the Author.  The initiative depends upon God.  Paul is still concerned to show how the inheritance guaranteed to Abraham has been extended to Gentiles.

           

4:8.  Verse 8-11, terminates this first section of the development of the theme of grace opposed to law.  In verses 21-31 the theme is continued.  In verse 8 Paul recalls the opposition of the times of the past, `alla tote men' and their present blessing, `nun de', as found in verse 9.  Only he applies this opposition or contrast directly to the case or experience of the Galatians.  He is not speaking of the legal past in a general sense, but he writes of the personal past of the Galatians, that which had been their own experience.  This was a very concrete past which, moreover, was not an aspect of the law, that is, of those times of the legal curse of which Paul has already spoken.

           

The thought that underlies these verses is that the past cannot be understood except in the light of their present experience.  The idolatry cannot be understood as the starting point in the revelation of God in Christ Jesus.  Neither can the legal servitude be understood as the starting point of the Christian liberty.  Their past was one in which they were ignorant of God.  Not that Paul describes objectively the unhappiness - their unhappy state - before their Conversion, but he subjects their past or experience to a theological diagnosis.  The paganism that characterised the Galatians was not atheistic, but their past was intensely religious.  Neither does Paul attempt to deny the existence of these gods, which are not really gods, He denies only their true divinity.  In verse 3 he describes them as "the elements of the world."

           

Idolatry is always a servitude, in which the man strives to please the divinities that he does not really know, and it is that the pagan perishes in his terrible and obscure cults.  Likewise the Jews who are eager to rejoice in legal observances, but really, this is a kind of paganism.  Such are those who ignore the grace of God accomplished in Jesus Christ.  Paul's thought is not to crush the Galatians with the remembrance of their past idolatry, for on the contrary, they were then quite ignorant of the Gospel, though of course, they were inexcusable as we learn from Romans 1. 

           

But now the heresy was more grave, more pernicious than even idolatry.  This verse proves that the majority of the Galatians were converted from paganism.  Their background was paganism.  And Paul contrasts their former state, when they lived in ignorance of God.  Some think verses 8-11 hints at the mixed Jewish and Gentile background of the Galatians.  Guthrie heads verses 8-11, "Returning to beggarliness."  He believes that while ignorance of God would not be so relevant to Jews as Gentiles, the next phrase, "were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods," shows clearly that pagans are in mind.

           

4:9.  The phrase "but now" (nun de) did not commence with the coming of Christ, as so often with Paul, but in the day in which the Galatians heard and received the apostolic preaching.  But when a man has come to know God in Jesus Christ, he discovers that he has been the object of the Divine Initiative;  he discovers that the roles are reversed;  the man is no longer in the search for God, but he has been found.  He has been found and known by God and this not merely in the sense of an intellectual knowledge; in the Old testament already the verb "to know" describes an intimate and personal relation.  The emphasis falls on the words "by God."  `Upo eon'; having acquired the knowledge of God Himself in Christ Jesus, how could the Galatians dream of returning to their worthless divinities?

           

The adjective `asthene' (Rom.8:3) insists on the weakness of the law, its impotence, especially as the procurer of righteousness.  Their going over to the legal system was like a return to the principles of paganism. 

           

The verb `epistrephete' is in the Present Tense.  The Galatians were in the course of turning back.  It was their Conversion now in reverse.  After having turned from idols to serve the living and true God, they now were returning to them.  Paul would have agreed that they were not returning to their idols previous to their Conversion.  They were not returning to the same idols.  But in turning to the law and to legal observances, they were taking back to themselves the "elemental spirits" which had no more value than idols.  We must not conclude from this passage that the Galatians had passed through Judaism before their Conversion to Christianity.  The passage gives us no reason to think that they were converts to Judaism before they became converts to Christianity.

           

4:10. The Galatian Christians were being urged to bind themselves to the observance of the Jewish Calendar (Guthrie).  Since the time of the Return from the Exile, the life of the Jews in Palestine and in the Diaspora, had little by little become increasingly overburdened by extreme regulations.  These regulations were oppressive, of which we find numerous examples in the Book of Enoch.  It was a question there of the great Jewish feasts.  There were a multitude of things to do and not to do, according to the time of the year. 

           

It is not necessary to find in this verse, the expression of opposition in principle to the celebration of Jewish Feasts, as Luther did.  It is the significance that the Judaizers would give to the Jewish Feasts that Paul cannot tolerate.  For in this he discerned the germs of a legalism which would seek Salvation in carnal works rather than in Jesus Christ.

           

4:11.  `Me pas', "lest."   Paul feared very seriously for the Galatians.   `Me pas' with the Indicative indicates that Paul held these fears as being well founded.  Guthrie points out that in the Greek text the verb has an object, i.e. "you," which expresses with some vividness that the Galatians themselves were the objects of Paul's fear.  Yet his fear had a specific basis, as the following statement shows.  The clause is introduced in an emphatic way, `me pos', "lest by any means."   The verb `kopiao' denotes toil with effort and the Perfect Tense `kekopiaka' draws attention to what Paul fears may be the permanent result of his past effort (Guthrie).  The Indicative rather then the Subjunctive suggests that Paul fears it may be a fact rather than a possibility (Guthrie).  The Galatians have however known the happiness (or felicity) of Grace,  4:12-20.  

           

The fear expressed in verse 11 caused Paul to intervene or to insert a more personal passage (4:12-20) in this development of the theme of the Law and Grace, (4:1-31).  The thought, however, remains the much the same:  The Galatians were forgetting the happiness they once enjoyed in the knowledge of the Grace of God they had received by the preaching of the apostle.  So Paul strives again to make the Galatians realise the price and the prize they had abandoned in turning to the Law.

           

4:12.  This verb betrays the inward agitation of the author; the style is very elliptical and doubtlessly alludes to facts we have no knowledge about.  "Become ye as I am," probably means "as I am actually," that is to say, free in regard to the law.  When the apostle proposes himself as an example to his readers, it is chiefly to invite them to imitate his stripping off the law.  He wishes to be for the Churches, a living example of the preaching of free justification.  This was the centre of his teaching.  The verb "become" shows that Paul neither sought the admiration nor the flatteries of his correspondents, but he sought their submission to the Gospel.  On the other hand, Paul did not claim to be some exceptional kind of Christian that they might imitate; it is rather the simple faith in Christ.  The apostle can well say to all, "Imitate me and those like me and with me, who having renounced the Law, now believe in Jesus Christ."  (See Phil.3:3), for a description of this renouncement.

           

The second part of the verse is more difficult - because of the words, "I also like you."   The better interpretation is:  Paul would say that he had become like the Galatians, these ancient pagans, in renouncing the law.  He had become, or was without law (anomos), in order to gain them for Christ, (see 1.Cor.9:21).

           

In affirming that the Galatians had done him no injury, Paul refers to some recent events that we are quite ignorant of, or was he simply reminding them in a general way of their sincere affection with which they had at first surrounded the apostle?  (see verses 13-15).  We shall probably never know for sure.  In verses 13-15 Paul reminds them of the affection with which they had immediately surrounded him.

           

4:13.  `Idate de' "and ye know well,"  "you are not able to forget or to deny."   It was because of a sickness (`dia' with accusative) and not necessarily during a sickness that Paul had evangelized the Galatians.  It was because of sickness and not during a sickness that Paul at first evangelized the Galatians.  It was not that he was exhausted in their country on account of this illness.  Paul had traversed their country and he was retained a certain time.  The apostle had profited by the enforced pause to proclaim the Gospel to the Galatian people.  He had not anticipated to evangelize these people.  This corresponds well enough to Acts 16:16.

           

1/   The text in Acts makes no mention of any enforced pause or rest in Galatia.

2/   Neither does Acts mention that Paul suffered any sickness.

3/   Then, the Epistle to the Galatians makes no mention of Timothy, then, at hand with Paul.  These difficulties are not so opposed as to make it impossible the reference in both passages to the same event.

           

4:14.  The Galatians had not succumbed to the test or trial of Paul's malady.  In what did the trial consist of?  Was the test to set aside the apostle and then to reject the Gospel on account of his illness?   It is probable that a demonic character was attributed to his illness.  The Galatians had not shunned Paul from physical disgust.  They did not shun Paul from fear or disgust.  The second verb `exeptusate' confirms this interpretation.  The Galatians would spit to keep off demons and the maladies the demons impose.  The Galatians did not shun Paul by spitting on the ground, nor in a moral sense, the Galatians did not turn aside from the apostle with horror.  They had received Paul as an angel of God. 

           

The word `angel' should be taken in the general sense of a messenger.  Probably they took Paul as a true supernatural apparition, a heavenly being.  These pagans were prone to adore those who brought revelations, especially if they were new and liberating.  So Paul added, "as Jesus Christ."  By these last words Paul does not continue to describe the rather perilous enthusiasm of the Galatians.  They had not received Paul as Jesus Christ, but Paul affirms they had received him for what he really was, an authorized representative, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

           

Guthrie agrees that the second verb means `to spit out', and is used metaphorically as an expression of disgust or revulsion.  Guthrie thinks it is unlikely that they regarded Paul as possessed by an evil spirit.  Ridderbos also favours taking it metaphorically.   He thinks that since `ekptuein' follows `exouthenein'.  This is more likely to be its true meaning.  Burton agrees that in all other instances `ekptuo' is used of the physical act, but thinks such a meaning is impossible here.  But why not?

           

4:15.  They had declared themselves happy to have Paul in their midst.  The following phrase can be understood in two ways:-

1/   It may be that the Galatians had wished to give their own eyes to replace the eyes of             Paul which were in an ill state.

2/   Or more generally they were ready to give Paul that which was most precious.  The idea being that the eyes is man's most excellent treasure.  This was a familiar idea in the Bible and in the ancient world.

The first interpretation is to be recommended, but must not be imposed by the words `ei dunaton' =  "if that had been possible";  for that would make the sickness of Paul a sickness of the eyes, or a sickness affecting the sight, which may have been epilepsy, intermittent fever or malaria?  We don't know.  Guthrie thinks it likely means that Paul had some eye disease.  But Coad in Howley's Commentary thinks a disfiguring ailment of the eyes to be mere speculation, while Burton thinks the inference is precarious.

           

4:16. How are we to explain the betrayal by the Galatians?  What happened to their felicity and satisfaction?  How came they to change their love to the apostle?   They had been as profoundly attached to the apostle, who had changed them?  The answer was simple.  It was the work of the Judaizers.  But here he raises another question.  Was it his preaching the truth that had alienated the love of the Galatians to him?  This question can await an affirmative answer.

           

Ridderbos understands the passage:  It has been held that Paul is referring to a previous letter, which had disconcerted the Galatians.  Less hypothetical is the view that at his second visit Paul had warned the Churches.  In any event, he must have plainly given them his judgment, before writing this letter, concerning the heretical teaching that had invaded their communion.  This they had not taken in a good spirit.  Hence Paul asks them now whether they no longer want to hear the truth.

           

Guthrie would punctuate, "Have I then become your enemy?"  In this case the word `enemy' must be regarded as the Judaizers own view of Paul, not his estimate of them.  He is anxious to avoid any feeling of enmity.  But if the interrogative is allowed to stand, it suggests that Paul wishes to leave a loophole for them to deny the charge.  (Guthrie).

           

"By telling you the truth.":   When did this happen?  The enmity need not have been coincidental with the telling.  It is best to regard this as a reference to the present letter.  If this is true, then we need not formulate two visits to Galatia.  But some, such as Bonnard, take the truth as meaning the Gospel.  Paul had become the enemy to someone for announcing the liberating truth of the Gospel.  But Paul cannot think that the influence that had detached the Galatians from him was a genuine liberty.

           

4:17.  But it was not in their preaching the truth that Paul was alienated from the Galatians.  It was rather the evil influence of the Judaizers.  And they knew it only too well.  Paul had not named the adversaries, but we get the impression that they knew only too well who they were.  Paul's letter would be read to the whole church in the presence of these unnamed persons, and the apostle intends to let the church understand its responsibilities in regard to them.

           

Zeal can be a good quality, but in this particular case,  it was an attempt to make the Galatians partisans against Paul.  Sectarian motives actuated the Judaizers.  The Judaizers wished to shut the Galatians out but only that the Judaizers should make much of them.  Did the Judaizers wish to detach the Galatians from Paul, or from the Church, or from Jesus Christ?  They would detach or separate them from Paul, but this in the eyes of the apostle was to detach them from the Church and from Christ.  For the Judaizers, who formed a party in the Church, did not hesitate to constitute a separate people, who were faithful to legal observances.

           

Some think Paul had made two visits to Galatia, but in the `koine' this is not the necessary meaning of 4:13.  (See the N.E.B).  The Judaizers did not seek the Galatians honestly, but they wished to shut them out that they may seek them as their leaders.

           

4:18. `Zelousthai', is in the passive voice, and provides the key to the verse.  It was good for the Galatians to be searched and investigated for several good reasons, (en kalo'), this is to say that to be drawn into the evangelical liberty (as would be the case when they are searched by Paul);  and not only when Paul is present, but faithfully even when he is absent (as they were in the testimony of the letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians) whilst the Judaizers continued to instigate from evil intentions, they should find their zeal shall be of very short duration.

           

Paul agrees with the Judaizers that it is good to be made much of.  And they desired to be favourably regarded by the Galatian Churches.  But Paul concedes that, when it is for a good purpose, that is when it is deserved and Paul desired that it should be so, not only when he was present with them.  But the Judaizers were paying court to them, but not from honest intentions.  As Guthrie points out, "to be made much of in itself is not to be condemned, so long as it is rightly directed."   However, Guthrie notes it may mean that Paul is thinking of good purpose, which he had while he was among them and of his enthusiastic interest in them.

           

4:19.  Paul might well become biting and bitter (v.16-19).  But he overcomes the bitterness by love (v.19-20).  If by the grace of God the Galatians  were no more minors but sons and are described as the children of the promise (4:28), they were also the children of Paul because it was by his instrumentality, especially by his preaching of the Gospel, that they were born into the new life . Note in verse 19 the word `again' (palin).  This is related to their first spiritual childbirth, which because of the intrigues of the Judaizers, had now to be repeated.  However, Paul does violence to his imagery for there is so much that is both exciting and precise in the thought that he would express.  A child cannot be put in the world twice. The imagery of the sufferings of a mother in bed was acknowledged in antiquity.  But Paul also uses that of a father more often than he does of a mother.  The sufferings that Paul refers to, are his apostolic labours as well as the hidden anguish of prayer and supplications.

           

`Morphothe', aorist subjunctive passive, - "That Christ may be formed in you," this is to say, "that Christ has taken a form a reality, an attendant liberty "in you."   The words `in you' may mean `in your churches', which is better than `in your hearts'.  The Hellenistic idea of a spiritual seed developing itself, little by little in love, is foreign to this text.  Paul is not writing of an invisible becoming, nor of a spiritual development, but he writes of a confinement in bed, painful and violent, but thereby illustrating the apostolic grace and labour.

           

4:20.  From the previous verse we see that Paul desired that a real Christ-like character should become manifested in them, (Guthrie).  But Judaism would not form this.  "Any religious system which does not produce the image of Christ in the lives of its people is not thoroughly Christian."  (Guthrie).

           

"I could wish."  Compare Rom.9:3.  Paul is expressing a wish to change his voice or tone.  He would like to speak less severely to the Galatians, since then he would be in a better position to know how to speak.  He would prefer to speak personally to them than to have to write to them.  Bonnard apparently believed that Paul had made a second visit to Galatia.  Paul could wish to be present with them, but his wish could not at this time be fulfilled.  Paul has no love of an aggressive approach, but prefers the method of personal appeal (Guthrie).  Paul would prefer to speak personally rather than to write, he would prefer to teach than to be complaining, and he desired to speak his hearts anguish, and he was embarrassed as to what tone in which to speak.

           

The verb `aporeo' may express his embarrassment rather than anxiety.  It is not easy to discern Paul's idea here.  He regrets for a moment the strong language he has used when he told them the truth, and had given occasion for it to be said that he had become their enemy.   But now he expresses his fervent wish but which, for reasons unknown to us, he could not carry out.  But just now (arti) he would be present with them and speak in a different tone.

           

`En umin', this may mean, "in your subject," as in 2.Cor.7:16.  He would speak to them differently had they been better informed.

           

Hagar and Sarah, figures of the legal covenant, and the covenant of Grace, 4:21-31.  Verses 21-31 are the third development upon the theme of the Grace of God in relation to the Law.  It is not Paul's intention to introduce new ideas, but to bring a further illustration of a single fundamental idea.  The Galatians were to expel all bondage or slavery.  This is to say that they were to expel those who enslave themselves to the Law.  The Judaizers were seeking to enslave the Galatians. 

           

Just as Abraham had two descendants, the  one from Hagar, but the other from Sarah.  Likewise, God raised up in history two lines, the children of the law, and the children of the promise.  Paul underlines their character; the first is a line born in, and for servitude, the second is born in, and for liberty.  The line of Hagar typifies the Jews under law (such are not the heirs); the line of Sarah (Isaac), represents believers or Christians. 

           

The apostle's thought is that the Galatians were forgetting the grace from which they sprang and were in the act of subjection to the law.  They were behaving as if the children of Sarah shall mix with the children of Hagar.  They had little by little accepted the condition of inferiority or slavery.

           

4:21. Paul always addresses the whole company of the Galatians - "all of you Galatians," and not the Judaizing faction only, in the Churches of Galatia.  "Hear."  "Do you not hear?"   "Do you not understand the law?"  The Galatians had allowed themselves to be impressed by the false teachers and had been quite unaware of the gravity of the move they had made.  Had they understood the law they would have discerned its negative role and its preparatory character that it had until Christ came.  It was not only a matter of observing such and such particular requirements, but they failed to learn in the light of the Scriptures the transitory and preparatory character of the Law.

           

4:22.:   

1/     Sarah and Hagar had the same husband or lord, just as the promise and the law had the same author, God. 

2/   By these two women, two distinct lines have issued from Abraham, but both lines are hostile, the one to the other.

3/   But God chose the descendants of the free woman (Sarah-Isaac) to comprise His people, not yet entirely abandoning the descendants of Hagar who became a foreign people to Israel

(Gen.21:20-21). Everything that pertains to the Law is after all, foreign to the essential line of the history of salvation.

4:23.  Ishmael was born according to the flesh, that is, he was born naturally, the result of the union of Abraham and Hagar, which had no other foundation than human planning.  But the birth of Isaac was from the freewoman, he was born in virtue of the promise.  But Isaac was begotten naturally, his birth was not a pure miracle.  But if God finally blessed the union of Abraham and Sarah, it was that He might make him the instrument of His purpose of salvation for all the families of the earth (Rom.4:16-22).

           

4:24.  Paul would say that the Scriptural narrative itself signified allegorical sense than the mere literal.  In the current Hellenistic allegory the literal sense is evaporated by the allegorical sense.  But in the Pauline allegory the historical narrative keeps its historical value.  But he explains its allegory relative to the history of salvation, especially in the service of teaching concerning Jesus Christ and the new people of God.  This is more strictly typology than allegory.

           

These two women represent two covenants.  In the word `covenant' Paul sees displayed both the initiative and sovereignty of God.  Paul would say that these women prefigure two institutions or Divine dispositions, the law and the promise.  By means of this double sovereign disposition God raised up two distinct peoples, a people in bondage and a free people.  But it is the free people that shall be His people.

           

The Mosaic Covenant, which was instituted at Sinai, was begotten in bondage and for servitude;  so that the law although a Divine institution has raised up an enslaved people who are enslaved to ordinances and incapable of the life of the promise grace of God.  The Mosaic Law is the antitype of the type set forth in Hagar in the Genesis story or history. Guthrie renders the present particle "which kind of things are allegorical."  The present participle is designed to bring out the significance in the present circumstances.  Guthrie thinks the supposition as to a tribe in the area of Sinai, known as Hagarenes, is precarious.

           

4:25. Paul has spoken of one of the two covenants, that of the law in verse 24, but he makes a further reflection upon Hagar.  She is Sinai in Arabia.  The law was actually promulgated in a foreign land without a direct link with the history of salvation.  But how can Paul affirm that Hagar signifies Sinai?  It is because Ishmael the son of Hagar is the reputed father of all the Arabs.  At least, so the Jewish tradition asserted.  (Psa.83:6; 1.Chron.5:19).

           

But then, Paul means that Jerusalem belongs to the same category as Sinai, and Hagar;  because Jerusalem is begotten in slavery as were Hagar and Sinai. But Paul opposes the actual and present Jerusalem to the Jerusalem which is on high, or of the world to come.  Paul sees the present Jerusalem as in bondage, not to the Romans, but to the Law.

           

4:26. Jerusalem belongs to the same circle as Hagar and Sinai.  And he now opposes Jerusalem to the heavenly Jerusalem.  He contrasts the earthly Jerusalem to that which is above.  The heavenly Jerusalem is the Capital of the Messianic Kingdom, according to the ideas of the late Jews,  See Heb.12:22; Rev.3:12; 21:2,9; 22:5.  Paul develops this idea somewhat, for Jerusalem on high shall not only replace the actual Jerusalem, but that it now (present tense) opposes it.  Again he insists that the heavenly Jerusalem is free, not only free from the Roman power, but it is free from the bondage of law.

           

This celestial or heavenly Jerusalem is our mother.  Paul has spoken of two mothers, Sarah and Hagar.  A slave can only give birth to slaves.  The terrestrial Jerusalem was itself under law and it cannot produce anything but slaves to law.  Such as the mother, so are the sons.

           

Is the Jerusalem which is on high the church as Roman Catholic expositors say, or is it the eschatological reality of the Kingdom which is to come.  Bonnard argues that the second view is correct?

           

The people of grace as heirs of the Jerusalem on high do not belong to the Church as to an outward institution, but they belong to the coming Kingdom.  It is the Kingdom and not the Church that represents the Promised Land to Abraham.  Paul affirms that believers, the members of the Church are the sons of the Kingdom, and of them alone is the heavenly Jerusalem their mother.

           

4:27. The children of the heavenly Jerusalem are not just free, but they are much more numerous than the children of the earthly Jerusalem; the promise reveals itself in an unlimited fertility, whilst the law choked and sterilized its followers.

           

4:28. This verse may be the conclusion of the preceding passage, or the beginning of the passage (28-31).  Probably it is best to consider verses 28-31 in their entirety as a conclusion of verses 21-27.  That is, as a kind of resume or repetition of verses 21-27.  Paul does not argue further, he merely declares "you are" - "we are not" (v.28-31).  They ought to believe.  Paul addresses them as brothers, their restlessness cannot destroy their relationship to Christ.  Like Isaac, or rather in the manner of Isaac, they are children of promise, that is to say, they are children on account of the grace of God.

           

4:29.  This verse reveals the historical character of the Pauline typology.  Paul perceived in the events of the past certain prophetic prefigurements of actual events now fulfilled.  He declares the history of the Church from the history of the ancient people of God.  Paul makes an allusion to Genesis 21:9, which he quotes in verse 30.  However, neither the Hebrew nor the Greek text of Genesis 21:9 make any reference to Ishmael persecuting Isaac.  But Rabbinic exegesis that was evidently older than Paul saw in the passage the persecution of Isaac by Ishmael.  Paul has in mind the persecution of the Christians by Judaizers and Jews.  Probably a Jewish persecution of Christians, Paul has in mind.

           

4:30.  `Alla mais'.  It refers to that which immediately precedes; the slave persecuted the son of the free woman, but in spite of the persecution, God had chosen Isaac and not Ishmael. Therefore Paul says, "the Scripture said (i.e.God said), cast out the bondslave and her son."  Paul recalls the irrevocable decision of God in favour of Isaac and against Ishmael.  To Paul this historical decision is the prefiguration of the actual decision of God for the people of the new covenant against the people of old covenant (the Jews).

           

4:31.  We also consider this verse as the opening of the new development expressed in chapter 5.  However, it may also be taken as the conclusion - the last word of the conclusion to verses 28-31.  In fact the last word to this section (21-31) which gives the Scriptural proof.  The Scriptures revealed to the Galatians what they are essentially before God.  They were free and made gratuitously the beneficiaries of the promise made to Abraham, thanks to the sacrifice of Christ.  In chapter 5, Paul shall show the Galatians that they have been called to this, so that they may be faithful to this.  They stand by the grace of God.

           

So the allegory of the two Covenants instruct us concerning the Grace of God.  It stresses the Sovereign initiative of God intervening on our behalf.  For His grace is free and Sovereign.  The consideration of this allegory goes strongly against Dispensationalists who make so much of the rebuilding of the earthly Jerusalem.

           

Howley's commentator says that Paul is meeting on its own ground the method of debate which was urged against him by his opponents.  Lest any might be tempted to slip too easily into this mode of `exegesis', it is well to observe that the apostle makes use of allegory only in relation to doctrine which he has already established by careful exegesis.