A Backsliding State

They had turned again "to weak and beggarly elements.” They were "observing days, and months, and times, and years." It was all but returning to their former idolatry, as he solemnly hints to them, doing "service unto them which by nature are no gods," as they had been doing in the days of their heathen ignorance of the true God. (Ch. 4:8.) Christianity that is merely a formal observation of ordinances is here connected with heathendom. Is it not solemn? "I am afraid of you," says he to the Galatians in this state, "lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.”
Gracious and patient as he was in Christ, Paul labors more painfully than ever, even "to travail in birth again" for them. But all this was only to this end, that Christ might be formed in them.