Galatians 4

CHAPTER IV

2. (Continued): The Galatians Must Know the Limitations of the Law, 3:15–4:11

The law marked the heir as a minor; Christ brought him to majority.

Galatians 4:1

1 When Paul says in 3:29 that by belonging to Christ the Galatians are Abraham’s seed and thus heirs according to promise, one may well ask, “Were the Old Testament believers not also Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise?” In their capacity as heirs those Old Testament believers had the law of Moses; should the New Testament believers not also have it? This question is now answered in the most adequate and the most lucid way.

Now I say, for such a time as the heir is a minor he differs in nothing from a slave although he is lord of everything but is under guardians and stewards until the time fixed in advance by the father.

This is an illustration that is similar to the one employed in 3:15 regarding a human testament. This deals with an heir who is still a child, still a minor. Paul takes as his illustration a lad whose wealthy father has died and has left the boy a great estate. In this figure everything has to do with this orphaned lad and not with his dead father, hence the father is introduced only incidentally. We should not turn this illustration into an allegory. “Now I say” intends to emphasize what is said; it lays the finger on the point now stated about minors who fall heir to an estate. “The heir” has the generic article. Paul is not offering a fine legal point; so he writes merely νήπιος, infant, child, and thus a minor.

During the time that the heir is a minor he differs in nothing (adverbial accusative) from a slave although he is lord of everything (concessive participle) and really owns the entire estate. He is fed, nourished, and sheltered in the house, which is true also of a slave in the house. He has no control of the great property, which is likewise true of the slave.

Galatians 4:2

2 Paul himself states what he has in mind. Just as a slave has his superiors who control him and his affairs, so this young heir. Paul thinks of a large inheritance as befits the great spiritual inheritance which he is illustrating. Hence he names two classes of superiors, ἐπίτροποι and οἰκονόμοι, which some regard as identical. But the former are those who are placed in charge of the young heir himself, call them guardians; the latter are those who manage his estates, stewards. The latter were often slaves yet were competent men, one being placed over this, the other over that estate of the owner. In our estimation the “guardians” were those who, among other things, attended to the boy’s education.

Since Paul is writing to Galatians who are not merely Roman citizens, it is doubtful whether he refers to Roman law. This provided for a tutor (or several) until the age of puberty, the fourteenth year, was reached, after that for a curator until majority was attained, which occurred at the age of twenty-five years. The “guardians” of whom Paul speaks do not seem to be the tutor and the curator but those whose duty it was to provide the necessary teachers for the young heir. The point is that the minor heir is under others and that of necessity because he is still a minor.

The other point is the length of time he is under others, which is thus again mentioned, but now more specifically: “until the time set in advance by the father.” Supply ἡμέρας with προθεσμίας, the genitive “of the father” is subjective. We need not puzzle about the legal date when majority was attained. Wherever the law specified the age, the will would naturally comply with this specification; wherever law and custom allowed latitude, the father’s will would set a date that was agreeable to the father.

Much more important for Paul’s illustration is this mention of the father. It is he who made the testament, he who designated the heir, he from whom the inheritance comes. Thus it is he who in one way or in another fixes the time when his heir is to enter upon control of the inheritance. The heir is no more of an heir after this date than he was before it as the participle used in v. 1 indicates; but after this date the heir is, indeed, no longer under anybody as he was before. This is the tertium, the essential point: once under, then no longer under according to the testamentary provision of the heir’s own father.

Galatians 4:3

3 So also we, when we were minors, had been put in slavery under the elementary things of the world; but when the fulness of the time came, God commissioned his Son, come to be from a woman, come to be under the law, that he should buy free those under law, that we should receive the sonship.

With “so” Paul introduces the great reality he has just illustrated by the standing of a minor heir. By “we were minors” he means “we Jews” just as he does in 3:23–25. Before Christ came, we were nothing but minor heirs. The distinction between believing and unbelieving Jews during the period before Christ is not stressed in this “we”; if we desire to stress it, we shall, of course, have to say that only believing Jews could be included. Yet “we” refers also to Paul himself as well as to all the Jews who came to faith after Christ came. So it is best to take “we” in this broader sense.

God intended the inheritance for all Jews, treated all of them as minor heirs before Christ came, intended that all of them should enter upon the freedom from guardians and stewards after Christ came. The fact that so many frustrated all this for themselves by their unbelief is not considered here in order to make the main facts stand out the more.

During that entire period before Christ, while we were minors, “we had been put in slavery under the elementary things of this world.” These στοιχεῖα were our “guardians and stewards.” Paul has said that the minor heir does not differ from a slave in respect to being under superiors; hence he now says, “we had been put in slavery.” The passive verb is causative. God is the agent in the passive. This condition of slavery had been imposed by means of the Mosaic law. The periphrastic past perfect reaches back to Sinai when this enslavement began and extends forward to Christ when it ended. A present perfect would imply that the enslavement is still in force; the past perfect reaches only to the time when God commissioned his Son.

What are these στοιχεῖα? This word has quite a range of meanings, M.-M. 591; C.-K. 1021: etymologically it means anything placed in a row, thus the letters of the alphabet; since Plato’s time is was used to refer to the basic elements of which the world is composed, metaphorically it designates the elements or rudiments of knowledge. Of late the effort has been made to refer it to “the great angel powers which were said to preside over natural happenings and to rule over stars, wind, rain, hail, thunder, and lightning,” “the spirits of the elements,” “astral spirits.” The usual discussion is limited to the meanings “elementary instruction” and “actual physical elements”: we were under the abc instruction, in the primer department; or, we were under physical, material elements, were bound by law to all types of regulations regarding them. The point is not one that is difficult to decide.

Paul himself helps us. The genitive “of the cosmos” points to the physical. In v. 9, 10 he calls these elements “weak and beggarly,” observing days, months, times, and years; in Col. 2:20 he adds regarding these elements the ordinances: “Handle not, nor taste, nor touch!” things which perish with the using, which are after the precepts and doctrines of men. These stoicheia need not be persons so as to match the guardians and the stewards of the illustration who are persons; for the point of the illustration is the fact that the young heir is really under those who are far beneath him. So the Old Testament believers were placed under material, earthly things that were beggarly, indeed, all of them far beneath these believers. They had to submit to regulations about food and drink, washings and purifications, sacrifices of all kinds, rules about places, times, bodily actions of all kinds.

These stoicheia were not the law itself but the earthly things with which the law had to do. In dealing with these perishable elements the law descended to the plane of human precepts and doctrines, Col. 2:20; for in all the pagan religions these likewise dealt extensively with material things. In the case of the Jews they were not self-chosen as they were in the case of the pagans but prescribed by God. Yet they constituted an enslavement, a burdensome one, indeed, and they became worse when the Jews laid all the stress on these beggarly things and lost sight of the purposes of God, of the promise, the spiritual inheritance, and faith in these. This divine purpose was the essential thing. Like a father, God so placed his young heirs under guardians and stewards and regulated all these earthly things only in order to safeguard them during their minority.

We thus do not accept the interpretation Buchstaben (Luther), elementary or rudimentary parts of religious knowledge; likewise the idea of “stars” and of heavenly bodies, and certainly not that of astral spirits or spirits that govern natural manifestations. “Under the elementary things of the world” contains a strong implication: God’s sons ought to be above and not under these things. Since God placed his heirs under them, this could be only a temporary arrangement. What folly for the Judaizers to claim that this subjection to things beneath us is intended to be permanent!

Galatians 4:4

4 This temporary period passed. In the illustration Paul has already said that in the case of the heir it was to last only until the date fixed by the father. We should keep to that and not suppose that the heir grows up and thus attains his majority. Let us stay with the tertium and thus with the reality itself. The idea that the Jewish Old Testament believers finally grew up is beside the mark. Think of how few such there were when Christ came.

“The fulness of the time” is the condition of being full as regards the time (πληροῦν with the accusative), i.e., the full time. This fulness of the time should not be explained by means of philosophizing: “Until generations of mankind had learnt through years of social training to control some of the animal instincts of their lower nature, to rebel against its brutal passions, and desire to live in obedience to their higher nature,” etc. (Expositor’s Greek New Testament). Some think only of the Jews and find the fulness of the time in a certain ripeness and maturity that were finally reached by the Jews. But if Judaism was ever at a low spiritual ebb, it was so when this fulness of the time arrived.

All we are able to say is that God knew when the proper time had arrived. Judaism was bankrupt, and paganism had always been so. We can enumerate some of the providences which helped to open the way for the gospel such as the vast extent of the Roman Empire, the spread of the Greek language, the facility of travel throughout the empire, the extensive diaspora of the Jews, its many proselytes from Gentilism, etc. All of these aided the spread of the gospel. What God saw and regarded as the fulness of the time in the spiritual condition of men, barbarian as well as Greek, is too difficult for us to predicate because his thoughts and judgments are too unsearchable for us. Paul, too, refrains from stating details.

Then God “commissioned forth his Son.” This verb is the more vivid because it is not the usual compound with only ἀπό but has an added ἐκ. This means that the Son went out on his commission not only “from” God but “out from” God. John says that he was “with” (πρός) God (John 1:1) and was God and that he became flesh (v. 14). Not as an angel might be commissioned but as one of the three Persons of the Godhead. It is usually stated that the pre-existence of Jesus is indicated here, but that would apply also to an angel; no less than the deity is expressed here. When we translate “sent forth” we should note that the verb means more. While πέμπω is also used with reference to the Son even as he calls the Father “my Sender” (John’s Gospel), ἀποστέλλω and ἐξαποστέλλω mean to be sent or sent out on a commission, to execute a great mission, the one here briefly described.

The action of the two aorist participles is, of course, contemporaneous with the aorist “commissioned,” but what is their relation to the verb? The Greek and our two versions leave the answer to the reader. The relation is that of mode, hence participles are used which indicate subsidiary action. The son’s commission involved his getting to be (derived) from a woman and thus also getting to be under law. The second participle states what the first involves; both are alike historical: the Son “got to be” ἐκ and ὑπό or “became” the one and the other. Our English has no word that can adequately render these two participles which mean neither the passive “was made” (A.

V.) nor the intransitive “was born” (R. V.), the Greek for which latter is γεννηθέντα. Either will do as a translation if the English is not stressed.

In this connection we take note of the effort of some to eliminate the virgin birth from this passage. These can be divided into two groups: those who determine a priori the absolute impossibility of such a birth and cancel Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts; secondly, those who are more or less affected by the argumentation of the former. Over against all of them stands the church of the ages with its faith in the statements of the Word. The one aim of the church is to read what the Word says and then to believe that. “The Son of God” is the second person of the Godhead; he “became out of a woman” in executing his mission. This is the Incarnation, the miraculous conception, the virgin birth. God’s Son became man, the God-man.

The phrase that begins with ἐκ denotes more than the separation from the womb, it includes the entire human nature of the Son as this was derived from his human mother. The word γενόμενον is exactly the proper word to express this thought, even the tense is very accurate. The Son’s going out from God on his mission is seen in his becoming man. He did not cease to be the Son of God when he became man. He did not drop his deity, which is an impossible thought. He remained what he was and added what he had not had, namely a human nature, derived out of a woman, a human mother. He became the God-man.

Thereby he became, got to be, under law. The one getting to be involves the other, and both had as the object of his mission “that he buy free those under law,” etc. The Son could do this and did it by having become man, by having come to be under law. The God-man is our Redeemer from the curse of the law, “having become a curse in our stead” (3:13). Look at it from either side, from his going forth from God for his mission or from the accomplishment of that mission, and we see what the participial statements declare, namely the Incarnation of the Son and his subjection to law. By means of these two God’s Son accomplished our purchase and our liberation. Cancel his deity, consider God’s Son a mere human “son,” and both are eliminated, his going forth from God and his purchase of condemned mankind.

It is true, the Galatians know that “out of a woman” refers to the Virgin Mary, and that Paul does not need to mention her name or her virginity in this connection. But these specifications are side thoughts. The two thoughts needed here are general: out of a human mother—hence “woman”; and under law—hence not “the law.” The facts that this was a specific woman, and that this was a specific law are self-evident. The idea that ἐκ predicates only the birth and not also the conception is untenable. Does birth or does it not involve conception?

“His Son—out of a woman” pointedly omit mention of a human father. Why? Because this is God’s Son who is co-eternal with the Father. He became man by way of “a woman” alone. Incomprehensible? Absolutely so! A miracle in the highest degree? Beyond question! Yet, if we were asked to state how God’s Son could become man, should we say that it could not be done in this way as God says that it was but would have to be brought about by way of a human father? Would that remove the miracle?

The Christian mind rebels against speculations of this kind. It turns the pages of Holy Writ; it reads Matt. 1, Luke 1 and 2; Gen. 3:15, the woman’s seed; Isa. 7:14; Micah 5:3; and all the others in this line, John 1:13, 14; Luke 3:22, 23, Mary’s descent; Matt. 1:16 (see the author on the interpretation of these three passages). All of these present the fact of which Paul writes tersely, which is back of all his other references (Rom. 1:3 and many another); why speculate about how the fact might have been other than it was? “Come to be out of a woman” is not like Job 14:1: “man born of woman,” which designates the frailty and the mortality of all men (hear the funeral bells ringing!). The participle is “became” and not “born”; it is predicated of God’s Son and not of man in general or in particular. The God-man could die but did not need to die. He laid down his life voluntarily (John 10:18) as the ransom or purchase price for us (Matt. 20:28).

The point to be brought out in “come to be out of a woman” is expressed by the second participle which is appositional and specifying: “come to be under law.” He who was greater than all law placed himself under law just as he who was greater than his mother became her child. Only this point is here brought forward, that by coming to be of a woman the Son of God came to be under law. This is due to the fact that Paul is speaking of the latter, of the Jews being under the elements of the world by virtue of the Mosaic law until the time set by God. Paul is speaking of the arrival of this time. It is when the Son of God became man, when he, too, came to be under law once for all to end this domination of law. The figure of heirs, of testamentary provisions concerning minority and majority merge into the reality as the Son’s mission is described, which is too great for that figure; only the echoes of it remain, cf., v. 5–7.

We must note the anarthrous “under law” here and in v. 5. When “law” refers to the Mosaic law it often deals with it as belonging to the general category of law. It does so here. This point is important because of v. 5. How many did the incarnate Son buy free? Only the Jews?

No; all men. How many were “under law”? We have the answer in 3:10. In Rom. 3:19 we have more: when the Mosaic law spoke to the Jews who had this specific law, it stopped every mouth and made the whole world guilty before God as Paul shows at length in Rom. 3:10–18 from the Scriptures themselves, as he has shown it from the fact of the universality of sin in Rom. 1:18–32. Not only does such law as the pagans have condemn them in view of the final day of judgment (Rom. 2:12–16), the Mosaic law, as the pure revelation of God’s opposition to sin, by condemning the Jews, stopped every mouth and made the whole world guilty before God.

The Son “came to be under law” in general and not only under the pure code of Moses, but by virtue of this code under all that mankind had left of God’s law as written in their hearts. That is why Paul connects the Son’s Incarnation with his coming to be under law and does not say that by his circumcision he came to be under the Jewish code. But why bring in the Roman law, Christ’s dying because of a verdict pronounced by a Roman governor? That verdict was a travesty on Roman law as the Sanhedrin’s verdict was a travesty on Jewish law. Paul says “law” and not all manner of civil and criminal codes.

“Under law” implies that the incarnate Son was to fulfill law and thereby purchase our Christian freedom. Paul is nullifying the contention of the Judaizers regarding the permanent validity of the Mosaic ceremonial laws for all Christians. That is why the sacrificial death of the Son, i. e., the passive obedience, is not treated here. It is the active obedience that nullifies all Judaistic ideas. By this, Paul says, the Son bought us free.

This answers the mistaken idea that the Son fulfilled the law for himself so that he might remain spotless in order to offer himself as a lamb without blemish to die for our sins. This at best conceives the Son’s active obedience only as pertaining indirectly to us. But Paul says that the Son bought us by this active obedience. It was thus just as much substitutionary as his passive obedience. In fact, the two cannot be separated. Even in death the Son gave himself (active) and so was slain (passive). The two were indissolubly united during all of his life. We should never stress the one against the other because the passive obedience is more frequently mentioned in Scripture than the active.

This answers Meyer’s attack upon the statements: “because of the sole merit, complete obedience, bitter suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord Christ alone, whose obedience is reckoned to us for righteousness,” C. Tr. 919, 9; “before God’s tribunal only the righteousness of the obedience, suffering and death of Christ, which is imputed to faith, can stand,” etc., 927, 32. We mention Meyer only because others agree with him.

Galatians 4:5

5 God’s purpose in his Son’s coming to be under law was “that he should buy free those under law.” In 3:13 Paul has said: “Christ bought us free from the curse of the law by having become a curse in our stead.” Here he uses the same verb ἐξαγοράζειν (see 3:13). The fact that God’s purpose was achieved is intimated by the aorist of the subjunctive. This first purpose clause is objective, for those bought free are “those under law”; the second clause is subjective, for those who are to receive its benefits are “we.” We have already stated why “those under law” (no article with “law”) describes men in general and not merely the Jews under their Mosaic law. But “we” in the second clause is the same as the “we” occurring in v. 3 and does denote Jews. By the purchase of all men who were under law the Jews in particular were to be set free from the Mosaic law, this sentry (3:23), this paidagogos‘ (v. 25), the subjection to guardians and stewards (4:2).

We cannot see that with “those under law” Paul refers only to the Jews and with “we” to the believers (either himself or Jewish Christians or the Jewish and the Gentile Christians combined). In Rom. 3:19 Paul himself states how what was done for Jews affected every mouth, the whole world; here he does not state anything that is similar, namely that what the Son did for the Jews also affected certain Gentiles.

The whole thought is a refutation of the Judaizers. God’s Son set free all those who were under law; this purpose, being objective, was achieved. Furthermore, it was achieved in order that we Jews should receive the sonship. This was a subjective purpose that was also achieved, but only in the believing Jews, the unbelieving were hardened and cast away (Rom. 11:7). “The sonship” is modified by the context (v. 1–3) and thus signifies the status of sons who have advanced from their minority to their majority, to the status of full-grown sons who are no longer under guardians and stewards. “Adoption” is not the proper word, for it may apply to a babe, a minor son and heir.

This eliminates the question as to whether regeneration as well as justification is included in this “sonship.” In their minority, before Christ came all the heirs were both regenerated and justified although they were still under the guardianship and the stewardship of the Mosaic law (v. 2). When Christ came, when their majority was attained, this involved the end of the guardianship and stewardship of law for them. Ever after that time they were entirely free of it.

Galatians 4:6

6 Jewish believers were formerly minors, now that God’s Son has bought free all those under law. Jewish believers have received the standing of sons who are in their majority. This fact pertains to all Christian believers whether they are former Jews or former Gentiles and thus to the Galatians, most of whom were such Gentiles. It helps us to understand Paul’s thought if we remember that during the period before Christ the many believing Gentile proselytes to Judaism also did not get beyond the status of minors. But now Paul is able to say to all the Galatian believers: And because you are sons, God commissioned the Spirit of his Son for our hearts as crying: Abba Father! Wherefore no longer art thou a slave but a son. And if a son also an heir through God.

Some think that ὅτι = “that,” and that the whole clause is an adverbial accusative: “Regarding this that you are sons” the evidence is that God, etc. This translation assumes that the sonship of the Galatians is now to be proved, and that the possession of the Spirit is the proof. But the sonship is proved in v. 4, 5, and what is now added is the result of this sonship, the corroboration of it, exactly as is done in Rom. 8:14, 15, which treats the possession of the Spirit as one of the great results of justification. A result may, of course, be used to prove its cause; but here Paul does not reverse matters in this way, he states the cause and then its result. In 3:2 he inquires for the source of the effect and thus does reverse the two.

The moment we note that “sons” means sons who are no longer in their minority but in their full majority, we see how Paul has, indeed, proved the Galatians to be such sons: God’s Son has abolished all minority, no minor heirs now exist, all guardians and stewards over minors are now and forever abolished. It is in this sense that the Galatian believers are “sons” also with the evident result of such mature sonship and freedom from superiors, namely that God commissioned the Spirit of the Son with the cry of sons, “Abba Father.”

Note the close parallel: “God commissioned forth his Son” (v. 4)—“God commissioned forth the Spirit of his Son.” These are the two great historic acts. All the promises of Jesus regarding the sending of the Spirit apply, John 14:16, etc.; 15:26; 16:13, etc.; Acts 1:8. The fulfillment came on Pentecost and remained for all believers of all time. The things to be noted are not the outward miraculous signs which occurred at the time of Pentecost, which are like the angels singing at the time of the nativity; but all the statements of Jesus that the Spirit could not come to the disciples until Jesus had gone to the Father. When redemption was entirely complete, the Spirit came, “commissioned forth” as Jesus had been. Then all the guardians and the stewards were dismissed, the Spirit took their place, for the heirs’ minority was ended, the Galatian believers were “sons” in this full sense.

We need scarcely say that the Spirit wrought in the Old Testament, that the faith of the Old Testament believers was produced by the Spirit. To think that the Old Testament believers were devoid of the Spirit is to imagine an impossibility. Pentecost ushered in a new era, the era when the Spirit is able to glorify Jesus as one having come, to take all that Jesus has achieved, to declare it unto us, John 16:14; this is his world-wide mission. And this means: no longer minor heirs waiting for this era. “You are sons.”

For such “sons” the Spirit of God’s Son is intended. When Paul says that he is in “our” hearts and changes from the second person plural to the first, we must go on to v. 7 where he changes to “thou,” the singular, every individual. These different pronouns are not stressed over against each other; they merely turn the thought in every direction. “Our” hearts thus include Paul and the Galatian believers. Paul himself and the great mass of Jewish believers in the Christian Church had come to faith after the Son brought redemption. This includes the 3, 000 who came to faith after the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. Like the Gentile believers, all of them at once became “sons.” Do not forget that among the 3, 000 there were not a few proselytes (Acts 2:10), former Gentiles.

All of them were not minors but sons in their majority. There was no further waiting for the testamentary promises to be fulfilled, no further supervision for minor heirs.

Κράζω may, perhaps, be rendered “exclaim.” Sermo vehemens, cum desiderio, fiducia, jure, constantia, Bengel. We do not see how this can refer to congregational praying. Nor does “Abba Father” recall the Lord’s Prayer which begins, “Our Father who art in heaven”; it brings to mind Christ’s prayers in Gethsemane (Mark 14:16) together with Heb. 5:7, “strong crying” (κραυγή which is allied to κράζω). While the crying of the name is predicated of the Spirit, this is evidently to be understood mediately as in Rom. 8:15: “in whom we cry.” The Spirit is said to utter this cry when he moves us to utter it. The fact that he is in our hearts is the result of our sonship, and his presence makes this cry possible.

The nominative form ὁΠατήρ is quite regular after the vocative Ἀββᾶ; it is the repetition of the Aramaic and the Greek terms for Father that is so exceptional. Various Hebrew and Aramaic expressions were taken over by the early Greek Church, but this one is a combination of Aramaic and Greek. Jesus himself certainly spoke Aramaic in Gethsemane and thus would not add the Greek “Father” to the Aramaic “Abba.” It seems that Mark, who loved to report original Aramaic expressions and who alone tells us that Jesus cried “Abba,” added ὁΠατήρ to it for the sake of his Greek readers. This had probably been done before when the Gethsemane story was told. Thus, we may assume, “Abba Father” entered the language of the church and became an established liturgical expression which combined the word that was dear to the Jewish ear and tongue with its Greek equivalent. The thought of the apostle is that we sons who are now in full possession of all that we have in the Son and in the Spirit of the Son direct our “Abba Father” to God in our fulness of sonship.

Galatians 4:7

7 Paul makes this most personal and individual by harking back to v. 1 and the thought that the minor heir differs from a slave in no respect. “Wherefore no longer art thou a slave (in the sense of v. 1) but a son” who has attained his majority; and that means “an heir through God,” one who possesses and enjoys the spiritual fulness of the inheritance accorded by the testament (3:15, etc.). The inheritance involved is not yet the heavenly glory but the salvation that has been fully wrought out by the Son. He is the Heir Supreme, we are his joint heirs (Rom. 8:17).

There is no reason for raising a question in regard to the υἱοθεσία (v. 5) when this is taken in the sense of “adoption” and asking whether Paul has in mind the Jewish law regarding adoption or the Roman law. In this section Paul does not discuss the question as to how we become “sons” (by adoption) but discusses what the position of minor and of major sons is irrespective of the point as to how they become sons and heirs. Therefore it is better to translate this word “sonship” rather than “adoption.” We thus consider irrelevant to the present connection the evidence of adoption adduced from the Old Testament: that of Esther by Mordecai, of Eliezer by Abraham, of the sons of concubines as legal sons, of Joseph’s sons by Jacob to share equally with uncles, etc.

The phrase “through God” is, however, vital. Our present standing as heirs in possession and not merely in anticipation is due entirely to God. Διά views God as the medium by whom this our high standing has been effected; the explanation appears in v. 4 and 6: God commissioned his Son and the Spirit of his Son. Thus we are what we are today and have what we have as heirs.

Do the Gentile Christians in Galatia want to go back into the old bondage?

Galatians 4:8

8 In contrasting the condition under the law with that when one is freed from the law Paul used a comparison (v. 1) which applied directly to the Jewish Christians and indirectly (v. 3, “the elements of the world”) to the Gentile Christians. He now completes this by doing the reverse, by speaking directly about the Gentile and indirectly about the Jewish Christians.

Paul has said of the former that they, too, are “sons” who are not minors (v. 6), that everyone is an “heir” in possession of the inheritance and not a slave (v. 7), i. e., a minor who does not differ from a slave (v. 1). Just what had the position of the Gentile Christians been before they became Christians? Now at the time, not knowing God, you slaved for those who by nature are not gods.

Ἀλλά is merely copulative and adds the further fact (R. 1185, etc.); it is not adversative, does not mean “but.” Τότεμέν, “then” or “at that time,” is in contrast with νῦνδέ (v. 9), “but now.” The condition of the Gentile Christians before their conversion and during the whole time when the Jews were still in the position of minors is described by the constative participle, “not knowing God.” Οὐκ instead of μή makes the participial negation more clear-cut, R. 1137. It is a simple fact, the Gentiles did not even know the true God; they lived in utter pagan darkness and blindness. The Galatians will not question that fact.

In correspondence with that ignorance “you slaved for those who by nature are not gods.” In this way these Gentiles were most miserable slaves; they slaved for idols. Note the likeness: under the Mosaic regulations even the Old Testament believers were in a position that was no better than that of a slave (v. 1); the Gentiles, who were ignorant of God, were outright slaves under idols. There was, indeed, a difference: the Mosaic law was divinely given while the false gods were human inventions; Jewish believers had sonship as minors, pagans had nothing. Yet a certain likeness existed regarding the point of slavery. The frightful condition of the slavery of the Gentiles was the fact that “they slaved (constative aorist, expressing the entire action as a unit) for those who by nature are not gods.” They were imaginary beings, fictitious gods. The negative with the participle is the common μή, which, however, does not express only Paul’s judgment; it negates the fact in the ordinary way.

All of the paganism found in the world today presents the same picture of the vilest and the most pitiful slavery. The pagan gods are not gods in any true sense of the word. The thought that Paul expresses a certain measure of excuse for the Gentiles because they did not know God contradicts Rom. 1:19–32, especially v. 19–21. The context is against the idea of an excuse, for the idea to be expressed is that of a most wretched and base condition.

Galatians 4:9

9 But now, having come to know God, rather having come to be known by God, how are you turning back to the weak and beggarly elements for which you are wanting to slave over again?

The two participles are good examples of the ingressive aorist. We have trouble in conveying by translation what these two participles mean in distinction from the one used in v. 8. C.-K. 388 distinguishes: εἰδέναι = the knowing of an object which enters the perception of a subject; γινώσκειν = the attitude or relation of self to the object that is known. The latter is not exact enough. The Lutheran fathers defined the latter as nosse cum affectu et effectu. They also gave the same meaning to the Hebrew yada’, “to know with affect and effect,” a knowing with approval and love, with full acceptance, John 10:27; 2 Tim. 2:19. In Matt. 7:23: “I never knew you,” means I never knew you in love as my own. God, of course, knew them intellectually or mentally.

Note that both οὐκεἰδότες and γνόντες have the identical object, and these are direct objects. This is one of the evidences for the view that in the case of the latter the basic idea of knowing remains and is never altered to signify an act only of the will: to choose or elect, a synonym of ἐκλέγεσθαι. R., W. P., expresses this predestinarian idea when he comments on the passive participle “known by God”: “God’s elective grace.” Does Paul say that we elected God, and that we were elected by God? The question answers itself.

“Rather having come to be known by God” is not intended to cancel “having come to know God” nor to correct the active by means of the passive. The addition is a fuller statement as to how the great change with regard to the Gentiles came about. They got to know God as their own in faith and in love but not by their own ability and effort. God wrought upon them so that he could know them as his own in love, and so these Gentiles got to know God of whom they had been totally ignorant before. The change of voice in the two expressions is most effective. Luther states it in a fine way: non ideo cognoscuntur quia cognoscunt, sed contra, quia cogniti sunt, ideo cognoscunt.

The ingressive aorist participles speak of the start the Galatians have made and thus leave room for the question, “What about the present and the future until the end?” “How are you turning back” = how is it that you are turning back? The first meaning of πάλιν is “back” (place), the second “again” (time); both are used here. Observe the two present tenses “are you turning—you are wanting”: the defection was not yet accomplished, it had just recently begun. Are the Galatians turning back “to the weak and beggarly elements”? Here we have the same term that was used in v. 3 (which see), and the relative clause, “for which you are wanting to slave anew,” attaches the same thought of slavery. These elements make slaves (passive in v. 3), and men are willing to slave for them (active here in v. 9).

The Mosaic law formerly held the Jews to “the elements of the world,” regulations about food, drink, and all kinds of material things and outward actions. They were no better than slaves. The Galatians were formerly in a similar state, the Gentiles among them being tied in slavery to their pagan religion with all its material, cheap earthly elements of sacrifices, temples, ceremonies, etc. God’s Son bought them all free (v. 4), and the Galatian Christians, Jewish and Gentile, had, by faith in the Son, entered on this freedom, the great and complete sonship. Paul asks how they can possibly now turn back and become slaves again, actually willing slaves in a slavery they had so happily left.

By accepting the works of law of the Judaistic teaching these Gentile Galatians would only exchange their old pagan stoicheia for the abrogated Mosaic and and Jewish stoicheia. Paul places these stoicheia on the same plane and even calls them “weak,” unable to bring man into the blessed relation with God, most certainly not when they are used as works of law after the manner of the Judaizers; in addition he calls them “beggarly” (poor in this sense), having no wealth to give such as the Son gives, keeping those who cling to these “elements” in servitude as slaves. Both adjectives have the strongest persuasive force, both state undeniable facts.

As in v. 8, “you slaved for those who are not gods,” so here Paul again has the dative “for which you are wanting to slave.” We need not identify the stoicheia with the pagan god although the idols were material, carved images and thus could be called “elements.” It seems better to think of all that was connected with pagan worship, temples, sacrifices, ceremonies employing material objects just as “elements” of this kind were used in the Mosaic regulations. The difference that the elements in the Jewish regulations had been appointed by God while those in paganism were merely of human choice, is disregarded as being immaterial. John 4:21–24 helps us in the interpretation. Worship in spirit and in truth is devoid of all elements of the world in the sense in which Paul uses the term.

Galatians 4:10

10 Paul’s intensity of feeling is reflected in the lack of connectives for introducing v. 10 and 11. “The intense pulse beat of the agitated mind expresses itself in the short hammer blows of speech.” Zahn. These are declarations and scarcely questions. Days you are carefully observing and months and seasons and years! I am afraid about you; perhaps I have labored for you in vain!

Here we see what success the Judaizers had had with the Galatians, which agrees with the present tenses used in v. 9; also in how far they had failed, for the Galatians had not yet accepted circumcision otherwise Paul would have mentioned this and most likely have named it first.

The terms used refer to Mosaic regulations. While all of them refer to time, the terms expressing time are not themselves the stoicheia but refer to the elements involved in these terms. Thus all labor with earthly things was forbidden on the Sabbath, the Jewish fasts forbade eating food, etc. Material, earthly things are always involved. “Days” are singled out by being placed before the verb; the compound verb is perfective: “you are carefully observing” (R. 613), and is an indirect middle: “for yourselves,” R. 810. These are the days fixed by the Mosaic law, the Sabbaths, the fast and the feast days such as the Passover, the new moons, etc.

“Months” are often referred to new moons, but these are “days.” Months signify entire months such as the seventh month Tisri, called Sabbath month since its first day was treated like a Sabbath; also Nisan, the first month which introduced the Jewish church year and was distinguished by the Passover.

The καιροί or “seasons,” as distinct from “days” and “months” on the one hand and from “years” on the other, are the seasons of prayer and fasting prescribed by the law. The “years” refer to the sabbatical year and to the interval of years. It would be speculative to conclude that a sabbatical year was in progress at the time when Paul wrote. His meaning is that the Galatians had accepted the Jewish system as far as it was marked by these terms referring to time. The Galatians had been under Judaistic influence for only a brief period yet had begun the observance of time; how many Sabbaths, etc., they had already kept is immaterial. The tense of the verb means that the Galatians were launched upon this Jewish legalism.

Galatians 4:11

11 “I am afraid about you; perhaps I have labored for you in vain!” J. M. Moulton, Einleitung in die Sprache des Neuen Testaments, 303, etc., offers the best explanation of μή as it is here used. Φοβοῦμαι has its direct object; the μή clause is paratactic, and μή = “perhaps,” to which πῶς or ποτέ is commonly added. This is not a verb of fearing with μή meaning “lest” (our versions and the usual explanation); B.-D. 370, 1; R. 1169. The perfect indicative of the verb “to labor” is used which fits the actual work done during the extent of time in the past. Note the emphasis on “in vain” which is placed before the verb, also on the phrase “for you” which is placed at the end and pointedly repeats the pronoun, “I am afraid about you.” Can it be that for the Galatians Paul has done all the hard work he has done entirely in vain?

The verb denotes trying labor. Luther comments: Lacrymas Pauli haec verba spirant. The simple accusative in the sense of “I fear for or about you” (not “I fear you”) is unusual.

Paul’s work would certainly be in vain if all that it eventually accomplished would be to make the Gentile Galatians exchange their old pagan elements and observances for the old abrogated Jewish elements and observances. Neither brought justification and salvation. Worse than never having had salvation with its liberation from these “elements” is to have had it and then to give it up and to turn back to such “elements.”

3. Paul Admonishes the Galatians to Drop Their Legalism, 4:12–5:12

From this point onward the epistle is admonitory yet with a difference: 4:12–5:12 deals with dropping legalism itself, while 5:13 to the end deals with the evidence that it has been dropped, the Christian life exhibiting this fact.

Personal appeal: the Galatians and Paul once and now

Galatians 4:12

12 The break in thought is marked by the turn to admonition and thus also by the warm address “brethren” (see 1:11). The transition from the previous section is made in a natural manner by v. 8–11. Be (ever) like me; for myself also (became) like you, brethren—(this) I beg of you!

This is admonition in the form of direct, most personal petition: “I beg of you!” Note the durative present imperative which we express by adding “ever.” The Greek uses γίνεσθαι, not as differing from εἶναι, but as expressing movement. It is generally recognized that in the ὅτι clause we must supply the aorist and not the present which loses the thought; hence not: “for I am as you are” (our versions), which contradicts the facts, but: “for I, too, became like you,” i.e., I became as you yourselves once were. The view that we should construe together: “for I myself beg you as (once) you yourselves (begged me),” is peculiar; the Galatians never begged Paul.

The thought is striking, paradoxical, involving a chiasm. The Galatians were formerly Gentiles without the Jewish legal system. Paul was formerly a Jew under this Jewish legal system. Then he became a believer in Christ, dropped this legal system, and thus became like the Gentiles who never had it. But the Galatians, who were originally without the Jewish system (insofar as they were of Gentile descent) and, on becoming Christians, were still without this system, were at this late date beginning to adopt at least large parts of it (v. 10). Paul begs them not to do so but ever to be as he is who had dropped all of it.

Once he became as they had been while they were pagan—without the Mosaic law. Now the Galatians are to reciprocate—after having taken up a part of that law under the influence of the Judaizers, they are to drop it entirely just as Paul had done.

But note that there is a plus on Paul’s side. It was a revolutionary act for a bigoted Jew such as Paul once was to relinquish the Jewish regulations; it was a far slighter thing for the Gentile believers in Galatia to relinquish these regulations which had been only recently foisted upon them. Paul is begging them to do a thing that is far easier and much smaller than the one he had done.

Paul’s appeal involves still more. He was the one who had converted the Galatians, who had brought them full Christian liberty, freedom from all material and earthly stoicheia, pagan as well as Jewish. He did that and could do it only as one who was himself wholly free. Think of the blessed fruits of Paul’s arduous labors on the Galatians! Are they now to be lost (v. 11)? Will the Galatians now become unlike Paul to whom they owe everything?

Do they intend to turn to the abrogated Judaism from which Paul had turned when salvation came to him? This personal relation of the Galatians to Paul is here touched upon in “like me—like you—I beg of you” and in the affectionate “brethren.” Paul intends to make it prominent in what follows. He will contrast the love with which the Galatians first received him with the way in which the Judaizers try to gain the Galatians for themselves.

Without a connective Paul adds: No wrong did you do me. From his present petition Paul turns to the past, to the time when he first came to the Galatians. Note the aorist which accords with those that follow so that we must regard all of them in the same way. Paul has no complaint to make concerning the treatment he had received during his past relation with the Galatians. The negative statement to the effect that the Galatians had done Paul no wrong is in fact a litotes: they had treated him properly, how very properly he describes in the following. Because of the way in which the Galatians had hitherto treated Paul he feels that they will now heed his request (v. 12); they will surely not wrong him now.

Because of the constative aorist and its connection with what follows it seems unwarranted to interpret: by their defection the Galatians had in a way done Paul wrong, had shown themselves ungrateful (although, unlike the Corinthians, they had not turned against Paul personally), but that he did not want the Galatians to think that personal feeling and resentment moved him to take his readers to task, that he is jealous of his own honor. This would place the force of the aorist into the immediate past. It would also not be true. If Paul had anything approaching this in mind he would have said so and have done so with more than three words.

Galatians 4:13

13 Paul refers to his previous connection with the Galatians in which they had done him no wrong: but you know that because of illness of the flesh I preached the gospel to you at the first; and the temptation to you in my flesh you did not despise nor loathe; on the contrary, as an angel of God you received me, as Christ Jesus.

This is the lovely treatment the Galatians accorded Paul when he first came among them. Instead of stating merely the facts Paul adds “you know,” a touch of intimacy, friend speaking to friend about an experience shared together.

“Because” Paul was ill he preached to the Galatians on that first visit to them. All of the texts have the phrase with the accusative: “because of my bodily illness”; the proposal to change this to the genitive: “despite my bodily illness” (διά as in Rom. 2:27; 4:11), is unwarranted. This proposal is due to the supposition that when Paul came from Paphos and landed at Perga and then continued on to Pisidian Antioch in Galatia, he had not intended to stop here but purposed to go on past this country.

But whither did he intend to go? We are told, “To Ephesus.” A glance at the map shows that this conjecture is unconvincing; for if that had been his intention, he would have landed at Attalia and taken the road westward or would have sailed on to the harbor of Ephesus. Acts 13:13, 14 says that he landed at Perga and, instead of preaching here, went forthwith to Antioch and to the other Galatian cities. The wrong supposition is that sickness prevented Paul from going beyond Antioch; the right conclusion is that his sickness forced him to leave Perga at once and to hurry to Antioch. He could not remain and work in Perga which lay in the lowlands, he had to seek the higher elevations; Antioch and the Galatian region lay over 3, 000 feet above sea level. Here Paul could hope to work even while he was sick, could gradually shake off his illness and then later on evangelize Perga—the very thing he did.

Thus, because of illness he preached in Galatia. This fact lends great support to Ramsay’s conclusion that Paul’s illness was malaria combined with severe headaches. He simply had to hurry to higher altitudes. In Perga he would have been completely prostrated; in the uplands of Galatia he would gradually recover. We have no reason to think of the thorn in the flesh, for this affliction, whatever it was, was permanent; the ailment that drove Paul from Perga to Galatia was not permanent.

Τὸπρότερον is more definite because it has the article. It is comparative and thus implies at least one additional visit for the purpose of missionary work, and we do know of a second visit made by Paul (Acts 16:1–4). The idea that this epistle is the second evangelization cannot be entertained because it is addressed only to those who are already “brethren,” already evangelized.

Galatians 4:14

14 The translation “my temptation” (A. V.) follows a very inferior reading. The genitive is objective: “the temptation of (to) you”—“of you,” the objective genitive. When this sick man appeared in Galatia with the gospel, the Galatians were tempted to despise him. A sick man is never impressive and assuring. A sick man who claims miraculous powers and heals others while he himself remains sick would certainly raise serious doubts regarding any message he might bring. Yet the Galatians received Paul as if he were an angel of God, yea, as if he were Christ Jesus himself. Luke corroborates this regarding Antioch in Acts 13:43–48, when Paul’s ailment must have been at its worst.

Paul uses a concentrated expression when he writes: “The temptation to you in my flesh you did not despise nor loathe.” To do this with a temptation is to get rid of it, not by resisting and overcoming it, but by being overcome by it, by yielding to the loathing. The Galatians did the opposite. We thus do not make this accusative adverbial: “with respect to the temptation you did not despise nor loathe me.” B.-P. 431 offers a mixture of two ideas: that the Galatians did not despise Paul in his illness, and that they did not yield to the temptation to despise him on account of his illness; but the construction is rather simple.

Does Paul intend that the aorist of ἐκπτύω, “to spit,” is to be taken literally? This word occurs only here in the New Testament. Some prefer the literal meaning (B.-P. 380) and say that spitting was a sign of disgust or was a prophylactic to ward off evil spirits. Yet Homer uses the word in the sense of loathing, and Plutarch in the sense of rejecting. Since the metaphorical usage of the word is assured, we are satisfied; the more so when some say that spitting was an evidence that Paul’s ailment was epilepsy, for the ancients expectorate at the sight of a person who is in an epileptic fit. On the question of epilepsy see 2 Cor. 12:7.

The Galatians received Paul “as an angel of God.” Because of the genitive “of God” the term certainly means “angel,” a supernatural being and not merely “messenger”; but “as” reduces the phrase to a comparison. How little is gained by reducing it to the meaning “messenger” we see from the addition “as Christ Jesus,” which plainly recalls Matt. 10:40: “He that receiveth you receiveth me.” Paul states it strongly because of the contrast: once the Galatians listened to the gospel that was coming from Paul’s lips as if they heard the voice of an angel from heaven or the voice of Christ Jesus himself, but now they had started to drink in the false words of the Judaizers as if these were a divine message. The Galatians have had many followers.

Galatians 4:15

15 Where, then, is the felicitation of yourselves? What has become of this counting yourselves blessed for having received the gospel from my lips? The genitive is objective. It was not possible that the Galatians deemed Paul blessed (subjective genitive); nor would such a question be fitting, nor could “me” be omitted.

So great was their feeling of being blessed by the gospel that Paul is able to add: For I testify to you that, if possible, your very eyes you, having dug them out, would have given to me.

This is the testimony Paul gives the Galatians when he thinks back of those early days he spent with them. These carissima membra corporis (Pelagius) they would have sacrificed for Paul to show their gratitude. The condition is one of past unreality, ἄν being omitted as is sometimes done in the Koine. “If possible” shows that Paul is speaking hypothetically only. The expression about digging out the eyes and giving them to another is surely proverbial for making a sacrifice of something that is really priceless. So greatly blessed the Galatians counted themselves that nothing that they had could be too great a price to offer in return.

From this statement some conclude that Paul’s ailment was ophthalmia, a bad disease of the eyes, which made him look so loathsome that people would spit in disgust or in superstition at sight of him. But how would Paul be able to use the plucked out good eyes of others in place of his own diseased eyes? Are we to carry the idea to this absurd length? A man who had disgustingly diseased eyes would never have obtained permission from the elders of the synagogue to address the meeting, but in Antioch the elders even asked Paul to do so (Acts 13:15, 16).

This supposed eye disease is also connected with 6:11, as though Paul wrote with large script because he could not see well. see 6:11. But in Acts 13:9 Paul’s eyes were certainly effectively used on Elymas. All is quite clear if Paul suffered from malarial attacks in Galatia which still left him periods of respite. Ἐξορύσσω is the verb commonly used to express blinding by piercing the eyeballs, thus “digging out.”

Galatians 4:16

16 Paul’s emotion betrays itself in the ellipsis of his thought. At one time the Galatians counted themselves blessed for having Paul in their midst, but this is passed. Is the opposite now the case? And so have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?

Read this as a question; ὥστε means, “and so,” R. 999. “An enemy of yours” is active, one who hates you, and not passive, one who is hated by you (C.-K. 459). The perfect tense “have I become” is used in the Greek fashion from the standpoint of the readers and refers to the time when they read this letter in which Paul tells them the truth. Will they then say: “Paul has become hostile to us”? Ah, but it is the best and the truest friend who honestly tells us the truth about ourselves even when he knows we shall not like it. False friends are the ones who hide such truth from us and do so in order to remain in our favor.

Some regard this statement as a declaration: “Wherefore I have become your enemy by telling you the truth.” But that is not true (v. 19). If he intends to imply that the Galatians now consider him as being hostile to them, this thought is expressed far better by a question. The declarative idea is made more confusing when the inferior reading in v. 15 is adopted: τίςοὖνἦν; “What, then, was your felicitation of yourselves?” and supplying in thought: “Nothing but superficiality,” and then attaching: “Wherefore I have become your enemy.” Paul regards the self-felicitation of the Galatians as being genuine; he even states the strongest reason for his so doing: that they were willing to sacrifice their eyes for him.

Again, Paul is not their enemy. Finally, the ὥστε clause cannot be construed across the intervening γάρ statement and attached to the question asked in v. 15. The reason: “I testify,” etc., would be contradicted by any declaration that Paul is an enemy of the Galatians. Regard the sentence as a question, and all is readily understood.

Galatians 4:17

17 Paul is the truest friend the Galatians have even as he is telling them the truth. But, in contrast, what about the Judaizers? They are zealously seeking you in a way not honorable but want to lock you up in order that you may zealously seek them.

Paul has characterized the Judaizers in a brief and succinct way in 1:7. Here he refers to them only by the plural verb ending, the indefinite “they.” The slight is both marked and intentional. They more than deserve this treatment. Here the slight comports with the characterization that their whole action is “not honorable”; it is not done καλῶς, “honorably.” The adjective means “good” only in a general way; specifically, especially when it is referred to persons and their actions, it signifies excellent, noble, admirable. To the Greek one is kalos who bears the character of a gentleman in our nobler use of that term.

Ζηλόω, when used with the accusative of persons = sich um eine Person beeifern, to busy oneself about somebody, “they zealously affect you” (A. V.), one might say, “they court you.” Paul had done the same thing in a noble way, in a noble and an honorable cause (the gospel, preached to the Galatians in Christian love). Not so the Judaizers—their whole courtship of the Galatians is decidedly “not honorable.” To state it in this negative way is really an understatement which is the more damning because it is expressed only in this way. Paul might have used a positive adverb; if he had done so, any adequate adverb would have been much harsher. Yet we should not think that Paul intends to deal mildly with these people who ruin the church. Quite otherwise.

By using a positive adverb Paul would invite the Galatians to challenge it by any possible denial that might occur to their minds. This he prevents by using the negative “not honorably” which makes the Galatians think of what would be honorable, of what the Judaizers should at least have done.

Paul’s psychological handling of the Galatians is most masterly. We often make serious mistakes in estimating the effect of our words upon the people we seek to win from error; however excellent our intention may be, by our mistakes we cause them to cling only the more firmly to their wrong ideas. Paul is a good master to teach us. One might write a wonderful book on the way in which Paul handled the people and the situations of his ministry.

With ἀλλά he does mention the positive. This is in opposition to the entire clause and not merely to the adverb “not honorably.” The entire zealous concern of the Judaizers is that “they want to lock up the Galatians in order that the Galatians zealously seek (only) the Judaizers.” The present tenses say no more than that the action is in progress. The Judaizers have not as yet accomplished their will. We have noted similar tenses in the preceding; all of them are significant as to this vital point. The object of these men is dishonorable because of its pronounced selfishness. They want the Galatians completely for themselves.

Whether we translate “lock up” or “shut out” we see from the purpose clause, which names persons (“them”), that the infinitive indicates separation (aorist: complete) from other persons: to lock up and keep away from Paul and his assistants, thus, of course, also from their influence and their teaching. The Galatians had hitherto zealously sought Paul, had listened only to him (see an example in Acts 13:43); the Judaizers worked hard to substitute themselves for Paul and his assistants. Since Paul was far away, they hoped to succeed quite easily. While ζηλοῦτε might be subjunctive by contracting οη like οε (R. 325, 342, 984), the Koine allows the indicative after ἵνα so that the question of mode is here an unessential problem.

Galatians 4:18

18 The whole subject of zealously cultivating people is now clarified by being expressed abstractly. This is always the proper thing to do: brush all personal considerations aside and look at the principle by itself. Clarity of thought is thus achieved. Otherwise personal considerations becloud the issue. When he does this Paul uses the passive since, as he has just said, the Judaizers wanted to be sought zealously by the Galatians to the exclusion of all others, of Paul in particular. This passive not only turns the thought so as to take in being sought besides seeking (being sought involves someone who is seeking); it enables Paul to make an application to the Galatians and to himself in the simplest and the briefest way. Principle and immediate application are thus joined in a few telling words, the quintessence of thought that penetrates fully.

Now it is honorable to be zealously sought in an honorable thing at all times.

The matter is stated abstractly. We see that it is true beyond question. But note the implication in the passive. When somebody seeks us zealously in a dishonorable way, this being so sought is a reflection on us who permit ourselves to be sought thus. The dishonorableness of the seekers casts dishonor upon those sought. They must not imagine that they remain honorable. It is honorable for them only when they are being zealously sought in an honorable thing, which will naturally include an honorable way.

The Galatians may apply this to Paul: he had sought them in an honorable thing, i. e., in the gospel which is ever supremely honorable. The fact that the Galatians have been sought thus by Paul and are still so sought by him is, indeed, blessed and honorable. Turn it around: The fact that Paul is sought by the Galatians in the gospel is honorable for him. We may also think of the delegation the Galatians had sent to Paul, which caused the writing of this epistle. But add the reverse, what this means to the Judaizers and the Galatians. All these applications become almost automatic once the principle itself is clearly stated.

It is most unexpected and thus of arresting force when Paul adds: in an honorable thing—“at all times.” Certainly, “at all times”! At one time to be sought in an honorable thing, at another time in one that is not honorable—need we say what this means? It is as yet stated in general terms but is food for serious applicatory thought for the Galatians and for us today.

But this matter of being sought applies not only to the Galatians whom Paul seeks and whom the Judaizers seek; it applies also to Paul and to the Judaizers. The latter, Paul himself has said, wanted to be zealously sought by the Galatians. Paul makes the application only to himself. He does it in a startling way by suddenly introducing himself and the Galatians into this point of constancy, “always.” Yes, always and not only when I am present with you.

In a flash Paul makes the Galatians see themselves. He was the one who was once so zealously sought by them when he labored in their midst. He was the one whom they should ever seek because of the honorable thing he honorably brought them. But now that he had left them to pursue his honorable work elsewhere, what had they done? They had begun to listen to men who dishonorably wanted the Galatians to seek them to the exclusion of Paul. Is Paul no longer to be honorably sought by the Galatians? Is his mere absence to end their honorable course?

One must feel what καλός means to the Greek in order to appreciate the turns Paul gives to this word as adverb, adjective, noun. It is typically Pauline. He balances all on the point of moral excellence, nobility, and honor. Will this fade the moment Paul turns his back? Is this so shallow in the Galatians that constancy is so soon at an end? Ἐν with the substantivized infinitive is one of the common ways of expressing “when,” and πρός with persons is the face-to-face preposition.

The Judaizers were proselyters; they merely invaded the young churches that had already been founded in order to appropriate them for themselves. Instead of being καλόν, this was meanly, despicably κακόν (“base”). They zealously sought and affected their victims, courted them in every way, clung to them like leeches. The proselyters of today continue this type. Ζηλοῦσθαι is not a middle that is equal to little more than the active; the New Testament affords no support for such a middle. The form is passive. The true preachers of the gospel and all true believers are also filled with a fervent missionary spirit that earnestly seeks to save the lost.

This differs from all proselyting by its unselfishness, by its purity of motive, by its spirit which truly reflects the love of Christ. We see this difference in this epistle and also in Second Corinthians.

Galatians 4:19

19 Zealously seeking the Galatians is not the half of it. Paul’s concern is like that of a mother, as if he were giving birth to the Galatians anew, suffering all the pains a second time. Although the Galatians have begun to turn to the Judaizers, Paul’s heart remains constant and true. Yea, their defection causes him to suffer these pains anew, to suffer them for the life of the Galatians. This is the acme of love and constancy. Few more touching passages have been written.

My little children of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you, I would even be present with you now and change my voice because I am perplexed in regard to you!

The figure of the mother in travail advances the thought of zeal for the Galatians; by making this a second travailing Paul illustrates his unchanged heart: he would do over again all that he had once done for the Galatians. Yet the figure does not remain with the thought that has already been expressed, it extends to the new thought of pain, for the verb means to undergo birth pains. This also is included, that the Galatians are making the maternal heart of Paul suffer all the birth pains a second time, something which no offspring ever does in nature. When a babe is born, it does not know what pain its birth causes, but these Galatians have already been born, and they should, indeed, know that unnecessarily, unnaturally they are causing Paul to suffer all these pains over again in even a more severe way. But he is ready to suffer so if only Christ be formed in the Galatians by this new ordeal he is undergoing.

The claim is unwarranted that, because Paul ordinarily uses τέκνα, “children,” he cannot use the diminutive τεκνία here, where not only the best texts have it, but where also the context so plainly requires this tender “little children.” Yet Paul does not use “babes” as though the Galatians were coming to birth for the first time. They have had that birth; what is now happening is something that should not be necessary, a second ordeal of this kind for Paul in connection with the Galatians. But what true mother would not undergo a second ordeal for her “little children” if it were required of her? The relative is masculine and is construed ad sensum with the neuter antecedent.

This is one of the rather numerous instances in which a figure is used for something that never happens in nature. Such figures are misinterpreted when they are interpreted as though they were to be understood in the common way. Their very force lies in what may be called their unnaturalness, here the fact that Paul has to suffer birth pains all over again for the Galatians. Why did they compel Paul to do this? Another, moved by thought for himself, might merely abandon them and refuse such second suffering, but not Paul. The Galatians were “my little children” to him.

He had brought them forth as a mother in travail. Children can have only one mother. Behold how Paul reaches out to the Galatians in order to draw them to his heart with the most tender love! All the connotations of the figure grip and hold one.

Paul is not dominated by the figure but dominates it and says, not that he is giving birth to the Galatians a second time as though their spiritual life had ceased, and they were to receive it a second time, but that he is in birth pains “until Christ be formed in you.” Keep the reality which the figure merely serves to illustrate. This clause is no longer figurative, it is simple reality and is placed beside the figure in order to prevent our turning the figure in a wrong direction. By inculcating trust in ceremonial works of law the Judaistic error was taking Christ out of the hearts of the Galatians, and Paul’s strong efforts in this epistle, which wrench his heart like travail pains, sought to put Christ back into the hearts of his little children.

The tense is important, it is an aorist: “be completely formed in you,” i. e., so that no Judaistic ceremonialism will ever affect them, that they will ever be immune. The verb itself is expressive, for μορφή is always the form which expresses the essence, the inner reality; it is never a mask or an assumed form which one may lay aside. All that Christ really is Paul is at great labor and pains to have formed in the hearts of the Galatians. The unnamed agent in the passive need not be Paul, for this is really the Spirit, yet he ever uses the gospel for this and thus the true preachers of the gospel; these may thus be considered as means or as agents.

We see what this verb means when we compare paspages such as Rom. 8:29: we are finally to be σύμμορφοι with Christ in glory, “to be conformed with him”; even our vile body is to be σύμμορφον, formed like the glorious body of Christ, Phil. 3:21. There is no need to extend the force of this verb. Paul is not speaking of our conduct which is, of course, also to be comformable to Christ in holy living and abundance of good works. This subject is considered later in the epistle (5:13–6:10). Here Paul deals with faith as embracing Christ, him fully, him alone.

Galatians 4:20

20 No dash or hiatus is needed, (R.V., American Committee, and others). Omit the relative clause for a moment, and the close connection appears: “My little children, I would be present with you,” etc. It is anomalous to suffer birth pangs when children are far away. Paul also labors to have Christ brought to full form in the Galatians and is at a disadvantage by being so far away from them, unable to hurry to them. If he were with them he could change his voice so as to meet their need in the most perfect way; as it is, he labors under a handicap, he must secure his information about the Galatians at secondhand, cannot be perfectly sure of meeting all their inmost thoughts, and must resort to writing, which is never as effective as the voice. What prompts Paul to say this is his intense love which has already been so tenderly expressed.

The imperfect is the tense of politeness (R. 919, a good discussion) like our English “I would” and refers to a strong present desire. Just what the force of δέ is puzzles everybody. It is probably no more than a slight intensification: ich moechte dock jetzt bei euch sein. An adversative idea seems too strong although Paul’s desire to be with the Galatians is possibly to be placed in contrast with the zealous seeking of Paul on the part of the Galatians only when he was present with them (v. 18). Regarding Paul’s changing his voice R. 1199 remarks: “There never was a more nimble mind than that of Paul, as he knew how to adapt himself to every mood of his readers or hearers without any sacrifice of principle. It was no declaimer’s tricks, but love for the souls of men that made him become all things to all men (1 Cor. 9:22). He could change his tone because he loved the Galatians even when they had been led astray.”

Ishmael—Isaac: bondage—freedom

Galatians 4:21

21 It has been well said that, although he is at a loss because he is so far away from the Galatians, the fertile mind of Paul, in his attempt to separate them from all legalism, finds another effective mode of approach. From personal appeal he turns to a clear case that is recorded in Scripture, which is illustrative of both bondage and freedom, the account of Hagar and Ishmael and of Sarah and Isaac. To the subjective and personal Paul thus adds the Scriptural and objective.

The use of this Scriptural account has been termed a rabbinical argumentation by which Paul seeks to turn the arguments of the rabbinical Judaizers against themselves. But this is not an argumentum ad hominem, not a turning of the Judaizers’ guns against themselves. The argument is not merely negative, it is powerfully positive. Nor does Paul convert the history into an allegory. He uses the history, for only as historical fact has it the power of conviction that Paul needs. But this Paul does: he brings out God’s own thoughts that are embedded in this history as they teach and instruct us Christians for all time.

This is far beyond the old or the new rabbis. It is divine reality. How the Old Testament histories ought to be read, not superficially for their mere externals, but for their real content, Paul shows us in many places, notably in Rom. 4 (Abraham), Rom. 5:12, etc. (Adam and the patriarchs before Moses), also Gal. 3:16 (Abraham having the covenant hundreds of years before Moses and the law came into existence).

The substance as well as the absence of a connective indicate the beginning of a new section. Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not hear the Law?

The question at the head of this exposition is arresting. The Galatians and certainly those who were becoming enamored of law as a means of salvation had heard the Law. But that is exactly to what Paul refers: hearing the Law and yet wanting to be under law. “Tell me,” Paul says, “how this can possibly be.” Whatever one may say about the old Jews (2 Cor. 3:14, 15), the Galatians had at least learned to read the Torah without such a darkening, blinding veil. Distinguish between “under law” without an article and “the Law” with the article, here in the sense of the Torah, the Pentateuch, “Moses” (2 Cor. 3:15; John 5:46). “Under law” is under law in general, a state which these Galatians were trying to achieve by getting to be under the Mosaic ceremonial system. One gets under law by means of some legal system or other.

The fact that “the Law” refers to the Pentateuch we see from what follows, namely the story of Hagar who lived long before the ceremonial law was given (3:17). Paul is citing one of the histories of the Pentateuch. The Books of Moses were constantly read in the synagogues; they were divided into paraschas or regular lections, the other Old Testament books were likewise divided into sections, their lections being called haphtharas. The early Christian congregations continued this practice of reading the Old Testament until the New Testament canon was gradually formed when lections were selected from these New Testament writings. We see no reason for excluding reference to these readings in the Christian assemblies, nor for intensifying “do you not hear” as meaning, “do you not understand?”

Galatians 4:22

22 With γάρ Paul introduces the section he has in mind. For it has been written (see 3:10), Abraham got two sons, one from the slave woman, and one from the free.

Paul sketches briefly what is on record, all of it is well known. The aorist is punctiliar: “got two sons,” not “had,” which would require the imperfect. In the New Testament a παιδίσκη (John 18:17; Acts 12:13) is always a slave girl or woman; this must have been the position of Hagar (Deissmann, Light, etc., 186, and others). She is here contrasted with “the free woman” (the feminine adjective needing no noun). The fact that Hagar was not a wife, and that Sarah was, is not the point; but that one was a slave and the other free is. Thus the one son was a slave, the other free as was always the fact in such a case. The mother and not the father determined the status of the sons.

Galatians 4:23

23 Continuative ἀλλά carries the sketch forward and is not adversative. Now the one from the slave woman has been born in (mere) flesh fashion, but the one from the free by way of promise.

First the status of the two mothers, then—still more important—the difference between the two births themselves. The one son was born in the ordinary, natural way, the other by a gracious, miraculous intervention of God. Κατά names the norm, the one norm we observe in all human births, ordinary copulation and its resultant conception and birth. Διά denotes means, in this case that special divine means which is God’s promise. At the time of this birth both Abraham and Sarah were beyond the age of procreation, he was one hundred years old, she ninety and permanently sterile. Yet God promised them a son despite their age, and so “by way of promise” Isaac was born. Yet, instead of employing a simple aorist which would state the past, historical fact and seem to be sufficient, Paul uses the perfect “has been born,” which is neither “was born” (A. V.), nor “is born” (R.

V.). B.-D. 342, 5 notes that these two births still have their peculiar significance for us and that this is the reason for the tense; compare the perfect tense occurring in 3:18; Heb. 11:17; 12:3.

Galatians 4:24

24 Matching this perfect is the periphrastic passive perfect: Things of this character have been spoken as conveying (also) another meaning. Ἅτινα is more than ἅ since it refers to a characteristic of the things mentioned (B.-D. 293, 4) and hence does not mean “which things” (our versions) but “things of this nature or character,” implying that the ones just mentioned belong to an entire class, that more of them are found in Scripture. This does not refer to the mere words penned by Moses but to the things themselves which are narrated by the words. All such things, thus also the ones here indicated, “have been spoken as conveying (also) something else,” something that does not lie on the surface. The perfect tense (here periphrastic) means that all things of this nature permanently carry this additional meaning and convey it even to us when we contemplate properly the things thus spoken. Paul does not say that he gives such things their additional meaning, nor even that God does this. He says that because of their very nature such things have another thing involved in them, and whenever they are told they always have also this other meaning.

The verb contains ἄλλο, “something other,” we need not say, “something different.” For this “other” agrees, corresponds; it is not diverse, heterogeneous. The historical facts are like a shell that has its natural kernel and is not stuffed with a foreign substance. This “other” has always been, will always be included in the original historical facts. They are not an illustration for this “other,” an illustration that Paul’s mind has found. There is nothing adventitious about the whole matter. This “other” is also not an abstraction, for it, too, is as historical as the facts with which it agrees. The only difference is that the original events happened first and may thus be viewed by themselves. But when this “other” came to be, one can see that it is of the very same nature.

It does not seem adequate to call this “allegory” and to use the verb “allegorize” although this is quite generally done. Luther translates: Die Worte bedeuten etwas, which is nearer the truth. The rabbis were great allegorizers, namely inventors along this line. Rabbi Akiba found a mystical sense in every hook and crook of the Hebrew letters; but these were mere fancies. Philo, the past master of allegory, called what he found the spiritual sense. Wherever it suited him, he made free with the original historical data. One should know that only traces of Messianic ideas are retained by Philo, and among them are neither the person nor the name of the Messiah. The Alexandrines copied his method and carried it still farther. We have it even today.

We thus see at once that when Paul uses this verb he has in mind something that is far different from the method of interpretation devised by those ancient Jews and any of their followers. Their allegories dissipate the original sense of Scripture. The simplest and the plainest things no longer mean what is said about them but something the allegorizer’s fancy distils from them. The ordinary reader is completely disconcerted; he finds that he cannot understand a thing in Scripture until the allegorizer offers him his distillation. There is an air of mystery, of profound learning, of deep spirituality about such allegorizing; but the most of it is mere fancy which is often unwholesome. The worst feature about it is the fact that the solid Scripture facts are turned into curling vapor.

An illustration is selected, a parable constructed in order to aid in presenting some fact. Both are legitimate and may be more or less successful. Allegory does the reverse; it takes a fact (a Bible statement or an account) and turns it into a picture of something else which is often no more than a fancy. This is really not legitimate and must be condemned in most cases. A type is different from all of these, for both type and antitype are firmly based on Scripture, the type being a miniature that is furnished in advance, the antitype the great major that follows. They are equally divine.

What Paul presents is akin to type and antitype, but only akin. Hence also he does not speak of a type. All types are prophetic; Paul is not presenting prophecy and fulfillment. Paul does not go a step beyond the Scriptural facts; what he does is to point out the same nature in both: mere flesh in Hagar’s birth and thus slavery—the same slavery in all those whose birth is no better; divine promise in Sarah’s birth and thus liberty—the same liberty in all whose birth is connected with promise. Thus in v. 24–28 Paul identifies: Hagar = Sinai = the mother of all who do works of law; Sarah = Jerusalem from above = the mother of all believing the promise. Yet in v. 29 Paul only likens: “even as then—thus also now.” In the case of things of the same nature one may do either, identify them: this is that; or liken them: as this, so that. Paul does both in this paragraph.

The word γάρ begins to explain how the Scriptures have spoken with another, an added meaning in their account about the two sons of Abraham. The two mothers, the one the slave woman who has given birth only in fleshly fashion, the other the free woman who has given birth by way of promise alone, present this allo or “something other.” For these are two covenants. Paul at once characterizes the first and then identifies it with the one mother, the slave woman Hagar: the one from Mount Sinai, giving birth into slavery, which as such is Hagar.

The feminine “these” is not due to attraction to the feminine predicate, for the women themselves are referred to, of course, in so far as they have given such diverse births, i. e., the two women as mothers. “These are,” Paul says, “two διαθῆκαι,” expressing the thought intensively because slavery is in the nature of the birth of the one, being only a fleshly birth, and liberty is in the nature of the birth of the other, being wholly by way of promise. The copula should not be stressed beyond Paul’s meaning which he makes plain in what follows.

Paul describes only the one woman and does not follow “the one” by formally adding a coordinate statement regarding “the other”; he lets his readers do this. In v. 26 he at once advances to “the Jerusalem above” without first identifying this with Sarah. This is not a grammatical diversity as though the intervening statements have thrown Paul off the track; this is the advance of the great thought itself.

The translation “covenants” says too much. The Sinaitic legal system was a divine “disposition,” something that God placed or appointed for the Jewish nation, and is thus paired with the divine promise; the German Verfuegung is a good rendering. Paul describes the one with a phrase, a participial modifier, and a relative clause. “From Mount Sinai”—from this place where Israel received its whole system of law. To name the place is also to indicate the late date (3:17) and the character of this “disposition” as law. This brings to mind all that Paul has already said on the inability, the inferiority, the temporal nature of this law in contrast with promise (3:17, etc.). Here all of this is concentrated in the participial addition: “giving birth into slavery.”

The idea of motherhood continues. The law produces children, but ever only slaves “for slavery,” and in this sense the law “is Hagar,” who, as a slave woman, could do no more. Note that ἥτις is like ἅτινα and adds the note of character: “which (disposition or covenant) as such.” Not Mount Sinai in general or even the Sinaitic law as law is Hagar but this system which brings forth only “for slavery.” In regard to this point and to this alone the identification is made. As we have said, they are of the same or of an identical nature and produce mere slaves.

Galatians 4:25

25 Textual evidence as well as meaning support the reading τὸγὰρΣινὰὄροςἐστὶνἐντῇἈραβίᾳ, For the Sinai mountain is in Arabia. This is not a trivial geographical remark but a significant statement. Arabia includes the Sinaitic peninsula. Hagar went south to Beersheba, and Ishmael dwelt in Paran, the territory near Sinai. Sinai is thus connected with Hagar’s son and his descendants, and Arabia, in which Sinai is located is not connected with the promise as all Bible readers know. Not in the promised land but in the Arabian desert, which separated Israel from Canaan when it was at Sinai, was the law given.

This law was thus not the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham. The very place where the law was given, Arabia, Sinai, connected it with the slave woman Hagar and with her son Ishmael, born “to slavery.” Paul’s statement that Sinai lies in Arabia thus justifies the identification of Hagar with Sinai, with the law and slavery.

Our versions have unfortunately translated the reading τὸἌγαρ, the R. V. even the one that has δέ instead of γάρ. But this means that the word Hagar = Mount Sinai. Yet the word Hagar means se separavit, reliquit, “flight,” and Sinai means “connected with the coast strip Sin” and is used to designate the peak Musa; see Ed. Koenig, Woerterbuch (Hebrew). Thus neither in sense nor only in sound is there a play on the words. All the labor spent on establishing a connection of this kind has netted very little; nor is it clear how Paul could resort to anything that is so superficial. When Paul puts the name “Sinai” before “mountain” he may intend to emphasize the name “Sinai” in contrast with the other name and the other place, namely “Jerusalem.”

For he continues: and is in one row (or line) with the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery together with her children.

The original military meaning “to be in line with,” to be in the same row with, is quite expressive (M.-M. 612) although some prefer the modified meaning “to correspond with” (“answers to,” our versions). Sinai is in the same line with the present Jerusalem. The two march together step by step. This is not merely the Jerusalem of Paul’s day but the Jerusalem of the legalistic Jews of all ages including the present. The idea of the mother is retained: she and her children, all whom she has brought forth in her legalism. “For” explains: she with all her children are “slaves,” do nothing but slaving. We may say that she is a very Hagar in all the births she gives. Hagar—Sinai—the present Jerusalem are all just one on the score of giving birth to nothing but slaves.

But Hagar is not merely a slave like any other slave, she is a slave in Abraham’s family. So also Sinai has Moses who wrote all that he wrote concerning Christ (John 5:46, 47) and who himself was a type of Christ (Deut. 18:15, 18). So also the present Jerusalem has this same Moses with his writings about Christ and eventually has come to have the whole Old Testament. In spite of all this connection with the gospel the story is one of slavery, is stamped entirely with Hagar and not with Sarah.

Paul speaks only historically. While no promise, while only flesh was connected with the birth of Ishmael, it would be hasty, indeed, to conclude that both Hagar and Ishmael disbelieved, spurned the promise of the covenant made with Abraham, and, when they left for Arabia, were lost spiritually. Remember that Ishmael received the covenant sign, circumcision, from Abraham (Gen. 17:23). Not from Ishmael was the Christ to descend; the line of descent went through Isaac, Jacob, Juda, David, etc. But this is only the line of descent. All the other sons of Jacob, for instance, and so also the nations that descended from them were to have the Messianic blessings of that line by faith.

Even as Abraham, the head of that line, had it only by faith, so Hagar and Ishmael were not excluded from this faith. The home of Abraham was filled with gospel promise that appealed for faith.

So it was with Sinai and its Moses, so it was with Jerusalem which even had its promise. There were always the Old Testament saints, the true believers. Theirs is the story of faith. The Messianic line ran through a succession of individuals, among them were the former pagan, Rahab, a Canaanite, and Ruth, a Moabitess. This line itself was heavily stained with sin. As the line advances in the individuals who formed it, thousands of believers and by no means only Jews held to the promise by faith.

Distinguish this succession of hosts of believers from the Messianic line as such. Down to the time when Christ was born we see these believers. Forget not the Magi who followed the star and worshipped the newborn King of the Jews. And yet for even these there was Sinai with the effect described in v. 1–4; they were only minor heirs, no better, as Paul has said, than slaves.

That is why Sinai, located in Arabia, is here connected with the present Jerusalem. The promise to which all the believers held did not come from Sinai, only the law came from there, the law which made even the believers only minor heirs. Although the present Jerusalem was located in the promised land and should, therefore, with all her children have been marked by faith as minor heirs, this Jerusalem clung only to Sinai, only to the law, only to works of law as though it, too, were located in Arabia, the land that was devoid of promise.

The Ishmaelites eventually lost the promise and the faith, and the present Jerusalem with her children, i. e., all those Jews who bore her distinctive stamp of Sinai and law alone, were no better than the Arabian Ishmaelites: “She is in slavery together with her children.” The great facts are plain once they are pointed out. The history is composed of the facts; there is no allegory about them. The allo presented is only the real inwardness of the facts. The superficial reader sees only the surface, but there is much more to see, the facts in their full reality.

Galatians 4:26

26 But the Jerusalem above is free, who as such is mother of us. “The present Jerusalem” implies another that also deserves the name Jerusalem but in a higher sense; this is “the Jerusalem above.” The name of no other city is mentioned as having a higher counterpart. “Jerusalem” = city of peace. The capital city of the Holy Land was to be the center and the source of heavenly grace and peace for the chosen nation, a type and symbol of heaven itself which is thus also called “the new Jerusalem” where all that the earthly Jerusalem was to be reaches its consummation and final realization. But the Jerusalem that is “now,” as Paul sees it in its long history up to the very time of his writing, had failed of its spiritual purpose. Hear the cry of Jesus: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” Matt. 23:37, 38. Soon it was to sink into ruin. Paul places it in the same row with Sinai.

It no longer knew the promise, it knew only the law. Its own significant name testifies against it.

But that significance abides in “the Jerusalem above.” “Now” and “above” do not seem to form a perfect contrast. In order to obtain it we should not introduce the idea of a future Jerusalem. An ordinary contrast is not intended. For “now” points to the depth to which the earthly Jerusalem has sunken; the one “above” is ever the same, namely higher, spiritual. “The Jerusalem now” has descended to a Sinai, a Hagar, a slaving mother of slaving children.

Motherhood is the thought connected with both Jerusalems, the one mother slaving and bringing forth slaving children, the other mother being free, all her children being free like herself. This second mother is therefore not the “new Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2) which is heaven with its blessed inhabitants. “Our mother” has her children here on earth and is thus herself on earth where she can be a true mother to them. Her name is “the Jerusalem above.” The other mother is identified with an earthly city which is in line with an earthly mountain; not so “our mother.” The one is engrossed with the law, which Paul has said deals with “the weak and beggarly (earthly) elements” (see v. 3, 9); the other is “above” anything of this kind, works with promise and the gospel, all her children are spiritual. She is thus bound to no city or place (John 4:21–23). Call her the Christian Church on earth.

On ἥτις, “who is such,” see the two relatives occurring in v. 24. In “mother of us” Paul includes himself plus the Galatians, whether they be former Jews or former Gentiles. Do not overlook the appeal that lies in “our mother.” Will the Galatians desert their free, noble mother who has born also them as free men and will they adopt this Hagar-mother with her slavery? What folly especially for Gentiles who had been brought to the Christian Church apart from Judaism!

Galatians 4:27

27 Paul corroborates what he has just said about “the Jerusalem above” being “our mother.” In Isa. 54:1 the prophet addresses Israel after the Messiah, the great Ebed Yahweh, has died and risen again (chapter 53). Paul follows the LXX. For it has been written (3:10):

Rejoice, thou sterile that dost not bear!

Break forth and shout, thou that dost not travail!

For many more the children of the desolate than of her having the husband.

The prophet is speaking of the Christian Church as it appears after Christ’s redemption and exaltation. He bids her be happy and shout because of her many children. But he uses imagery that is taken from Sarah and Hagar, the very two who are here used by Paul, and the chief point of this imagery is motherhood. Paul’s quotation is not merely apt; the Scriptures themselves are the source which provides him with the identification of Hagar with Sinai and Jerusalem and of Sarah with something higher.

“The deserted” and “she having the husband” are expressions that allude to Sarah and Hagar, but to these two at the time when Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham. We should not, however, translate die Vermaehlte. This ἀνήρ, “husband,” was not Hagar’s. She was not even a concubine. This was Sarah’s husband, Hagar “had” him only for the purpose of copulation. Sarah thought she could get an heir by such proxy.

Human scheming never fulfills the promise. The whole proceeding was useless. But it is highly interesting to find Jerusalem prefigured by Hagar. It is not some other city, it is the Jerusalem which should have been the holy city, should have been Sarah but made herself nothing but Hagar. The episode with regard to Hagar transpired in Abraham’s household. It was Sarah who substituted Hagar for herself and secured no heir.

Yet God’s promise was carried out despite all this.

We thus see what the “sterile” one means. It is confusing to say that this does not mean that she had no children before this time. The idea back of this view is the thought that there were many saints in the Old Testament, many long before the Christian Church came into being. But all these Old Testament saints—and these include also Gentile believers, think of Rahab and of Ruth—were spiritual Isaacites, a part of Sarah’s many children of promise after Sarah’s sterility was turned into fertility.

“Thou sterile one” is even re-enforced by the appositions, the substantivized present participles: “thou that dost not bear,” “thou that dost not travail.” Present participles describe conditions that last a long time. The clause about Sarah’s many children who were at last born to her through Isaac shows that the sterility ended. We know how it ended in Sarah’s old age by a miracle of grace. Blass observes that the LXX regularly used οὐ with participles when it translated the Hebrew lo; B.-D. 430, 3 thus lists this negative as a Hebraism. Moulton notes that in the Greek individual concepts are negatived by οὐ (Einleitung 366; see also 205). R. 1138, etc. We may translate: “thou non-bearing one,” “thou non-travailing one.”

The contrast is only between Sarah and Hagar, the present Jerusalem and the Jerusalem above. But in the case of Sarah it includes all her spiritual children until the end of time, in the case of Hagar only those who slave with her in the present Jerusalem. We should keep to what Paul says and not lose ourselves in self-made expansion regarding Hagar. Thus Sarah’s children are, indeed, “many more.” Μᾶλλονἤ is used with the positive as a substitute for the comparative (R. 663).

Galatians 4:28

28 Now we on our part, brethren, are, in accord with Isaac, children of promise. This is the complement to the statement that “the Jerusalem above is our mother.” The address “brethren” is significant. All these children of the sterile Sarah are, indeed, brethren, all one family, thus also Paul and the Galatians are brethren. Paul reaches the climax of his instruction and thus draws the Galatians to himself in this great brotherhood of freedom. The silent contrast implied in the emphatic “we” are the Judaizers, children of the present Jerusalem.

But now Paul advances from Sarah to Isaac and does this with the κατά phrase. This means more than, “as Isaac was,” more than, “as brothers of Isaac,” we as he (our versions). Isaac, like Abraham and Sarah, is not only a product of, he is the channel of the promise. In accord with him we are “children of promise,” its spiritual product. “In accord with Isaac” is the opposite of “in accord with Ishmael,” i. e., “in accord with flesh” (v. 23), mere physical nature. It is “promise” full of divine grace, that is “above.” “Children of promise” is a practical compound like “children of light” and similar combinations, the genitive being ethically qualitative. In Paul’s time the promise was already fulfilled in Christ. Children of promise are those who hold to the promise and its heavenly contents by faith.

Galatians 4:29

29 Paul completes his account by a reference to a further portion of Scripture in which the main point is the command to cast out Hagar and Ishmael because the latter is not to be a co-heir with Isaac. But even as then the one born in accord with flesh kept persecuting the one (born) according to spirit, so (it is) also now.

Instead of continuing with the identification, Paul uses a simple comparison: “as then—so now.” The idea of birth is retained, for both Ishmael and Isaac are indicated by the vital difference obtaining in their birth, “the one born in accord with flesh,” “the one according to spirit.” The two phrases are such direct opposites that we cannot follow our versions when they capitalize “Spirit.” The idea that the Holy Spirit was especially involved in Isaac’s birth does not appear in Scripture; all we know is that his birth was miraculous. Flesh and Holy Spirit are not proper contrasts, for in such a contrast flesh would be too highly elevated.

There is a reference to Gen. 21:9. When Isaac was weaned, Ishmael made sport of him, lachte ihn aus (Delitzsch), not in mere playfulness but in scorn of Isaac’s being the heir. That this attitude was due to Hagar is easy to imagine; we also see why Sarah proceeded to be rid of both Ishmael and Hagar. When Paul calls Ishmael’s action “persecuting” and even uses the durative imperfect, some think this is too strong a term for the word used in Gen. 21:9, that Paul must be following the late Jewish tradition which tells of Ishmael’s shooting arrows at Isaac in apparent playfulness but with murderous intent. Paul is excused for doing this sort of thing because it is no more than harmlose Ausspinnungen.

Now tradition did report some facts that are not otherwise recorded; their use in New Testament Scripture is legitimate. But these late fancies about Ishmael are not true tradition. When Paul writes “kept persecuting” he gives full expression to what was involved in the action of Ishmael. Paul does this because of the parallel that the same thing is continuing now; he that is born in accord with the flesh still keeps persecuting him who is born in accord with spirit.

The debate as to whether Paul refers to the persecution instigated by the hostile Jews against the Christians, or whether he has in mind the Judaizers in Galatia, seems unnecessary. Why restrict the reference to the Judaizers? Why modify the verb “persecute” so as to mean only opposing the gospel? The great instigators of persecution during the apostolic time were undoubtedly the Jews. While we read nothing about outright bodily attacks on the part of the Judaizers, yet, as in Corinth, these certainly attacked Paul and his helpers by slander and vilification.

But any distinction between Jews and Judaizers is beside the mark; the real point is that those who, like Paul and the Galatians ought to be children of Sarah, born of promise, spiritual offspring of Isaac, by their very action showed themselves to be Hagarites, Ishmaelites by repeating in full and complete form the early act of Hagar’s slave son. Yet Paul does not mention this in order to comfort the Galatians. This whole section is not written for comfort.

Galatians 4:30

30 Paul writes in order to induce the Galatians to hold to their liberty since they were born spiritually to freedom and to reject the yoke of slavery the Judaizers were trying to impose on the Galatians. That is why he adds: Yet what says the Scripture? What does it say to this day, present tense? What does it say in its record that we may today apply to those Ishmaelitic actions from which we are made to suffer? This is more direct than if Paul had said, “has been written,” the perfect tense with present implication which is so often used in quotation. Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall in no way inherit together with the son of the free woman.

Paul quotes Gen. 21:10 with slight modification, which relates the demand that Sarah made on Abraham when she saw the action of Ishmael that had been inspired by Hagar. God himself endorsed Sarah’s demand and bade Abraham act upon it. Hagar and Ishmael were cast out. This verdict stands in the case of all who have no higher birth than Ishmael’s. It stands in the case of “the present Jerusalem.” This present Ishmael shall not inherit in company with (μετά) the son of the free woman, the Isaac of promise, the believers in that promise. Οὐμή is used with the subjunctive and with the future indicative. The aorist is decisive.

Von Hofmann and Zahn interpret this as an order that the Galatians are to throw out the Judaizers. But God alone decides who shall inherit. This Scripture passage means much more to the Galatians and to us today. If the Galatians and we forsake the gospel freedom for the slavery of the law and legalism we make ourselves one with Hagar and Ishmael so that: “Throw them out—they shall not inherit!” becomes God’s verdict on us. “God forbid!” should be our answer to that. This is the real object of Paul’s exposition.

Galatians 4:31

31 Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a slave woman but of the free woman.

Paul draws the conclusion from his entire discussion, the conclusion at which he and the Galatians ought to arrive: no slave mother for us (no article; no mother of this kind) but only the one free mother (the article specifying her). While the same thought is expressed in v. 26 and 28, we here have the negative and the positive side by side and in the simplest form. This befits the final statement. This is what we (Paul and the Galatians) are; now you Galatians stand firm as you are. The reading διό is textually well assured. A few other variants have about the same meaning except δέ which commends itself neither textually nor in meaning.

5:1) The variants are found also in this verse. The one which starts with a relative, and the one which inserts a relative pronoun lack manuscript attestation and stand discredited already on this score. The latter is translated by the A. V. In regard to inner evidence we might state that any wording that has relative clauses would be far weaker than a wording that has brief independent sentences, especially here where Paul concludes the whole subject. If this verse starts with a relative clause, the clause may belong to the preceding: “… but of the free woman by means of the freedom with which Christ did free us.” If it is drawn to the following, we get the arrangement found in our A. V.

Associated with this is wavering regarding the point at which Paul closes the paragraph. Some begin the new paragraph with 4:31; some with 5:1; we with 5:2. The distinctive terms freedom and slavery continue through to 5:1 and stop there. A new line of thought begins with 5:2; all the characteristic terms used in 4:21–5:1 are absent in 5:2, etc.: slave, free, mother, birth, children, inheritance. This means that the great paragraph is not intended to be didactic but admonitory. All that is didactic is only to be the basis for the call: “Stand fast, therefore!”

Thus we have the ringing declaration: For freedom Christ did set us free. For nothing less. This is not a dative of means that is merely cognate to the verb: “With freedom Christ freed us,” i. e., merely emphasizes the verb: “Christ really did free us.” This is the dativus commodi: “for freedom” he freed us (R. V. margin) so that we should have, maintain, exercise, enjoy this freedom. Hence also the article is used. We are children of the free woman (4:31), and for the very freedom involved in this our birth Christ freed us.

Christ is not mentioned until this point. The paragraph could not end without a mention of him. All that has been said about Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, freedom over against slavery, and its application to the Galatians and to us, has its consummation in Christ. As befits the conclusion, the terms are now literal. Christ is not presented as a parent, he is our great spiritual Liberator. The aorist “he freed us” is to indicate the historical fact. But the pronoun “us” (Paul and the Galatians) makes us think not only of Christ’s redemption on the cross but of this together with its saving effect in the hearts of the Galatians.

For freedom Christ freed us! Shall this blessed act be annulled, this freedom be lost? Never! Keep standing fast accordingly! Ever and always as the durative present tense implies. None can set themselves free; this is the work of the Liberator alone. But after we are once set free and endowed with the spiritual power of that freedom, our Liberator moves us to exercise that power. He is now doing that for the Galatians in these words of power through his apostle.

How this positive command is to be understood the accompanying negative states: and stop enduring again a yoke of slavery. The verb is middle, “to hold up for oneself,” “to endure,” and is here construed with the dative (Moulton, Einleitung 93; it is often construed with the genitive). R., W. P., translates, “ensnare by trap” and speaks of “trying to lasso,” but that is scarcely the meaning of this word. Perhaps it was suggested to Robertson by our versions which translate, “be entangled.” A yoke galls, and thus one endures it. The present imperative is conative according to Moulton 203, etc., “do not try to endure”; R. 851, etc., is better, “stop enduring.” The present imperative is often used when an action has been begun and is to cease.

That is the case here. The Galatians had begun their Judaizing and were to stop enduring such a yoke.

Note the absence of the articles: the Galatians are to tolerate no yoke of any kind of slavery. They are to keep clear of anything of this nature. The genitive is appositional, “yoke” is figurative, but “slavery” is literal. Paul has in mind the Judaistic legal slavery but broadens his expression so as to include this in slavery in general; he also includes the yoke of paganism which the Gentile Galatians once bore.

Paul’s admonition and urging are most effective because they are based on the strongest grounds, which reach back even to Abraham and to Isaac, and also operate with the noblest motive, that of the desire for freedom from slavery. All this is enriched by what is said of the promise and the inheritance. The positive is placed beside its negative throughout the paragraph.

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.

C.-K Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

R A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

B.-P Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.