Galatians 4:1-11 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

Majority and minority.

I. THE CHILD COMING TO HIS MAJORITY . Analogy. "But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed of the father." At the close of the preceding chapter Christians were described as Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. It is with regard to this that the apostle now makes use of an analogy. It is a very simple and well-known case on which he founds. It is that of an heir, while he is a child or is a minor, as we say, i.e. has the paternal control yet exercised over him. He may be the heir of a kingdom; but, so long as he is in his nonage, he differeth nothing from a bond-servant, though he is lord of all. He is better in some respects, but not better in respect of subjection to control. He is under guardians of his person and stewards of his property. When the Prince of Wales in his childhood on one occasion refused submission to his governess, appealing to his dignity as heir of the throne, Prince Albert very pertinently read him this passage out of the New Testament. The supposition is that a minor has not yet wisdom to guide him; his will therefore, meanwhile, is a cipher. He can only act through guardians and stewards, who are understood to carry out the father's will. This arrangement continues in force until the term appointed of the father. It has been a question whether Paul contemplates the father here as dead. It is enough to say that he is regarded as in the background, while his will is operative. In the case to which the analogy applies the Father is alive. Objection has been taken to Paul describing the limit of dependence as appointed of the father, when in most countries it is fixed by statute. The infancy of a Roman child ended at seven; he donned the virile gown at seventeen; be was not entirely emancipated from tutelage until he was twenty-five. There is this to be said, that the limit was not necessarily fixed by statute; that when it was so fixed it was in name of the father, and that there was discretionary power within the statute.

1 . The Church ' s minority. "So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world." The minor here is generally supposed to be both Jews and Gentiles. But it is scarcely a Pauline idea that the heathen compared with Christians were as children compared with men, heirs in their minority compared with heirs come to full rights. Certainly their religions were not the rudiments which God taught them. The reference is to be determined by the way in which the analogy is introduced by the apostle. He points back to his description of Christians as Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. He must be understood, therefore, as pointing now to those who were formerly Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. These were the children over whom God placed guardians and stewards. The instruction he gave them was of a rudimentary nature. They were not taught religion in its perfect form (which is Christianity), but only the rudiments. These were true so fat' as they went; still, they were only religion in a form suitable for children. They were rudiments of the world, i.e. of the outward and sensible ; for the world in an evil sense cannot be brought into connection with the Father teaching his children. It is by the outward and sensible that abstract truth is introduced into the minds of children. So, while the Church was in its childhood, God carried forward its education by outward services and sensible representations. This was inconceivably better than being left to themselves, as the heathen were; but it was bondage in comparison with the spirituality which was to be brought in with a full revelation. "It was a yoke," said Peter, "which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear." The amount of bodily service required by Jews, in their frequent washings and journeys to Jerusalem, was very great. And even the types, in their keeping back the plain meaning, confined the spirit. This was the Church in its state of minority.

2 . The Church ' s majority. It is matter for thought that the Church came to its majority in connection with the greatest manifestation of Godhead.

(a) The Divine Messenger. "God sent forth his Son." The pre-existence of Christ is implied. God sent forth from himself—from his own immediate presence. It was not an archangel whom he sent forth, but his own Son. As the Son of God, Christ was eternally pre-existent—the equal in every respect of the Father. In the Son, the Father saw himself perfectly reflected. And yet he was in a mysterious way subordinated as the Son to the Father. To him, then, it essentially belonged to be sent forth, as on creation, so on redemption. On his part there was a perfect response. For, in the volume of the book of the Divine counsels it was written that he was prepared at the fitting time to speed forth to do the Father's will.

(b) His birth of humanity. "Born of a woman." Though unborn as the Son of God, he was subjected to the ordinary law of human birth. "Man that is born of a woman," said Job; and so also it was true of Christ that he was born of a woman, lie was not a separate creation from humanity, without father, without mother. But he was brought into the closest relation to humanity by having a human mother. Even from the first he was looked forward to as the Seed of the woman.

(c) His birth of the Jewish race. "Born under the Law." Historically he was connected with the Jewish race. It has been said that what the Jewish nation provided was the mother of our Lord. His surroundings were Jewish. lie was subjected to the rite of circumcision. He was placed under obligation, not only to the Law of God generally, but to the Mosaic Law in particular. It is not to be inferred that he was merely Jewish. For the singular thing is that, though brought up a Jew, in his teaching and life he did not give the impression of belonging to one nation more than to another. Still, the Mosaic system had authority over him, and had to do with his training as the Messiah.

(a) Deliverance from the Mosaic system. "That he might redeem them which were under the Law." It is true that God sent forth his Son to redeem from the curse of the broken Law generally, and from the curse of the Mosaic Law in particular; but it is also true that, in connection with that, he had a subsidiary design to which prominence is given here. It was that, by his Son discharging all the obligations of the Mosaic Law, and answering its ends, it should no longer continue a burden on the conscience. And it is well to have this subsidiary design connected with the great sending forth of the Son.

(b) Instating of Christians as sons. "That we might receive the adoption of sons." "We" is to be taken in the wider sense here, as it was taken in the narrower sense in the third verse. The reference is Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. As these were, in the minority of the people of God, Jews, so now are they Christians. The design of the sending forth of the Son was to bring up the people of God into the position of sons. Not only does the time of his being sent forth rule the time of their becoming sons; but the fact of his being Son seems to rule their getting the position of sons. The Son goes forth, and it is sons he brings with him to glory. Such was the twofold aim of the manifestation. He proceeds to show how God did not stop short at giving us the position of sons. He followed it up by giving us the qualification of sons. The Spirit of the Son our qualification as sons. "And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Our qualification was the Spirit of his Son, i.e. the Spirit who was sent forth on the Son, and who fitted him for his work. He was within him as the Spirit of the true Son. In the darkest hour Christ conquered by being true to the Father. The Spirit proceeds from Christ upon us. He is also within us as the Spirit of the true Son. He draws us to God as our Father. That is the congenial element of his working. The word "Father" is the outcome. His is the language of filial confidence. His is the language of filial affection. His is the language of filial obedience. His is withal the language of earnestness. He is represented as crying, i.e. importunately calling. And he is represented as crying, "Abba, Father." The idea is emphasized by repetition. And it is expressed in two languages, Aramaic and Greek, strikingly showing the fusion of Jew and Greek in Christ. According as the Spirit of Christ thus dwells in us are we qualified and have the realization of our freedom as sons. General conclusion regarding heirship. "So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." He individualizes what he says by changing from the plural to the singular. Even the Gentile had not to pass through Judaism into the kingdom of God. The fact of sonship having been formerly arrived at is simply stated here as the basis on which a conclusion is drawn regarding heirship. If thou hast the position of a son, and the qualification of a son, through God's infinite love, art thou not certainly an heir through the same love? Thus it is made out that the people of God have attained to their majority. They have the heirship, not of mere children, i.e. without rights, but of sons, i.e. with full rights.

II. THE SON FALLING BACK INTO HIS MINORITY . So he represents the Galatians.

1 . Their idolatrous past. "Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them which by nature are no gods." It was their disadvantage that they were ignorant of God. That being the case, it was not to be wondered at that they did service to idols. The religious instinct, if it does not find the true, will find the false. If we have not God to fill up the vacuum of our nature, we must have idols. These Galatians had done service to them which by nature were no gods. Paul's idea in one place ( 1 Corinthians 10:20 ) is that they were devils whom the heathen worshipped. They certainly were only Divine in their own imagination. They had not the nature of God; they disputed for power; they were not even moral. What bondage to be in error regarding the greatest of all objects! What fearful bondage to think of him as not only imperfect, but as swayed by the vilest passions!

2 . Their relapse. "But now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known of God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again? Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in vain." They had come to know God, i.e. when the gospel was preached among them. It was then that they first knew God in his unity and in his real character as a God of love. But, having said this, he corrects himself. It was rather that they had come to be known of God; for it was purely of God that the gospel came to them. They were not thinking of it; even Paul was not thinking of it; for it did not lie within his plan to preach the gospel to them. By a singular providence, to which he refers in the next paragraph, he was constrained to turn aside to Galatia. It was God, then, that had given them the advantage. The relapse from Christianity into Judaism as affecting the position of the Christian sabbath. How are we to understand the language which is employed in this place and in Colossians 2:16 , Colossians 2:17 ? Are we to infer from the teaching of the apostle (for it is no more than an inference, and a startling thing it is to be left to inference) that, as Christians, we are relieved from obligation to keep sacred one day in seven? It is not unnecessary, in view of all that has been written on these passages, to guard against an understatement of the difficulty. For instance, it is said by Ridgeley and others that certain feast days, being withdrawn from a common to a sacred use, were called sabbaths, and that the apostle alludes exclusively to these. Unless the difficulty is fairly admitted and mastered, it is sure to leave doubt on the mind, and to be ever coming up for settlement in exegesis. There is really only one difficulty, but it is presented under different forms. The passages in question are similar; so much so that the same writer can readily be detected in both. There are two statements in Galatians, and these correspond to two statements in Colossians. Taking, then, the parts which correspond as one, we have to deal with two statements.

(a) There is a statement about distinctions of times. The statement made by the apostle in this Epistle is that Christians, by observing days, and months, and seasons, and years, were returning to bondage, and that, on that account, he was afraid of them, lest he had bestowed labour upon them in vain. In the preceding context his teaching is that they have the liberty of sons, and are not as under tutors and governors. It is to be noted that the bondage referred to was in making distinctions as to times. His order of classification is to begin with the more frequent and to proceed to the less frequent observances. There are first days, or weekly observances; then there are months, or observances connected with the new moon; at a longer interval are the seasons, or great festive occasions, of which there were three in the year; and, at the longest interval, are the years, in which the reference is to the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee. The corresponding statement in Colossians is that Christians are not to be judged in meat or in drink (or, in eating and drinking), or in respect of a feast day, or a new moon, or a sabbath day (Revised Version), on the ground, as given in the context, that the handwriting which contained these things has been put out of the way, being nailed to the cross. Under the head of distinctions there is a sub-classification having reference to distinctions in meats and drinks. As to meats, there were some that were appropriated to holy uses, and numerous prohibitions are mentioned in Le 7:10-27. As for drinks by themselves, wine was forbidden to the Nazarites and also to the priests during the time of service. The apostolic teaching is that Christians are entitled to disregard such distinctions. The classification of times in Colossians (years being omitted) proceeds in the reverse order from the less frequent to the more frequent, beginning with the feast day, and ending with the sabbath day. What meaning is to be attached to the sabbath day will be seen; but the apostolic teaching is plainly this—that, as Christians are freed from the observance of the three principal feasts, and freed from the observance connected with the new moon, so also are they freed from the observance of the sabbath day. In reference to the passage in our Epistle, Alford remarks, "Notice how utterly such a verse is at variance with any and every theory of a Christian sabbath, cutting at the root, as it does, of all obligatory observance of times as such." And similar remarks are made by him elsewhere. But:

( α ) In that view of it , the conclusion is a much wider one than can consistently be admitted. It is not merely that we are under no obligation to observe a Christian sabbath, or, in other words, that we are free to observe it or not as we see fit; but it goes further, and is this—that the observance of a Christian sabbath implies fault. We accept Alford's remark on the word translated "observe." There does not seem to be any meaning of superstitious or inordinate observance, but merely a statement of the fact. The view, then, is that the ordinary observance of a Christian sabbath supposes the making of distinctions as to (lays which are all done away with under Christianity. How, then, is this observance of one sacred day in seven regarded by the apostle? It is condemned by him as a bondage from which we need to be freed. Nay, more, it is held as affording ground for fears being entertained with regard to our very Christianity. "I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in vain." If that, then, was really the view of the apostle, should we not have expected of him that, in his own practice, he would have disregarded all distinctions of days? But how does that consist with what is recorded of him? If we turn to Acts 20:6 , Acts 20:7 , we find what his practice was, upon which Alford thus suitably comments: "We have here an intimation of the continuance of the practice, which seems to have begun immediately after the Resurrection, of assembling on the first day of the week for religious purposes." If we turn next to 1 Corinthians 16:2 , we find him issuing a general order to the Churches connected with the first day of the week, upon which Alford again suitably remarks, "Here there is no mention of their assembling , which we have in Acts 20:7 ; but a plain indication that the day was already considered as a special one, and one more than others fitting for the performance of a religious duty." If, then, the apostle thus recognized a distinction in time, how can he escape from the condemnation which he passed upon these Galatian Christians? Was he not in bondage in so distinguishing? and have we not reason to be afraid of him ? It is either this or the conclusion drawn is too wide. And what are we to make of the consistency of the writers who take this view? They no sooner make out the language of the apostle to have reference to all distinctions of time whatsoever, than forthwith they search about for reasons for the observance of a sacred day. Alford upholds the observance of the Lord's day as an institution of the Christian Church, analogous to the ancient sabbath, binding on us from considerations of humanity and religious expediency, and by the rules of that branch of the Church in which Providence has placed us. And Frederick William Robertson says, "So far as we are in the Jewish state, the fourth commandment, even in its rigour and strictness, is wisely used by us; nay, we might say, indispensable." And further he says, "Experience tells us, after a trial, that those Sundays are the happiest, the purest, the most rich in blessing, in which the spiritual part has been most attended to—those in which the business letter was put aside and the profane literature not opened, and the ordinary occupations entirely suspended." That is to say, the apostle was afraid of the Galatian Christians for making a distinction of one day in seven; and yet the Galatian Christians were right after all. A modification of so wide a conclusion as is supposed is suggested by the passage in Colossians. It is there stated that we are not to be judged in meats and drinks; that is, we are freed from all such distinctions in meats and drinks as existed under the Law. But yet it is the case that, under the New Testament dispensation, there exists a distinction of meat and drink. For in the Lord's Supper we have bread and wine appropriated to holy uses and placed under certain restrictions. And, if it does not follow from the apostle's language that all distinctions of meats and drinks are done away with under Christianity, so neither does it necessarily follow that all distinctions of time are done away with.

( β ) We are to understand the language of the apostle to have reference to Jewish institutions as a whole. It is not as though there had been before him the one point— Is it right to observe one day in seven ? Then his argument would have been—The Jews did that; we as Christians are relieved from it, or rather are to be condemned, if we countenance such a distinction. But, instead of that, the apostle is giving a characteristic of Jewish institutions as a whole. There was a multiplying of distinctions in them, both in respect of meats and drinks and in respect of times. And what the Galatian Christians were chargeable with was their abiding by all such distinctions as were made under the Law. Nay, they probably added to them by adopting gospel distinctions or symbols as well. To circumcision they added baptism; to the Passover they added the Lord's Supper; and to the observance of the seventh day they added the observance of the first. It was a legalistic spirit which possessed them. They were making the gospel more complicated, more burdensome in its outward prescriptions, than the Law, whereas it is characterized by simplicity and freedom. No wonder, then, that the apostle was afraid of them because of their making so many distinctions. They were endangering the gospel; they were forgetting their privileges as sons.

( γ ) We are to understand the language of the apostle to have reference to Jewish institutions in so far as they were Jewish. The sabbath was not a purely Jewish institution; it existed from the beginning. The essential idea of it was a proportion of time devoted to God in acknowledgment of his sovereign right to all our time. The proportion was sovereignly fixed at one-seventh, and there is reason to believe that it was fixed in relation to our physical constitution. Under the Law the sabbath, while retaining its original character, received certain ceremonial adjuncts. It was numbered among the moadeem , or feasts; and was, indeed, placed at the head of them. "Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be for holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest." The special services appointed for the sabbath in the sanctuary were these: first, the doubling of the daily burnt offering—two lambs instead of one, with a corresponding increase in the meat offering; and then the presenting of the fresh loaves of shewbread on the Lord's table. When, then, the apostle says that we are not to be judged in respect of the sabbath day in the same way in which we are not to be judged in respect of the feast day and in respect of the new moon, this meaning is plainly suggested—that we, as Christians, are freed from all the ceremonial adjuncts of the sabbath. But, more than that, there was a practical question as to the observance of what was called the sabbath as distinguished from the Lord's day—the observance of the seventh day as distinguished from the first. The connecting of God's time with the seventh was from the beginning, but it had been very much bound up with the Jewish ceremonial. It also came to be regarded as the Jewish day as distinguished from the Christian day; and it had a certain position as such during the period of transition. The apostle, then, may be understood as deciding for the Christian Church that they were under no obligation to observe two sacred days in the week. Now that they observed the Lord's day they were freed from the observance of the sabbath. But at the same time, the sabbath had a broad human aspect. This Christ declared when legalism was expiring, and not certainly as though the sabbath were expiring with it. He said that the sabbath was made for man. It lies embedded in our deepest nature. It is needed under all earthly conditions and dispensations; and is not certainly to be numbered, like the feast day and the observance connected with the new moon, among things Jewish , from which as Christians we are freed. Whether it is the seventh day or the first is matter of Divine arrangement for the time being; but underneath both there is the obligation laid in our nature, from which we cannot be freed, to devote a proportion of our time to God.

(b) There is a statement made regarding the transitory nature of ceremonial institutions in which the sabbath is included. There is not much difficulty presented by the statement in this Epistle, that ceremonial institutions are weak and beggarly elements. This language is to be applied to them in respect of their having served their purpose. They had been, with certain drawbacks, very helpful and rich in blessing to God's people. They may have been once so to some of these Galatian Christians, but, now that the Divine authority had been removed from them, now that the gospel had come in their place, to turn to them was indeed to turn to the weak and beggarly elements. So it was with the sabbath , or seventh day. It once had the Divine sanction. It once was one of the channels through which the Divine blessing flowed. But, now that it was no longer to be observed as the sacred day, now that the Lord's day had come in its place, to turn to it was to turn to one of the weak and beggarly elements. Nor is there much difficulty presented by the corresponding statement in Colossians that ceremonial institutions are the shadow of things to come , whereas the body is of Christ. That does not exclude the possibility of there being a sign to represent the substance, the reality, after it had come. We know that circumcision represented regeneration, the putting away of the sin of the flesh. And the Divine blessing accompanied it as the shadow of the coming reality. But when the reality came that corresponded to circumcision, it was put by Christ into the New Testament institution of baptism. In the context here the two ordinances are closely interwoven in the apostolic thought. "In whom ye were also circumcised" (the reference, says Alford, being to the historical fact of their baptism) "with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ: having been buried with him in baptism." We know, too, that the Passover pointed forward to a sacrifice to be offered for sin. And it was a nourishing ordinance as the shadow of the coming sacrifice. But when Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (and it happened at the very time of the offering of the paschal lamb), the great reality was put by Christ into the New Testament institution of the Lord's Supper. And so it seems to be with regard to the sabbath. It pointed forward to the reality of a rest in Christ, and as such it was refreshing. But when the reality came, and needed no longer to be shadowed, it was put into the institution of the Lord's day. And we have reason to think that it will remain there for us until its full disclosure in heaven.—R.F.