Galatians 4:12-20 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

Personal appeal.

I. HE ASKS RECIPROCITY . "I beseech you, brethren, be as I am, for I am as ye are." Born a Jew, in accommodation to them he had taken up the Gentile position, i.e. in respect of freedom from Jewish ordinances. Let them, as brethren, show reciprocity. Let them give up their adopted Jewish practices and occupy the Gentile position along with him.

II. HE RECALLS WITH PLEASURE THEIR RECEPTION OF HIM .

1 . Negatively. "Ye did me no wrong." He was free to confess that he had no ground of personal complaint against them.

2 . Positively.

III. HE CONTRASTS THEIR PRESENT WITH THEIR PAST FEELING TOWARD HIM . "Where then is that gratulation of yourselves? for I bear you witness, that, if possible, ye would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me." There was no more gratulation of themselves because by a singular providence Paul had found his way among them with the gospel. Their Celtic realism was gone. That realism had gone to a great length. If it had been possible they would have plucked out their eyes to have given them to Paul. This language seems to point to an affection of the eyes as the malady from which Paul suffered. This supposition agrees with the conditions. It was just such a malady as would interfere with his comfort and effectiveness as a speaker, while not reducing him to silence. It was just such an occasion as the Celtic nature would seize and work upon. To make the gospel messenger freer for his work, they would gladly have parted with their very eyes, to make up for his deficiencies. And it was only the impossibility of thus serving Paul that kept them back from the sacrifice. The thorn in the flesh, as following upon Paul being in the third heavens, and as pointing to something acute, agrees with the supposition of his being a sufferer from an affection of the eyes. Whether we interpret the words here as deriving point from a weakness of Paul's eyes or not, they are manifestly expressive of a very warm feeling toward him, which now seems to him to have fled.

IV. HE CONTRASTS HIS CONDUCT AND THAT OF THE FALSE TEACHERS TOWARD THEM .

1 . His fidelity. "So then am I become your enemy, because I toll you the truth?" He had told them the truth on the occasion of his second visit. He had also been telling them the truth, with a certain sharpness, in this letter. That showed that he was no flatterer of them to gain his own ends. He did not believe in friendly relations being maintained unless on a basis of reality. Was it, then, a reasonable thing that he should be regarded by them as their enemy, as standing between them and their good, because he expressed himself according to the demands and under the restraints of truth? Was there any ground which could be stated for their change of feeling?

2 . The dishonourableness of the Judaizing teachers. "They zealously seek you in no good way; nay, they desire to shut you out, that ye may seek them." He refers to the false teachers, whom, with a certain feeling of dignity, he does not name. They made the Galatians the objects of their zealous attentions. But they did not do this in a disinterested manner. Their object was to shut the Galatians out, i.e. to isolate them from Paul and the Christian circle, so as to become themselves the exclusive objects of the zealous attentions of the Galatians. They were thus mere flatterers, to gain their own ends. Instead of placing themselves under the restraints of truth, they gave themselves the licence of error. While condemning them on this ground , the apostle makes a twofold reservation.

V. HE EXPRESSES A DESIRE TO BE PRESENT WITH THEM .

1 . Affectionate address. "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you." He addresses them, not as children, but, more tenderly, as little children, after the manner of John. He was not as a father to them (according to the conception here), but, more tenderly, as a mother. He had endured much in prayer and thought and service on their account. And he had thought that his motherly endurance had been rewarded in their spiritual birth. But it was as if he had been disappointed in them. And there was the recurrence of the same motherly endurance on their account. The object for which he endured was their spiritual birth. This is not thought of as the development of self, even of their true self. Nor is it thought of as a Pauline development, the accepting of a Pauline doctrine, the being recipient of Pauline influences. But it is thought of as the development of the Christ within them. Christians are those who have Christ as the Germ and Norm of their development.

2 . Reason for his presence. "Yea, I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I am perplexed about you." He wished to be present with them, in the hope that he would be able to bring back the old relations between them. In that case he would be able to change his voice, to adopt a gentler tone, which was more congenial to him and would be more pleasant to them. Meantime, he could not be all gentleness, for his information led him to be perplexed about them. tie had not given up all hope of them, but the fears he had sometimes made his voice to grate on them, as it was not pleasant to himself.—R.F.

Galatians 4:21 - Galatians 5:1

Allegory of Hagar and Sarah. To them that desired to be under the Law he proposes to read a lesson out of the Law.

"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the Law, do ye not hear the Law?" He conceives of them as men who could not do without the bondage of the Mosaic Law, and he wilt read their condemnation out of the Pentateuch, in which that Law is contained.

I. HISTORY ON WHICH THE ALLEGORY IS FOUNDED . "For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, and one by the freewoman. Howbeit, the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise." The two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, had the same father. They differed in two respects.

1 . Ishmael was by the handmaid , Hagar; Isaac was by the freewoman , Sarah.

2 . Ishmael was born after the flesh , i.e. according to the ordinary course of nature. That there is not excluded from "flesh" a certain ethical meaning is seen from its being opposed in the twenty-ninth verse to the Spirit. Isaac was born through promise, i.e. through the Divine efficiency present in the promise, surmounting natural obstacles.

II. ALLEGORY . "Which things contain an allegory." By "which things" we are to understand, not merely those which have been mentioned, but the whole class of things pertaining to Hagar and Sarah. Allegorizing is explaining one thing by another. In this case there is the plain historical meaning to begin with. Upon that there is imposed a second meaning. We are not to understand that the apostle evolved this second meaning out of his own thoughts. But God really meant more than the historical meaning. It is true that God thinks through all history; especially does he make known his thoughts through sacred history. More particularly in his dealings with Hagar and Sarah he intended to indicate what his dealings were to be with others, represented by them. "For these women are two covenants."

1 . Hagar.

2 . Sarah. "The other is from Mount Zion, bearing children unto freedom, which is Sarah. Now this Sarah is Mount Zion in the Holy Land, and answereth to the Jerusalem that is above, for she is free with her children." That, we may suppose, is how the allegory would have run if it had been fully drawn out. It has already been stated that Sarah represents the other covenant, i.e. the gospel covenant. And it may be regarded as implied that, as Sinai breathed the spirit of despair, so Zion breathed the spirit of hope. But all that the apostle does here, is at once to oppose the Christian Church to the Jewish Church. "But the Jerusalem which is above." Opposed to the literal Jerusalem, which was then undestroyed, was the spiritual and indestructible Jerusalem, of which even now we are regarded as citizens.

(a) It is free. "Is free, which is our mother." We are taught to think of the Church as our mother. We are the Church's sons, through the efficiency of Christ in the Church and its services. All our well-springs are in the Church. It is of Zion that it is said, "This man and that man was born in her." The Church of Christ is represented by the freewoman. We are taught to regard it as the home of freedom. We feel free in our covenant position before God, in our immediate relation to him, and in our glorious prospects.

(b) It has a numerous offspring. "For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for more are the children of the desolate than of her which hath the husband." This is a quotation from Isaiah 54:1 . In the same prophecy ( Isaiah 51:2 ) use is made of God giving Abraham and Sarah a numerous offspring. In this language the prophet makes use of Sarah having a more numerous people descended from her than Hagar. And what the apostle does in quoting it is to give the fact another application. The Church represented by the desolate Sarah is to have a more numerous offspring than the Church represented by the favoured Hagar.

(c) It has an offspring according to promise. "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise." We are not certainly children according to the course of nature, or in virtue of influences that belong to our nature. We are children through the Divine influences that are efficient in the gospel surmounting great natural obstacles. We are miraculously, supernaturally born.

(a) The persecutors. "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was horn after the Spirit, even so it is now." It is said, in connection with a festival in honour of the weaning of Isaac, that Sarah saw the son of Hagar, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. This little circumstance is referred to here, not so much for what it was in itself, as for its foreshadowing the bearing of the Arab tribes toward the Israelites. As the descendants of Ishmael persecuted the descendants of Isaac, so in the apostle's day did the Jews persecute the Christians. It was a well-known fact that they were the bitterest enemies of the Christians and were the principal instigators of persecution against them.

(b) Their fate foreshadowed. "Howbeit what saith the Scripture? Cast out the handmaid and her son; for the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman." Ishmael could not be allowed to live in the same house with Isaac. He had to be cast out and was no sharer of the inheritance with him. So the Jewish Church and the Christian Church could not coexist. Jews could only be in the Church as Christians. As Jews they were cast out of the special covenant position, the stern reality of which was soon to be made evident in the destruction of Jerusalem and the breaking up of the Jewish nationality.

(a) To maintain our freedom. "With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore." We owe our freedom to Christ. And it can be said that with a great price have we obtained our freedom, that price being his blood. We are not, therefore, to treat lightly what has been so dearly won. We must show our sense of it by maintaining it in its entirety.

(b) To eschew bondage. "And be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage." They had formerly been under the yoke of heathenism; they were not to put themselves under the similar yoke of Judaism. A slave who has been liberated does not voluntarily put himself into the hardships he has left. So they who had experienced the sweets of Christian liberty were not to go back to bonds.—R.F.