Galatians 4:1–11
4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave,1 though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles2 of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
1 For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface; also verse 7 2 Or elemental spirits; also verse 9
Section Overview: Believers Are God’s Adopted Sons
Paul has made the case that the Galatians are already, without coming under the Mosaic law, sons (3:7) and offspring (3:29) of Abraham. They are also, as he said in 3:26, “sons of God,” echoing the biblical theme that Israel, as God’s people, were his sons (Ex. 4:22–23; Hos. 11:1). There is a direct line, Paul argues, linking God’s promises to give Abraham many descendants, to bless the nations through him, and to give his heirs the earth with the Galatians’ membership in God’s people as Gentiles. They are the numerous descendants, the blessed nations, and the inheritors of the earth that fulfill the Abrahamic promises. God gave the law not to compete with these promises or their fulfillment but to show that everyone, Jews included, were sinners and in need of faith in Christ.
Now, in this new section of the argument, Paul will reexplain the main point of Galatians 3:15–29 (4:1–7) and apply this point specifically to the Galatians’ situation (vv. 8–11). He wants to make clear that if they try to turn the clock back to the temporary period when the Mosaic law defined and governed God’s people, they are implying that their own conversion had no purpose (v. 11; cf. 2:21; 3:4) and that they are content to labor “under” the law’s curse on the disobedient once again. Their circumstances “under” the Mosaic law will be no different than their circumstances “under” the idolatrous religions they followed before their faith in the gospel (4:2–3, 9–10).
Section Outline
III.C. Paul Shows That the Gospel Is Consistent with the Scriptures (3:6–5:1) . . .
2. Believers Are God’s Adopted Sons (4:1–11)
Response
The most startling aspect of this passage, and its clearest challenge to Christians of all ages, is its equation of idolatry with the misuse of the Mosaic law. Paul finds no fault in the law itself. He considers it “holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). God gave it not only to demonstrate the depth of human sin (Gal. 3:19) but also to provide guidance for how believers should live (e.g., Gal. 5:13–14; Rom. 13:8–10; 15:4; 1 Cor. 5:13; 9:8–10; Eph. 6:1–2). Paul does not even have a problem with people observing circumcision, Sabbath rest, or dietary restrictions (Rom. 4:11; 14:2–3, 5–6), and he sometimes observed these distinctively Jewish parts of the law himself (Acts 16:3; 21:20–26; 1 Cor. 9:20). The problem in Galatia is simply that the false teachers are imposing observance of the law, and the Galatians are accepting it as if it were necessary, alongside faith in Christ, for inclusion within God’s people. They are misusing something as holy, righteous, and good as Scripture to diminish the sufficiency of God’s gifts of deliverance from sin, empowerment through the Spirit, and union with Christ by faith. This act of misusing something that otherwise is good, so that it diminishes God’s grace and goodness, Paul takes as equivalent to worshiping other gods and to apostasy.
This passage, then, challenges Christians of all ages to take comfort in what God has already graciously done for them in Christ. He has forgiven their sin. He has begun to transform them through the Spirit’s power so that they are becoming the new creation he intends them to be. He has adopted them into his family. These powerful gifts will change and influence their lives so that they “walk” more and more “by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16), and God will use other good gifts such as Scripture, prayer, corporate worship, and service to others to accomplish this work. To attempt to win God’s favor by reading Scripture, praying, worshiping with others, or doing works of service, however, reveals a personal theology that is the mirror image of the gospel, and, like a mirror image, it may look real, but it has no substance. To do so is to assume a pagan, magical view of God, as if he could be bribed into doing our will.
God has freely adopted each one of his people into his family. God the Father has “sent forth” God the Son to redeem his people, and he has “sent forth” God the Holy Spirit to assure them of his tender, fatherly care (4:4, 6). We do not need to do anything to win him over. He is already on our side, and we should simply live our lives in gratitude to him for his love.
For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface; also verse 7
Or elemental spirits; also verse 9
4:1–2 Paul’s “I mean” indicates that he is about to explain again the point he made in 3:15–29 concerning the temporal relationship between the Mosaic law and the promise God gave to Abraham. Just as Jesus often used hyperbole in his parables, Paul uses it here. In the Roman world there were obvious differences between the prepubescent heir of a great estate and a slave on that estate, but Paul emphasizes the point he wants to make by highlighting the lack of freedom in both circumstances.
A “guardian” (Gk. epitropos) in the sense Paul uses it here was a responsible adult who ran the government until the throne’s rightful heir reached maturity (Herodotus, Histories 9.10; Philo, On Dreams 1.107). A “manager” (oikonomos) was typically the administrator of a large estate, often a slave who oversaw the labor of other slaves (Luke 12:42; 16:1, 3). The expression “date set” (prothesmia) refers to a date set in advance, often with legal implications, such as a set day for paying taxes (Josephus, Antiquities 12.201).
Paul uses this trio of terms not to refer to some specific, well-known legal custom but to paint a general picture of an heir to a large estate living under the authority of others until an official, appointed time and then receiving both freedom from these authorities and control of the estate. Such a child-heir was “under [hypo] guardians and managers,” just as Christians were “under [hypo] a guardian [paidagōgos]” (Gal. 3:25) and “under [hypo] the law” (3:23) before the time of Christ (cf. 4:4a).
4:3 Paul now applies (“in the same way . . . also”) his illustration to both himself and the Galatian Christians (“we”). At one time they all corresponded to the child-slave in the illustration of verses 1–2. Paul describes their condition as being “enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Paul uses the imagery of slavery and redemption from slavery in Galatians to describe the linkage between sin, the law, and the law’s justified curse on those who disobey it. Thus in verse 5 he says that God sent his Son to “redeem those who were under the law” using the same verb “redeem” (Gk. exagorazō) he used in 3:13 to describe Christ’s redeeming people from the curse the law pronounces on those who violate its precepts. As the comment on 3:13 mentions, Greek speakers used this verb to speak of buying people out of slavery. To be enslaved to the law, then, is to be under the just sentence of death that the law renders against those who violate it.
Here, however, Paul speaks of enslavement not to the law but “to,” or more literally “under” (hypo), “the elementary principles of the world.” The meaning of this phrase is ambiguous, but enough is clear to understand Paul’s main point. His use of the word “elements” in 4:8–10, and of the whole phrase again in Colossians 2:20, aligns the expression closely with non-Christian ritual practices. Greek speakers used the term translated “elements” (stoicheia) to refer to the basic elements of which the world is constructed. In antiquity, these were thought to be earth, water, air, and fire (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.137), and sometimes these elements were worshiped. The Jewish philosopher Philo, a near contemporary of Paul, writes that people associated fire with the god Hephaestus, air with Hera, water with Poseidon, and earth with Demeter (On the Contemplative Life 3). It seems likely, then, that Paul speaks here of enslavement under idolatry as a prime example of the sort of misguided and sinful behavior that the law condemns and curses with death.
Why does Paul speak as if Jewish Christians (“we”) were also in this condition prior to believing the gospel? Although Jews who lived by the Mosaic law prior to the coming of Christ were only doing what God desired, they were nevertheless unable to keep the entire law (Gal. 3:10–13) and, as Paul has already said in 2:16, knew that “by works of the law no one will be justified” (cf. Ps. 143:2). Like Gentile idolaters, they too were under the curse of the law and needed redemption from the metaphorical slavery of that intractable situation. Paul is not equating keeping the Mosaic law with pagan idolatry but rather is equating the inability of both the Mosaic law and pagan religion to rescue people from their sin.
4:4 The “fullness of time” corresponds to the “date set by his father” in the illustration of verses 1–2. When the world was at exactly the right point in its history (cf. Rom. 5:6), Paul says, God “sent forth his Son.” This statement implies the preincarnational existence of God’s Son, and it reveals that although all believers are “sons of God” (Gal. 3:26), Christ is God’s Son in an eternal, unparalleled sense.
When God’s Son assumed human flesh, moreover, he identified both with all humanity (“born of woman”) and, in particular, with the Jewish people (“born under the law”). He was born under the law not in the sense that he deserved the law’s curse but in the sense that he experienced the law’s curse (cf. 3:13), including living in the unjust world that the law warned against and that resulted from societal rebellion against God (Lev. 26:14–39; Deut. 28:15–68).
4:5 The purpose for which God sent forth his Son was that he might rescue those “under the law.” Once again, this refers to existence under the curse of the law, as the echo of the language of 3:13 (“redeemed”) shows. Paul speaks in Jewish terms here of life lived by the law, but also in the full knowledge that, as Psalm 143:2 puts it, “no one living is righteous before” God (cf. Gal. 2:16). He universalizes this experience, and Christ’s redeeming work, to include Gentile believers who had never lived under the Mosaic law. At first this may seem strange, but if God’s chosen people were unable to keep the perfect expression of God’s will in the law, then it goes without saying that non-Jewish people, who only had their own, often fallible consciences to go by, would also stand under God’s curse (cf. Rom. 1:32; 2:14–16).
Christ’s rescue of people from slavery to sin and its consequences transforms their metaphorical status from immature children and slaves (Gal. 3:24–25; 4:1–2) to adoptive sons. The expression “adoption as sons” (Gk. huiothesia) never appears in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Septuagint. The idea that Israel is God’s “son” is fairly prominent in the OT, however (Ex. 4:22–23; Hos. 11:1; cf. Isa. 1:2), and this concept seems to be uppermost in Paul’s mind when he uses the term “adoption as sons” (cf. Rom. 9:4). If Christians are God’s adoptive sons, then they stand in continuity with Israel, and, by implication, the Gentile believers of Galatia need nothing other than faith in him in order likewise to be members of God’s people.
4:6 The adoptive sonship of believers is closely related to the eternal sonship of Christ. Through faith, believers were immersed into and clothed with Christ and therefore, like Christ, are God’s “sons” (3:26–27). The proof of this (“because”) is the work of the Spirit of Christ within the lives of the Galatian believers. Just as God “sent forth” (Gk. exapesteilen) his Son to rescue his people from slavery to sin (4:4), so he also “sent [forth]” (exapesteilen) his Spirit to help them (cf. 3:5). This Spirit-generated union of believers with Christ is so close that they have the same loving, familial relationship with God that Christ himself has. This is the same relationship that enabled him, during difficult times, to call upon God in the Aramaic vernacular (“Abba”), in the same way that any Judean child of the time might have called for help to a loving father (Mark 14:36; Rom. 8:15).
4:7 Paul now circles back to the notion of inheritance with which the paragraph began in verse 1 and that linked it to the preceding section (3:29). If the Galatian believers are sons of God through faith and union with God’s Son, then they also will receive the inheritance God promised to Abraham. They are part of God’s multinational people and will inherit “the earth” in accord with God’s promises to Abraham (3:16). In other words, they will be part of the new creation toward which God has directed his saving purposes (6:15).
4:8 Paul now begins a new paragraph in which he applies the argument he has just made directly to the Galatians’ new fascination with the false teachers and their claims that accepting the Mosaic law is necessary for inclusion within God’s people. He begins with a succinct description of their conversion from the worship of false gods to the worship of the one true God.
Paul says that their former, idolatrous worship “enslaved” them, echoing the language of verse 3 that spoke of their enslavement to the “elementary principles of the world” (cf. comment on 4:3). Such worship is slavery because it is sinful and can lead only to the law’s curse and God’s wrath (cf. Rom. 1:18–32).
Since the idea that these pagan gods “enslave” people might imply somehow that they are real deities, Paul uses a common OT idiom to emphasize that they “are not gods” (2 Chron. 13:9; Isa. 37:19; Jer. 2:11). In 1 Corinthians 10:19–20 Paul writes that the powers at work in pagan idols are demonic in nature.
4:9 Paul’s “but now” introduces his description of the Galatian Christians’ conversion. He speaks of their new existence as a state of “knowing God,” a concept he immediately corrects to “being known by God” (cf. 1 Cor. 8:3; 13:12). Embracing the truth of the gospel entails knowing that that there is one God, the creator of heaven and earth who has revealed himself through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1–6), but Paul is always sensitive to any hint that human beings take the initiative in their relationship with God. That relationship does not depend on their own clever deductions about God, nor on the perfection of their knowledge of God (cf. 1 Cor. 8:7). More critical to reconciliation with God and membership among his people is God’s knowledge of them.
Paul finds it incomprehensible that the Galatians would abandon such a gracious relationship with God to return to the oppressive worship of idols. Paul’s shock at the step they are taking is clear in his repetition of Greek words for “again” (epi[strephete], palin, palin, anōthen).
4:10 The common ground beneath the Galatians’ present interest in adopting the Mosaic law and their former idolatrous practices is the prominent place that the calendar plays in both religious systems. The verb “observe” (Gk. paratēreō) means “to carefully observe custom or tradition, observe scrupulously,” and the first-century Jewish historian Josephus used it to refer to keeping the Sabbath (Antiquities 3.91; 14.264). In addition to observing commands about the Sabbath day, keeping new moons (“months”), the Jewish festivals (“seasons”), and sabbatical years were also important within Judaism (cf. Lev. 25:1–22; 1 Chron. 23:31; 2 Chron. 2:4; 31:3; Neh. 10:33; Hos. 2:11). Debates over the dates on which such calendrical observances fell were common within the Judaism of Paul’s period and demonstrate how seriously some Jews took these customs.
Non-Jewish peoples, such as the Galatians, sometimes thought that the planets and stars, which occupied the “element” of fire, were living beings controlling the destiny of people and events. In addition, the Roman calendar was liberally dotted with religious festivals. Paul sees a parallel, then, between the concern the Galatian believers have begun to have about observing the Jewish calendar and the concern they once had, before they believed the gospel, with the religious elements of the non-Jewish calendar.
4:11 This verse is a transitional statement. On one hand, it explains why Paul is so concerned (vv. 8–10) for the Galatians to understand the truth of what he has just written concerning the priority of God’s promise to Abraham over the Mosaic law (3:6–4:7). On the other hand, this verse anticipates the personal appeal of verses 12–20.
Paul’s reference to his fear reflects the reality behind the present tense of the verbs “turn back again” (Gk. epistrephete) and “want” (thelete) in verse 9. The Galatians are in the process of turning back and wanting to be slaves again. The expression “in vain” refers to the great difficulty of Paul’s mission to southern Galatia (cf. 4:19; Acts 13:50; 14:2, 5, 19) and echoes his comment in Galatians 3:4 concerning the senselessness of the Galatians’ own suffering if they continue down their present path. Both Paul’s suffering and their suffering for the truth of the gospel has been futile if the Galatian believers turn the clock back to their state of enslavement prior to their conversion.