Till Christ Be
Formed in You
(4:12-20)

I beg of you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong; but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time; and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness, that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth? They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out, in order that you may seek them. But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. (4:12-20)

Until this point in the letter, Paul’s approach has been confrontational and impersonal. He has been writing like a scholar or debater, marshaling every possible argument and illustration to get his message across. He has taken the stance of a determined lawyer in court or a learned theologian in the classroom, giving a dispassionate and irrefutable presentation. He has referred to the Old Testament to teach the Galatians the basic truth of the gospel he had taught them many times before: salvation is by God’s grace alone, forgiving man’s lawbreaking sin and becoming effective through man’s faith alone. He has used both his own experience and that of the Galatians to reinforce his teaching. But for the most part, he has sounded detached, seeming to be more concerned about principles than people.

But the apostle’s approach changes dramatically in verse 12 of chapter 4. His anger at the Judaizers subsides, and he moves from the purely doctrinal to the more personal. In fact, verses 12-20 are the strongest words of personal affection Paul uses in any of his letters. He does not so much preach or teach as simply pour out his heart in personal exhortation. He says, in effect, “I care about you more than I can say. I love you dearly just as you have loved me dearly. Please listen to what I’m saying, because it’s so vitally essential.”

Paul’s source of gentleness was Christ Himself, as seen in his appeal to the immature and stubborn Corinthians, who continually tried his patience: “I, Paul, myself urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1).

The apostle’s spirit here reminds us that there must be a gentle side to every faithful servant of God (see 2 Tim. 2:24). No matter how serious the doctrine he may have to defend or how corrupting the immorality he may have to expose, he dare not lose his sensitivity and compassion.

In the course of his intimate outpouring to the Galatians in 4:12-20, Paul first appeals to them, then fondly remembers their loving acceptance of him, warns them about the ulterior motives of the Judaizers, and finally tells them of his desire to be with them again in person.

His APPEAL TO THEM

I beg of you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. (4:12a)

Paul’s appeal to his brethren in Christ was for them to recognize and live by the spiritual freedom all believers have in God’s grace. That is the central truth of the epistle, a truth he had previously preached and taught to the Galatians but one the Judaizers had seduced them into doubting and forsaking.

I beg of you, . . . become as I am, he pleaded, free from trying to earn salvation by keeping the law and free from having to live by its outward symbols, ceremonies, rituals, and restrictions. “I died to the Law, that I might live to God,” he had already written (2:19). Now he implored them to confess again that death to the law as a way of sanctification, which death they, too, had experienced when they trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. While all believers are called to live in obedience to God’s moral standards that never change (such living is the evidence of salvation, as indicated in Eph. 2:6-10), they can no more live by the law than they could have been saved by it. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1).

For now, Paul presents no more arguments but rather gives a heartfelt exhortation. “You know how I have always lived since receiving Christ,” he said in effect, “and how I lived while I ministered among you. That is the way I want you to live as well.”

The reason for Paul’s appeal is also personal: because I also have become as you are. When he came to Christ he had torn away every shred of legalism, in which he had been enmeshed more tightly than perhaps few other Jews of his day (see Phil. 3:4-6). Although he now willingly became like a Jew when among Jews and like a Gentile when among Gentiles, becoming “all things to all men, that [he might] by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:20-22), Paul never represented himself nor thought of himself as anything but a sinner redeemed by Jesus Christ, in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek, . . . slave nor free man, . . . male nor female” (Gal. 3:28). Upon the advice of the elders in the Jerusalem church, Paul agreed on one occasion to sponsor four men in taking a certain Jewish vow in the Temple, in order to keep from needlessly offending unbelieving Jews (Acts 21:23-26). But he did so as an act of his liberty as a Christian, not under the compulsion of the law

The Jewish believers in Galatia knew well that Paul had abandoned his former subservience not only to the rabbinic traditions but even to the ceremonial law of Moses (cf. Acts 21:21). Many of those believers, like Paul himself, had paid a dear price when they turned from Judaism to Christ, being ostracized from their families and synagogues and treated as if dead. Yet they were now being intimidated by the Judaizers into returning to their former bondage under the law “I introduced you to freedom,” Paul was saying; “don’t turn back to slavery.”

His REMEMBRANCE OF THEM

You have done me no wrong; but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time; and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness, that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth? (4:12b-16)

The verse division here is unfortunate in that 12b obviously belongs with verse 13. Paul makes a rather abrupt change of emphasis, reminding the Galatians of how rich and deep their personal relationship with him had once been. They not only had done him no wrong but had openly and lovingly received him while he was in extremely adverse personal circumstances. “How then,” he was wondering, “could you reject me now, after being so accepting of me then?”

When Paul first went to Galatia, many Jews turned against him when they realized his message was as much for Gentiles as Jews (Acts 13:45,50; 14:19). But God used him in the salvation of many converts there, both Jews and Gentiles (13:43-14:1), and those who accepted his message also accepted him, despite a serious physical affliction he had at the time. It was, in fact, because of a bodily illness that Paul had preached the gospel to them the first time.

On his first missionary journey Paul apparently either became seriously ill while in Galatia or else went there to recuperate. Some suggest that he contracted malaria while traveling through the low, swampy regions of Pamphylia and decided to go up into the higher and healthier area of Galatia and minister there for a while until he was better (see Acts 13:13-14). Although malaria can be terribly painful and debilitating, those effects are not continuous. If Paul did have that disease, he would have still been able to do some preaching and teaching between attacks of fever and pain. This explanation is plausible.

Whatever the illness, it was a trial to the Galatians, because his bodily condition was such that the normal response to it was revulsion. But the believers there did not despise or loathe Paul’s affliction, repulsive as it was. The Greek term behind despise means to count as nothing or worthless, and the term behind loathe literally means “to spit,” which was often done as an act of contempt. Paul was treated neither as worthless nor with contempt.

In ancient times, without benefit of good medicines, sterile bandages, and other such modern care, diseases were often disfiguring and their stench nauseating. To most ancients, including Jews, physical affliction was considered a form of divine judgment. Jesus’ disciples asked Him about the blind beggar in Jerusalem, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9:2). Theirs was the same assumption Job’s three friends made regarding his tragedies (Job 4:7-9; 8:1-6; 11:13-20) and that the natives of Malta made regarding Paul’s being bitten by a deadly viper (Acts 28:3-4).

The fact that Paul’s affliction was not a barrier to his credibility either to the Jews or Gentiles of Galatia was totally unexpected. The apostle was amazed that they even received him as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. They did not question what he said or the way he looked. They had no doubt that he was God’s messenger and the apostolic representative of the Lord Jesus and were grateful beyond measure for the blessing of spiritual life they had received because of his ministry. After only his second message in Pisidian Antioch, the Gentiles there “began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord” (Acts 13:48).

From the human perspective, Paul’s going to Galatia seemed purely circumstantial, necessitated by a tragic disease. Yet his reception by those who believed the gospel he preached was beyond anything he could have anticipated. During the first trip to Galatia, persecution had been severe, and Paul had even been stoned and left for dead by those hostile to the gospel (Acts 14:19). But as he later returned to Antioch with Barnabas, one can imagine how he must have marveled over the vastly contrasting love and kindness he had received from believers.

But now he asked them, Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness, that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Makarismos (blessing) can also be translated “happiness” or “satisfaction” and implies a feeling of joy, fulfillment, and contentedness.

“From the beginning you were satisfied and happy with me and with the message of grace I preached,” Paul was saying. “What made you lose that satisfaction? Why have you turned against me and against the gospel of grace?” He refreshed their memories that once they loved him so much that you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.

Paul may simply have been using a common figure of speech, suggesting that the Galatians would have given up their very eyesight, the most precious and irreplaceable of the physical senses, if doing that could have helped him. If, as some interpreters speculate, Paul’s bodily affliction was a form of eye disease, he may here have been referring to the Galatians’ willingness to have literally exchanged their eyes for his, had such a transplant been possible in those days.

Eye disease was common in ancient times, as it still is in most underdeveloped countries today. If Paul had an eye affliction it could have been a condition of long standing, perhaps the “thorn in the flesh” that was “a messenger of Satan” the Lord allowed him to endure as a humbling reminder of His sufficient grace (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Because malaria sometimes attacks the optic nerve, causing loss of color recognition, atrophy, and even blindness, his affliction while in Galatia may have affected the way he saw as well as the way he looked. The possibility of poor eyesight is substantiated by the closing section of the Galatian epistle itself, which begins: “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (6:11). Paul usually dictated his letters to an amanuensis, a type of stenographer (see Rom. 16:22), but often added a postscript or personal greeting in his own hand (1 Cor. 16:21; Col. 4:18; 2 Thess. 3:17). If he had limited vision, he would likely have used larger than normal letters in order to see what he was writing.

Whatever the specific nature of Paul’s illness, his primary point here is clear: the Galatians had loved him with a love that would have compelled them to make any sacrifice on his behalf.

After only a few years, however, the situation had radically changed. Now Paul asked in bewilderment, Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth?

The Galatian believers who had succumbed to the Judaizing heresy were guilty of spiritual defection. Nothing tears the heart of a faithful pastor, teacher, youth worker, or missionary so much as seeing someone he has led to the Lord turn away from the faith. How much more does such defection grieve the Lord Himself?

In confronting the spiritual defection of Judah, Isaiah asked on behalf of God: “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isa. 5:4). Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!” (Luke 13:34). God continually gave everything He could possibly give to His chosen people, Israel, including His own incarnate Son. They called themselves by God’s name, but they refused to obey His will or come to Him in faith to have their sins forgiven.

“When Israel was a youth I loved him,” God had said through the prophet Hosea. “And out of Egypt I called My son. The more they called them, the more they went from them; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in My arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love” (Hos. 11:1-4). God had, as it were, given birth to Israel, taught her how to walk, bandaged her wounds, taken her in His arms to comfort her, and nurtured her—only to have her turn her back on Him and go her own way. “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?” God asked in dismay. “For your loyalty is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes away early” (6:4).

Yet throughout Israel’s rebelliousness, God’s gracious offer of forgiveness stood as a beacon to call her back to Himself. “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously ‘” (Hos. 14:1-2).

Paul admonishes believers not to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom [they are] sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alike experience grief when those who have been called to the freedom of gracious salvation defect. Just as there is great rejoicing in heaven when even one sinner turns to the Lord (Luke 15:7), there is also great heartbreak in heaven when even one believer sinfully turns away from Him.

The implication is that on a second trip to Galatia by Paul some of the church members there had already come under the influence of the Judaizers and had begun to doubt the truth of salvation by faith alone, which they had learned and accepted from him. The gospel of legalism had become more attractive to them than the gospel of grace, and the man who had been their beloved friend had become to them like an enemy.

Many people appreciate a preacher or teacher only as long as he says what they want to hear. The confused and defecting believers in Galatia had once greatly admired Paul, but now they looked on him as their enemy, because he confronted them with the truth about the genuine gospel of God, which had saved them, and the false teaching of the Judaizers, which led them back into the bondage of legalism.

There is little doubt that among the Galatians there were also some who had never really been saved and thus were easily turned back to self-righteous legalism.

A prostitute came to our church one day looking for help. She was quite successful financially but was plagued by tremendous feelings of guilt and anxiety. She drank heavily, took drugs, and realized her life was a mess. When I explained the gospel to her and assured her that God was eager to forgive her sins and give her new life if she trusted in Jesus Christ, she expressed great interest. During the course of our conversation she had told me of a little book in which she kept the names and phone numbers of her customers. I suggested that we take the book and burn it right then, as a symbol of her repentance and renunciation of her old life. But she balked at the idea, saying, “I can’t do that! Those names are worth thousands of dollars. I guess I don’t want Jesus as much as I thought I did.” Like many people, she knew her way of life was wrong and ruinous, but she loved it more than the Lord and would not give it up.

His WARNING TO THEM

They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out, in order that you may seek them. But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you. (4:17-18)

Paul again warns the Galatians about their real enemies, the Judaizers (cf. 1:7, 9; 2:4). They eagerly seek you, but not commendably. The term translated seek carries the idea of taking a serious interest in someone and was often used of a man courting a woman. “The Judaizers talk like they really care for you,” Paul was saying, “but they are false suitors who have no genuine love for or interest in you or your welfare.”

Most cults show keen interest and even affection toward prospective members, promising them great personal fulfillment and happiness. As with the legalism of the Judaizers, the true nature of their spiritual enslavement is hidden.

The Judaizers had no interest in the Galatian believers beyond entrapping them in legalism. They were like the scribes and Pharisees to whom Jesus said, “You travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Matt. 23:15). Their true wish and objective was to shut. . . out the Galatians from God’s grace and gain recognition and acceptance for themselves (implied in the phrase that you may seek them). Their true motivation was “to make a good showing in the flesh” (6:12).

But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, Paul went on to explain. He himself had eagerly sought them when he first preached the gospel in Galatia. But it was in a commendable manner, out of love for Christ and a deep desire for their salvation. And such enthusiastic concern was appropriate not only when Paul was present with them. He was not jealous of the Judaizers. He did not oppose them in order to preserve his own popularity or leadership but to protect the Galatians’ spiritual well-being. Some years later he wrote from prison, “Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, . . . [proclaiming] Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice” (Phil. 1:15, 17-18).

Paul warned against the Judaizers not because they opposed him and personally wounded him, but because they opposed the glorious, saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

His DESIRE FOR THEM

My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. (4:19-20)

Speaking like a mother, Paul now addressed the Galatian believers as my children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you. He was not arguing like a lawyer before a skeptical jury but pleading like a parent to a wayward child.

Children is from teknion, a diminutive that was used figuratively as a term of special affection. Literally, it referred to a small child, and therefore can be translated here as “little children,” as in the King James Version. In light of Paul’s figure of childbirth, both ideas are appropriate. The Galatian believers were extremely dear to Paul but were acting like infants who refused to be born.

Paul’s compassion was always evident. For example, to the Thessalonian church he wrote, “We proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:7-8).

With the Galatians, however, after having spiritually nursed them in their new life in Christ, he became again in labor with them. “That is abnormal and unnatural,” he implies. “You have already experienced the new birth, but now you are acting as if you need to be spiritually born all over again. You make me feel like a mother who has to deliver the same baby twice.”

But however abnormal and tragic their spiritual condition, Paul would not forsake them until Christ was formed in them. The verb (morpho) carries the idea of essential form rather than outward shape, and therefore refers to Christlike character. Christlikeness is the goal of the believer’s life. “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,” he exhorted the church at Colossae (Col. 2:6; cf. Rom. 13:14). God has predestined believers “to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). “We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). The Father sent the Son to earth not only to die that men might be saved but also to live as the divine example for those who are saved.

Paul’s great desire was to deal more directly with these issues that would require him to be present with the Galatians in person and to be able to change his tone with them. He hardly knew what more to say or how to say it, because he was so perplexed about them. This verb (aporeomai) means to be at one’s wits’ end. He could not understand how they could have been taught the gospel so well, believed it so genuinely, and then appeared to have forsaken it so quickly (cf. 1:6).

Every Christian worker experiences times when he comes to an impasse and finds his own resources are completely exhausted. After saying and doing everything he knows to say and do, those he is trying to help—sometimes unbelievers, sometimes believers—remain completely out of reach and even turn against him.

As John R. W Stott has commented in his The Message of Galatians, “The church needs people who, in listening to their pastor, listen for the message of Christ, and pastors who, in labouring among the people, look for the image of Christ” ([London: Inter-Varsity, 1968], p. 119).