Chapter 4
So I was brain dead yesterday (1/20/21) by 3:18, and just read through 3:19=29. I hope that does not hinder me from understanding today's reading. Just took a look at MSB's outline, and there is a break right there after 18. However, we stay on the same "big point" all the way through chapter 4. So what I didn't "focus" on yesterday was called "The Purpose of the Law", and today starts with "The Sonship of Believers". And...I think I am ok with the purpose of the law. So going ahead instead of back today. (2021-2, Spent quite a bit more time on 19-29 yesterday. I understand it better this second time in '21 than I did the first. Chapter 3 is a very involved chapter. 2022 - Even better yesterday. I think I am understanding it all quite a bit better.
2025 - Always better...but still so full that it is obvious there is much more. Don't think Chapter 3 will ever be "done".
In those days, children of the father of the household were raised much the same as were slaves. They had people in charge of them, telling them what to do. They learn the basics of every day life - whether their future holds slavery or inheritance. Children - heirs - were raised this way until the time appointed by their father's arrived, at which time they moved from pupil to master. Paul uses this analogy as a comparison to the time spent with the Law in effect in the world. The Law was training slaves and heirs alike, all the same, and was the "waiting time" for the heirs, as they learned the basics. But in "the fullness of time", when God decided the wait was over, then Jesus came. When Jesus came, he was under the Law, fulfilled the Law, and by his death "redeemed" us from the law. Redeemed us from bondage to any master but Him. We were "bought" as a slave is bought, and once we are bought, we are free from that old master - the Law - and in a position to be adopted by our new master - the father of the household - as a son, not as just one of the slaves. We are all adopted and legal heirs now of the one master, of the head of the house. Paul again says that it is the indwelling Spirit that evidences this relationship. Only the heirs have the Spirit of the Father.
2025 - Vss 1-7. Paul is talking firstly about the Jews. He clearly says "so he might redeem those who are under the Law". He says Jesus was born under the Law to redeem those under the Law...AND THEN IMMEDIATELY he mentions adoption. This must be understood in context of the metaphor he made saying that the heir is raised the same as the slaves to a certain point. The heir is Israel. The slaves are Gentiles. Until Jesus, only the heir would inherit. There was nothing for those slaves in the world. There was no "plan" for their future. But once the Law was fulfilled by Jesus, there was the heir - STILL - but there was also adoption for the slaves so that they too could inherit from the Father. And not only did they get "something" from the Father, but they got every bit the same and as much as the heir got. This is what "heirs with him" really means.
2025 - I can make an argument here that the Gentiles almost all died lost from Moses to Jesus. I can even say that from Abraham to Moses that same fate was true...except that in Abraham's day it was faith alone, as it is again today. You might say there was a salvation plan for Gentiles from Adam to Abraham, not one from Abraham to Christ, and an even better one from Christ to now. The plan now for Gentiles is salvation through faith, and then one body, the church. All the heirs in the body.
2025 - I suspect there are some problems here, but I don't know what they are. But it does have a certain "ring of truth" about it, and would explain a lot about God's plan through history.
2025 - It reinforces that the Jews and the Church are handled entirely differently. The church is adopted spiritual heirs. The Jews are still blood, still physical, and the promises to them are physical.
ESV now makes a paragraph break, but I'm not sure it belongs there. Seems to me that Paul is still summing up his point on children learning the basics from the slaves in charge of them, before assuming their role as sons. NASB makes a break here too, though, and so does MSB's outline. The next point is "The Futility of Ritualism".
Starts with this verse:
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. [Gal 4:8 ESV]
Per MSB, this is saying that before the Galatian Christian's were saved, they had worshiped Greek and Roman gods. Paul equates turning away from the freedom that grace brings to returning to worship of statues and idols. He makes returning to the Mosaic Law as the way of salvation tantamount to turning to Zeus for salvation. Wow. From a Pharisee of Pharisees, the Law equated to empty idol worship. Paul says orthodox Jews are wasting their time. After Jesus, the Law is nothing at all. This is a huge statement, and I cannot imagine the anger it stirred up among the Jews of that time. They would have hated him. And I can't help but be reminded of Jesus saying that new wine just won't go into old wineskins. The old wineskins not only won't hold the new wine, but they are useless for any other purpose also. They should be discarded completely. Paul is in sync with Jesus when he says this to the Galatians.
Paul asks how the Galatians, having experienced their true role as "grown up sons", inheritors of the gifts of the father, can now go back and put themselves under the tutelage of their old tutors who have nothing to teach them but the most elementary aspects of behavior. They can only teach them the rudimentary instead of embracing their role as heirs to the father. Adults don't do this! They do not go back to being servants after the Father has declared them adult! This is what the Judaizers are trying to tell them they need to do. That they need to step away from their authority and responsibilities as adults, and return to being children, under the Law. This also denies the Spirit living within them and guiding them. That they could even think this way makes Paul wonder if they were saved in the first place. This bears on the "fall from grace" things we will see later, and the possibility that some/many/all of these weren't saved in the first place must be an option for Paul's motivation in saying some of the things he does. His intent may be to take them back to the moment of their salvation, and the certainty of being indwelt by the Spirit as assurance of their salvation. And if they don't have that....
Paul next reminds the Galatians of his time there at the first. He reminds them how much they cherished and craved his preaching at that time, so much so that they made allowances for his "sickness" and worked around it. (MSB note says possibly malaria, which would come and go.)
2021-2, These verses:
[Gal 4:13 ESV] You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first,
[Gal 4:14 ESV] and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.
MSB says it is likely that Paul had contracted malaria in the coastal lowlands of Pamphylia. Galatia was higher in elevation, cooler, and so better for one dealing with periodic fevers. The only reason Paul had come to Galatia to start with was to deal with the malaria. They treated him kindly, and worked around his condition. Is this Paul's thorn in the flesh, or a whole different burden he had to bear? I always thought the thorn had something to do with his speaking ability. Maybe he stuttered, maybe he had a lisp...but if he was periodically unable to "appear" and defend the gospel, and so sometimes others prevailed by default, that might have been it too I suppose. But also, Paul refers to this as an ailment, not a thorn. I think it most likely that he had both malaria AND some other, more profound and constant hindrance.). (2022 - Perhaps when they stoned him at...where ever that was...he got hit in the head and it affected his speaking?)
If they were so convinced of his intentions at that time, and loved him so much at that time, why would they think he is coming to them now with false, misleading, damning doctrine? Why would he? What could his motivation be? What changed? Paul ends this emotional appeal by baring his own emotions of deep concern, as for a child of his own. He is worried about them as a woman in labor. He is concerned that the "effort" will be in vain. He had believed, after his first visit, that he had "children" there in Galatia, but now, as at the first, he is worried that nothing will come of it because of what the Judaizers are doing to his young converts. This is the summation verse:
20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. [Gal 4:20 ESV]
I know this feeling. I was raised in church, as were Paula and Martha. Our kids were all raised in church - more or less, but mostly more. And yet here we are, with only Mom, me, Paula, and Martha going to church. All our kids have abandoned church, and our grand kids have barely been exposed to it. How is it that what we did in love - not without mistakes I'll grant you, but certainly with love and the hope of eternity in heaven for our kids - now seems of no effect at all? In Paul's own words in vs 11:
11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. [Gal 4:11 ESV], and again in vs 16:
16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? [Gal 4:16 ESV].
Perplexing is the right word. And I remember well that I "perplexed" my own Dad for a lot of years.
Paul now uses Hagar and Sarah as an allegory - his own words in the ESV. Hagar, he says, represents the covenant of Sinai, the earthly Jerusalem. Of Law. She was a slave, and her son was a slave. Her son was after the flesh, and not from God. Paul says the current state of Judaism is slavery to the law. The purpose of the Law was to condemn, the purpose of the sacrifices was to postpone the judgement for those condemned under the Law until Jesus could come and take that condemnation on himself. Paul contrasts the earthly Jerusalem - and continuing Judaism - with the heavenly Jerusalem, which is about grace and not at all about law.
2025 - A thought from vs. 25, which says: 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. [Gal 4:25 ESV]. Paul is specific about his allegory, but we need to nail it down in time. Hagar, IN THIS ALLEGORY, means the Jews still following the Mosaic Law AFTER the crucifixion of Christ, which REMOVED any need to follow the Law. Jews still following the Law after Christ are slaves.
2025 - Vs 28 further explains the allegory. The church - like Isaac - represents the children of promise. Remember that it was the children of promise through whom salvation would come to ALL NATIONS. So...Ishmael in this allegory...represents the Jewish nation AFTER the crucifixion. We have to nail it down to this time period. This is how we ought to view today's Jews. They are now "children of the desolate".
2025 - Confirmed again in vs. 28. YOU, the church, are like Isaac, the children of promise. In so many words.
2025 - In vs 29 we see the allegory shift, or expand, with the Ishmael being a child of the flesh, and Isaac being the child of the Spirit. As Ishmael persecuted Isaac in Abraham's day, now the Jews (Paul has the Judaizers attacking the church in Paul's time in mind here) are attacking the children of promise (Paul means the church here). And so the allegory, as explained in these 2025 notes, holds up perfectly. This is what it means.
2021-2, This:
[Gal 4:30 ESV] But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman."
Obviously quoting the OT. This seems like a proof text for the end times treatment of Jews being different than the treatment of those in Christ. Wedding guests and bride come to mind. Surely what is supposed to be cast out is the Law, and the struggle for righteousness as a result of obedience to the law. This was just a safety net until the fullness of time, when Christ arrived. It was an appliance (perhaps even a crutch), allowing a semblance of natural motion, until such time as the plan was made whole in Christ. Now that Christ has completed his work, the appliance may be discarded, set aside, no longer worn. Why would you wear an artificial leg over a real leg? THAT is the right question. This is what trying to re-impose the Law (ritual, priesthood, sin offerings) on salvation in Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit in each individual is like.
2022 - Paul's arguments continue to be compelling. Hagar and Ismael, the son of the flesh, were indeed cast out. And Paul is calling Jewish Orthodoxy "the son of the flesh". Ishmael was loved. Abraham wanted to give him some of the inheritance, to keep him close, and so on. Just as devout Jews of that time wanted to keep the Law they had grown up with and loved and to which they were devoted. But there was a better. The better came, in Christ, in the fullness of time, and it is time to move on from slavery and step into freedom. To move on from childhood elementary primers and learning to read into adulthood, and communion with the Spirit, and learning to live righteously by faith, rather than having to be tutored and spanked by what is in writing. Grown ups deal with the gray, through communion with the Spirit. This is not about deciding whether murder is wrong, that lesson was learned under the Law. It was one of those elementary lessons, just as homosexuality, immorality, and so on from 1 Cor 10 were elementary lessons. Just because the Law is no more does not mean that things that were wrong under the Law are now right, nor do they need to be re-evaluated. Why teach transient lessons to the children of the Master? To those who will function AS Masters? The Law taught correctly on the "big matters" and now the Spirit has come to help the Master run the household. Still another lesson in what the Law is, and another lesson in how the moral teaching of the Law did NOT go away with the Law. We get those, and we have the Spirit to rightly divide the less obvious matters.
Possible FB post, using Gal 4:30.
2023 - So this verse: 30 But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." [Gal 4:30 ESV]. Based on what has been said in context previous to this verse, we might read it as "the followers of the law shall not inherit with the followers of grace". We can go a lot of places with this. First, look at this: 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year." [Gen 17:20-21 ESV].
2023 And then this:
10 So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. ... 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring." [Gen 21:10-11, 13 ESV]. It was Sarah that Paul is quoting when he says the son of the slave won't be heir with Isaac. But God goes on to say that Ishmael will also be a nation. Paul makes Ishmael equivalent to those who follow the law instead of grace. They too will be a "nation", just as will the children of promise. 2025-Update the bold and underline on these two. Very important conclusions, should be highlighted. TWO nations are promised. From this, a Dispensationalist might well argue that these two nations will take different paths through history, through the end times, and might come into the promises through an entirely different route. The children of promise by grace, and the children of the flesh by trial through fire, by surviving the final wrath of God against them, by surviving the double punishment.
2023 - IF we say that there are no longer two nations, if we say that ALL the promises are now to accrue to the church, then what possible reason could there be, what possible justification could we have, for supporting Israel today - or indeed at any time since the first century A.D.? Wouldn't we think of them instead as the children of Hagar, children of the flesh? Why would we not leave them to fend for themselves? We would have no reason at all for showing loyalty toward Israel, anymore than we have reason to show loyalty to Finland or Botswana, or any other nation. Perhaps even less reason to show loyalty to them, in that they were offered salvation directly from God, and it was to them that the scriptures were given first, and they rejected them. They arguably had the best opportunity of any people in the history of the planet to say yes, and yet they said no. Why would we not despise them??? For me, this is the ultimate refutation of the idea that Israel has been subsumed by the church. No. There are still two timelines. What was promised to Israel is indeed promised through the flesh. So the physical promises. The land, the Millennial, the authority over the whole world with one of their own, of the tribe of Judah, on the throne. The church is spiritual. The church has the Holy Spirit indwelling, the promise of salvation from wrath, the rapture, and the role of bride of Christ. There IS a difference.