Summary of Galatians 3:23-4:20

In earlier times before the new regime of faith came, all humans were kept under the law until the regime of faith would be revealed. The law was like a slave that takes children to school, it merely prepared the way for Christ, prepared for the justification of faith. But now the regime of faith is here, and so people are no longer under that slave. Instead, Christians are sons of God through faith in Christ. In being baptized into Christ, they have put on Christ. So now there is no difference of Jew or Greek, slave or free, or male or female -- all are in Christ Jesus. By belonging to Christ, Christians are the children of Abraham, and so can inherit the promise once given to Abraham.

While the heir is a minor, he might as well be a slave, he has no freedom of action, even though he is in a way master. But he is subject to administrators until the time comes that his father has set. In the same way all people used to be like minors, slaves, under the elements of the world. But now in the fullness of time God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to buy back, to redeem, those who were under the law, so they could be adopted as sons. Because Christians are sons, the Father has sent the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, who cries out, Father. So now instead of being slaves, they are sons. That means Christians also can inherit, are heirs.

Formerly, since people did not know God, they were slaves to those beings that were not really gods. But in the present regime, Christians know God -- really, are known, that is, chosen by God. Since that is the case, why would the Galatians want to turn back to the weak, poor previous state in which they once were? They want to become slaves again, for they observe certain days, months, times, years. Paul is afraid he may have worked in vain over them. He pleads for them to be like him, just as he became like them. They did not wrong Paul. It was in weakness of the flesh that Paul preached to them the first time. But they did not reject this temptation of seeing him weak. Instead they accepted him as if he were an angel of God, as if he were Christ Jesus Himself. But now, where is that former welcome? At that time, they would have pulled out their eyes and given them to Paul. But has Paul now became an enemy by telling them the truth? They, the Judaizers, cultivate them eagerly, but not well. The Judaizers want to shut the Galatians out from the gift, the freedom of Christ, so they may cultivate the Judaizers. To be cultivated in the right way is fine -- but that should not be just when Paul is present with them.

Paul cries out: O my children, I am suffering over you as if in birth pains to bring you forth again, so that Christ will be formed in you. I wish I could be with you now, and talk differently -- I don't know what to do with you!

Comments on 3:23-4:20

Paul compares at length two regimes or setups -- being under the law, or being under faith. The law was a slavery in that people had to obey many commands. Yet doing so did not earn salvation. Only faith can obtain salvation. In becoming, by baptism, members of Christ who is God's Son, we become the brothers of Christ -- and so have a claim to inherit a place in the Father's mansions with Him.²²

Even though the word inherit (kleronomein) sometimes means merely to obtain, yet here, in view of the setting -- with all the talk of being sons, and of a last will and testament (3:15-18) -- we see it does have the strict meaning of inherit. A son inherits from his Father not because he, the son, is good, but because the Father is good. The son could, of course, earn the opposite of good things, could earn punishment, even to be disinherited. But if he does not do that, he will get his inheritance, a place in the Father's house, not because he earned it -- children who inherit do not say they earn it -- but because the Father is good.

In regard to this, inheriting by faith, there is no difference of free or slave, Jew or Greek, male or female. May we then conclude there are no differences in other respects as well? Certainly we cannot draw that from Paul's words here. Paul in the whole context, at great length, is talking simply about justification and inheriting by faith. So it is not at all legitimate to say that in regard to other things, e.g., ordination to the priesthood, there is no difference of male and female. To say that would be to violate a most basic principle of Scripture study, i.e., we must understand things in the light of the context. We must not take the words as if in isolation, and then apply them to just anything we might want to.

Paul adds -- thinking back to the passage about the promise given to Abraham and his seed -- that Christians are the real seed of Abraham. They need not be racially descended from Abraham. That alone would not suffice for salvation. They must rather imitate the faith of Abraham, and so be justified by faith. So Christians can be called spiritual Semites. (Paul does not use these words, but the sense is the same).

Rabbi Levi (c.300 A.D.) said²³: "In the future, Abraham will sit at the gate of Gehenna, and will not permit any circumcised Israelite to go down there." The Talmud, Sanhedrin 10.1, has the same idea: "All Israel will have part in the age to come." The same view was probably around in the time of Christ, and is likely to be behind the response of Christ to the man who asked if most people were saved or lost (Mt 7:13): "Enter through the narrow gate." He meant: Do not say 'we have it made, since we are children of Abraham' (racially) -- more is needed! In contrast, Paul says that physical descent from Abraham is not enough.

Earlier, in 3:16, Paul made an issue of the fact that the word seed is singular, not plural, and so made it refer to Christ. Really, the word in itself is commonly collective, refers to a group. But Paul, like a Rabbi, is free with this point. But now he shifts, and clearly means that the word seed refers not just to Christ the individual, but to Christians.²⁴ Of course, he probably would and could say that Christians are in a way identified with Christ, being His members. In that train of thought, Paul will say vehemently in 2 Corinthians 5:14, "One died for all, therefore all have died."

In stressing that a child who is a minor has two aspects -- he has a legal right to an inheritance -- but also he cannot dispose of it or control it while still a minor -- Paul says that we (we think again of 1 Thessalonians 4:13 and following in which Paul spoke of "we the living" and really meant it in a general sense, not meaning to say he expected to be on hand at the end) once were enslaved under the elements of the world. We are not sure what Paul means by elements. It could mean either of two things: 1) the spirit powers of whom the Gnostics and Jewish apocalyptic speculators spoke (Paul does not believe in them unless he takes them to be the same as the devils, as he does in Colossians 2:15), or 2) religion before Christ, true but imperfect among the Jews, false among pagans. He speaks of the elements again in 4:9, and the question is the same. Either understanding would fit in both places. The second meaning is more likely.

When Paul contrasts two eras, one of slavery under the law, or under the "elements" with the era of the freedom of sons, we must watch out not to misunderstand. There are two possible senses here. First, one could take him to mean that there was darkness before the dawn of Christ, and so no one could be saved. Paul surely does not mean that, as we can see from Romans 2:14-16 and Romans 3:29-30. Secondly, we could take it to mean that all graces granted before the coming of Christ were given only in anticipation of Christ's earning of all graces by His sacrifice, and that even the just of the Old Testament period could not reach the vision of God before Christ actually came and died. That is true. So we have something like a twofold system as system picture (system as system really means the same as focused) here. The first picture is that of the time before Christ: in and of itself, it could not save, gave no means of salvation; the second picture is that of the time of Christ -- salvation has been earned by Him. We get it if we become members of Christ in Baptism and live by faith.

In 4:12 Paul says that he first came to them in weakness of the flesh. Does he mean he was physically sick? Not impossible. In particular, there was much malaria in his world, and one can get recurrent fevers from it. Some have even taken his words about their being willing to pluck out their eyes for him to mean he had eye trouble. This is being too crude, we fear. The weakness of the flesh could merely mean that Paul recognized he was a nobody in the eyes of the world, and physically not impressive -- he seems to have been small. In himself he was nothing; he depended on the power shown by the Spirit in miracles.