Citygate Church Citygate Church

About this talk:

An exploration of what Jesus is doing now from His place at God’s right hand King, Prophet and Priest.

About this talk:

As he does frequently elsewhere and has done already in this letter, Paul contrasts what the believers in Galatia were (“when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods,” v 8) with what they now are (“you know God - or rather are known by God,” v 9). The radical change in identity is a crucial marker of the Christian and a crucial motivator for living the new life. So here, given that God has changed them so radically, “how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces?”

Those “forces” are, “those who by nature are not gods” (v 8). Though they were under the law and held captive by it, it is also true that they were enslaved by the things of this world and by the forces of evil (especially true of those Gentiles who became believers, which is perhaps his emphasis here given that he says, “you did not know God.”)

Having been freed from such slavery, how is it that they are turning back to such a life, evidenced in “observing special days and months and seasons and years” (v 10), as well as their more general return to obeying the law (see ch 3)? Before we ridicule them, we should ask about our tendencies to return to trusting in our pre-Christian ways: status, reputation, finances, ability, etc.

The pain in Paul’s words is evident. Despite their initial eagerness about the gospel, “I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. I plead with you, brothers and sisters” (vs 11-12); “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (v 16); “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!” (vs 19-20).

His mention of an illness that led to the opportunity to first preach the gospel in Galatia is not included in the record of Paul’s first missionary journey in Acts 13&14. Many options have been put forward to explain what this illness may have been, the most convincing one being that it at least affected his eyesight (see v 15). Whatever it was, the Galatians' reception of him was remarkable - “even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself” (v 14).

“Those people” (v 17) are the Judaizers he has so roundly condemned earlier in this letter. There is clearly a battle for loyalty not only to the true gospel but to Paul and his companions too - “What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them” or, ESV, “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” 

Paul’s argument and plea for the Galatians to come to their senses continues as he now (v 21ff) returns to the story of Abraham (paused in 4:7), expanding it to include Hagar and Ishamel, Sarah and Isaac. To the Galatians who are inclined to follow the Judaizers and come back under the law, he asks, “Do you not listen to the law?” (ESV). In other words, your position is illogical. The very law that you wish to be under points away from itself to the promise of freedom to be found outside it. And as long as you remain under it, it will continue to condemn and judge you (cf. 3:10-12).

The Jews made a great claim out of being children of Abraham. Both John and Jesus challenged such confidence by claiming that physical descent from Abraham did not necessarily mean they were his ‘children’ (see Matthew 3:9; John 8:31-44). In fact Paul here reverses the position they held: ‘Those who rely on the law and human effort to be right with God are not the children of the covenant, whereas those who rely on the free promise given in Christ Jesus are the true covenant children’ (Tom Schreiner). So after the history briefly outlined in vs 22-23, he sees this as being taken figurative

About this talk:

Paul continues his argument that those who are justified (made right with God and included in the covenant people of God) are those who, like Abraham, believe God, not those who are part of ethnic Israel or those who obey the law; and that God’s plan all along was to send a ‘seed’ who would bring these blessings to us.

So he now uses another image to describe life before faith in Jesus. In v 22 he imagined the Jewish nation being locked up by the Scriptures’ assessment of sinfulness, and powerless to break free. Now, v 23, he sees Israel as having been, “held in custody under the law.” There are different views about how Paul intends us to view this custody. In favour of it being a positive custody (a “protective custody,” David Gezik), the law can be seen as:

Protecting Israel by revealing God’s heart to them.

Protecting Israel by showing the best way to live at that time, summed up in the Ten Commandments - ie. in accordance with God’s declared will.

Protecting Israel by helping them to stay distinct from the sinful nations around them.

In addition to the above points, the law made it clear that a new means of fulfilling the promise to Abraham was urgently needed.

In that way, the law has been a guardian, caring for and training the immature person in preparation for the ‘maturity’ for which they were always intended - to be “justified by faith.”

However, the primary point of seeing the law as a guardian appears to be in emphasising its temporary nature (not its positive influence), in place only until the age of maturity is reached. And, as in the case of a young adult, there comes a point when the guardian is no longer needed - they have done their job. So it is now with the law. This was precisely the Judaizers’ mistake, seeing the law as permanent in God’s purposes. That this is Paul’s primary point here is made clear by vs 24-25: “until Christ came” and “we are no longer under a guardian.”

In vs 26-29 we have a number of statements which together declare the equality of all who are now in the kingdom of God, all of whom have been declared righteous on the basis of faith. So “you are all children of God through faith,” “all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” all who “belong to Christ...are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” His famous sentence, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” is a completely revolutionary idea in a world where these three divisions were primary cultural markers of status. He’s not saying there is no longer people who are Jews and people who are Gentiles, people who are slaves and people who are free, people who are males and people who are females, but that each person, regardless of biological, social or racial differences are equally God’s children, equally inheritors of the promise to Abraham, equally on the basis of faith.

In 4:1 Paul builds on the imagery used so far, likening the nation of Israel to a child who, though heir to the whole estate, is not yet master of any of it - in effect, that child is “no different from a slave” until the time set by his father when he will inherit it all. Despite being heirs of the promise to Abraham, Israel could not inherit it until the time set by the Father - the sending of his Son - had come. This slavery, Paul says, was to “the elemental spiritual forces” (ESV: “elementary principles”) - enslaved outside Christ either to demonic forces or to the basic principles of the world’s way of thinking. 

Then comes one of the New Testament’s great “But”s - “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son” - cf. Mark 1:15; Romans 5:6. He was, crucially, “born of a woman” and “born under the law:

“Born of a woman”: The promise to Abraham (and we also recall Genesis 3:15) was to his se

About this talk:

Paul begins, v 15 (literally), “I speak according to man.” In other words, “Here is a human example to illustrate what I have been saying (about salvation being a free gift of God for both Jew and Gentile on the basis of faith).” The example he gives is familiar to his readers as it comes from some of the best known parts of their Jewish history - from Abraham and Moses. The point of the example will be: “Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.” What he means is that the covenant of faith God established in the first place (with Abraham) has not been set aside with the coming of the Law (through Moses). God has never nullified his covenant with Abraham and never will (v 15) - it was and is a covenant of faith. Understanding how the Mosaic covenant interacts with the Abrahamic covenant is crucial to understanding the storyline of the Bible and how Christians are to relate to the Old Testament, particularly the Mosaic law.

So the promise was made to Abraham in around 2,000 BC - the promise, v 8, that, “All nations will be blessed through you.” This promise was to then be fulfilled through Isaac, Jacob and so on, but actually Scripture stated the promise would come not through the multitude of Abraham’s descendants (or seeds), but through one seed (singular, which is how the Hebrew text reads) - “meaning one person, who is Christ”

(v 16). It could never have been that all peoples on earth would be blessed through one ethnic nation located in one part of the world, so the fulfilment of the promise that “All nations will be blessed through you” (v 9), must be via a different route. ‘Paul realised that both the ‘land’ which was promised and the ‘seed’ to whom it was promised were ultimately spiritual’ (John Stott).

In v 18 he restates the prominence of the Abrahamic covenant - if inheriting the promise of blessing relied on obeying the Law then the Mosaic covenant would have replaced the Abrahamic one. But that cannot be the case because, “God in his grace gave it (first) to Abraham through a promise.”

Then, in vs 19-22, as any good writer or preacher does, Paul now anticipates some of the questions his readers may have.

Question 1 - v 19: “Why then the law” (literally)?

“Paul, if God never intended obedience to the Law to be the basis of receiving the blessing, why did he bother giving it, and requiring Israel to obey it, in the first place?”

Paul’s answer, as elsewhere in his writings, is that the law was given to expose sin, showing it for what it is, transgression - cf. Romans 3:20,4:15,7:7. Sin existed, of course, before the law, but only the law defines sin as transgression - see Romans 5:12-14.

But the Law was only ever intended to be a temporary measure, “until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.” One commentator says that he has read over 100 interpretations of the difficult language in vs 19b-20! Angels are mentioned in reference to the giving of the law in Deuteronomy 33:2, Psalm 68:17, Acts7:53 and Hebrews 2:2. It would appear that they had some mediating role. Whatever is meant here, Paul is setting up a couple of contrasts:

Moses was the mediator of a covenant, which itself was mediated through angels, while Abraham received a covenant directly.

The covenant of law involved more than one party in that both God and the people needed to fulfil their respective parts, while the covenant of promise is dependent on God alone. Unlike the Mosaic covenant, it is therefore guaranteed to ‘succeed.

“God is one” (a famous statement recited daily by Jews) also possibly implies one covenant for all, Jew and Gentile - cf. Rom 3:30. ‘Since there is one God, there is one way of salvation’ (Tom Schreiner).

Question 2 - v 21: “Is the law then opposed to the promises of God?”

This question is similar to the one Paul counters in Romans 7:7: “What shall

About this talk:

About this talk: