GALATIANS 4:6

The Bible says in Galatians 4:6-7, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” These verses tell us what we are, what we are not, and what we have because we are believers in Christ. Two things that it says we are: sons of God and heirs of God. Of course, if you are a true son of someone, then you are their heir. We are not servants or slaves. Servants and slaves will inherit nothing from the Master. We know that we are sons because God has put His Spirit into our hearts. That is one of the main differences between the believer and the unbeliever in this world: the believer has the Spirit of God, but the unbeliever does not. One of the main evidences that you have the Spirit is the fact that you know that God is your Father. It is wonderful to be a child of God through faith in Christ, and to go through this world knowing that God loves you, is guiding you, and takes care of you. And you have even more to look forward to in the next life because you are an heir.

Because we are no longer servants to sin and the world the way we were before we met Christ, then we should not fall into the things that the Galatians had fallen into: not into legalism or any kind of bondage to the law or to religious rituals. That is the point that Paul is making in the next verses. Galatians 4:8-9 says, “Howbeit then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?”

Before we are set free by Christ everyone is in bondage to someone or some thing. One of the strange things about the world is that many people think they are serving God, but they are not. Paul said, “When you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods.” That is one of the reasons that people who claim to be serving God end up doing weird and horrible things. They were not really serving God in the first place. Just because someone claims to be serving God does not mean that they are. They might be serving themselves and their own self-interest. You can only serve God if you know God through faith in Christ and if you are surrendered to His will.

The people in Galatia had turned to Christ and had been set free from the things that once enslaved them. Paul finds it surprising that they would turn back to the things that had once enslaved them. He said, “How turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage?” They were turning back to the law and the concept that their own good works could somehow justify them. Such a concept is called “weak” because it is weak: it has no power to save. “By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” It is called “beggarly” because it has no value. The blood of Christ was shed to pay the price for sin: the works of the law has no value to do that.

Notice that Paul said, “But now, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God.” The emphasis here is upon the fact that God did everything to accomplish our salvation from every standpoint. He did it: we did not do it. Even when you say, “I came to know Christ,” you might make too much of an emphasis on yourself and on what you did to come to know Him. Jesus did it all to accomplish your salvation. Do not forget that fact. To keep things in perspective it might be better to say with the Apostle Paul, “God came to know me.”

In what ways had the Galatians left the freedom of the gospel and returned back to human works? The Bible says in Galatians 4:10-11, “You observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” One of the things that had gone wrong with the Galatians was the fact that there was something wrong with how they were observing days, and months, and times, and years from a religious standpoint. Concerning the observance of “days” we must remember that the one great holy day established in the Old Testament was the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day was a part of the law. One of the reasons that the early Christians met on Sunday was to show their freedom from the law. Because they were free from the law, they were free from the Sabbath, and they were free to meet any day of the week.

One of the things that shows just how much legalism has become a part of organized Christianity today is the fact that so many people think that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, when nothing could be further from the truth. There is no such teaching in the New Testament. Of course, Christians should gather together to hear God’s Word, to praise the Lord in song and testimony, to pray, and for Christian brotherly fellowship; and Sunday is a good day to do such things since that is when the early Christians did so. But Sunday is not our Sabbath, and we do not treat it religiously like a Sabbath. Anyone who treats Sunday like a Sabbath is observing days, and months, and times, and years; and has returned to the weak and beggarly elements of the law. Christ is our Sabbath. Hebrews chapter four speaks of the Sabbath, reminding us that the Sabbath was created to be symbolic of the rest that God provides for us. The way that we get that rest in the age in which we live is not by the legalistic observance of a day of the week, but by entering into rest through faith.

Hebrews 4:9-11 says, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” Once you enter into God’s rest through faith in Christ, do not go back to a religious legalistic concept that emphasizes how faithful you are to certain days of the week. If you turn away from faith and turn to works, from a practical standpoint it will be as though it was in vain that you once received the gospel. If you were saved, you were saved in order to live by faith and not by works. “The just shall live by faith.”

In Paul’s attempt to wake up the Galatians to the fact that they had been departing from the gospel that he had originally taught them, Paul makes reference to the time when he was first with them. Paul wrote in Galatians 4:12-15, “Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as you are: you have not injured me at all. You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh you despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel from God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness you spoke of? For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.”

When Paul reminds the Galatians of how completely they had received him and how greatly they had cared for him, it tells us something very revealing about the Apostle Paul. Evidently he had some kind of major physical problem with his eyes. He called it “the temptation” which was in his flesh. When he said, “For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me,” he is revealing that something was wrong with his eyes. This is probably the same thing that he was talking about in Second Corinthians 12:7 where Paul wrote, “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” If things are not working out for you, and you’re following the Lord, and you have some sorrow or some limitation or some thorn in the flesh, and it appears that the Lord is doing nothing to correct things, it may just be that God is doing the same thing in your life that He was doing in Paul’s life. Perhaps God is saying to you also, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

In Galatians 4:16 Paul wrote, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” The people of the world may resist the truth because it can be painful, but Christians should at least understand this principle. Sometimes the truth hurts, but its final end is good if you heed the truth. The Word of God is said to be sharper than a two-edged sword. Psalm 119:75 says, “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted.” Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” If you are marching in legalism like the Galatians were, someone is doing you a favor if they remind you that you are failing in regards to the doctrine of salvation by grace and by grace alone.

Speaking of the false teachers, Paul wrote in Galatians 4:17-18, “They zealously affect you, but not well; yes, they would exclude you, that you might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.” The false teachers had a lot of zeal to influence the Galatians and affect them so that they would be drawn into that which is false. It is the extra energy and the zeal that the false teachers had that was making a difference. That is the problem with religious zeal: if it is misdirected, it will do a lot of damage. It is good to be zealous in a good thing, but zeal without knowledge is dangerous.

Paul wrote in Galatians 6:19-20, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.” The desire that Paul had was to spend more time with the Galatians. He knew that if he had more time with them, that he would make the difference in Christ being formed in them. Why is that: because Paul would teach them sound doctrine that would be centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace and His mercy and His promises. That is why God made some teachers and pastors: for the perfecting of the saints and the work of the ministry. If you hear the wrong teachers, then you will not hear the things that will help you grow in Christ. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Many believers have become more legalistic because the teachings that they have heard have emphasized human actions and human behavior and religious ritual. If only they had heard more about the grace of God through Christ, then that would have been the emphasis of their hearts, and they would have been well-armed against the legalism that came into their midst.

The Bible says in Galatians 4:21-23, “Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, and the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise.” Anyone who wants to live by the principles of the Old Testament should make sure that they understand what was really happening in Abraham’s life, and Abraham was one of the most important persons of the Old Testament.

Abraham had two sons, but there was a great lesson taught by the circumstances under which the two sons came into existence. One of the sons was the son of Abraham and a servant woman. Abraham had this child with his servant Hagar because of his lack of faith that God would give a son in God’s time and in God’s way. Instead of just believing the promise and waiting for God to do something, Abraham took things into his own hands and tried to accomplish the will of God by doing Abraham’s will. That is what the work of the flesh is: human will attempting to do the work of God by human actions instead of by faith.

Abraham’s wife Sarah is called the free woman. She stands in contrast to the servant woman, Hagar. There is an important symbolic meaning to the fact that the son whom God promised came from the free woman; but the son who came because of Abraham’s own works came from the bond woman. The greatest of God’s blessings come from you believing his promises and you doing nothing else but believing them. If you want to miss the promises, then go about doing things in your own will and in your strength with an emphasis on your works. If you make an emphasis on your works, then you are under bondage: bondage to the law. But if you emphasize believing God and His promises, then you are free: free from the law and free from bondage. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

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