Slaves and Sons

Galatians 4:1-31

Among other things, Paul's letter to the Galatians can be considered an epistle of freedom. Galatians 4 is largely concerned with the foolishness of exchanging the freedom of grace for the bondage of legalism. As we have previously observed, the Galatian churches were hampered by an especially insidious expression of legalism - an attempt to persuade Gentile Christians that they were required to keep the law of Moses.

Chapters three and four contain the heart of Paul's rebuttal argument against that premise. In our study of chapter 3, we considered his argument from experience, his argument from Old Testament Scripture and his argument from logic.

I'm calling chapter 4, the argument from history. It breaks down into three sections

1. The Family Argument (verses 1-11).
2. The Sentimental Argument (verses 12-20.)
3. The Allegorical Argument (verses 21-31). The allegorical argument retells the story of Hagar and Sarah with an application to contemporary conditions in Galatia.

THE FAMILY ARGUMENT

The last verse of the third chapter actually serves as a bridge to get to Paul's thought in chapter 4.

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

In reality, Paul continued a thought expressed in verse 7 - "those who believe are children of Abraham." A Christian, even today is a living, breathing fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham.

From that thought, Paul launched into a discourse on the problems and privileges of heirship. "As long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave." (Every teenage boy would agree with that statement.) Sometime ago, a father of two teenage boys was telling me how he gets his yard work done. He said. "I've got two boys who take care of my lawn." I said, "What you're really saying is that you've got slave labor."

When you stop to think about it, most parents are legalists. Just listen to the things they say to their children.

• "Wash behind your ears."
• "Close your mouth when you eat."
• "Look at me when I'm talking to you."
• "If you don't stop leaving your bicycle in the driveway, I'm going to give it to some kid who will appreciate it."
• "Clean up your room."
• "Turn the TV off."
• "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice."

Sound familiar? To be quite honest, a healthy relationship between a parent and a child involves a lot of "dos" and "don'ts." It has to be that way because of the immature nature of children. A child cannot make it to mature adulthood without limits. It may seem like a form of slavery, but it is absolutely essential. That's the point Paul made in verse 1.

Paul's draws an analogy between the slave like relationship of early childhood and the spiritual pilgrimage of people in verse 3, "So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world." What does he mean by "the basic principles of the world?" He doesn't really say. He could be referring to the law of Moses, but he also could be referring to the bondage the Gentiles felt in their pagan religions. His point is that law systems are a necessary part of the early stage of Christian development. That's the condition the world was in before Jesus came.

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