In the fourth and fifth chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians, the corrective character of this letter becomes most prominent. Up to this point the emphasis has been on teaching. In this teaching a foundation has been laid for the exhortations and admonitions which here come before us. And even here, the exhortation is coupled with exposition, inasmuch as the admonitions of chapter four are preceded and followed by doctrinal illustrations.

To begin with, our attention is called to the illustration of the heir. In this illustration two facts are pointed out.

The first fact is the bondage which is characteristic of the infancy of the heir. Of this we read in Verses 1-2:

"Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all:

But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father."

By implication this suggests also the contrasting liberty into which the heir emerges at maturity.

The second fact, here pointed out, is the analogy between the experience of the heir and the spiritual experience of believing Jews. The condition of the heir in infancy becomes an illustration of their bondage under the law. And the liberty of the heir at maturity becomes an illustration of their liberty when Christ comes into their experience.

This analogy has both a dispensational and a personal application.

In chapter three we saw that the tenure of the law was temporary. It was "added because of transgressions until the Seed should come, to whom the promise was made" (Gal. 3:19). Now note the statement in the Scripture before us:

"Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.

To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:3-5).

When Christ came, He came as the fulfillment of the law: He said,

"Think not I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17).

And now the prevailing principle in God's dealing with men is not law, but grace. This is the dispensational aspect of this illustration.

Thus it is also in our personal experience. Before men know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, invariably they are occupied with their own good works. Either they are striving, whether consciously or unconsciously, to live according to the commandments of the law, or they are rebelling against those commandments and disobeying them. This is true of the Gentiles as well as the Jews, for the Scripture says,

"When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law are a law unto themselves" (Rom. 2:14).

Thus unsaved men are under bondage to the law.

But when we clearly see the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour, He sets us free from that bondage, and so it is written:

"Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:14).

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:4).

There is a delightful suggestion in verse five, which says that Christ was sent,

"to redeem them that, were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

Under ancient Roman custom, when a boy reached the age of his majority, his father would take him with him into the Roman senate. There he would invest him with the Toga Virilis, the robe of manhood; and there, in the presence of the assembled Roman Senators, he would proclaim that this was his son and heir, now a free-man in his own right, and entitled to all the privileges of a free-born Roman citizen. Such will be our experience when our Lord comes again, and when, in the Rapture, and in the resurrection, He will proclaim before men, angels, and demons, that we are His sons and heirs. This "adoption" (the Greek word literally means son-placing) is ours by virtue of Christ's redemptive work, but it is yet future, wherefore God's Word says, we are "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23). In the meantime our sonship is attested by the Spirit of God's Son, in our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father" (See verse 6).

But now let us glance at the exhortation to which this illustration leads.

These Galatian Christians have backslidden. This backsliding has two manifestations, and these now become the subject for discussion.

From the joyous liberty of newborn sons, in love with God, and with His Son, these Galatians have fallen into the observance of the ceremonials of the law. But let us listen while Paul tells about it:

"Now, after ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which ye desire again to be in bondage" (Gal. 4:9)?

Specifically this sad spiritual declension has taken the form of observing special days. They have gone back to keeping the Sabbath day, and sabbatical and Jubilee years, and such, as provided by the law* Now the sad thing about all this is that these things were given as types, or pictures of Christ, looking forward to His coming. As another Scripture puts it, they were "A shadow of things to come, but the body (or substance) is of Christ" (Col. 2:17). In becoming occupied with these pictures, once more, the Galatians had forgotten the One Whom they pictured. And so Paul concludes this exhortation with the words:

"I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain" (Gal. 4:11).

In so saying, Paul was not expressing the fear that they had lost their salvation, but he was wondering if they really were saved in the first place.

The other manifestation of their backsliding was that they had become cold toward the one who had led them to Christ. This was in sharp contrast to their attitude toward him when Paul first preached the Gospel to them:

"Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you at the first.

And my temptation (i. e., testing) which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus" (Gal. 4:1314).

Such had been their appreciation for Paul's ministry, and such their love for him, that at that time they had been willing to pluck out their own eyes and give them to him, had such a thing been possible, in order to relieve the distress which this "infirmity in the flesh" was causing him, for apparently Paul was suffering from weak or diseased eyes. But now false teachers have troubled them. They have listened to these teachers, and in listening to them they have become critical of Paul. Had this been a purely personal matter, no doubt Paul would have ignored it. But the real issue was a clash between two lines of teaching. As we have seen in former studies, Paul has taught that salvation comes entirely by the grace of God, and not by the works of the law. In contradiction to this, these teachers, who have undermined the confidence of the Galatians in Paul, have taught that they must keep the law to be saved. And so, Paul yearns over these young converts, with a yearning which he expresses in these words:

"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 (or to speak in a different tone of voice); for I stand in doubt of you" (Gal. 4:19-20).

This chapter concludes with the illustration of Abraham's two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael was born after the flesh. His birth was the result of a sinful expedient, to which Abraham resorted, in a moment when his faith was weak, in the hope that by this means he might bring about the birth of the promised seed. His mother was Hagar, an Egyptian bondmaiden. But Isaac was born by the miraculous working of God's Spirit in causing Sarah, Abraham's wife, to bear a son in her old age. He was the child of promise!

In this concluding illustration, Paul, led of God's Spirit, compares Hagar to the law; and the Jews of the earthly Jerusalem, who were still under bondage to the law, to Ishmael, the child of the flesh. But Sarah he compares to the grace of God, and the believers, who shall have a part in the Heavenly Jerusalem, he compares to Isaac, the child of promise. And so he concludes this discussion with this intensely practical conclusion:

"What saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.

So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free" (Gal. 4:30-31).

And in so saying, as in previous verses, with delightfully subtle suggestion, he shows plainly that the false teachers who have troubled them are children of the bondwoman —children of the flesh, and should be repudiated!