Bible Groups - Digests of Bible Commentaries

Paul's Letter to the Galatians - Chapter 4

A test for a good religion: are we being treated as adults? God's dealing with us does NOT require us to believe impossible things or do things for which no unreasonable case can be made (circumcision, food laws). His Spirit enlightens our minds. We are made to think. A religion with many rules and rituals may be attractive, but it may not be God's way. Metanoia = "turn your mind around" - easy for a sinner, but very difficult for religious people who have been taught that their religion's rules are God's way, although they may just be rules invented by their religious leaders for sound pastoral reasons, but not always applicable. We need to distinguish God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ from man-made accretions.
1 Takes a breath before the final part of central argument. An heir is really not so restricted as a slave, but is not free to make substantive decisions.
2 Analogy breaks down: heirs know they will inherit; slaves do not: a much more radical change from a hopeless existence to God's sons, wrought only by God's grace, an unnatural and unexpected intervention. What happens on "the date set" is not spelt out here.
3 But previously "we" were slaves, not heirs. Enslaved to what? Greek phrase is very unclear, but seems to refer to elemental, human religious & moral principles - the world's principles, merely human, not appropriate to the new order after Christ's coming. But their intent is caring, necessary to prevent social chaos, but still confining, enslaving, limiting the possibilities of life. Both pagan & Jewish. Eg making gods out elemental forces of nature (Cf Wis 13:1-5) and sacred days based on movements of stars & planets. The "we" in vv3-7 can hardly be Jews only, since in 3:26-29 Paul has spoken of "you" Galatians.
4 The "date" (v 2) is "when the time has fully come", God's Son was born of woman - ie a human being, brought up a Jew. All part of God's plan & Jews perception of his control of history. But no clear indication in "sent" that Paul thought Christ existed before he was conceived. Prophets were also "sent" by God (Jer 7:25; Ezek 2:3; Hag 1:12). The Christ event is a nodal point, turning point, the end of the age of the Law, opening the age of faith - a break between ages.
5 Two purposes for which God sent his son: (i) redemption (lit: to buy freedom) from slavery to the Law; (ii) our adoption - chosen - as God's sons. And received the Spirit, and so justified through faith. Christ is the only way. Note how the NRSV "correct" change to "children" makes nonsense of Paul's message.
6 Again "you" cannot refer just to Jews, since v5 "we" (= Gentiles) might be adopted as sons, which Israel already claims. Having sent his Son, God also sends "the Spirit of his Son" - ie the Spirit of God of chap 3 - can't be two Spirits! Paul's hearers knew they had received the Spirit, they had experienced some special state of mind, and recognised that it was the Spirit that cried out through their mouths the Aramaic "Abba!" To think of calling God "Father" is revolutionary. The Spirit enables us to address God - and think of him - as "Daddy". Consciousness of sonship is not innate: experience of sonship is gift of the Spirit - they belong together, cannot distinguish cause & effect.
7 Concludes arguments starting 3:6: righteousness & the Spirit comes through faith, not the works of the Law. So "you" - singular - addressed to each Galatian - are now a son, and therefore an heir through God. Not here through Christ - it is all God's work. Heir to what - membership of God's people and sharing his life? Paul often uses "through God": strange phrase - normally = means, whereas God is source of redemption. But clearly it is Gods's doing. Paul is not theologising, but trying to change thinking by forcing his hearers to acknowledge the absurdity of an adult insisting he be regarded as a legal minor, or an adopted son seeking to return to status of a slave. Hence the following: subjecting themselves to the Law is equally absurd (Vv 8-11). Although vv 3:1-4:7 represent a reasoned argument, neither we nor Paul assumes this is convincing on its own - it convinces only because it articulates what Paul and the Galatians have already experienced as receiving the Spirit - both being moved to utter "Abba" and by "the miracles among you" (3:5): they have already experienced the Spirit at work changing people and their community, creating a community of "heirs according to the promise" (3:29). But Paul defines this community as not everyone, but "all of you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus". Thus believers are in the container = "in Christ", but others are not in it. Boundaries define inside & outside. For Paul you cannot both be "in Christ" and "in/under the Law". "In Christ" also denotes believers' communion with the risen Christ. Statements such as "God raised Christ" or "Christ died for our sins" belong not to the material world, where normal methods of confirmation are possible, but they reflect Paul's symbolic world which intersects the material world only in the community of those who are "in Christ". The only evidence of the spiritual world for most people is the attitude and behaviour of believers. It is these changed ways of living that are to replace the Law as markers of the new creation. Doctrines and practices that keep outsiders out, like the Law, are not the right replacement for the Law - they can simply become our new slave masters.
8 Semitic "know" is most intimate possible relationship - as Adam "knew" Eve. How can they turn from this relationship? Do not be persuaded back into the Law, because then you must obey all of it, even though it gives no more than faith does.
Over-the-top argument about Sarah & Isaac (= promise) and Haggai & Ishmael (= Sinai), who were driven out. Wishes knife would slip - during circumcision! The "beings who in reality are not gods" today are age-old prejudices - in politics or finance; rampant consumerism; popular idols/celebrities. Even unquestioning assent to particular truth-claims or theological propositions. Surely love should take priority over principle as the truest expression of faith.
ISSUE: Only faith working through love is effective.
Justification - Reformation argument: we are saved through faith - Jesus' and ours - whose works result from the gift of the Spirit. IE faith is shown by love, cf James. We are not saved through works of the Law.
9 Repeated rebuke of vv3:1 & 1:6. In the Scriptures, especially the Prophets, "to know" is a verb of relationship based on encounter. To know the Lord is to acknowledge the Lord as God and confess exclusive allegiance to him. "God has known Israel" = God's election of and covenant relationship with his people (eg Amos 3:2; Hos 13:4). But Paul amends his words from "you have come to know God", because God knows us first. To be known is to be chosen & blessed by God. Here Paul is emphasising that the Gentiles are no longer outsiders, but God has now chosen them as God's people. Again, absurd to want to regress to outsiders, enslaved again by the old principles. Paul sees no difference between going back to the Law and going back to their pagan gods, worldly rules and astrology: earth, air, fire, water; gods of earth, sky, sun, sea. Cosmic/world order was seen as ordered by cultic rituals, whether pagan or from Moses' Law. Turning to the Law is the similar to returning to their pagan gods, both involving observances of "special days".
10 They are observing Jewish feasts, etc - a factual cause for Paul's disquiet - and worry it would lead to circumcision. Presumably these cultic days are among the "elemental principles" they want to return to. Gen 1:14 denotes the astronomical observations be which the seasons of human activity was to be ordered. Astrology not differentiated until recently. The "Lord's day" (Rev 1:10) celebrated by Christians is outside the natural rhythm of the calendar: it is an "8^th" day, beginning the new creation, so Christians are free from the Law and "elements of the world".
11 Plays on his possible wasted work, starting appeal on basis of friendship in vv 12-19.
12 Paul now emotionally addresses the Galatians directly - the first imperative of the letter: "Become as I am" - revealing much about himself as he does so. They had concern for each other, as he now does for them, as they had joy for and with him when he proclaimed the gospel to them. But strange that Paul says "I also have become as you are"; he has become a "sinner", living by grace outside the Torah, giving up his Jewish identity, and so one of them.
13 You did not turn aside from me or spit on me because of my "weakness of the flesh" (whatever that was - we do not know! But it appears to be the reason Paul diverted from his planned missionary journey) - or even if you suspected me of demonic possession. No indication of a 2^nd visit.
14 Galatians might have seen Paul's affliction as sign he was not from God, who might be expected to protect his messengers from illness.
15 Where is the blessing you gave me when I brought you the gospel? Possible indication of an eye illness?
16 Is their previous blessing now to be replaced with enmity?
17 The agitators are not courting you for a good purpose, but to exclude you - from God's people? Unless you in turn court them - to obtain entry on their terms? Being invited to join an exclusive club and be bound to them.
18 Implies the agitators' methods are not admirable. Paul does not seek to bind them to himself: he is subordinate to the gospel. But the agitators seek to put themselves in the place of the gospel.
19 Paul is again in labour for his (already born) children - "until Christ is formed in you". It is God who is doing the "forming" (Cf Isa 42:14-17), although Paul labours. Although Paul often sees himself as a father to his followers, he mixes metaphors: having started his family, he now labours as a mother to bring them to birth (Cf v11).
20 Acknowledges difficulty of a letter to be read to them by someone else - easier if he could be there. (Reminds us as readers in Church how difficult it is to transmit the writer's meaning). As he is not there he is perplexed - if he were there perhaps he could assess the situation better. Vv12-20 remind us that emotions and human bonds can contribute to our faith = commitment to the gospel truth.
21 Vv 21-31: midrashic homily 4. Suspect the agitators had introduced this argument, to which Paul is responding. Too dangerous for Paul to use these passages unless forced to - because they involve circumcision. But he stands tradition on its head: Isaac was the traditional ancestor of God's people, Ishmael the father of outsiders. Agitators would have used Gen to reinforce attraction of being part of the circumcised. Paul has to change Galatians' perceptions so they see being part of "the promise" as socially more attractive.
22 Instead of quoting, as usual after "it is written", Paul summarises Gen 16-18 & 21 (esp Gen 16:15; 21:2-3, 8). Nor names sons or mothers. Suggests these stories from Gen already part of discussion between Galatians & agitators. Noone could object to the descriptions slave and free, although not precisely in Gen. Strictly Hagar was not a slave but a 'servant-woman' without any stress on servility. "Sarah" means princess, and noone could object to calling her free. But Paul needs to push the distinction.
23 Gen does not say Ishmael born "according to the flesh" nor Isaac "through the promise". But these statements could not be objected to. Ishmael was born "naturally" of a young girl, Isaac clearly by God's special grace to an old woman after a promise by God. God asked Abraham "Shall what was spoken (= promise) be impossible for God?" (Gen 18:14). Israel traces its ancestry from Isaac. The promise was for all nations (Gen 12:3; 18:18; cf Rom 4:16-18)
24 Allegory: meaning other, deeper than it seems. Paul links Hagar, the slave girl who bears children into slavery, with Sinai, where Moses received the Law. Adherents of the religious system originating on Sinai are slaves like their mother, Hagar. (Cf Rom 4:11 where Paul says circumcision was a seal on Abraham's righteousness already received by faith.)
25 Very puzzling: Is Paul playing on similar sounding Hagar in Hebrew and an Arabic word for rock or cliff? Paul seems to be using local knowledge from his visit to Arabia: Ishmael occupied a region of Arabia (Gen 25:6, 18), where there is a locality called Hagar (1 Chron 5:10, 19-20, Ps 83:6) and even now a place called Chegra, near the anciently believed location of Mt Sinai. The present Jerusalem, ie those who define themselves by allegiance to the Law are not free. "Corresponds" ie stands in line with, like 2 lines of soldiers. So "slave" is linked with Hagar, Ishmael, flesh, Sinai, present Jerusalem; while "free" is linked with Sarah, Isaac, promise/Spirit, Jerusalem above.
26 But the "Jerusalem above" is represented by the free woman, the mother of all Christians. Cf Christians born of the Spirit (4:29), ie their birth is not by earthly power, but by the creative power of God. The "heavenly Jerusalem above" was a known concept in Judaism (Exod 25:9; Ezek 40-48). For Jews Mt Zion - occupied by the Temple - was the intersection between heaven & earth, so Jerusalem already partly in the heavenly world.
27 Isa 54:1, but connection difficult to tease out. Sarah was barren, Hagar had more children = Gentiles. The new Jerusalem, expected at the end time, has appeared now because Jesus' death & resurrection have broken the boundary. Isa was looking forward to the return from exile, but Paul here holds that the promise of many children will come only in a global church of Jews & Gentiles.
28 You Gentile Christians are the children of the promise, promised by God to those of faith..
29 Targum tradition that Ishmael harassed - played with, in a teasing sense (Gen 21:9) - Isaac because he was circumcised willingly age 13,and therefore more righteous than Isaac who was circumcised normally at 8 days. To be children of the present-day Jerusalem is to be limited to the natural, merely human, with circumcision the sign of being "born according to the flesh", the opposite of "born according to the Spirit". Who are those "born according to the flesh"? Presumably Jews, including Paul who persecuted followers of Jesus? The verb used by Paul for "bear" (children) in vv 23, 24 and 29 is more usually used of a man as begetting children (more usual female verb used in Gen). So the slave girl who "births" children into slavery (v 24) symbolises missionaries like the agitators who insist on works of the Law. This makes sense of v30. But implies those now persecuting are these agitators, rather than non-Christian Jews like Paul. Makes sense as all leading up to Gen 21:10 in v30. Arabs and - later Islam - saw Ishmael as their progenitor and bearer of the promise to Abraham. Contrasts those merely human - born according to the flesh - and those whose life is centred in God - through the Spirit.
30 So cast out these agitators who are children of the slave girl (Gen 21:10). Repeats the anathema of 1:8-9.
31 Summarises 4:21-30. Promise is now brought only by Christ to those whose faith enables them to receive the Spirit. Christians free from the Law correspond to Isaac; those enslaved to the Law to the slave girl's son. Leads to how became free in 5:1 - the centre of the letter. Note that in discussing righteousness Paul speaks only of the promise, not the covenant, which he would see as defined too much by the Law.
But Paul's subversive reversal of the traditional meaning of Abraham's wives makes us worry that any part of scripture may be used to mean anything! If we find in the Bible support or the opposite for what we believe, does this help? Paul's reading suggests that the Bible cannot secure its own interpretation, there is no universal way of understanding it. How can we be sure in interpreting the Bible that we are not simply listening to our own voices? Perhaps we should assume Paul is using some irony in so interpreting Sarah & Hagar - perhaps to remind us not to take biblical interpretation too seriously?