Galatians

A relapse into slavery. 4:8-11

Paul has concluded his major doctrinal argument and he now turns to exhort his readers in their Christian walk. Before doing this he makes a personal observation and expresses his fears for their salvation. Sadly, many of the Galatian believers have adopted the idea that the performance of religious duty somehow appropriates God's blessings. As far as Paul is concerned, law-obedience for blessing is nothing more than a spiritual slavery that leads to damnation.

v8. Paul observes that not so long ago, the members of the church in Galatia, whether Jew or Gentile, did not know God, they had no relationship with the living God. Instead they were slaves to the restrictive regulations of religion; counterfeit deities that have no reality.

v9. But now "you have come to know God", through the preached word, or properly we should say, "known by God". It is God who takes the initiative to reach out to us in Christ, without that initiative we would have remained slaves. So, Paul wants to know why it is that the Galatian believers have turned back to the rudimentary principles of morality and the restrictive regulations of religion. "Do you wish to be a slave of darkness all over again?"

v10. The externals of this return to the law are seen in the Galatians' observance of the sacred days and seasons of the Jewish calendar, cultic observances that flow from an obligation to fully apply the Mosaic law. Of course, Paul is not so much denouncing the keeping of holy days; even today Christians celebrate holy days, eg. Easter / Passover. For Paul, the Galatians' strict observance of the Jewish calendar is but an evidence of their return to law-obedience for the appropriation of divine blessings.

v11. Paul's distress may have been for the loss of the Galatian believers Christian freedom, but it is more likely that it was for the undermining of their salvation. Their reliance on law-obedience for the blessings of the Christian life could easily infect the basis of their salvation, which is by grace through faith and not works of the law. So, Paul fears that his evangelistic work among them has all been in vein.

The year 2009 will be remembered by the letters GFC: "global financial crisis." Economists will argue for years over who was responsible, and the conclusions will reflect either their socialist, or capitalist, leanings. The general conclusion is that the problem was caused by unregulated free markets, but then there are those who argue that the problem was caused by government interference in the free market. No free market can function properly where a government runs up massive deficits while at the same time devaluing the real value of money by setting interest rates below inflation. So, the sub-prime problem in the US was down to both the government at the time and greedy merchant bankers.

Fredrich Hayek, some years ago, made this comment about economics, a comment that applies to the GFC, as it does to the Christian life: "knowledge once gained and spread is often not disproved, but simply lost, or forgotten." How this applies to the operation of free markets can be someone else's brief; how it applies to the Christian life is ours. The knowledge of God is like a grain of wheat sown among weeds; it springs to life, but can easily be choked, choked by the cares of the world.

The Galatians had discovered the living God; they had heard the good news about Jesus Christ, they had believed and were now indwelt with the renewing presence of the Spirit of Christ. Everything was theirs freely in Christ - new life in Christ, eternity. Yet, their knowledge of the unencumbered grace of God had slipped from their memory.

For the Gentile members of the church, as well as the Jewish members, the restrictive regulations of religion were once viewed as a divine tire lever, useful for levering off the hub-cap of divine blessings - health, wealth and happiness. Yet, having escaped from this servitude, the Galatian believers had now forgotten about God's free grace in Christ and were drifting back into the servitude of law-obedience. They had again adopted the notion that God's blessings were somehow dependent on what they do, rather than what God has already done for them. The "doing", of course, was all about doing the law of Moses, even down to keeping the appointed days of the Jewish liturgical calendar.

Paul was fearful for the salvation of the Galatians, for when a person shifts from grace to law they actually undermine their salvation. It is just so easy to start thinking that we keep in with God, go on with God, are blessed by God, on the basis of how well we live the Christian life; that somehow our prayer life, Bible study, church attendance, and particularly morality, .... secures God's love and thus his benefits. Yet, thinking this way is nothing more than the product of a forgetful mind; we have forgotten that everything is ours on the basis of what God has done for us in Christ, ours as an accepted gift.

We will give Fredrich the final word, even though he is talking about economics, because what he says applies equally to Biblical truth: "You can never establish a truth once and for all, but have to convince every generation anew."

1. What was it that the Galatians were being enslaved to again?

2. What is it about this slavery that is so dangerous?