Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.
The elements of this world
The law was so called.
I. In respect of the fuller and complete doctrine of the new testament.
II. Because Jewry was a little school set up in a corner of the world and the law an A.B.C. or primer in which Christ was revealed in an elementary and obscure manner. Thus we see--
1. That God’s ancient people were heirs as well as we: the only difference is the manner which God used in dispensing His blessings.
2. That they were but children in respect of us;
(1) as regards the Mosaic regimen: they were kept subject to more laws than we;
(2) as regards revelation: God has revealed more to us than to them (Luk_10:24; Heb_1:1-2).
3. That we should increase in the knowledge and grace of God so as to be answerable to our condition. How sad that a Christian who should be a teacher is often a babe (Heb_5:12).
4. That we should rejoice in and live conformably to our privilege as sons. (W. Perkins.)
Children cannot have presented to them pure intellectual conceptions
They must first learn the import of external signs. They must learn language and letters. They must put together syllables and words. They must see thought through the medium of form, or learn to think of what is moral and spiritual by facts, parables, pictures, or such like appeals to the imagination and the senses. For a time words to the young mind are things--stories are facts. By and by the inward meaning of what has been learned comes to be understood. The outward ultimately falls off or loses its primary aspect and uses; and the man, with his fully developed and perfected faculties, is in immediate contact with the abstract and the spiritual. He then feels as if he apprehended it, and could reason about it, or at least meditate upon it, without the aid of words and signs. “When I was a child,” etc. (1Co_12:11-13). Then I saw through a glass darkly--feeling after truth as reflected from a mirror, or presented in a parable; now I look upon it face to face. (T. Binney,D. D.)
All mankind, the whole race of Adam, were until the Incarnation of Christ as children
1. Because of their want of knowledge of God and the feebleness of their intellect in the things of God.
2. Because of their condition as under the laws of nature or of ceremonies, so that they were no better than servants under the control of a taskmaster.
But to the Jews especially does this word “children” apply--
1. As being ordinarily busied about small things, minute observances--the occupation of children.
2. Because of the littleness of their knowledge of Divine things.
3. Because of their fear of correction, their timidity as children, going ever in the fear of death (W. Denton,M. A.)
The minor
I. His position--one of restraint, subservience, dependence.
II. His training--suitable (v. 3), wise, appointed and limited by the Father.
III. His prospects--well grounded, magnificent, conditional. (J. Lyth.)
