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(Gal_4:1-7)
(The Epistle for the Sunday after Christmas.)
Gal_4:1. Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child—“The heir”=the son, as the one who—by law and descent.—is heir, even though he does not until afterwards come into possession of the property. He is lord of all =has the right thereto; nay, if the father is dead, he is actual possessor, only he cannot enjoy it, cannot assert his character as master, so long as he is under guardians as íÞðéïò , a child, [an infant, a minor. Lightfoot: “The minor was legally in much the same position as the slave. He could perform no act, except through his legal representative. This responsible person, the guardian in the case of the minor, the master in case of the slave, who represents him to the state—was termed in Attic law êýñéïò Prospectively, however, though not actually, the minor was êí ́ ñéïò ðÜíôùí , which the slave was not.”—R.] The most natural reference is to a child placed under guardianship, whose father is dead, especially on account of the expression êýñéïò ðÜíôùí ; and this is favored by the direct application to the son, of the term êëçñïíüìïò , heir. Some interpreters, it is true, cite the expression: “until the time appointed of the father,” as inconsistent with this, on the ground that the age of majority was legally determined; but this objection has too pedantic a character. [Alford: “The question, whether the father of the heir here is to be thought of as dead, or absent, or living and present, is in fact one of no importance; nor does it belong properly to the consideration of this passage. The fact is, the antitype breaks through the type, and disturbs it; as is the case wherever the idea of inheritance is spiritualized. The supposition in our text is, that a father has pre-ordained a time for his son and heir to come of age, and till that time, has subjected him to guardians and stewards. In the type, the reason might be absence, or decease, or even high office or intense occupation of the father; in the antitype, it is the Father’s sovereign will; but the circumstances equally exist.” So Ellicott and Lightfoot.—R.]
Gal_4:2. Guardians and stewards.— Åðßôñïðïò also usually signifies guardian. Here, as =he who counsels the ward, defends him, and directs him. It is distinguished from ïἰêïíüìïò =agent, a steward of the estate. The twofold expression is meant to bring out more strongly the idea of dependence.—Until the time appointed of the father.— Ðñïèåóìßá “tempus præstitutum, appointed term, only here in n. t., but frequently in the classics, Philo and Josephus.” Meyer. [Objection is made to the view that the definite time was appointed by the father (Meyer and others), since the term was fixed by statute in Roman law. Some suppose a reference to some exceptional legislation as respected the Galatians. But this difficulty arises only on the supposition that the father is conceived of as dead, which is but a supposition. Besides it is unnecessary, as implied above, to press the illustration.—R.]
Gal_4:3. Even so we.—To be taken strictly = the Jewish Christians. They must be such as were “under the law” (Gal_4:5). [Meyer objects strongly to this limitation and with reason, urging 1) the sense of “rudiments of the world,” 2) that in Gal_4:5, where the first clause evidently refers to the Jewish Christians alone, the second, taking up ἡìåῖò again, as evidently refers to Christians generally, since Gal_4:6 addresses such, and 3) that ïὐêÝôé (Gal_4:7) and ôüôå (Gal_4:8), applied to the Galatians, refer back to the servile condition. Alford, Ellicott and others admit only a secondary reference to the Gentile Christians. This is perhaps sufficiently satisfactory, but the whole context seems to refer it to Jews and Gentiles alike (Lightfoot).—R.] When we were children, íÞðéïé .—The pre-christian state is regarded as a childhood in relation to the Christian state of the same persons, only the Christian state then is regarded as ripe age (the comparison is differently applied 1Co_13:11; Eph_4:13). In childhood a state of bondage existed [the perfect indicating a continued state.—R.]; the external position was that of a servant, not that of the free son. For we were yet ὑðὸ ôὰ óôïé÷åῖá ôïῦ êüóìïõ , under the rudiments of the world.—For the different explanations which this difficult expression has received, see Meyer or Wieseler. According to my view the expression applies in any case only to Judaism, especially to the “law” (an Apostle Paul could not possibly comprehend Heathenism and Judaism under one idea, regarding them thus as virtually equivalent); and moreover óôïé÷åῖá , especially in view of Gal_4:9, is to be taken in any case in a spiritual sense=beginnings of religion, elementary wisdom; for only with that do the expressions Üóèåíῆ êáὶ ðôù÷Ü , “weak and beggarly,” agree. [ Óôïé÷åῖá , originally the letters of the alphabet, as being set in rows. The question here is, has it a physical or an ethical reference. The fathers adopted the former view. The latter: “elementary teaching,” is now generally received, and is supported by its simplicity, its accordance with the idea of “minor” running through the context, as well as by Col_2:8. See notes on that passage. Against the limitation to Judaism, see below.—R. ]
Ôïῦ êüóìïõ is either general = Mankind; “the collective human world is conceived as an I individual subject, needing the Divine training, to which God, in its boyish age, lasting till the sending of Christ, gave the elementary instruction of the law” (Wieseler). It is true that the heathen world=this part of the êüóìïò , had not these rudiments, but for that very reason does not here, where the object is the exposition of the Divine pedagogy, come into consideration. Or could “the world” be taken in a more specific sense, more fully characterizing the “rudiments” themselves = elements, which primarily belong only to the sphere of “the world,” of the visible, the external, and hence themselves having the like character, themselves external (comp. Luther), opposed to the higher stage, as pneumatic or heavenly? Comp. ôὸ ἅãéïí êïóìéêüí , Heb_9:1 (Wieseler). [The first view seems preferable, but without the limitation to Judaism, which grows out of Schmoller’s view of “we.” For there was a Divine pedagogy in heathenism also, under which most of these to whom Paul wrote “were kept in bondage.” Lexically such a limitation is highly improbable. Meyer refers “world” to non-Christian humanity, and “the rudiments of the world” would then mean, not anti-Christian teachings, but the rudimentary training of non-Christian, ante-Christian humanity, including both Judaism and the strivings of heathenism, which may indeed have generally taken the form of external ceremonies, but which were alike propædeutic, the one containing besides an element absolutely good, absorbed in the gospel, the other, an element absolutely bad, antagonistic to the gospel. The Christian view of Ancient History, now generally received, strongly favors this interpretation. See Calvin, Meyer, and comp. Col_2:8; also a thoughtful note of Lightfoot, p. 170 sq., comparing the component parts of Judaism and heathenism.—R.]
Gal_4:4-5. But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son. = When the measure of time was full: and this was full when the time appointed by God had elapsed. The time is conceived as a measure. [Lightfoot: “It was ‘the fulness of time.’ First: in reference to the giver. The moment had arrived which God had ordained from the beginning and foretold by His prophets for Messiah’s coming. This is implied in the comparison ‘the time appointed of the Father.’ Secondly: In reference to the recipient. The gospel was withheld until the world had arrived at mature age; law had worked out its educational purpose and now was superseded. This educational work had been twofold: 1. Negative: It was the purpose of all law, but especially of the Mosaic law, to deepen the conviction of sin and thus to show the inability of all existing systems to bring men near to God This idea which is so prominent in the Epistle to the Romans appears in the context here, Gal_4:19; Gal_4:21. 2. Positive: The comparison of the child implies more than a negative effect. A moral and spiritual expansion, which rendered the world more capable of apprehending the gospel than it would have been at an earlier age, must be assumed, corresponding to the growth of the individual; since otherwise the metaphor would be robbed of more than half its meaning.—The primary re ference in all this is plainly to the Mosaic law; but the whole context shows that the Gentile converts of Galatia are also included, and that they too are regarded as having undergone an elementary discipline, up to a certain point analogous to that of the Jew.”—R.]
Born of a woman.—Conveying no allusion to His miraculous conception, but simply an emphatic designation of the Incarnation, defining precisely “sent forth.” The reality of the Incarnation is emphasized, in order, in the first place, to bring fully into view the humiliation which God imposed on His Son, and to make this contrast felt: He humbled Himself—we were exalted. But this humiliation did not consist in the Incarnation alone, it was only the beginning; its full expression is found in born under the law, and the contrast becomes thereby still stronger: He was brought under bondage—we, into freedom. Yet of course the object is not merely to make the contrast sensible, but “born of a woman” and “under the law” is mentioned, because it was the means of attaining the end which was to be attained, namely, that he might redeem, etc.—i. e., primarily and principally the being “born under the law” was this means, but this again was only possible through His really becoming man.— Ôåíüìåíïí ὑðὸ íüìïí , probably simply=born under the law, not: brought under the law. The primary meaning of this is, in general, that by virtue of His Jewish birth, He, like every Israelite, was subordinated to the requirements of the law, and we are therefore to supplement “redeem them that were under the law” with ἐê ôïῦ íüìïõ , “from the law=that He might make those subjected to the law free from the law=that He might free them from the state of subjection under it, from their obligation to it, from the “bondage” just mentioned. The sense of “redeem” is given by the simple addition: ἵíá ôὴí õἱïèåó . ê . ô . ë ., = might translate us from the position of servants into the free position of sons. Primarily, only this is implied in the words, and the expression therefore is not immediately convertible with the narrower, more defined one in Gal_3:13; although, indeed, if we look for the causal nexus between Christ’s being born under the law and His redeeming those under the law, we shall be led back to the thought expressed Gal_3:13, as the connecting one, namely, that the one who stood “under the law” became by this law “a curse” =bore also the curse of this law, and thus freed the men who stood under the curse of this law from this curse of the law, and therewith from the law altogether, from dependence on it, since in the place of that dependence there now naturally came a believing self-surrendering to the Liberator. This filling out the thought by a reference to the death of Christ, gives moreover to “born of woman” also, its full significance; for only through this was death itself possible, as only through the being “born under the law” was it possible as a death under the curse of the law.
That we might receive the adoption of Sons.—Properly the position of sons [ õἱï èå óßá ] as opposed to the position of servants. Even “under the law” they were in themselves ὑéïß , but as yet differing in nothing from servants; through Christ they first attained also to the position of sons, differed from servants. Õἱïèåóßá There means then more exactly: the right of the free, major son. This may very well be designated simply as õἱïèåóßá , since sonship de facto really begins with it, the son thereby first becomes properly a son.—That a sonship relatively to God is here treated of, is made apparent by the connection. [Schmoller evidently refers “we,” in this clause, to Jewish Christians alone; but the objections of Meyer and others to such a limitation (see on Gal_4:3), apply with great force here. That it breaks the force of the Apostle’s argument, and destroys the connection of the whole passage, to restrict it thus, is evident from the explanation into which Schmoller is forced in his remarks on the succeeding verse. It may be allowed that, in the previous clause, “those under the law” refers to Jewish Christians alone, but a wider reference of “we” to all Christians must be insisted upon.—R.]
Gal_4:6. And because ye are sons.—Remarkable is the abrupt transition into the address to the Galatians, whereas what preceded applied to the Jewish Christians; for these were “those under the law,” while the Galatians were, at all events, predominantly Gentile Christians. But through the sending of the Son the Gentiles also were to obtain the sonship with God, and they did actually obtain it through faith in Him. He can therefore naturally say to Gentile Christians also: Ye are sons,—and can appeal to the witness of the Spirit concerning this, which they have in themselves. And the discussion had properly direct reference to the Gentile Christians, the Galatians, to their freedom from the law; the remarks Gal_4:1 sq., were only as it were episodically woven in [?!], in order to explain the peculiar position of Israel under the law.—[Accepting the wider reference of “we” (Gal_4:6), we find here no “abrupt transition,” but a change to the second person, in order to apply to the Galatians, what had been affirmed of all Christians. Of course this obviates the necessity of such an explanation of the connection, as Schmoller makes.—R.]—With this sentence Paul wishes to confirm to the Galatians, in a way indisputable to themselves, that they actually have the position of sons and no longer that of servants; they also (he says) have this, as well as the Jewish Christians, as certainly as the Spirit also utters His voice in them. The primary purpose of the sending of the Son, stopped with this õἱïèåóἰá . That the purpose has been accomplished, is shown first in this, the Spirit’s witness of adoption. Gal_4:7 therefore contains the simple conclusion from Gal_4:6 : Accordingly thou art, etc. [It is a question whether ὅôé should be rendered “because,” quoniam, or “that,” i. e., to show that ye are sons (Ellicott). Most commentators incline to the former view. Alford in his notes opposes Meyer, who adopted the latter view, which in his fourth edition, however, he characterizes as “harsh and unusual.” Still the. proof of sonship remains. He would not have sent the Spirit, if they had not been “sons.”—R.]
God sent.—At the regeneration of each of the readers, or what may here be taken as identical, at their baptism. Yet naturally a continuous sending from that time forward, is not excluded but included. [The aorist is used as in Gal_4:4, referring to a definite act. Meyer notes the similarity of form, as “a solemn expression of the objective (Gal_4:4) and subjective (Gal_4:5) certainty of salvation,” and also as indicating doctrinally “the same personal relation of the Spirit, which God has sent from Himself as He did Christ.”—R.]—Spirit of His Son.—A peculiar expression; not immediately convertible with the conception: spirit of sonship, but = the Spirit, which the Son of God has; plainly, moreover, which He has peculiarly as Son; hence, the Spirit, in which, with Him the consciousness of sonship relatively to God rests and expresses itself, and so = the Son of God’s Spirit of sonship. God gives the very same Spirit into the hearts of those whom He has accepted as His sons for the sake of His Son Christ; and therewith they also attain to the consciousness of sons relatively to God, so that they cry: Abba, etc.—Crying.—This strong word, êñÜæåéí , doubtless expresses, first and chiefly, the assurance and the strength of the persuasion, the full undoubting faith of having in God our Father; also, however, as resulting from this, the fervor with which the soul turns to this Father, yet without, direct reference to a condition of trouble, in which a call is made for help.—Abba, Father!—“It is simplest to suppose that the juxtaposition of the two equivalent expressions is meant to emphasize more strongly the idea of Father.” Wieseler. Meyer with less probability thinks, that Ἀööᾶ had become so settled and sacred a term, as an address to God in Christian prayer, that it had acquired the nature of a proper name, admitting thus the addition of the appellative ὁ ðáôÞñ . The ancients found in it an intimation: quod idem Spiritus fidei sit Judæorum et gentium. [It seems best to regard this repetition as taken from a liturgical formula, which may have originated among the Hellenistic Jews, who retained the consecrated word “Abba,” or among the Jews of Palestine, after they became acquainted with the Greek language. The latter theory best explains the expression as used Mar_14:36 (Lightfoot). There may be a reason for retaining “Abba” in its affectionate character, “My Father” (Alford). And the repetition may contain the hint, which the Fathers, Luther, Calvin and Bengel find, of the union of Jew and Gentile in Christ. Certainly an advance from the “Abba” of childhood to the “Father” of maturity, on the part of the believer, is not implied, nor is there a reference “to the fact that a freedman might by addressing any one with the title Abba, prepare the way for adoption by him,” since they are enabled thus to cry, “because ye are sons.”—R.]
Gal_4:7. So then thou art.—A progress in individualizing for a practical purpose; namely, to bring home fully to each one separately, what he possesses through Christ.—No more a servant.—This refers back to the being “in bondage under the rudiments of the world,” and applies to the Jewish Christians in its full sense, and then to the Gentile Christians also, in this respect, that in consequence of the sending of the Son, the necessity of giving themselves up to be held in bondage “under the rudiments of the world” was done away for them also; that in Christ these have lost their force. [In the wider view of “we” (Gal_4:3) this explanation is unnecessary.—R]. In what special, still more wretched sense, they too were actually slaves, and so the state of servitude was abolished for them, appears immediately after in Gal_4:8.—But a son.—The contrast between “servant” and “son,” as applied to the Jewish Christians, is limited to their being now in actual enjoyment of the son’s privileges; as applied to Gentile Christians it is without restriction.—And if a son, then an heir through God.—“Through God” makes prominent that the one character, as well as the other, proceeds from grace, as opposed to all desert of works. Because a son (sc of God), therefore according to the well-known hereditary right, also an heir, sc. of God. The controversy, whether Jewish or Roman right of inheritance is meant, may be called pedantic. Heir of God= to whom God’s possession appertains, eternal life. [The briefer reading, äéὰ èåïῦ now generally adopted, is thus remarked upon by Windischmann: “It combines, on behalf of our race, the whole before-mentioned agency of the Blessed Trinity: the Father has sent the Son and the Spirit, the Son has freed us from the law, the Spirit has completed our sonship; and thus the redeemed are heirs through the Triune God Himself, not through the law, nor through fleshly descent.”—R.]—This gives another basis for “heirs,” Gal_3:29, and the train of argument thus reaches its conclusion.
2. Law and Old Testament. “Law is not synonymous with Old Testament, gospel with New Testament; as if we could say: The law has been abrogated by the gospel, Christ is the end of the law, therefore for us Christians the Old Testament has no more validity. It is not so, but the Old Testament as well as the New, contains gospel promise of grace, and the New as well as the Old contains law Only that in the Old Testament the law, the schoolmaster unto Christ, prevails, the gospel, on the other hand, appears in the form of promise of the future salvation, and so is more veiled; but in the New Testament the gospel of the accomplished salvation strikes the key-note, and the law, as a threatening might, only opposes itself to the despisers of salvation, and is written in the hearts of believers. And since the gospel extends through the whole Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament, every Christian must necessarily count the Old Testament also honorable and holy. It is true here also: What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Anacker.
3. The fulness of the time. For a full historical demonstration of Christ’s having come in the fulness of time, see e. g., Anacker. [Schaff: History of the Apostolic Church, and History of the Christian Church, vol. I. “It was a great idea of Dionysius ‘the little,’ to date our era from the birth of the Saviour. Jesus Christ, the God-man, the prophet, priest, and king of mankind, is, in part, the centre and turning point not only of chronology, but of all history, and the key to all its mysteries. All history before His birth must be viewed as a preparation for His coming, and all history after His birth as a gradual diffusion of His spirit and establishment of His king dom. He is ‘the desire of all nations.’ He appeared in the ‘fulness of time,’ when the process of preparation was finished, and the world’s need of redemption fully disclosed.”
“As Christianity is the reconciliation and union of God and man in and through Jesus Christ, the God-Man and Saviour, it must have been preceded by a two fold process of preparation, an approach of God to man, and an approach of man to God.—In Judaism the true religion is prepared for man; in heathenism man is prepared for the true religion. There the divine substance is begotten; here the human form is moulded to receive it. Heathenism is the starry night, full of darkness and fear, but of mysterious presage also, and of anxious waiting for the dawn of day: Judaism, the dawn, full of the fresh hope and promise of the rising sun; both lose themselves in the sunlight of Christianity, and attest its claim to be the only true and the perfect religion for mankind.”
“The way for Christianity was prepared on every side, positively and negatively, directly and indirectly, in theory and in practice, by truth and by error, by false belief and by unbelief—those hostile brothers, which yet cannot live apart—by Jewish religion, by Grecian culture, and by Roman conquest; by the vainly attempted amalgamation of Jewish and heathen thought, by the exposed impotence of natural civilization, philosophy, art and political power, by the decay of the old religions by the universal distraction and hopeless misery of the age, and by the yearnings of all earnest and noble souls for the unknown God. ‘In the fulness of time,’ when the fairest flowers of science and art had withered, and the world was on the verge of despair, the Virgin’s Son was born to heal the infirmities of mankind. Christ entered a dying world as the author of a new and imperishable life.”—R.]
4. God sent His Son, born of a woman. In these few words we have the sum of the second article [i. e., of the Augsburg Confession]: “Jesus Christ, true God, born of the Father in eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary.” Anacker.—If the preëxistence of the Son does not follow of necessity from the expression: God sent Him, it follows so much the more necessarily from the added clause: “Born of a woman,” i. e., from the fact that this is predicated of the Son as something peculiar. Paul cannot have been thinking of a man, to whom the character of God’s Son belonged only in some theocratic sense, who had been elevated to it by God: for why then the particularizing clause: born of a woman? It would be absolutely meaningless. It has a meaning only in the case of One, who in Himself was not one born of woman, who only became so, with whom this was something entirely peculiar. The peculiarity and note-worthiness of the fact, also, that the Son of God was born under the law, depended, in reality, upon this, that in His original state He had not human nature.—The supernatural conception, it is true, is by no means implied in the expression: born of a woman, in itself, as if by this the concurrence of the man were to be excluded. But if we take this expression together with “God sent His Son,” we are almost necessarily constrained to assume another than the ordinary origin through the generative activity of the man, an immediate activity, instead, of the God who purposed to send the Son.—The Divine Sonship of Christ is one belonging to Him in Himself, essential to His nature, so essential, that even by being born of a woman, and under the law, it was not nullified. It is on this account entirely different from our Divine sonship: this is an acquired, a mediated one; mediated through God’s Son Christ.—On the other hand in this passage the true humanity of Christ is most distinctly declared. He did not bring His body from Heaven, and did not pass with it through Mary quasi per canalem, nor did He merely assume a body like an angel. Either is excluded by the expression: born of a woman. And the tenor of the passage shows plainly that it is meant, not to declare His pre-existent being (this we can infer only by reasoning back), but precisely His true humanity, that God sent Him in such wise that He caused Him to be born and be manifested as man; it was precisely this which made it an actual sending, fulfilling the promise. But on the other hand this Man=God’s Son; for if not, the purpose would in this way have failed in accomplishment, since it was no other than His Son that God would send.
5. Born under the Law. By this is made prominent not the legal obedience which Christ rendered, or anything performed by Him, but something to which He subjected Himself, the dependence on the law, in which He was placed—according to the whole connection: a äïõëïῦóèáé (comp. ôïὺò ὑðὸ íüìïí ), primarily dependence in general, and then as the culmination of it, the curse of the law, to which He subjected Himself. This passage therefore is no proof of the “active obedience of Christ,” as it is termed. Christ, it is true, was in such a sense under the the law that He observed it; He did not resist it; He was content with this dependence, and fulfilled the requirements of the law. But it is inappropriate to designate the obedience, which Christ indeed rendered in fullest measure towards His Father, as fulfilment of the law, and to designate the (active) fulfilment of the law as that which was great and meritorious in Christ. Christ’s obedience was an essentially free obedience of a child towards the Father, and thus far surpassing a bare law-obedience.—On the other hand, the statement of doctrinal theology, which in many quarters causes scandal, that Christ was in Himself not subject to the law, is in itself not incorrect. Only we must then take law in the entirely definite Biblical sense. The ãåíÝóèáé ὑðὸ íüìïí which was added because of transgressions, was of course something in itself wholly inadequate to His sinless being, wholly obedient as it was to God; He stood, as concerned Himself, in the Son’s relation to God, not in the servant’s relation, was no minor, needed no ðáéäáãùãüò . This ãåí . ὑðὸ ̀ íüìïõ , therefore, was something in itself foreign to Him, imposed upon Him, and undertaken by Him, for the definite purpose of the redemption of those under the law. But He was the first one “under the law” who yet was sinless, obedient to God, and this availed to the good of the men who were under the law
6. Adoption and the consciousness of it. From the attainment of the filial relation to God [Gottes-Kindschaft] Paul distinguishes again the certainty of the same, so to speak, the conscious exercise of the privilege of children. Agreeably to this he distinguishes a twofold sending: the sending of the Son into the world and the sending of the Spirit of the Son into human hearts. On the first is grounded the attainment of the adoption of God’s children, inasmuch as the sending of the Son led to the ransoming of those under the law. This is the objective side. Yet this hardly denotes merely the redemptive act of Christ, but includes doubtless, even at this point, faith in this act, as without this faith there is not an actual adoption, a being a son (comp. ὅôé äÝ ἐóôå õἱïß ).But to this is yet added the sending of the Spirit of the Son into the hearts of the redeemed, or more specifically: His crying Abba in the heart. Primarily this serves for the sealing and making sure of the now established filial right (comp. Rom_8:16). Yet it is not bare assurance that is wanted, but the exercise, the use of the right; and this first becomes possible by receiving the Spirit of Sonship, exclaiming Abba. “Should we wish to do it of our own desire and folly (namely, use such an heartily filial address to God), the word would die upon our lips; for we cannot make God our Father, only He Himself can do it.” It is this Spirit of adoption Himself, says Paul here, that cries Abba in us, of course, by uniting Himself with the spirit of the suppliant, and forming in it the language of filial address to God. Therefore Rom_8:15 : We cry Abba by this Spirit.
Paul distinguishes, as has been said, two stages, but yet plainly not in such a sense as if the first were something complete within itself, and the second added to it, as something distinct, but whoever is “son” receives eo ipso this Spirit, and if he did not receive it, the Apostle would not predicate the being a son of him. The receiving of this Spirit is for him, and is meant to be for the readers (on which account he alludes to it), the criterion of having become a “son of God.” He cannot conceive the being a son without this Spirit in the heart exclaiming Abba. Therefore he affirms it at once and in reference to all: “Because ye are sons, God sent forth,” etc. The same faith which translates us into the position of children, opens also the access to this Spirit. Yet of course this receiving of the Spirit of sons or children, is again somewhat successive, and Paul does not mean to say that this crying Abba takes place always with uniform strength and joyfulness; he will not deny that there come times of spiritual conflict; he only expresses what is normal.
7. Son, not servant. The idea of Divine sonship is a twofold idea, for the õἱὸò èåïῦ is first ( õἱὸò ) èåïῦ and then õἱὸò ( èåïῦ ) In Rom_8:14 sq., the previous context shows the former to be the main idea, for “being a son of God” is opposed to living “after the flesh,” and is defined by “led by the Spirit of God.” In this passage the essential idea is the second one: the Son of God is son and no longer servant (with which we may also supply “of God”), or the filial relation of the Christian to God, as it is brought into effect by Christ, involves the idea of religious maturity. The Christian has through his faith come religiously to majority; he no longer stands to God in the relation of the minor son, still kept in bondage. This latter relation of man to God is also one in itself possible and relatively admissible. God Himself placed man in it by the law (Gal_4:3); Israel itself stood by God’s appointment in the relation to God of religious minority, was as yet “kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world.” This was at that time what was fitting and wholesome for the people of God. (And in a certain sense the man who as yet knows nothing of Christ, is, even now, in this relation to God, is the unfreed minor, kept in by legal restraints, at least by the inward law of the conscience. It is true this law is a far more imperfect one than the positive law of God. Therefore the natural man without Christ is far more a äïῦëïò than Israel was—a äïῦëïò rather to the óÜñî or the öýóåé ìὴ ὅíôåò èåïß than to God; and there is needed at first a special activity directed to the awakening of the conscience. See below.) It is otherwise with the Christian; he has gained through faith in Christ, or rather through the Spirit of Christ, the position towards God of the free major son: this position, because established through Christ, has its direct analogy in the relation of Christ to His Father. It is true there is in this no independent dignity [Selbstherrlichkeit]; but it is not so much that this is forbidden him, as that he himself is the farthest possible from wishing it, recognizing in it, as he does, an illusive image, knowing that thereby he would in truth lose his freedom, that true freedom consists in this very obedience of love towards God, in speaking nothing else than what He teaches, in doing nothing else than what He points out. Thus, although not living to himself, he is yet truly free, even towards God, as one of full age; is, sui juris, independent. For his conduct is not prescribed to him in legal injunctions, regulating even the outward life, and seeking in his way to conform the inner life to God’s will; he recognizes the “living to God” as his very element, the condition of his happiness. His obedience is not merely an obedience of law towards a ruler, but a life in trustful love to Him who is recognized as Father and sealed through the Spirit.
But especially does the maturity of the Christian consist in this, that he is heir, in possession of the paternal estate. For thus the minor is distinguished from the major son; for the former the inheritance is as yet administered by others, and he himself is not yet in enjoyment of it, but only, it may be, from time to time, receives out of it what is necessary for him, and on the other hand, may, on occasion, be kept in straits, or even subjected to punishment. So with man under the law; as he first sees in God One who commands and strictly regulates life, so also he sees in Him one who bestows good only according to desert, and who just as certainly, where punishment is deserved (as is more often the case), inflicts punishment, and instead of a blessing communicates a curse. It is otherwise with the son of full age and with the Christian. He is heir, is in possession and enjoyment of the paternal estate. This actual enjoyment of the inheritance he possesses in the first instance in justification and the state of grace connected therewith. As the major son freely disposes of the paternal estate, so also the Christian, in faith freely applies himself, as it were, when he will and as oft as he will, to his Father’s treasure, and takes from it whatever he desires. Only this possession and enjoyment of his is, as it were, still embarrassed by the “sufferings of this present time,” and the glory of the inheritance is still “to be revealed” (Rom_8:17-18), as indeed the major son also, who has come into possession of the paternal estate, has still to struggle with many inconveniences, and so cannot as yet give himself up to the undisturbed enjoyment of his estate, and yet is none the less the free son, of full age, and by no means any longer in his minority. From this the simple inference is: (1) That as the Christian may not deprive himself of his position as Christian, if he would not incur the reproach in Gal_4:9, so also he may not be robbed of this rank or denied it, he may not be again placed. under guardianship, and thus reduced from one of full age to a minor again, that therefore in particular the law may not be again imposed upon him, and his relation to God represented as conditioned by that; (2) that a Christian church, which does not regard her members as mature children of God, and train them to be such, but which instead retains them under the guardianship of the Divine law, or, more than that, of self-devised human ordinances, and accords to them only such a share in the benefits of Divine grace as suits her own discretion, if indeed, she does not wholly conceal them and set an inheritance invented by herself in their place—that such a Christian church misapprehends her most essential character (for Christ was no new lawgiver), and that therefore the Romish church, which does this, incurs this reproach, and that the evangelical church would incur the like reproach, so far as she imitated her in this, in a supposed pedagogic interest, or for the sake of discipline and order. She has simply to be God’s almoner by offering the means of grace which excite and strengthen faith, as the condition of adoption as God’s children, and what she ordains can lawfully have no other end than directly or indirectly to further such beneficence. True, individually as well as historically, the state of maturity, in the child of God, is preceded by that of immaturity; for just so certainly as a Christian is in the former state, just so certainly is he there no otherwise than through actual heart faith. But the true way, that agreeable to the Divine order in such a case, is (according to remarks on the foregoing section) to hold up the law for this end and this only, that the man’s conscience and with it the knowledge of sin may be awakened, that the law may prove itself in him also “a schoolmaster unto Christ.” Now this comes to pass only through the preaching of the word of God in its completeness, inasmuch as thereby the law also is set forth, but now, of course, only with the intention of leading to the Gospel and therewith to the condition of spiritual maturity.
8. Old Testament believers not of full age.—As respects Christians the believers of the old covenant were accordingly not yet in the full sense “sons of God,” i. e., “major sons.” “But how were then the holy prophets, the great heroes, the upright men of God, who lived from Moses until Christ, minor children, that must be kept under the figurative rudiments of divine instruction as under tutors and governors? Doubtless in a certain sense they were. It is true that in much they have surpassed us; but what was spiritual, heavenly, eternally permanent in the kingdom of God, what Paul ever calls ‘a mystery,’ was not revealed to them so plainly as to us” (Roos). In order to judge correctly, we must however, with the Apostle himself, distinguish the period before the law from that under the law. For example, the patriarchs, although in another respect also children, stood in immediate intercourse with God, were not in the position of servants. On the other hand there certainly was also in the believers under the law, in proportion as the promise of the new covenant was living in them, e. g., in the prophets, an anticipation, in a certain sense, of the position of major sons of God, although rather in some single moments of elevation.
Gal_4:3. Heubner:—The human race has had authorized and unauthorized guardians. Moses was authorized, for God had appointed him, on the other hand the Pope and Mohammed without authority have endeavored to bring back the race, now free and of full age, to minority again. The authority of revelation does not retain us in minority; for the faith which it requires is no blind second hand piety, but first makes us truly free from all that darkens and binds.—Spener:—God has His wise distribution of the measure of grace at various times, with which we must be content and learn to accommodate ourselves thereto. He has also His holy order, according to which He leads His children in conversion from the law into grace.—Berlenber. Bible:—This guardianship was designed only for minors; hence it is all wrong when Christians allow themselves to be brought into bondage again under ordinances, which are urged upon souls as good and necessary to salvation, and made a burden, beyond and without God’s Word and revealed will, which therefore proceed not from nor are approved of Christ and His Spirit. O how many, that otherwise have a good degree of knowledge and personal piety, are in a pitiable bondage under such things! Either they are things which are counted as belonging to outward worship, or which should otherwise serve to make people pious. Now it is not indeed to be denied that some incitements in themselves innocent may help beginners somewhat. But so soon however as a rule and necessity, or it may be even a holiness, is make out of it, it is a yoke. But the main cause why such ordinances of men are a slavery of souls is, because men commonly therein seek and exalt themselves. Our crafty nature seeks with its tricks to maintain itself in its false life, and conceals itself behind outward observances and human usages. Meanwhile it secretly carries on its sins, as before, and will not drown and die in the death of Christ.—It is enough to suffer that other hard yoke, which presses the man at his first conversion. The law of God itself knows how to press him hard enough then, with its righteous judgments and requirements. Matters go laboriously and wretchedly enough with a young believer.
Gal_4:4-5. For this fulness of the time the fathers and all believers in the Old Testament waited with great pangs and earnestness. Not less longingly then, even now, must he wait and look for this Deliverer, who feels his imprisonment. For the fulness of the time, which began with Jesus’ birth, continues ever from then on through all times, our own times among them.—As this took place as to the outward work, so does it now come to pass as to the inward, since the revelation of the Son breaks forth at the time which the Lord has decreed, and His government takes the upper hand in order to bring matters to that stage, to which under the drawing of the Father they could not attain. If thou therefore spyest in thyself a mighty drawing towards faith and hungering after Jesus, take heed that thou neglect it not. For this is even the fulness of thy time, when thy Saviour is about to be sent into thy heart by the Father. In the same hour learn thou to watch and pray, and to forget all else, that thou mayst win thy freedom.
Luther:—Hear thou, O law, thou hast no right nor might over me; therefore I concern myself nothing, that thou accusest and condemnest me long and much; for I believe on Jesus Christ, God’s Son, whom God the Father hath sent into this world, that He might redeem us poor, wretched sinners, who were in bondage under the law’s constraint and tyranny.—Christ hath redeemed us, in that He was made under the law. When He came, He found all of us together guarded and shut up under the law. What did He then? Because He is God’s Son and Lord over the law, the law hath no right nor power over Him, nor can it accuse Him. Now, although He was not under the law, yea, was its Lord, He nevertheless willingly subjected Himself to the law. Christ incurred no debt to the law, yet did the law nevertheless behave itself towards this innocent, holy One, &c, even so as towards us, yea, it raged much more and more cruelly against Him than it is wont to do against us men. For it accused Him as if He were the very worst blasphemer and mover of sedition, and pronounced that He was guilty of all the sins of the whole world, and finally it condemned Him by its sentence to death, and moreover to the most shameful of all deaths on the cross.—Because now the law has dealt so cruelly against its God, Christ now appears against the law, and speaks on this wise: Good mistress Law, you are indeed a mighty invincible empress and tyrant over the whole race of man, and have moreover a right thereto; but what have I done to you, that you have so cruelly and contumeliously accused and condemned me the Innocent? Then must the law, because it can by no means answer for this, nor excuse itself, suffer for it in turn, and allow itself also to be condemned and strangled, so that it may therefore retain no right, nor power, not alone against Christ, whom it hath so injuriously assailed, but also against all who believe on Him.—So has Christ now through this His victory chased the law away out of our conscience in such manner that it can no more put us to shame before God. This one thing it does yet, it still continues to reveal sin to accuse and terrify us; but the conscience lays hold against it of these words of the apostle: Christ hath redeemed us from the law, maintains itself thereon by faith and comforts itself therewith. Yea, so proud and courageous moreover does it become in the Holy Ghost, that it dares bid defiance to the law, and say: I care little for all thy threatening. For the victory, which Christ hath won of thee, He hath bestowed upon us; therefore we are now become free of the law unto eternity, if so be we abide in Christ. Therefore let there be praise and thanks to our dear God, who hath given us such victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
[Gal_4:4-5. Robert Hall:—(1) The mission of Jesus Christ, and the manner in which He manifested Himself. The Son of God, “made of a woman, made under the law.” (2) The design of His mission; “to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (3) The fitness of that season which God in His infinite wisdom appointed for this purpose.—It was a most favorable time to prevent imposture in matter of fact; an age the furthest removed from credulity, an age of skepticism. The Infinite wisdom saw fit to select this time to silence forever the vain babblings of philosophy, to “destroy the wisdom of the wise.”—Because the fulness of the time was come, the event here referred to was the most important that had ever distinguished the annals of the world. The epoch will arrive when this world will be thought of as nothing, but as it has furnished a stage for the “manifestation of the Son of God.”—R.]
Gal_4:6. Luther:—When we stand in the midst and deepest in the terrors of the law, when sin as it were thunders over us, death makes us tremble and quake, the devil roars most cruelly, then begins the Holy Ghost to cry: Abba, dear Father! And this, His cry, is much mightier than the law’s, sin’s, death’s, and the devil’s cry, let it sound ever so loud and hideously, it breaks and presses with all might through the clouds and the heavens, comes before God’s ears, and is heard, &c.—Although I am on all sides in great terrors and distresses, and it seems as if I, Lord, were wholly and utterly forsaken by thee, yet am I nevertheless child, thou, Father, for Christ’s sake. I am to thee dear and pleasant for the Beloved’s sake. But for man in his heart to be able to utter the little word “Father” in time of temptation in true earnestness, there needs such a deep skill thereto, as truly neither Cicero, nor Demosthenes, nor any other accomplished orator has had; yea, should they even melt together all their skill in one heap it were not yet possible for them perfectly to utter forth what is meant by the Holy Ghost in the single word “Father” in believer’s hearts.—We ought to let go the injurious, damned doctrine (wherewith the pope hath denied all Christendom), that man cannot be certain whether he is in grace before God, or not, and hold for certain that we have a gracious and compassionate God, who has in us a gracious complacency, cares for us as His dear children in earnest and most heartily—for Christ’s sake; item, that we also have the Holy Ghost, which intercedes for us with crying and groanings unutterable.—In Starke:—Behold the nature of ejaculatory prayers [Stossgebetlein], as they are called, wherein only the heart is lifted to God. In such a way can a believing soul very well pray without ceasing.—[Bunyan:—O how great a task is it for a poor soul that comes, sensible of sin and the wrath of God, to say in faith but this one word, Father! The Spirit must be sent into the heart for this very thing; it being too great a work for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it.—That one word spoken in faith, is better than a thousand prayers in a formal, lukewarm way.—I myself have often found that when I can say but this word, Father, it doth me more good than when I call Him by any other Christian name.—R.]
Gal_4:7. Luther:—Because Christ has redeemed us, that were under the law, there is no servant any more, nothing but children; therefore can thy power and tyranny, good mistress Law, have no place upon the lordly throne where my Lord Christ is to sit; therefore now I heed thee not, for I am free and a child, that is to be subjected to no servant’s place.—The law may well rule and reign over the body and the old man; but the bridal bed, wherein Christ is to have His rest, it should leave unstained; that is, the law should leave the conscience at ease and undisturbed, for this is to reign alone with its bridegroom Christ, in the realm of freedom and of sonship.—“And if a son, then an heir.” No one through his works or merit succeeds in becoming heir, but birth alone brings it to him; even so do we also come to the eternal, heavenly possessions, such as forgiveness of sins, righteousness, the glorious resurrection, and eternal life, not through our cöoperation, but without any act of ours—we suffer them to be bestowed upon us, and receive them from God through Christ.—Whoever could believe without any doubt, that it were true, and certainly comprehend, how immeasurably great a thing it is, that one should be God’s child and heir, such an one would without doubt take little account of the world, with all that therein is esteemed precious and honorable, such as human righteousness, wisdom, dominion, power, money, possessions, honor, pleasure, and the like; yea, all that in the world is honorable and glorious, would be to him loathsome and an abomination.—How great and glorious a bestowment the eternal kingdom and the heavenly inheritance is man’s heart in this life can not understand, and still less express. We see in this life only the central point, but in the life to come, we shall see the whole infinite circle.
Gal_4:1-7. There are two degrees of the adoption of God’s children: the degree of minority, where one is rather servant than child, and the degree of majority, where one has the place of a child.—The bondage of the law the way to the full adoption of God’s children.—The relation of the law and of the gospel to adoption with God—The son, still a minor, must wait till God declares him of age; while the son of full age is not to abdicate the child’s place, else he makes a retrogression displeasing to God. Without Christ, under age, through Christ, of full age.—When Christ came, came the time of majority for the people of God; when He comes to thee, it comes also for thee, not earlier—but then, really.—Glöckler: The wisdom and love of God in the sending of His Son: Wisdom: He came, when the time was fulfilled: Love: He came to bring redemption, and the adoption of children.—The true intent, virtue, and fruit of the incarnation of the Son of God.—When the time is fulfilled, God will send also to thee His Son, and His Spirit into thy heart; only wait and doubt not!—Every time, even the longest, has its fulfillment, for it is subject to God, in the service of His purpose.—Kapff: The blessedness of the adoption of God’s children: It is (1) a condition of freedom, (2) of joyfulness in faith, (3) of heirship to God.—W. Hofacker:—On the family or house of God, into which, to us as children, access stands open in Christ Jesus: 1) The house or the family of God: there is there a Father, God, a mother-free, unmerited grace, a first-born Brother; many brothers and sisters besides, and a ministering retinue in the holy angels. 2) The different relations in which we may stand to the household of God: a. there are some, and they are greatest in number, who stand in a far distant and alien relation to the family of God , b. a smaller, less considerable number stand to the family of God in a nearer, but yet not the nearest relation; c. the third class stands to it in the full, conscious relation of children, as Paul says, Gal_4:6. 3) The laborious [aufgabenreiche] and yet glorious condition of those, who walk as children of the