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Gal_4:7. Ὥστε ] Inference from Gal_4:5-6.
οὐκέτι ] no longer as in the pre-Christian condition, when thou wast in bondage to the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου .
εἶ ] The language, addressing every reader, not merely the Gentile readers (Hofmann), advances in its individualizing application: Gal_4:5, ἀπολάβωμεν ; Gal_4:6, ἔστε ; Gal_4:7, εἶ . Comp. Gal_5:26, Gal_5:1.
εἰ δὲ υἱὸς , καὶ κληρονόμος ] But if thou art a son (and not a slave, who does not inherit from his master), thou art also an heir, as future possessor of the Messianic salvation, and art so (not in any way through the law, but) through God ( διὰ Θεοῦ ; see the critical notes), who, as a consequence of His adoption of thee as a son, has made thee also His heir. To Him thou art indebted for this ultimate blessing, to be attained by means of sonship. This διὰ Θεοῦ cannot also apply to υἱός (Hofmann), so that ἀλλʼ should include all the rest of the verse in one sentence. With εἰ δέ a new sentence begins. Otherwise Paul must have written: ἀλλʼ υἱὸς , υἱὸς δὲ ὢν καὶ κληρονόμος . Rückert unjustly blames the apostle for having, in εἰ δὲ υἱὸς , καὶ κληρ ., departed from the right track of his thoughts, because in Gal_4:1 he had started at once from the idea of κληρονόμος . But in Gal_4:1 the apostle, in fact, has not started from the Messianic idea of κληρονόμος , but from its lower analogue in civil life. With respect to the legal aspect of the conclusion itself, εἰ δὲ υἱὸς , καὶ κληρ . (comp. Rom_8:17),—in which, by the way, the father is conceived as dividing the inheritance during his lifetime,—the idea is not based on the Jewish law of inheritance,[184] according to which the (legitimately born) sons alone,[185] if there were such,—the first-born among these taking, according to Deu_21:17, a double portion,—were, as a rule, intestate heirs (see Keil, Archäol. II. § 142; Ewald, Alterth. p. 238 f.; Saalschütz, M. R. p. 820 f.). The apostle’s idea is founded on the intestate succession of the Roman law, with which Paul as a Roman citizen was acquainted, as in fact it was well known in the provinces and applied there as regarded Roman citizens. Comp. also Fritzsche, Tholuck, and van Hengel, on Rom_8:17. According to the Roman law sons and daughters, whether born in marriage or adopted children (and Paul conceives Christians as belonging to the latter class), were intestate heirs. It is evident in itself, and from Gal_3:28, that υἱός , which Paul used here on account of its correlation with δοῦλος , does not, in the popular mode of expression, exclude the female sex. On the whole of this subject, see C. F. A. Fritzsche, utrum Pauli argumentatio Rom_8:17 et Gal_4:7, Hebraeo an Romano jure aestimanda sit, in Fritzschior. Opusc. p. 143 ff. To assume a mere allusion to general human laws of succession (Wieseler) is not sufficient; for Paul has very distinctly and clearly conceived and designated the υἱότης of the Christian as a relation of adoption, which presupposes for his conclusion as to the heirship a special legal reference, and not merely the general and vague correlation of the ideas of childship and heirship. The clear precision of his thought vouches for this, and it ought not to be evaded by declaring such a legal question even foolish (Hofmann),—a dogmatical judgment which is all the more precipitate, as the specific Johannean idea of the divine begetting of the children of God (comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 717 ff.) can by no means be found in the Pauline πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας [186] (see on Rom_8:15). Besides, ΥἹΟΘΕΣΊΑ is, and after all remains, nothing else than the quite definite legal idea of adoption, which separates the υἱοί εἰσποιητοί or ΘΕΤΟΊ (Pollux, iii. 21) from those begotten or ΓΝΗΣΙΟΊ .
[184] So Grotius, who says: “Jure Hebr. filii tantum haeredes, sed sub illo nomine indicantur omnes fideles cujusque sint sexus.” The fact that Christians are the adopted children of God, is decidedly opposed to this.
[185] In Pro_17:2 nothing is said of adoption.
[186] The adoption into the state of children takes place on God’s part along with justification, and is on man’s part certain to the believing self-consciousness, to which the πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας also attests it. Beyschlag (Christol. p. 222) wrongly holds that the communication of the Spirit is itself the υἱοθεσία . No, those who receive the Spirit are already believing, justified, and thereby υἱόθετοι , and obtain through the Spirit the testimony that they are υἱοί ,—a testimony which agrees with that of their own consciousness, συμμαρτυρεῖ , Rom_8:16.