You Have a Place in the Family

Paul begins with a child who will one day receive the family property. Until the time set by the father, others manage the child's life and goods. Though the child owns everything, the child has little more freedom than a slave. Paul uses this picture to describe life before Christ, under the world's basic rules and powers. Then, at God's chosen time, Jesus came. He was truly human, born of a woman and living under the law. He came to free those under the law and give them the full standing of sons. Here, that standing belongs to every believer, both women and men. God also sends His Spirit into our hearts, giving us the closeness of children speaking to their Father. I don't want us to miss this: God does more than release us from slavery. He welcomes us into His family.

Before they knew God, these Gentile believers served things that were not truly gods. Now they know the living God. Paul quickly adds something even more important: God knows them. Their new life rests on His grace, not on their success at finding Him. Yet they are turning toward weak powers and rules again. In this setting, their careful keeping of special days, months, seasons, and years shows their growing trust in religious duties under the law. Paul is not saying that setting aside a day for worship is always wrong. He is warning against treating such practices as the way to gain a place with God. Returning to that kind of dependence is a return to slavery. His fear that his work may have been wasted shows how deeply he cares about their faith.

Paul now speaks with the heart of someone who loves them. He asks them to follow his freedom from depending on the law, just as he had lived among them without insisting on Jewish customs. He reminds them that an illness first gave him the chance to preach there. They did not reject him because of his weakness. They welcomed him warmly and would have made great sacrifices for him. We are not told what his illness was. Now Paul wonders why telling them the truth seems to have made him their enemy. The other teachers give them eager attention, but their aim is to shut them off from Paul and win their loyalty. Paul wants something very different: for Christ's life to take shape in them. He compares his concern to a mother's labor pains and longs to speak with them face to face.

Paul asks those who want to live under the law to listen to the law's own account. Abraham had a son through Hagar, an enslaved woman, and another through Sarah, a free woman. Ishmael's birth followed ordinary human means; Isaac's birth depended on God's promise. Paul draws a deeper picture from these real events. The two women represent two covenants, or ways God dealt with His people. Hagar represents Mount Sinai, where the law was given, and the present Jerusalem living under that law. Sarah points to the Jerusalem above, the free home of God's people. Paul then uses Isaiah 54:1 to picture God giving a once-barren woman a great family. This is not a claim that one ethnic group is better than another. It is a contrast between slavery under the law and freedom through God's promise.

Paul tells these believers that, like Isaac, they are children whose place rests on God's promise. He also warns that this does not mean a life without trouble. Just as the son born by ordinary human means opposed the son born through God's Spirit, the Galatians now face opposition. Paul turns to the account of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away to make a firm point: slavery and the promised family inheritance cannot rule together. The Galatians must reject the demand that they come under the law to receive what God has already promised through Christ. This passage does not give Christians permission to mistreat Jewish people or anyone else. Paul is defending the freedom of all who trust Christ. He closes by placing himself beside his readers: together, they belong to the free family.