Galatians 4:1-7

23–4:7. The contrast between our former state of pupillage under the Law, and our present state in Christ, full sonship

This is brought out under two aspects:
I. Galatians 3:23-29. The preparative character of the Law; faith in Christ makes us Abraham’s seed, (a) Galatians 3:23-24. We were protected by the Law with the hope of the future faith. The Law has been our paedagogue, leading us to Christ. (b) Galatians 3:25-29. Now we are all sons of God by our faith in Christ, and therefore Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.

II. Galatians 4:1-7. Temporary submission to laws, for those who are in an inferior position, is common. But Christ has delivered us and brought us into full sonship, as our experience tells us.

1–7. (See note at Galatians 3:23.) Temporary submission to laws, by which one is in an inferior position, is common. But we have been delivered from these by Christ’s coming, as the testimony of our hearts tells us. Each believer is a son and heir by the grace of God

(Galatians 4:1) But I say (in contrast to the thought of freedom and power suggested by “heir”) while an heir is a child he does not differ from a slave though in fact lord of all. (Galatians 4:2) But he is under guardians and stewards, until the time fixed by his father. (Galatians 4:3) So we also (first we Jews, but Gentiles as well) when we were children were enslaved under the elementary rules connected with merely external things. (Galatians 4:4) But when the time was filled up—the time appointed by God, with its effect on us in discipline—God sent out from Himself His Son, who passed through the stages of humanity and entered on life as a Jew, to experience fully the claims and effect of the Law, (Galatians 4:5) in order that He might redeem those who were under His discipline of the Law, and therefore, if them, others also, in order that (this redemption being accomplished) all we believers may receive in correspondence with the promises our adoption by grace into His family (Galatians 4:6) But, to give a proof that ye now are sons, God sent out from Himself the spirit of His Son into our hearts crying (with a fervour that compels a foreign word to be translated into our mother tongue) “Abba,” “Father”! (Galatians 4:7) So that (after God’s work external and internal) thou (each believer) art no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then also an heir, both facts, that of sonship and becoming an heir, being by (the power and grace, I say, of) God.