Galatians 5:1

21–5:1. Another appeal, based upon the principles underlying the history of Hagar and Sarah, and the birth of Isaac. Christ set us free; stand fast therefore in this freedom

(Galatians 4:21) You wish to be under the Law? Listen then to the teaching of the Law itself, (Galatians 4:22) For it stands written that in Abraham’s own children there was a difference, 1st of origin, one being by the bondservant and the other by the freewoman; 2ndly (Galatians 4:23) in the circumstances of birth, the bondmaid’s son being born in accordance with the natural impulses of the flesh, the freewoman’s by means of promise. (Galatians 4:24) Now things of this kind are written with more than their bare historical meaning. To take first the difference in the mothers. These are two Dispositions; one given forth from Mt Sinai, bearing children born into a state of spiritual bondage, (Galatians 4:25) I mean Hagar—but the idea of Hagar suits Mt Sinai in distant and desert Arabia—but though distant it is in the same class as the present Jerusalem, for Jerusalem too is in bondage literal and spiritual with those who belong spiritually to her. (Galatians 4:26) But (I do not say Sarah but rather what she represents) Jerusalem above is free—which is in fact the mother of us believers, (Galatians 4:27) She, not the present and visible Jerusalem, is our mother, as the prophet has written: Rejoice, thou barren etc., for Sarah the desolate has more children than Hagar who had Abraham; the unseen Jerusalem has more than the seen. (Galatians 4:28) I need only mention again the second point of difference, that we are also like Isaac in being children of promise. (Galatians 4:29) But we are persecuted! Yes even as Isaac, who was born after the spirit, by him who was born after the flesh. (Galatians 4:30) But Scripture says to us by way of encouragement and command: Cast out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. (Remember this for your comfort, and act on it in your relation to the false teachers.) (Galatians 4:31) Therefore, as a practical conclusion, we are not children of a bondmaid but of the freewoman! (Galatians 4:1) For freedom (nothing less) Christ set us free! Stand fast therefore and do not again be held in the yoke of bondage.

1. τῇ ἐλενθερίᾳ אABC*DG. οὖν is added in Text. Rec. with CcKL etc. γὰρ is inserted after τῇ by Bohairic Chrys. ᾖ is read instead of τῇ by G vulg. Tert. Origlat. and is added after ἐλευθερίᾳ (οὖν) by DbcKL etc. and probably syrpesh. Harcl., so Lightfoot. Hort thinks that τῇ is a primitive error for ἐπʼ, and that the ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ of Galatians 5:13 is a reference to the true reading here.

στήκετε οὖν אABCG. οὖν is naturally omitted by Text. Rec. and also DKL etc.

1. τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ κ.τ.λ. See notes on Textual Criticism.

I. In this verse St Paul clinches the argument of Galatians 4:21-31 with a summary statement of doctrine, and a practical application. For, whatever the precise reading may be, the repetition of the catchword “freedom,” and of ἡμᾶς (which carries on the idea of τέκνα τ. ἐλ.) determines the connexion of the thought of the verse with the preceding passage rather than the following.

II. Accepting the W.H. text the construction of τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ is not easy, (a) Lightfoot joins τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ ᾖ … ἠλευθέρωσεν with Galatians 4:31, but the sentence becomes very clumsy. (b) It can hardly be the Hellenistic method of expressing the emphatic “infinitive absolute” of the Hebrew with a finite verb (Luke 22:15), i.e. “Christ completely freed us,” for both the position of the words and the presence of the article forbid this, (c) It is probably “For freedom,” dat. comm. This would express what Hort thinks was the original reading, ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ, cf. Galatians 5:13 (W.H. Notes, p. 122).

III. If ἦ ἐλευθερίᾳ be read we may join the clause (a) to Galatians 4:31, setting a full stop at ἠλευθέρωσεν, or (b) to στήκετε if οὖν be omitted after that word.

IV. Field (Notes on the Translation of the N.T.) still prefers the Received Text (τῇ ἐλ. οὖν ᾗ κ.τ.λ.) according to which τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ is taken with στήκετε, accounting for the absence of ἐν “by the noun τῇ ἑλευθερίᾳ standing at the head of a sentence, of which the writer had not forecasted the governing verb. Instead of στήκετε he might have used ἐπιμένετε.”

ἡμᾶς Χριστὸς ἠλευθέρωσεν So Romans 8:2. St Paul has not yet said in this Epistle that Christ set us free, though the thought is contained in Galatians 3:25; Galatians 4:2. Compare the prayer of Jonathan and the priests in 2Ma 1:27 ἐπισυνάγαγε τὴν διασπορὰν ἡμῶν, ἐλευθἐρωσον τοὺς δουλεύοντας ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. See the note on ἑξαγοράσῃ Galatians 4:5.

στήκετε οὖν. On στήκω see W.H. Notes, p. 169. A much stranger form derived from a perfect is ἐπεποίθησα, Job 31:24 (cf. Judges 9:26 A; Zephaniah 3:2 A). An example of the conative imperative (Moulton, Proleg., 1906, p. 125).

καὶ μὴ πάλιν. After your past experience (Galatians 4:9)!

ζυγῷ δουλείας. As ζυγῷ is defined by δουλείας the idiomatic English translation is doubtless “the yoke of bondage,” not “a yoke” etc. For both the words and the thought in physical bondage see 1 Timothy 6:1, the only other passage where ζυγός is found in St Paul’s writings. Compare too Acts 15:10. Luther, perhaps not unfairly, draws out the metaphor to a point beyond St Paul’s, “For like as oxen do draw in the yoke with great toil, receive nothing thereby but forage and pasture, and, when they be able to draw the yoke no more, are appointed to the slaughter: even so they that seek righteousness by the law, are captives and oppressed with the yoke of bondage, that is to say, with the law: and when they have tired themselves a long time in the works of the law with great and grievous toil, in the end this is their reward, that they are miserable and perpetual servants.”

ἐνέχεσθε, “entangled,” A.V. and R.V., but this is to introduce the notion of a net, or at least a cord tied several times, which is neither in this nor the preceding words. You are in danger of being held in, fastened and restrained, by the yoke. Contrast ἐμπλέκεται, 2 Timothy 2:4. St Paul employs ἐνέχειν here only, cf. however W. H. marg. in 2 Thessalonians 1:4. Compare 3Ma 6:10 εἰ δὲ�. For examples in the papyri see Moulton and Milligan (Expositor, VII. 7, 1909, p. 283).