Galatians 4:5
“The Transition from Servitude to Sonship”Galatians 4:1–7
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain
Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain
Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain
- ἵναinathatG2443CONJConjunction
- τοὺςtousthoseG3588T-APMDefinite article Accusative Plural Masculine
- ὑπὸhupounderG5259PREPPreposition
- νόμονnomon[the] LawG3551N-ASMNoun Accusative Singular Masculine
- ἐξαγοράσῃexagorasēHe may redeemG1805V-AAS-3SVerb Aorist Active Subjunctive 3rd Singular
- ἵναinaso thatG2443CONJConjunction
- τὴνtēntheG3588T-ASFDefinite article Accusative Singular Feminine
- υἱοθεσίανhuiothesiandivine adoption as sonsG5206N-ASFNoun Accusative Singular Feminine
- ἀπολάβωμενapolabōmenwe may receiveG618V-2AAS-1PVerb 2nd Aorist Active Subjunctive 1st Plural
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Greek, not the KJV's wording. Why?
This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Greek word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Greek word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “charity” where the gloss reads “love”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.
Words in [ ] are added by the English.
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Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Galatians 4:1–7. He set out his notes in a four-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.
In this chapter the apostle deals plainly with those who hearkened to the judaizing teachers, who cried up the law of Moses in competition with the gospel of Christ, and endeavored to bring them under the bondage of it. To convince them of their folly, and to rectify their mistake herein, in these verses he prosecutes the comparison of a child under age, which he had touched upon in the foregoing chapter, and thence shows what great advantages we have now, under the gospel, above what they had under the law. And here.
I.He acquaints us with the state of the Old Testament church:
it was like a child under age, and it was used accordingly, being kept in a state of darkness and bondage, in comparison of the greater light and liberty which we enjoy under the gospel. That was indeed a dispensation of grace, and yet it was comparatively a dispensation of darkness; for as the heir, in his minority, is under tutors and governors till the time appointed of his father, by whom he is educated and instructed in those things which at present he knows little of the meaning of, though afterwards they are likely to be of great use to him; so it was with the Old Testament church - the Mosaic economy, which they were under, was what they could not fully understand the meaning of; for, as the apostle says (2 Corinthians 3:13), They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But to the church, when grown up to maturity, in gospel days, it becomes of great use. And as that was a dispensation of darkness, so of bondage too; for they were in bondage under the elements of the world, being tied to a great number of burdensome rites and observances, by which, as by a kind of first rudiments, they were taught and instructed, and whereby they were kept in a state of subjection, like a child under tutors and governors. The church then lay more under the character of a servant, being obliged to do every thing according to the command of God, without being fully acquainted with the reason of it; but the service under the gospel appears to be more reasonable than that was. The time appointed of the Father having come, when the church was to arrive at its full age, the darkness and bondage under which it before lay are removed, and we are under a dispensation of greater light and liberty.
II.He acquaints us with the much happier state of Christians under the gospel-dispensation, Galatians 4:4-7.
When the fulness of time had come, the time appointed of the Father, when he would put an end to the legal dispensation, and set up another and a better in the room of it, he sent forth his Son, etc. The person who was employed to introduce this new dispensation was no other than the Son of God himself, the only-begotten of the Father, who, as he had been prophesied of and promised from the foundation of the world, so in due time he was manifested for this purpose. He, in pursuance of the great design he had undertaken, submitted to be made of a woman - there is his incarnation; and to be made under the law - there is his subjection. He who was truly God for our sakes became man; and he who was Lord of all consented to come into a state of subjection and to take upon him the form of a servant; and one great end of all this was to redeem those that were under the law - to save us from that intolerable yoke and to appoint gospel ordinances more rational and easy. He had indeed something more and greater in his view, in coming into the world, than merely to deliver us from the bondage of the ceremonial law; for he came in our nature, and consented to suffer and die for us, that hereby he might redeem us from the wrath of God, and from the curse of the moral law, which, as sinners, we all lay under. But that was one end of it, and a mercy reserved to be bestowed at the time of his manifestation; then the more servile state of the church was to come to a period, and a better to succeed in the place of it; for he was sent to redeem us, that we might receive the adoption of sons - that we might no longer be accounted and treated as servants, but as sons grown up to maturity, who are allowed greater freedoms, and admitted to larger privileges, than while they were under tutors and governors. This the course of the apostle's argument leads us to take notice of, as one thing intended by this expression, though no doubt it may also be understood as signifying that gracious adoption which the gospel so often speaks of as the privilege of those who believe in Christ. Israel was God's son, his first-born, Romans 9:4. But now, under the gospel, particular believers receive the adoption; and, as an earnest and evidence of it, they have together therewith the Spirit of adoption, putting them upon the duty of prayer, and enabling them in prayer to eye God as a Father (Galatians 4:6): Because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. And hereupon (Galatians 4:7) the apostle concludes this argument by adding, Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and, if a son, then an heir of God through Christ; that is, Now, under the gospel state, we are no longer under the servitude of the law, but, upon our believing in Christ, become the sons of God; we are thereupon accepted of him, and adopted by him; and, being the sons, we are also heirs of God, and are entitled to the heavenly inheritance (as he also reasons Romans 8:17), and therefore it must needs be the greatest weakness and folly to turn back to the law, and to seek justification by the works of it. From what the apostle says in these verses, we may observe,
1.The wonders of divine love and mercy towards us, particularly of God the Father, in sending his Son into the world to redeem and save us, - of the Son of God, in submitting so low, and suffering so much, for us, in pursuance of that design, - and of the Holy Spirit, in condescending to dwell in the hearts of believers for such gracious purposes.
2.The great and invaluable advantages which Christians enjoy under the gospel; for,
(1.)We receive the adoption of sons. Whence note, It is the great privilege which believers have through Christ that they are adopted children of the God of heaven. We who by nature are children of wrath and disobedience have become by grace children of love.
(2.)We receive the Spirit of adoption. Note,
[1.]All who have the privilege of adoption have the Spirit of adoption - all who are received into the number partake of the nature of the children of God; for he will have all his children to resemble him.
[2.]The Spirit of adoption is always the Spirit of prayer, and it is our duty in prayer to eye God as a Father. Christ has taught us in prayer to eye God as our Father in heaven.
[3.]If we are his sons, then his heirs. It is not so among men, with whom the eldest son is heir; but all God's children are heirs. Those who have the nature of sons shall have the inheritance of sons.
Historical interpretation
Two Centuries of Reception
5 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.
But as for that idle god, who has neither any work nor any prophecy, nor accordingly any time, to show for himself, what has he ever done to bring about the fulness of time, or to wait patiently its completion? If nothing, what an impotent state to have to wait for the Creator's time, in servility to the Creator! But for what end did He send His Son? "To redeem them that were under the law," in other words, to "make the crooked ways straight, and the rough places smooth," as Isaiah says -in order that old things might pass away, and a new course begin, even "the new law out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," and "that we might receive the adoption of sons," that is, the Gentiles, who once were not sons.
Since the law by its precepts held people bound, as it were, only to decency of life but not to the hope of deliverance and eternity, God sent his own Son. He sent him subject to the law, that is, the law of Israel, that he might redeem those who were there and lived under the law. Now this is a great thing, that he says [Christ came] not merely to show them the way of life or to stir them up toward eternity with harsh commands but to redeem them. This is the mystery of what he performed, the redemption of all who believed in him, that they might become sons by adoption. When, therefore, such a great benefit came from Christ, nothing was to be added beside this. The law was no longer a matter of servitude.
Here he states two objects and effects of the Incarnation, deliverance from evil and supply of good, things which none could compass but Christ. They are these; deliverance from the curse of the Law, and promotion to sonship. Fitly does he say, that we might "receive," "[be paid,]" implying that it was due; for the promise was of old time made for these objects to Abraham, as the Apostle has himself shown at great length. And how does it appear that we have become sons? he has told us one mode, in that we have put on Christ who is the Son; and now he mentions another, in that we have received the Spirit of adoption.
Someone might raise the problem: “If then he was made subject to the law to redeem those who were subject to the law … if he himself was not made also outside the law, he did not redeem those who had not been subject to the law.” Another, however, will scrutinize the word redeemed more closely and will say that by the “redeemed” are meant those who were once of God’s party and later ceased to be so, whereas those who were not subject to the law were not so much redeemed as purchased.
He says “adoption” so that we may clearly understand that the Son of God is unique. For we are sons of God through his generosity and the condescension of his mercy, whereas he is Son by nature, sharing the same divinity with the Father.
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This verse
The Son came to buy out of bondage those who were under the law, so that we might receive the full standing of adopted sons.
“To redeem them that were under the law,”
Exagorázō, to buy out of bondage at a price. Those under the law were held by its demands and its condemnation, and Christ’s death on the cross paid the price of their release.
“that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
The “that” (hína) gives the goal. We receive in full (apolambánō) the huiothesía, the place and rights of a son, and God is now truly our Father.
Passage studyGalatians 4:1–7
From Servants to Sons and Heirs of God
Summary
Paul explains what the coming of Christ has changed for God’s people with a picture everyone in his day understood. A boy who is heir to a great estate owns it all in law, yet while he is a child he lives under guardians and stewards much as a servant does, until the day his father has set. God’s people were in that position under the law and “the elements of the world”. Then, at the time God had fixed, he sent his Son, born of a woman and born under the law, to buy out those who were under the law and to give us the adoption of sons. Because we are sons, God has also sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, and we call God “Abba, Father”. The believer is a son now, and every son is an heir of God through Christ.
The heir who is still a child
Paul has just told the Galatians, “ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”, and “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26–29). Now he shows what being an heir was like before Christ came. He is writing against teachers often called Judaizers, Jewish Christians who insisted that Gentile believers must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved, and the whole of his argument in these chapters is that we are justified by faith in Christ (Galatians 2:16). He has already shown that God’s promise to Abraham, received by faith, came first (Galatians 3:6–9).
The heir, klēronómos, is one who receives an inheritance. The word is built from klēros, a lot, and means a sharer by lot, an inheritor, and so a possessor. The child, nḗpios, is an infant or a minor, someone who has yet to come of age and so lacks full legal power over his own affairs. The servant, doûlos, is a slave or bondservant, from a root meaning to bind. Paul puts the three words together because the heir’s position is a paradox. He is “lord of all”, the rightful owner of the whole estate, and yet in his daily life he is as much under the orders of others as the slaves of the house are, since the estate is run for him by other people.
The custom behind the picture was well known among Greeks and Romans, and Paul’s readers in the Roman province of Galatia would have understood it at once. A minor heir, even one named sole heir of a large estate, came into control of it only at an age fixed by law. In Roman law this is usually given as fourteen for boys and twelve for girls, with full legal independence (sui iuris) sometimes coming later, and twenty-five is also given as the age of full legal capacity. Until then the heir was placed under guardians, who saw to his upbringing and education, and stewards, who managed the property, and it was a time of strict discipline and limited freedom.
Tutors, governors and the time appointed of the father
The “tutors” of verse 2 translate epítropos, a commissioner: the legal guardian appointed over a minor’s person, education and property, a man of real authority who was responsible for the heir’s welfare. The “governors” translate oikonómos, literally a house-distributor or house-manager, the steward who ran the household and its money. The guardian looked after the boy and the steward looked after the estate, so between them they covered the whole of his life. The “But” (allá) that opens the verse sets this present subjection beside the heir’s high standing, and “under” (hypó) is the word for being placed beneath another’s authority.
This lasts “until” (áchri), a word that marks a limit, “the time appointed of the father”. The word prothésmios means fixed beforehand, a day set in advance, and in the picture it is the day the father (patḗr) has chosen for his son to take up his full rights. The father decides when the waiting ends. Paul brings the picture home two verses later, when God sends his Son “when the fulness of the time was come” (Galatians 4:4). The father of the picture is God, and his appointed day is the coming of Christ.
In Paul’s application the guardians and stewards stand for the law of Moses and the whole order of the old covenant, under which God’s people, Israel above all, lived until Christ. He has already called the law a “schoolmaster” (paidagogos) to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), a guardian who kept us in custody until faith came, so that now “we are no longer under a schoolmaster” (Galatians 3:23–25). The law was added “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made” (Galatians 3:19), and Hebrews describes the arrangements of the old covenant as temporary in the same way (Hebrews 9:8–10). The guardianship was real and good, and it was meant to end on the day the Father chose.
Was the law bad?
People ask this of these verses, and Paul’s answer is no. Elsewhere he calls the law holy (Romans 7:12). It came from God, it revealed sin (Romans 3:20), it showed God’s righteousness, it guided and disciplined his people, and it prepared them for the Saviour. Its task was to lead them to the One who gives righteousness and sonship, which it was never given to supply itself. Now that he has come, believers are justified by faith in Christ and are free of the law as a way of earning salvation. Its ceremonial parts are fulfilled in Christ, and its moral teaching still guides believers as the way to love God and neighbour, in the power of the Holy Spirit and from a salvation already given.
In bondage under the elements of the world
“Even so we” applies the picture to Paul and his readers. The “we” takes in both Jews under the law and Gentiles under their own religions, which suited the Galatian churches, where Jewish and Gentile converts worshipped together. A Jewish believer would recognise the law as a time of tutelage, and a Gentile would recognise his old life under pagan gods and superstition as a kind of servitude. Both needed to be redeemed, by different routes out of the same childhood.
“When we were children” uses nḗpios again. Strong’s traces the word to a particle of negation and epos, a word, so that it means one who is still unable to speak, an infant, and figuratively a simple-minded person or an immature believer. The time before Christ was humanity’s childhood, a time when the full plan of salvation had yet to be revealed and the heirs were still unready to receive their inheritance. “Were in bondage” is doulóō, to enslave or bring under bondage, from doûlos, the servant of verse 1. Paul means a spiritual captivity to outward rules, principles or powers that had the strength to hold people and were powerless to redeem them. Against it he sets the liberty “wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Galatians 5:1).
What are “the elements of the world”?
The word for elements, stoicheîon, means something set in orderly rows, and so a basic element or first step, a fundamental principle, the ABC of a subject. The whole phrase in Greek is stoicheia tou kosmou. Believers differ on what Paul means by it. Many take it as the rudiments of religion. For Jews that would be the elementary, preparatory side of the law of Moses, its ceremonies such as the food laws, the festivals and circumcision, which God gave and which could still bring no one to salvation or maturity by themselves. For Gentiles it would be the basic beliefs and practices of paganism. Others hear in the word the elemental spirits, the spiritual powers believed to govern the world, which held people captive. On either reading, these things kept people as children, and Christ has brought that time to an end.
Paul uses the phrase again when he warns the Colossians against being taken captive by philosophy that follows “the rudiments of the world” (Colossians 2:8) and reminds them that they died with Christ to them (Colossians 2:20). Hebrews speaks of the weakness of the former commandment, which made nothing perfect (Hebrews 7:18–19). Any system, whether religious, philosophical or cultural, that offers a standing with God apart from his grace in Jesus Christ leads back into this servitude. That is why Paul treats the Galatians’ wish to take up the law as going backwards, from sonship into the nursery.
When the fulness of the time was come
The word for fulness, plḗrōma, comes from plēróō, to fill, and means what fills a thing or what is filled, a full measure or a completed period. “The fulness of the time” is the moment when the time God had set was complete and ripe, the “time appointed of the father” of verse 2. It is the end of the preparing that ran through the Old Testament and its prophecies, and Paul speaks elsewhere of God gathering all things in Christ “in the dispensation of the fulness of times” (Ephesians 1:10). Christ’s birth was the planned work of the God who rules history, and Paul also writes that Christ died for the ungodly at the time God chose (Romans 5:6).
God had prepared the world itself for that moment. The peace that Rome kept, the Greek language spoken widely, the Roman roads, and the synagogues of the Jews scattered through the empire were all in place for the gospel to travel once it was preached.
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law
“Sent forth” is exapostéllō, from ek, out from, and apostéllō, to send, so to send away on a mission with authority. The Father sends his Son out from heaven, and that means the Son was already with the Father before he was born. Jesus is the eternal Son of God, greater than any prophet and uncreated, and he came at his Father’s sending and in willing obedience to it.
“Made” is gínomai, to become or to come into being. Twice in this verse it describes a real becoming in history. “Made of a woman” means that the Son was truly born of a human mother, Mary, and is truly man. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He shared our flesh and blood so that he could stand in our place and make atonement for us (Hebrews 2:14–17), and because he knows our weakness from the inside, without sin, he is a High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). Paul tells the Philippians how the Son, being in the form of God, humbled himself to take this place (Philippians 2:6–8). In one short verse Paul names him God’s Son and a woman’s son, fully God and fully man, which is what the one Mediator between God and us must be.
“Made under the law” means that the sinless Son placed himself under the law God had given Israel, with all its legal and moral demands. He did it to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17), to live the complete obedience it required, and then to bear its curse, being “made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). The Son, who is above all law, took on the limits of the heir’s minority so that the heirs could come of age.
To redeem them that were under the law
“Redeem” is exagorázō, to buy up, to ransom, and figuratively to rescue from loss. It is a word from the marketplace, where a price is paid to buy someone out of bondage. The price Christ paid was his own life on the cross, and believers are “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
Those he bought out were “under the law”, hypó again with nómos. That word means law in general, and specially the law of Moses, and it can also mean a principle. Here it is the law of Moses. To be under it was to be subject to its demand for perfect obedience and to its judgment on every failure. The law shows God’s standard, and it gives neither the power to keep it nor the forgiveness of sins, so those under it stood in debt to God and apart from him. Paul has said that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God (Galatians 3:11), and that we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23–24). This is the gospel Paul has been defending through all of Galatians 3.
The adoption of sons
The “that” (hína) of the second half of the verse gives the purpose. Christ set us free from the law so that we would receive something greater, and freedom leads on to sonship. “Receive” is apolambánō, to receive in full. The status is given whole and for good.
“Adoption of sons” is huiothesía, the placing as a son. It was a legal act among the Greeks and especially the Romans. A Roman often adopted a grown man, to have an heir, to carry on the family name or to pass on his property, and the adopted son received full legal rights, the inheritance and a new identity, which often cut his ties with his old family. Paul, a Roman citizen, knew this well. The adopted son stood where a son by birth would stand, and the act could not be undone. God does this for believers in Christ. Paul writes that God has “predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:5), and John says that to those who receive Christ God gives power to become his children (John 1:12). Christ is the only begotten Son, and we are sons by adoption through him.
Redemption and adoption belong together. God forgives our sins, and he also brings us into his family, so that our relationship with him moves from duty under a code to the love of a home.
The Spirit of his Son, crying, Abba, Father
“Because ye are sons” states a settled fact. Sonship is God’s gift, received by faith in Christ, and the Spirit is given to those who already have it. The word is huiós, son, used very widely in Greek for kinship near or remote, and here it means a son with the full standing and rights of a grown heir, set against the minor of verses 1 to 3.
The verb is exapostéllō, the same that verse 4 uses for the sending of the Son. God sent forth his Son, and God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son, and the Spirit is his gift, given from his own will. He is called “the Spirit of his Son” because he is the Spirit who dwelt in Jesus, and he brings us into Christ’s own relationship with the Father. Jesus promised to send the Comforter after he went away (John 14:16–17), and after his resurrection he breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22).
The Spirit comes “into your hearts”. The heart, kardía, is the innermost person, the seat of thought, feeling and will. Our adoption is a legal standing before God, and it is also a living presence within us that shapes who we are.
“Crying” is krázō, a strong, urgent cry from deep within. The Spirit himself cries, and he enables us to cry with him. Romans says the same from our side: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). The Spirit’s presence is the seal of our sonship, so the Spirit of life in Christ who dwells in us (Romans 8:9–11) is also our assurance that we belong to God.
What does “Abba, Father” mean?
Abbâ is Aramaic, the language spoken in Judea in Jesus’ day, which Strong’s calls Chaldee. It is the word for father used within the family, a child’s word of trust and affection. Paul keeps the Aramaic and adds the Greek word for father, Patēr, which the KJV renders “Father”. The two together carry closeness and reverence at once, and they joined Jewish and Gentile believers in one cry to God. Jesus himself prayed “Abba, Father” in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36), and now everyone who belongs to him may call God by the name the Son used. John marvels at the love the Father has given us, that we should be called the sons of God (1 John 3:1).
Does every believer have the Spirit?
Yes. This verse ties the gift of the Spirit to sonship itself, and Paul says elsewhere that anyone who lacks the Spirit of Christ is none of his (Romans 8:9). Believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14). The Spirit’s indwelling is an essential mark of every son of God, and it gives us both nearness to the Father and the strength to live a life that honours him.
A son, and an heir of God through Christ
“Wherefore” is hṓste, so then, and verse 7 draws the conclusion of the whole passage. The believer has passed for good out of the place of the doûlos, bound by the law or the elements of the world, and is now a huiós, a son with full rights in God’s family. The minor of verse 1 has come of age.
“If a son, then an heir” uses the plain ei, “if”, to show that heirship follows from sonship as surely as one step follows another. The word for heir is klēronómos once more, the word Paul began with, and now it describes us. To be an heir of God is to share in God’s own inheritance: eternal life, glory, the promises of the covenant and every spiritual blessing that comes from him. Paul says that believers are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17), in a passage about all who are led by the Spirit of God being the sons of God (Romans 8:14–17). Peter blesses God, “which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3–4). When Christ, who is our life, appears, we will appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:4).
Through Christ
“Through” is diá, and everything in this verse comes through Christ alone, by his person and his finished work. He is the true Heir, whom God has appointed heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and he shares his inheritance with those who are joined to him. He entered our minority and our servitude so that we could receive his sonship. Paul describes the same exchange when he says that Christ, though rich, became poor for our sakes, so that through his poverty we might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Our sonship rests on his, and so it is secure.
Sonship also brings the Father’s care in every form, including his correction. Hebrews counts God’s discipline as one of the marks of a true son (Hebrews 12:8).
Living as sons in the Father’s house
These verses tell you who you are if you belong to Christ. You are a son of God, adopted by his choice, bought out of bondage by his Son, and given his Spirit, who cries “Abba, Father” in your heart. Your standing with God rests on what Christ has done, and it is as settled as the adoption of a son into a household. Christ has made you free (Galatians 5:1), and Paul’s whole concern in this letter is that the Galatians stay free and keep from going back under guardians they have outgrown.
That changes the way a believer prays. You come to God as a child to his father, with the confidence and affection of the Son himself, by the Spirit he has given you. It changes obedience too. You have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you might belong to him and bear fruit for God (Romans 7:4–6), and the obedience of a son springs from love and gratitude. And it gives you a future. Whatever you lack now, you are an heir of God, with an inheritance kept in heaven that will never fade, and it comes to you through Christ.
Galatians 4:1
“Now I say,”
Paul speaks with authority as he turns from the argument of chapter 3 to an illustration from daily life.
“That the heir, as long as he is a child,”
The heir (klēronómos) has the legal claim, and the child (nḗpios) is a minor. “As long as” marks this state as one that lasts only for a time.
“differeth nothing from a servant,”
In his daily life the minor heir is as much under orders as a slave (doûlos), with control over neither himself nor the estate.
“though he be lord of all;”
He is the rightful owner of the whole estate, and his ownership waits until he comes of age.
Galatians 4:2
“But is under tutors and governors”
The guardian (epítropos) oversaw the heir’s person and upbringing, and the steward (oikonómos) managed the property. In Paul’s application they stand for the law of Moses, which managed, protected and prepared God’s people while it limited their freedom.
“until the time appointed of the father.”
“Until” (áchri) sets an end to the guardianship. The day is fixed beforehand (prothésmios) by the father (patḗr), and Paul names that day in verse 4.
Galatians 4:3
“Even so we, when we were children,”
“Even so” applies the picture. “We” includes Jews and Gentiles alike, and the childhood is the time before God’s plan of salvation was fully revealed in Christ.
“were in bondage”
Doulóō, to be made a slave. The bondage was spiritual, under rules and powers that could hold people and could give them neither righteousness nor freedom.
“under the elements of the world:”
Stoicheîon, the first principles or rudiments, whether of the law’s ceremonies, of pagan religion, or the spiritual powers believed to rule the world.
Galatians 4:4
“But when the fulness of the time was come,”
The time set by the Father was full (plḗrōma), in the prophecies, in history and in God’s purpose.
“God sent forth his Son,”
Exapostéllō is a sending out on a mission from the Father’s side, so the Son existed before he was born.
“made of a woman,”
Gínomai, a real coming into human life by birth from Mary, which made him one with us in everything except sin.
“made under the law,”
The sinless Son put himself under the law of Israel, to keep all of it and to bear its curse for us.
Galatians 4:5 This verse
“To redeem them that were under the law,”
Exagorázō, to buy out of bondage at a price. Those under the law were held by its demands and its condemnation, and Christ’s death on the cross paid the price of their release.
“that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
The “that” (hína) gives the goal. We receive in full (apolambánō) the huiothesía, the place and rights of a son, and God is now truly our Father.
Galatians 4:6
“And because ye are sons,”
Sonship (huiós) is already a fact, and it is the reason the Spirit is given.
“God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son”
The same sending (exapostéllō) as the Son’s in verse 4. The Spirit who dwelt in Jesus is now given to his people.
“into your hearts,”
The heart (kardía) is the inner self, so the Spirit’s presence reaches thought, feeling and will.
“crying, Abba, Father.”
Krázō is a strong, heartfelt cry. Abbâ is the Aramaic family word for father, joined to the Greek word, as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36).
Galatians 4:7
“Wherefore thou art no more a servant,”
“Wherefore” (hṓste) draws the conclusion. The change from servant to son is final.
“but a son;”
A son has freedom, belonging and access to the Father that a servant lacks, and he has it by God’s gift.
“and if a son, then an heir of God”
The “if” (ei) states what follows from sonship. The heir of verse 1, still waiting, has become the heir who receives.
“through Christ.”
Diá, “through”. Christ’s redemption and mediation are the one channel of this new identity and inheritance.
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