BOOK 48 OF 66 · PAULINE EPISTLES · KING JAMES BIBLE

Galatians 4

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Galatians 4 Overview

Paul explains that believers are no longer servants under elementary bondage but sons because God sent forth His Son, made of a woman and under the law, to redeem those under the law. The Spirit of His Son cries ‘Abba, Father.’ Paul then pleads with the Galatians not to return to bondage and uses Hagar and Sarah allegorically to contrast bondage and promise.

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Before you read Galatians 4

Coming from

Paul asks whether the Galatians received the Spirit by works of the law or by the hearing of faith. He appeals to Abraham, Scripture’s promise that the nations would be blessed through him, and the curse borne by Christ. The law, added later because of transgressions, could not cancel the earlier promise and served as a schoolmaster until Christ.

In this chapter

Leads into

Paul warns that seeking justification through circumcision obligates a person to the whole law and abandons the grace principle. Christian liberty is not permission for the flesh; faith works by love, the whole law is fulfilled in loving one’s neighbor, and believers are commanded to walk in the Spirit rather than fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The Hagar/Sarah section is explicitly called an allegory by Paul, so the symbolic use is inspired rather than a license to allegorize Scripture arbitrarily.

‘Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years’ criticizes returning to legal bondage as a system of standing before God, not every voluntary calendar observance.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Believers are sons and heirs, not slaves seeking status

Adoption rests on God sending His Son and Spirit.

Returning to law for justification is regression, not maturity

Paul fears the Galatians are turning back toward bondage.

Promise, not fleshly human effort, defines the inheritance

Isaac’s birth provides the pattern Paul develops.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Genesis 16–21

Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah, and Isaac supply the historical events Paul uses allegorically.

Romans 8:14–17

Paul likewise connects the Spirit, adoption, Abba, and heirship.

Hebrews 2:14–18

Christ’s real humanity and redemptive mission resonate with ‘made of a woman, made under the law.’

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not use Paul’s inspired allegory as permission to invent hidden meanings in every narrative detail

Paul tells us this particular use is allegorical.

Do not make observance of any day inherently sinful

The issue is bondage and justification through legal observance.

Do not turn sonship into something earned by later works

It is grounded in redemption and the Spirit given to believers.

Read Galatians 4 watching for…

The shift from servant to son.

The two sending statements: Son and Spirit.

Paul’s fear about returning to weak and beggarly elements.

His personal appeal and remembered relationship with them.

The Hagar/Sarah contrast.

Chapter outline4 sections

1-7God sends his Son to redeem those under the law and gives believers the Spirit of his Son 8-11Paul warns against returning to bondage under weak and beggarly elements 12-20Paul appeals to the Galatians to remember their former love and receive the truth 21-31Paul uses Hagar and Sarah to contrast bondage under the law with the freedom of promise

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;

But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.

Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.

And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.

But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.

So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.