You were created for freedom

Galatians Chapter 4

We’ve been looking at the book of Galatians to discover what Paul was saying to the believers in regards to freedom. If you’ve not caught on yet, the contemporary message here is that God has designed us for freedom and indeed Christ came to set us free from any sort of bondage.

The reason we love freedom is because we were made that way. The only way to alter that innate desire to be free is to recondition us, from a young age, through indoctrination to love slavery - whatever type of slavery the indoctrinators determine it to be.

I guess the only thing I’d qualify about freedom is that it’s not the extreme liberal or far left notion of ‘anything goes’ type of ‘freedom’ (which is not freedom at all). If a pilot has been grounded, and is then released to fly, he is free to take to the air and fly his aircraft as it was designed to fly - he is free. However, if he decides that freedom is ‘anything goes’ and wants to now dive into the sea to emulate a submarine… well, there’s going to be trouble. You would not characterise that fellow as ‘enjoying his freedom’ when his aircraft is sinking and he’s drowning.

Nevertheless, there are many today who are doing just that sort of thing in the name of ‘freedom’. This is not the freedom Paul is talking about, nor what God intended. He intended for us to be free to live as we were created to live.

So let’s continue into chapter 4 of Galatians and Paul’s message to the believers there.

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

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

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

Paul continues his analogy from the previous chapter that under the law we were like a child under supervision set by the father, no different than a servant, even though an heir to the estate. Now one would have to agree that this ‘childhood’, under the law, was a long childhood indeed! But, as we will see in the following verses, it did not last forever.

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

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

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

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

At the right time, as when a child comes of age and has the adult-son privilege of inheritance, Christ came to bring us into a place of taking hold of an inheritance in the Kingdom. He did this through ‘redemption’, which is, buying us back¹ by paying for our sins himself, and thus attributing to us the status of sinless sons before God the Father. And being sons we can call God our Father, and a true heir of God.

A remarkable state of affairs - so remarkable, that many cannot believe that we could possibly become heirs of God (i.e. adult sons who literally share ownership of all that the Father has). When you really think about what the scriptures are saying in this regard it’s mind-blowing (and a great stumbling block to the religious and the self-righteous).

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

9. 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?

The Galatians, before they came to know God, were slaves to idol worship. Paul is challenging them here, asking if they want to go back to that same bondage again - for this is where they are heading if they start trying to fulfil the law. The law here is described as weak and beggarly elements - it was weak and totally inadequate to bring anyone to salvation.

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

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

These observances are ones from the Jewish Law - feasts, sacred days, etc. I don’t think there is anything wrong with observing a feast or a holy day, but when it becomes part of a law, a way of justification before God, then there is a big problem.

Paul had founded the church in Galatia and so he is understandably concerned that he might have worked in vain, given the precarious situation of them about to fall from grace.

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

Only the free can set another free. Paul, born a Jew, was living as a Gentile, demonstrating the freedom he had in Christ. Here he encourages the Galatians to also exercise such freedom and not come under any bondage such as the Law.

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

Paul had been severely beaten and stoned during his time in Galatia and it’s likely the physical consequences of such abuse is what he is talking about when he refers to ‘infirmity of the flesh’.

14. 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.

The Galatian believers looked beyond the physically battered and bruised Paul, to his heart and received him, and his message, as they would have received Jesus himself.

15. 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.

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

Paul is saying, “what happened to all your joy? In the past you would have done anything for me, even plucked out your own eyes for me.” (As one would say “I’d give my right arm.”) “Have I become your enemy just because I’m telling you the truth? Does the truth offend you that much?” In all likelihood, for those bound up in religious notions, the truth of freedom is offensive. We know that the truth exposing an ideologue, a totalitarian, a control freak, a zealot, promoting lies, will be totally offensive to them. The spirit behind the lie that we must be bound to some religious law is not promoting that lie for our good (as much as certain Gnostics believe the snake in the Garden was whispering truth to Eve, it’s a lie, and that Old Serpent has been a liar from the very beginning).

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

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

The New International Version translates these verses as “Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you (from us), so that you may be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you.”

We can identify many camps and ideologies today who want to win us over to their way of thinking and acting and alienate us from what is true freedom. And they do it with such zeal!

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

The Galatians hadn’t lost their salvation, but clearly they were departing from a life of reflecting the image of Christ. Paul may be a little hyperbolic here, to stress just how much he is concerned about their wellbeing.

20. I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you².

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

Paul challenges the Galatians that if they really want to be under the Law, do they realise what that means? Clearly they did not, otherwise they would never have considered going back to such a bondage. Paul makes it clear through the rest of this chapter, what their relationship should be to the Law.

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

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

The Passion Translation puts it like this: “Ishmael, the son of the slave girl, was born of the natural realm. But Isaac, the son of the forewoman, was born supernaturally by the Spirit - a child of the promise of God!”

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

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

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

The picture Paul is painting here is of the two covenants - one, from Mount Sinai, birthed children into slavery, the other, from (heavenly) Jerusalem, birthed children into freedom. Then Paul quotes Isaiah 54:1 to show the heavenly Jerusalem birthing children of promise into freedom.

27. 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.

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

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

30. 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.

Going back to Genesis 21:9-14, Paul explains that Hagar and Ishmael would not have any part in the inheritance of Isaac, just as those of the covenant of Law with its legalism will not inherit the promise of justification that comes by faith, and ultimate freedom.

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

So if we are sons of freedom, why willingly submit to slavery? That’s just dumb! We have been created to be free, Christ has paid for us to be free from sin and the Law, so we can be free indeed! We shouldn’t allow anyone³ to enslave us, no matter how zealous they seem, they just want to rule it over you. Don’t let them.

1. you could say “to buy out of the slave market” - according to Wuest’s Word Studies

2. Literally, “to be at a loss, to be disturbed”, or to feel helplessness about the situation.

3. Or anything, like fallen angels, demons, you know… the powers that hate you and want you dead.