Here we see in Galatians 4 verses 1 through 7 we have God's testament, the heir, the redemption and adoption, and the inheritance in Christ. Notice here the word heir in verse 1, that is a person who inherits goods from his father or from an estate. The heir continues the theme began in chapter three, if you recall, verses 15 and following. This heir in his minority, he differeth, it says, nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all. He's in training as a little child, in other words. He may be one or two years old. He may be the successor of his father. He will inherit all the assets, but do you treat him that way when he's young? Well, of course not. That's the point of the illustration. He's Lord of all, but you treat him in this minority state. It says he's under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. He is in the grammar phase of the trivium. Remember, that's grammar, logic, and rhetoric. He's in these lower phases. He's not in his majority. He's not in his adult capacity. But these are phases that he must go through to get to the final, to the telos, to the end. Even so, he says, when we were children, That is, the Jews, when we were in this minority state, and you Gentiles in the elements of the world under your false gods, we were in this primary state, we had not moved in. We were in bondage, she says, under the elements of the world. Now this word means a first beginning, an element, or a principle as the rudimentary elements of anything what belongs to a basic series in any field of knowledge. For example, you learn your ABCs, your one, two, threes, right? You learn basic facts. This is the grammar phase of education called the elements here in this case. It's also called weak and beggarly elements in verse nine as we'll see. This negative sense refers to the Jewish as well as the pagan religions here. Paul lumps the two together. Judaism, which is legitimate and from God, and heathenism, which is illegitimate and from demons, both of them are elemental. Now, what does he mean by that? Well, he refers us to the days and the seasons and the years, the festivals God instituted for Israel. What else did they have? They both had priesthoods. They both had temples. They both had offerings and incense and sacrifices. They had lots of rights. God instituted certain rights for Israel and said, do these things at this point in these times. The Jews later would institute their own rights, just as the heathens instituted their own rights. All these things are in common between the two. I note then that the Jewish church was still a church, but it was underage. The Jewish church was still the heir of God's testament, but kept under these basic forms of instruction. We are therefore not to despise the elements God put the Jews under, nor are we to desire them for ourselves, since we've been freed from that yoke. Notice verse four, much in line with the same theme, but when the fullness of the time was come, the pleroma of all the times, then God said, he sent forth his son. made of a woman, made under the law. Here we see Christ is fully God. He's the son of God. And what else is he fully man born of a woman? Christ is sent forth by the father in order to subject himself to the law. He can come under that covenant that Adam was first in because he's the second Adam and the first Adam broke the covenant. So now we need a second fully God, fully man who can keep And therefore it says, to redeem them that were under the law. In order that those under law emphatically, he should redeem. That's the purpose of God. We're under a system of law by nature, and Christ redeems us from that system of law to a system of grace. That's why God incarnated his son. That's why Christ was subject to the law, so that we who are in bondage to sin and death could be redeemed, and then given the adoption of sons, also in verse 5. This is where you make a person officially an heir. Hwiothesia. Hwios is your son, thesia is to put or to place. I now place you in the register of my sons. That's the idea of adoption. Now, if you think about the ancient world, even those naturally begotten of a man had to be adopted at some point. They had to be placed in the registry of major children. These will inherit. Minor children are heirs of all, but they've not yet received the adoption. So here in Israel, there is a manner of speaking in which God says he adopted Israel. They received the adoption we read in Romans nine, but not in this respect. not in the fullness of the dropping away of all the grammar phase and all the elements that Israel was put under. Christ fulfilled all the types and the shadows, and therefore the types and the shadows are dead and they're deadly. We cannot revive them, we cannot put them on ourselves as a yoke, as if God were pleased with them. And because he are sons, he says, because you've received this adoption, God sent forth the spirit of his son. Therefore, I see here that adoption is based off the giving of God's spirit. The two are related. God only gives his spirit to those adopted in Christ. The Spirit proceeds not just from the Father, but here He is called the Spirit of the Son of God. Elsewhere, He's called the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of His Son, the Spirit of truth. Christ sent the Spirit, He said in John 15, 26, and John 16, 7. The Spirit proceedeth from the Father and from the Son, we confess, not merely from the Father. Let us then delight ourselves in the benefits we have in Christ. Adopted, redeemed, placed in the registry of beneficiaries, entered upon our inheritance, given the earnest of the Spirit, we are blessed indeed. And this Spirit of God is put into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. That is where we address God not merely as righteous judge, which he is, but as our Father through whom we inherit all of these benefits that he's laid out for us in his testament. We are beloved as Christ is beloved. We are sons as Christ is a son. We are adopted as God's sons through Jesus Christ and inherit all things in Him. Verse 7, if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Here God links together the Testament and the benefits and the inheritance with our adoption. Because Jesus Christ has redeemed us, all of the elements are shed away. Then, verses 8 through 11, we have their conversion from heathenism. Is incomplete, Paul says, if they lapse into Judaism. He says when they were led about, they did service unto them which by nature are no gods. They were slaves of demons. You can read about this in Leviticus 17, 7. Deuteronomy 32, 17. Psalm 106, 37. First Corinthians 10, 21. The heathens don't serve just statues. They serve demons that encourage them to bow before the work of their own hands. It's demonic. Then note verse nine. He's referring to their conversion. After that, ye have known God, or rather are known of God. They now don't live in ignorance of God, they know him, but the actual fact is God knew you. God loved you and called you by his grace into the fellowship of his son. He says, since this is the case that God has come to love you and adopt you, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements? Remember those basic principles, the ABCs, same thing here. They're weak, they're beggarly, they don't have the robust and glorious truth, they are shadows of things yet to come. And in heathenism, they're worse than shadows, they're shadows of shadows. God gave Adam a right of worship, how he may approach to God. And the heathens in the line of Cain and then later in those families cut off through the descendants of you had Shem, Ham and Japheth. Ham and Japheth cut off from God's worship, but still they had some knowledge of what Noah was doing. And they would do things like what Noah did. So they had shadows of shadows, in other words. These are weak and beggarly, the shedding of the beast's blood, incense, earthly temples, professional priesthood, sacrifices, altars, seasonal alterations, holy days, holy years. God says this is bondage. These are the elements that both Jew and Gentile were kept under until Christ came. Verse 10, he gives an instance. He observed days and months and times and years. Now do we not observe the distinction of days and months and times and years? Yes. For civil use, today is this day, today is that day, it's this month, it's that month, it's this year, it's that year. But do we have holy years instituted by God as the year of Jubilee? Do we have the seasonal changes recognized by us in some religious rites that we perform? Because if we do, we are in bondage to the ABC elements of the world, just as the heathens were, and just as the Jews were. Christians, then, ought not to observe these things. In fact, if you read the early church apologists, they'll refute both the Romans and the Jews with these same arguments. Well, you're under bondage to the elements of the world. That's why you have a sacrificial system, because your atonement is not complete. That's why you have an earthly priesthood. Ours is in heaven. That's why you have to observe these days and years and months. We don't need that. We have the Lord's day. That's all we need. We recognize Jesus rose from the dead and rested from his works. And you people are in bondage, they would say. So it's not just circumcision, is it? It's all these laws that bring them in bondage to the changing seasons and times and years, the elements of the planets, the turning and rotation of the various planets and the seasons and times, bringing them into bondage. Some people in Galatia observed these things as if Judaism still stood. There is, then I note, no day to be kept holy among Christian but the Lord's day. All other holiness is either Judaizing, being like the Jews, or heathenizing, being like the heathens, both of whom were under these elements of the world. Then we have verses 12 through 20, Paul and the Galatians' former affection. He calls them his brethren, though they've gone so far in the wrong direction, he still addresses them in verse 12 as brethren. He said, you used to receive me like an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Did they receive him like that now? Ah, he's a false teacher. Don't listen to him. He teaches that you can sin that grace may abound. He says things against the law of Moses. Don't listen to him. They would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him. And now he says, because I tell you the truth, have I become your enemy? Now this is human nature. I want you to flatter me. So if you happen to tell me something true about myself, I'm not gonna be your friend anymore, I'm going away, I don't wanna hear about this. He says that he now travails in birth again until Christ be formed in them. A difficult and strenuous process of delivering a child. That's what he compares it to. He already did it once, are you going to make me do it again, he says? To bring you out of the bondage of sin and death? Then he gives us the allegory in verses 21 through 31 of the bond and the free woman and their children. Ye that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? This is an equivocation, we call this. It's a figure of speech. Sometimes people use it in arguments. They think it's a good argument. It's not. But in figurative language, it's very good. Law and law, does he mean the same thing? Do you want to be under law? You're justified by keeping law. Don't you hear the law that is the book of Genesis? Don't you hear the books of Moses? So he's using it in two different senses to grab their attention. He's going to prove that the book of Genesis does not agree with them, and he's going to do it with an allegory. Note verses 22 and 28, he refers to Isaac and Ishmael. 22 and 23, one by the free woman, that is Isaac, one by the bondmaid, that is Ishmael. Again, by children of promise, one is by promise, that is Isaac, and one is born after the flesh, that is Ishmael. These have two covenants. One, he says, is Mount Sinai in Arabia, where they received the Ten Commandments. That covenant of law. Then he says, Sarah is the mother of us all. It's the heavenly Jerusalem. She is a free woman, and those born of her are free. Then on this side you have Agar, or Hagar. She's a slave, isn't she? She's not a free woman. She's not the real wife of Abraham, as we'll see later. She genders to bondage. And what does she answer to? Jerusalem, which now is. He's not saying Jerusalem back there as God instituted it. The covenant God made with David, our father, when Jerusalem was the capital city. No, he's not talking about how God actually delivered the law on Mount Sinai. No, he's speaking of the error of the Jews right now in Jerusalem, he says. The Jerusalem which now is the people who crucified our Lord, which John calls spiritually Sodom and Egypt. That Jerusalem is in bondage, he says, with her children. It is born after the flesh. It persecuted those who are born after the Spirit. So this is the contrast here, not between the Old Testament and the New Testament, but between Judaism as it then existed and God's saving mercy delivered in the scriptures. Where do we find out about the free woman? Where do we find out about the child of promise? Where do we find out about justification by faith alone? We find out about it in the law of Moses. That's why he says that. You who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? Does the law teach your doctrine? No, it doesn't. The law has nothing to do with your doctrine, nor do the prophets, so he quotes, Isaiah, rejoice thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry thou that travailest not. Here's the first scripture proof. The second, in verse 30, cast out the bondwoman and her son. Genesis 21, verse 10. Here we see God in his great mercy to Isaac casts out the bondwoman. He will not inherit. He's a false heir from the wisdom of the flesh. I note then that the bondage he speaks of is not the Old Testament or even God's economy with Israel, but rather is the Jewish system invented by men as an imitation of the scriptures. Does the Old Testament teach a doctrine of justification by works or by faith, by God's grace, by His electing mercy? Well, it's obvious. This is the Jerusalem which is from above. This is what is taught by Moses and David and Isaiah, the true gospel that we believe we are justified just as they were by believing in Jesus. Let us rejoice then in our freedom we have in Christ. Christ became a curse for us so that we might inherit the blessings of Abraham. This is what makes us children of the free woman. Let us use the blessed privileges that we have in the joy and assurance of our salvation in prayer to God and access with boldness and all the privileges that we have as sons. And thus far the explanation of Galatians chapter four.