Galatians 4:31

4:28-31 The history thus explained is applied. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free. If the privileges of all believers were so great, according to the new covenant, how absurd for the Gentile converts to be under that law, which could not deliver the unbelieving Jews from bondage or condemnation! We should not have found out this allegory in the history of Sarah and Hagar, if it had not been shown to us, yet we cannot doubt it was intended by the Holy Spirit. It is an explanation of the subject, not an argument in proof of it. The two covenants of works and grace, and legal and evangelical professors, are shadowed forth. Works and fruits brought forth in a man's own strength, are legal. But if arising from faith in Christ, they are evangelical. The first covenant spirit is of bondage unto sin and death. The second covenant spirit is of liberty and freedom; not liberty to sin, but in and unto duty. The first is a spirit of persecution; the second is a spirit of love. Let those professors look to it, who have a violent, harsh, imposing spirit, towards the people of God. Yet as Abraham turned aside to Hagar, so it is possible a believer may turn aside in some things to the covenant of works, when through unbelief and neglect of the promise he acts according to the law, in his own strength; or in a way of violence, not of love, towards the brethren.

The church of the Gentiles was not typified in Hagar, but in Sarah; from whence the scope of the apostle is to conclude, that we are not under the law, obliged to Judaical observances, but are freed from them, and are justified by faith in Christ alone, not by the works of the law. By this conclusion the apostle maketh way for the exhortation in the following chapter, pressing them to stand fast in their liberty.

Galatians 4:31 .[43] Τῆς ἐλευθέρας , of the free ) In the liberty follows. An Anadiplosis.[44] [43] Οὐκ ἐσμὲν , we are not , i.e. we neither ought nor wish to be.—V. g. [44] See App. The repetition of the same word in the end of the preceding and in the beginning of the following member. Here the τῆς ἐλευθέρας at the end of this ver., and the conjugate word Τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ at the beginning of ch. Galatians 5:1 , constitutes the Anadiplosis.—ED. —————

Galatians 4:31 . The preceding allegory has illustrated the essential difference between the heritage of Jews and Christians. Whereas Jews inherit bondage to Law, freedom is the Christian birthright, derived from their heavenly mother. The Apostle now proceeds to enforce the truth that Christ bestowed this freedom upon us, and that it is an essential principle of our call. Galatians 4:31 to Galatians 5:12 . Freedom is our birthright in Christ and an essential condition of our call. Accordingly the Apostle protests against the claim that all Christians should be circumcised, as a departure from the spirit of Christ, a dangerous innovation which the churches will certainly condemn, and a superstition of the flesh on a par with the grossest heathen superstitions.

31. So then—The oldest manuscripts read, "Wherefore." This is the conclusion inferred from what precedes. In Ga 3:29 and Ga 4:7, it was established that we, New Testament believers, are "heirs." If, then, we are heirs, "we are not children of the bond woman (whose son, according to Scripture, was 'not to be heir,' Ga 4:30), but of the free woman (whose son was, according to Scripture, to be heir). For we are not "cast out" as Ishmael, but accepted as sons and heirs.

31 . So then ] Better, wherefore . The conclusion is drawn from the whole preceding argument. It is the assertion of our liberty in the Gospel of Christ—freedom from the curse of the law, from the yoke of ritual observances, from the bondage of sin and Satan, from the burden of an evil conscience—an earnest of “the glorious liberty of the children of God”.

So then, brethren - It follows from all this. Not from the allegory regarded as an argument - for Paul does not use it thus - but from the considerations suggested on the whole subject. Since the Christian religion is so superior to the Jewish; since we are by it freed from degrading servitude, and are not in bondage to rites and ceremonies; since it was designed to make us truly free, and since by that religion we are admitted to the privileges of sons, and are no longer under laws, and tutors, and governors, as if we were minors; from all this it follows, that we should feel and act, not as if we were children of a bondwoman, and born in slavery, but as if we were children of a freewoman, and born to liberty. It is the birthright of Christians to think, and feel, and act like freemen, and they should not allow themselves to become the slaves of customs, and rites, and ceremonies, but should feel that they are the adopted children of God. Thus closes this celebrated allegory - an allegory that has greatly perplexed most expositors, and most readers of the Bible. In view of it, and of the exposition above, there are a few remarks which may not inappropriately be made. (1) it is by no means affirmed, that the history of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis, had any original reference to the gospel.

The account there is a plain historical narrative, not designed to have any such reference. (2) the narrative contains important principles, that may be used as illustrating truth, and is so used by the apostle Paul. There are parallel points between the history and the truths of religion, where the one may be illustrated by the other. (3) the apostle does not use it at all in the way of argument, or as if that proved that the Galatians were not to submit to the Jewish rites and customs. It is an illustration of the comparative nature of servitude and freedom, and would, therefore, illustrate the difference between a servile compliance with Jewish rites, and the freedom of the gospel. (4) this use of an historical fact by the apostle does not make it proper for us to turn the Old Testament into allegory, or even to make a very free use of this mode of illustrating truth. That an allegory may be used sometimes with advantage, no one can doubt while the "Pilgrim's Progress" shall exist. Nor can anyone doubt that Paul has here derived, in this manner, an important and striking illustration of truth from the Old Testament. But no one acquainted with the history of interpretation can doubt that vast injury has been done by a fanciful mode of explaining the Old Testament; by making every fact in its history an allegory; and every pin and pillar of the tabernacle and the temple a type.