Galatians 4:15 - The Antidote for Relationship Creep

"Therefore, where [is] the blessing of you?  For I witness to you that if possible the eyes of you having dug out you gave to me."

-Isn’t that how it often goes in life, in relationships?  When you first begin, there is this sense of newness, of freshness, of wonder.  Starry-eyed.  Life is all good, this person is all good.  They hung the moon!  You would do anything for them, give up anything to help them or to be with them.  You would go out of your way and then some, do anything they ask - they can do no wrong.  Nary a wart to be seen.  And then it happens.  Gradually.  And maybe not even due to any fault of either party, but time and life, and familiarity, and busyness and other things creep in and begin to slowly erode the respect, the wonder.  Relationship creep.  It's like gravity, a constant force, only it pulls people apart.  Attraction dispelled by repulsion.  And if left unchecked, that other person can actually become repulsive.  Relationship creep can make you a creep.  It is the old adage, familiarity breeds what?  Contempt.  Even the best of situations can grow stale.  The luster wears off and they appear rather tarnished.  And this significant other comes to be taken for granted.  Disapproval and disrespect begin to take the place of affirmation and appreciation.  Sadly, this was happening to the Galatians in their relationship with Paul.  Disenchanted, they were - especially cuz he was getting all up in their spiritual kitchen.

-But first of all, why would anyone even do that?  Pluck out your eyes?  To give them to another person?  And really, to what end, cuz plucked out eyes aren't good to anyone.  Well, absent some kind of amazing medical breakthrough.  But again, if you pluck out your eyes, you have just made yourself blind.  For life.  Who would do such a thing?  And why?  It would be a complete waste.

-Since the motive cannot be to benefit another, that pretty much leaves us with some kind of extreme gratitude.  But that most likely is exactly what Paul is describing here. The Galatian believers were (at one point at least) soooo grateful to Paul for coming and sharing with them the Good News about Jesus - they had never heard it before.  And they very likely would have never heard had Paul not gone on his "mission".  Or gotten sick.  But he was truly their angel, their messenger from God.  The Message he shared gave them hope and joy and peace and forgiveness.  It was a game changer.  It was THEIR game changer, their LIFE changer in fact.  And, as is the case, words could not express the gratefulness they had towards Paul.  But he was so aware, he understood so well how thankful they were, that he knew if it had been practical that the Galatians would have ventured to give him their eyes as a token of their appreciation.  Surely gratitude cannot be overvalued in any relationship - it both acknowledges and blesses the one having blessed AND it is a powerful check on relationship creep.  It's the antidote!  Gratitude says, I do appreciate you.  I STILL appreciate you.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or any other scientist, for that matter) that discern that relationships generally do better when positive expressions (appreciation, encouragement, and support) outweigh the negative ones (disapproval, criticism, and sarcasm).  Gratitude helps me assume a position of humility and acknowledges the role of this other - even and including when they offer constructive criticism - in whatever success or goodness I have experienced.  And most assuredly it is the whipped cream and cherry on top of any good deed or effort.  Let us not stop short in this most excellent way of consummating a transaction of goodness, and let us be on the lookout for and put a stop to relationship creep in all its ugly forms.

Galatians 4:14 - "Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me..."

"... and the temptation of you in the flesh of me you did not despise nor reject, but rather as an angel of God you received me, as Christ Jesus."

-When he first came to Galatia, the people there received him as an angel, Paul says.  Like a literal messenger of God, one who was speaking for Him.  We know for a fact that at one point, the citizens of Lystra actually were calling Paul "Hermes", who was the messenger of the Greek gods (Acts 14.8-18).  But so distinguished was his reception among the Galatians (among those who believed at least), that there was not the least hint of disrespect.  Just the oppposite.  They didn't know him, at least not by face.  And he was even sick when he showed up.  They could have blown him off or turned him away, but no.  They did not look down on him or reject him in the least.  They welcomed him and took him in, and they listened to his message.  They not only listened to it - they believed it.  They believed him.  Paul even goes so far as to say that they received him as if he was an angel.  As if he was Jesus.  Now that's respect.  And that's what they showed him.

-Respect would appear to be in rather short supply in our day.  Messengers and leaders alike are criticized, summarily tuned out.  Strangers are ignored altogether - or we lash out at them at the slightest provocation.  It is selfishness and pride infused with a layer of low-grade anger and fueled by a rather pervasive sense of disillusionment and mistrust (some of which has certainly been earned).  This spirit of disrespect (2Peter 2:10, Jude 8) is certainly symptomatic of a culture which increasingly turns its back on the One Who is the Supreme Authority in the universe and is deserving of all glory and honor and respect (Jude 25).  Respect is defined as a feeling of deep admiration, and understandably it can be rather rare for a leader or a messenger (or anyone for that matter) to instill such feelings in others, particularly in those who don't know him or her.

-But the truth is, that God in His sovereignty positions people over us (Colossians 1:16, Romans 13.1), and simply by virtue of the fact that God has put them there, they are deserving of a different kind of respect (1Peter 2.13, Titus 3:1, 1Timothy 2:1-2).  Respect is so much more than a feeling.  It is attaching and extending value and honor to another individual.  This value could be based on their position or title (particularly in relation to me), it could be based on their age (particularly in relation to me), it could be based simply on the fact that they are one of God's wonderful impossibles, based on the value which they possess because they are Made in Heaven.  They are not "Made in China".  No, God Himself fashioned them and bestowed on them the gift of life (certainly this would extend to all of life on God's green earth, God's creation - over which He has made us stewards, caretakers).  This value would extend particularly to the man or woman or child who actually bear God's image.  That simple fact makes them - all my fellow humans - deserving of being treated as valuable.  R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Aretha knew how to spell it.  Sock it to me, sock it to me - she wanted to get some.  May we know how to sock it to THEM, just like these Galatians.

Galatians 4:13 - No glitch in the Matrix...

"But you are having come to know that because of strengthlessness of the flesh I evangelized to you the first...’

-So many well-laid plans.  Truly - the mind of man plans his way, but always and forever the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16.9).  We have plans for our events and for our days and for our lives.  For our vocations and our vacations.  For our retirement.  And we plan how we are going to serve the Lord.  Every last duck in a row.  We are going to do this and that and the other, we expect God to bless our plans for how we are going to help Him out, we throw up a little dash of prayer for favor, and off we go.  James calls it arrogant boasting (James 4.13-16).  Truth is, we don’t know what our life will be like tomorrow.  We are a passing shadow (Psalm 144.4), a vapor, a breath (Psalm 39.5), a pile of so much dust into which the Creator God breathed the breath of life (Genesis 2.7), here today and gone tomorrow.  And yet it is with that very breath of God that we can praise Him, the One Who gave it to us in the first place.  We can celebrate and spread the knowledge of His breathtaking goodness to our neighbors and to the nations, and we can help to bring the families and peoples of the world into the white-hot enjoyment of His manifold perfections.  We were made for this.  So it is totally good and right that we should aspire and even strategize and plan on how to do this.  Just know that even the best laid plans can be frustrated, may need to be modified, should be held with an open hand...

-No doubt it was with this very missional intent, the highest of motives, that Paul set out on his mission trip to Galatia.  Oh, he had a plan - a good plan.  He may have even held it loosely, adapting as he did to the response of the crowds, to persecution, etc.  But he didn’t plan to get sick, and apparently he didn’t plan on stopping when and where he stopped on that first journey, because he suggests that it was this unnamed weakness of flesh - about which there is not even a single mention in Acts 13-14 where Paul (and Barnabas) first visited the region of Galatia - this infirmity was the reason he even wound up planting the church in Galatia.  Which is the precisely the point.  Paul did not plan to get sick.  Nor to stop and plant the church where he did.  But the Lord had other plans.  And tho it may have appeared that the delay and the detour were a deviation from his original flight plan, Paul was never ever even the slightest bit off course.  Not in the itinerary of heaven.  He was right where God wanted him.  As are we all.  If only the eyes of our heart could see this.  Is there even the tiniest detail which escapes His notice?  Is there the smallest glitch in our matrix for which He has not already accounted, which He is not working together for good?  The Lord directs our steps.  He was directing Paul’s steps - directly to the precise place where He planned for Paul to plant a church.  Somehow Paul getting sick was always part of the plan.  And so it is with us, in sickness and in health, for better or worse - ours is to do our best to keep in step with Him, knowing that ultimately He knows where He is going, where He is taking us.  There is nothing wrong with a strategy or a plan.  But ‘tis true - even the best laid plans can and will go awry.  For us the question ultimately is not about where we are or what is happening to us - it is always about Whose we are, and about what He wants from us right where we are today... Wherever and however we are, we are to walk by faith and spread the awareness of His breathtaking goodness to all...

Galatians 4:12 - Paul the Beggar

"Be coming to be as I, since (I) also as you, brothers, I am begging you.  Nothing me you did harm."

-Paul now is begging these Galatians, and he calls them brothers again, which is not just a label.  He is appealing to them out of relationship.  And that right there is the key to ministry, to making a lasting difference in the lives of others - relationship.  It is rightly said that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.  That’s relationship.  And Paul cared.  Sometimes you beg because you care.  It is earnest asking, born out of desperate need or want.  You earnestly and desperately want something from someone - or in this case FOR them, and you feel like you have no other choice.  Begging is when you’re out of options, when you have no other recourse.  It’s the last resort.  And what you want for them they are in danger of missing.  So you’re reduced to begging.  Because you care.  Paul in all probability had had many opportunities to demonstrate to the Galatians that he cared.  He had fathered them in the faith to begin with, he had no doubt cared for them like a gentle mother in helping them to follow Christ, and very likely had served alongside them like a brother as he helped to launch their assembly into self-sufficient Christian living and ministry (cf 1Thessalonians 2.11, 2.7, 2.9).  They were family.  And family is forever.  And if you care about them (which you should all the more), when the stakes are high, when the opportunity is great, when the situation is desperate, sometimes you will gladly beg.

-We surmise that Paul does not hesitate to beg in his praying to the Lord (Romans 1.10, 1Thessalonians 3.10), but he does seem somewhat loathe to do so with people.  For all his instructing and exhorting and urging only two other times in all of his letters does he employ this word towards people.  But in begging, in urging these his children in the faith to resist legalism, Paul reminds them that he had done the exact same thing which he is begging them to do.  He himself had become "like the Gentiles", in that he threw off the Jewish law as the way to earn and maintain right standing with God.  In this respect they now needed to become (and remain) like him.  They desperately needed to avoid at all costs any hint of trying to curry God’s favor through self-effort of any kind.  As do we all.  We all like Paul stand before the throne of heaven as spiritual beggars, bringing nothing at all to the table, all of us saved by grace through faith alone.  And we journey on thru the same, leaning not in the least on our own efforts or strength or understanding.  Apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15.5).  And that’s the good news!

Galatians 4:11 - Fear, and a spiritual DNF

"I am fearing you not somehow in vain I have labored unto you."

-Paul is afraid.  Normally, you would never be able to hang that tag on Paul.  He was like one of the boldest guys ever.  And yet he says it here.  So actually there are two kinds of fear.  This one is not the kind that will keep you from doing something.  Rather, it is the concerned anticipation of an unintended and undesirable outcome.  So caught up into works were these Galatian believers that Paul says he is afraid that all of his work to help them trust in and follow Christ may have been in vain.  For naught.  And is there any more sick and depressing feeling, to labor and sweat and invest your life in the life of another, only to have them throw it off and throw it all away?  You wasted your time, and they are no better off than when you started.  You are trying to help them, and whether gradually or all of a sudden, it looks like they are going back to the way they were.  Or they are getting sidetracked, distracted, misdirected, misguided somehow (we’ll see what Paul thinks of those mis-guiders in chapter 5).

-Laboring in vain, running after emptiness - this is a recurring theme for Paul.  We know that Paul cared greatly about people following Christ, but towards that end he also cared about how he himself followed, how he stewarded the precious time on earth which God had given him.  He was seriously afraid of wasting his life.  The hours and days and years entrusted to him he did not want to waste or be found to have wasted even the least little bit (cf Philippians 2.16, 1Thessalonians 3.5, Galatians 2.2, 1Corinthians 9.23-27).  Such wasteful living unfortunately is rampant among God’s people.  Someone has described it as the straightening of pictures on the walls of burning houses.  Asleep in the light.  Slummy mud-pie-making as opposed to enjoying a holiday at the beach.  The false contentment of fire insurance.  It is failing to care enough to run hard enough to help others get into and finish the race themselves.  It is failing to follow our Good-but-not-Safe Lion-Savior closely enough and desiring Him strongly enough that we increasingly count all things as loss, as so much manure compared to the surpassing value of knowing Him and helping others to know Him.  Don't waste this!  Captain Miller said, don't waste this, Private Ryan.  Ryan was in fact afraid that he had, that he had wasted the life which the sacrifice had made possible.  In Christ, we need not be afraid of failure, per se.  There is no condemnation in Christ!  His grace is sufficient!  But of this failure, we ought be afraid.  This is failure to run, or to finish.  A spiritual DNF.  It is the timid talent-burier of Matthew 25 (esp. vv 24-25).  Let's not waste this, friends, getting sidetracked on emptiness and manure.  One thing I do, Paul said.  May God give us each the grace to run with the quickness (endurance), and finish the race!  

-I must confess, however, that like Paul, I am also afraid.  But I am afraid that I have a long way to go...

Galatians 4:10 - Lady Macbeth's Object Lesson on Forgiveness

"Days you [all] are watching, and months and seasons and years."

-Legalism.  Religion.  Systems of works designed to advance one’s standing in relation to some deity or spirit or some other spiritual goal thru self-effort and careful watching.  This is the default position of fallen man, and that’s the mindset which was slowly (re)infecting the Galatian church - faulty ineffectual works driven by a guilty conscience, persistent nagging feelings of guilt because we all are in fact guilty (or were, apart from Christ).  But no amount of self-effort can remove it.  It is Lady Macbeth - "Out, damned spot, out, I say!" And she continueth - "What, will these hands never be clean?... Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.  Oh, oh, oh!"  To which the doctor rightly observeth, "More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all...!"

-In traditional Judaism they observed and paid careful attention to sabbaths, new moons, days and weeks and months of fasting and feasting, festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, years of sabbaticals and of redemption and jubilee - the Jewish calendar was crammed-full of year-round, round-the-clock rituals, each and every one a work, part of the exhaustive (exhausting) system of sacrifice and guilt-removal.  Endeavoring endlessly to appease the wrath of the God of Israel issuing forth against their innumerable transgressions.  Now there is nothing wrong with a feast or a festival per se, but these Galatians, having begun well by placing their faith in Christ for forgiveness, were now buying in to the notion that careful observance was still required of them, that strict obedience was necessary in order to maintain their forgiveness and right standing with God, a reality which in fact became and always remained theirs as a free gift of God’s grace simply through faith in Christ...!  God's forgiveness is never earned, no matter how big the transgression, no matter how huge the self-effort.

Galatians 4:9 - Slummy mudpie-making

"But now having known God, but rather being known by God, how are you [all] returning again upon the strengthless and worthless elementals, to which all over again you [all] are wanting to being enslaved?"

-Then - but now!  Then you were slaves when you didn’t know God.  But now, Paul says, now you have come to know God!  But then he corrects himself, because in fact, you and I - when we look back on it - we were not the initiators in this relationship.  God was.  He reached out to us.  He made us.  He came down to earth to redeem us.  He sent His Spirit to woo and convict us.  He inspired His people to deliver His written Word to us.  God came a-calling at the door of our hearts, and He started knocking, and yes we let Him in, but looking back, it was God Who came to know us.  He knew us - He made us, He foreknew us, ever mindful of us, and He so wanted us to know Him.  So we said yes, opened the door of our hearts, and He came rushing in, the rushing Wind of His Spirit, bringing not only forgiveness and eternal life but also surpassing peace and inexpressible joy and living hope.  And He filled (perfectly) the Abyss, our gaping soul-hole, that which was in fact made to be filled by none other.  In Him we were (and are having been) made complete.  His words are life.  His presence is fulness of joy.  From Him (alone) are all good things to enjoy.

-So why, in the name of all that is true and holy, why in thee world would anyone thus known and set free by God ever turn back to their vomit?  Why in God’s good name would we return to wallowing in the mire (2Peter 2.22), leaving our holiday at the beach in favor of slummy mudpie-making?  These Galatians who had believed in Jesus and had been set free to know their Maker were somehow returning to their old ways of living, of trying to assuage the infinite abyss with worthless, impotent things.  With filthy ‘good deeds’ which amount to nothing, so much striving after the wind, trying to catch it in your hand.  So again, why would anyone who had ever been in bondage to that kind of vanity and who had been set free to rest and enjoy being fully accepted by God thru faith alone, why would they waste even a millisecond on trying to progress towards heaven thru even one empty ‘good’ deed?  Good deeds don’t get you known in heaven.  FAITH gets you known in heaven.

Galatians 4:8 - The Infinite Abyss

"But rather, then on the one hand, having not known God, you were slaves to the [ones][who] by nature are not gods."

-We think we’re in control, don’t we?  We believe we are masters of our fate, we’re in command, we make our choices.  But we are slaves... (or were, hopefully).  And we don't even know it.  Just like in the Matrix.  It is as Morpheus described it like this: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us from the truth that we are all slaves, born into bondage, into a prison that we cannot taste or see or touch.  But ours is a prison for our souls.  It is the prison of the Infinite Abyss.

-"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. . . . This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.  What is it, then, that this desire [for happiness] and this inability [to find it] proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the comfort he does not receive from things present. . . . But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss [inside us] can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, by God himself." -Pascal

-The world, the nations and peoples of the world who do not know their Creator and live apart from Him are left to try and fill the infinite abyss in their hearts with something else, something created, something other than, less than, something (anything!) and all that which cannot ever fill or satisfy.  And most of us will spend our entire lives, slaving away, trying to fill the Abyss.  Stuff.  More stuff.  Barns and bigger barns to hold more stuff (observe the proliferation of what we call "storage units" and now the rise of tv shows about them!).  Food.  Fun.  Fitness.  Pleasure.  Sports and social media and smartphone apps.  Entertainment and travel and adventure.  Religion.  Spirits and spirituality.  To these do we devote ourselves (and yes, sadly, even believers do...).  To these we prostrate ourselves at the altar of desperation, empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled.  Slaves to the unsated, grasping at so much cotton candy, broken cisterns which can hold no water.  And thus to these which are no gods we are enslaved, born to bow as sparks fly upward.  We cannot not bow.  The Abyss beckons us, relentlessly.  We learn to cope, try as we may with all our might to fill the yawning unfillable hole in our souls.  We learn these ways from our parents and perfect them alongside our peers - the people around us who are just as blind and desperate (and enslaved) as we.  The blind leading the blind, walking in darkness, stumbling around in a vain attempt to try and fill the chasmic gaping hole in our hearts.  Paul says to the Galatians, this is the way you were, back then.  Until...

Galatians 4:7 - Your heir-ness...

"Thus no longer you are a slave but rather a son.  But if a son, also an heir through God."

-The other thing about sons as opposed to slaves, besides the fact that the master is their daddy, is that they are in fact heirs of his estate.  Inheritance follows sonship, the line of actual descendants.  This is the main point which Paul has been trying to prove since chapter 3, that we are heirs in the household of faith, legitimate beneficiaries of the promises which God made to Abraham - justification by faith, Holy Spirit by faith - because we are (now) descendants of Abraham - through faith (in Christ).  God made the promise to Abraham and his Seed - Who was Christ - and when we belong to Christ, when we put our faith in Him and are put into Him, we become Abraham’s heirs, heirs of the promises.  ALL are heirs who are in Christ - Jew AND Greek, slave AND free, male AND female.  All that matters is in Christ, and all - and everything - that matters is being in Christ Jesus.

-At this point one might be interested to know that what is in play is something more akin to the Roman law of inheritance, as opposed to the Jewish law.  With the Jews, inheritance was only for sons (unless there was no son), and even then it was unequal.  Under Roman law, all the children, sons AND daughters, inherited alike.

-None of this would be true of a slave, however.  Not only is the master not his daddy, a slave owns nothing.  A slave gets nothing, not one bit of the family inheritance.  Not in this situation.  The only way a slave gets part of the inheritance is if the owner makes him a son.  Which is precisely the point...!

-Note the change from plural to singular in this verse.  Everything Paul has been saying has been in the plural - our hearts, you all are sons, we are adopted, we were children, you all belong to Christ, you all are one in Christ.  All plural.  Now suddenly, for this one verse, Paul switches tracks and employs the singular.  You - individually - are not a slave: you are free!  You - each of you - are a son: you don’t have to earn your Daddy’s love and favor anymore!  Your heir-ness... You are an heir, every one of you: there is no longer good deed which you need to do in order to try and earn salvation!  Each and every one of you!  You, and you, and you, and you - it’s as if Paul is pointing his finger individually at each person in the audience, calling us out, driving home the point that all of this that is in Christ is mine if I am personally in Him.  All this is in fact true of me!  It is both fantastic privilege and tremendous responsibility, something to be thoroughly enjoyed as well as something to be stewarded and treasured with both care and humility.  Read on...

Galatians 4:6 - Your Dad is soooo proud of you...

"But since you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba Father’".

-No mere legal transaction, this.  Having paid the ransom and filed the necessary documents, our (new) Father in heaven went one MASSIVE step further.  He didn’t just bring us into His house or hook us up with some new clothes or give us a decent meal for the first time in forever.  No - His actual Son came to live inside our hearts, to be not only with us but IN us forever (cf John 14.7-8).  He came to where WE live.  He made a home in OUR hearts, by His Spirit (the ‘Spirit of His Son’ - the Spirit of Christ).  And this Spirit inside cries out, ‘Abba, Father’.  God's own Son said this exact thing in the garden (Mark 14.36).  Which means that WE cry out, ‘Abba, Father’ (Romans 8.15).  Daddy.  It is a term of endearment.  And this brave new reality holds true for every new believer in Christ.  Calling out to our Father in heaven becomes instinctive, the new native impulse of the one thus indwelt by the Spirit of Christ.  One day, God is some unknown distant deity Whom we barely and rarely address, and the next we have this new innate sense, a reprogrammed familial compass if you will, which assures us that we not only now know God personally but that we are permanently and vitally connected to Him and He really is our Father.

-Let us not undersestimate the significance on this development.  Dad (in the best case scenario, which this of course is) means safety.  Security.  Protection.  Provision.  But in this case He is no mere provider.  There is real relationship here.  Personal connectedness.  Closeness.  Intimacy.  There is wisdom and understanding and grace and kindness.  An at-the-ready listening ear, a big lap to sit in, and a swallowing embrace to cry in.  There is support and enthusiasm, and daddy pride!  And presence.  He will never ever miss one of your games.  Or performances.  He is always there, always present, always looking on.  And cheering (Zephaniah 3.17)!  Beaming.  So proud.  You are the apple of His eye!  "And when I run, I feel His pleasure..." (Eric Liddell)  Do you feel His pleasure?  Do I?  Are you and I aware of how happy He is that we are His child forever?  How glad He is just to be our Dad?

-Deep down even the most hardened among us, the manliest man or the toughest woman, wants a daddy like this.  Our daddy wounds may conspire to convince us otherwise, but we all want and need that umbrella of safety and support and wisdom, that reassurance and encouragement which only dad can give, even when we’re older, even when dad is gone.  Especially since for far too many their earthly dad was gone way too soon.  IF he was ever around to begin with.  And then even when he was around he was most likely distant, tired, unengaged.  Or angry, dragging around his own daddy-wound.  Surely all dads, even the best ones, invariably fall short.  Just like the rest of us.  But that’s why the Good News is such good news, that thru Christ now we are (re)united with the One Dad we were always meant to have, the best most loving most awesome Dad on the planet - in the entire universe!  Our dads here on earth generally do the best they can for a season, but we were always meant to be sons and daughters of Abba Father, children of our Perfect Heavenly Father.  We need to (learn to) run to Him, relate to Him, connect to Him every day, throughout our days.  He is with us (always), He is for us (always), and He will never disappoint us, and He will never ever, ever leave us.  Welcome home, son.  Welcome home, daughter.  Come to Papa...

Galatians 4:5 - From slaves to Royals...!

"...in order that the ones under law He should redeem, in order that the adoption we should receive."

-Bondage, slavery sets up the possibility of deliverance, a release made possible thru some kind of rescue or ransom.  We're talking Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  And Jesus is our "Conductor".  But this slavery is not about race - it is universal.  And no hidden highway, this.  No need to slink around in the shadows to avoid being recaptured and reenslaved by the man.  This release is 100 percent paid in full and permanent, for any and all who believe.  I gare-on-tee.  There is no going back, not ever - free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we’re free at last!  I think many of us in the west, the cradle of democracy, are prone to take freedom for granted and have almost no appreciation for the magnitude of this deliverance.  We've been born - most of us - into a society where we enjoy a vast unprecedented measure of freedom.  Freedom to do and say what we want, freedom to spend our time and our days and our lives pretty much how we want.  The closest we come to experiencing something which even closely approximates slavery might be our jobs or perhaps some extreme family or schooling situation (those can be very real, to be sure).  But most of the time we have (or should have) legal protection, AND we have an out.  We can take that job and shove it.  Not so for slaves.  There is no escape.  No hope.  No freedom, no relief whatsoever from being subject to the whims and wants and requirements of the one who OWNS you.  But Jesus Christ bought us back, purchased our freedom, paid the full price of our release from slavery, from our bondage to the law, to the elemental things of the world, to that antiquated ineffective law of works.  We were born into that bondage, we needed to be ransomed out of it, and He paid the price - in blood.  The precious, spotless blood of the Lamb of God.

-Having been purchased out of the bonds of slavery - get this - we became free to be adopted into the Royal family!  This it turns out is the very reason why God sent His Son.  He wanted us to be a part of His family!  Despite the fact that we were not only slaves but rebels.  As best we can tell, adoption was not so much a Jewish concept, but a Roman one (not mentioned one single time in the OT).  For the Jews, sonship was about physical descent.  But what we’re talking about is a complete change of legal status, and it began in the heart of our heavenly Father.  He so wanted us in His family, so desired for us to be His children, that He was willing to do whatever it took, pay any price in order to make it happen.  No cost was too great.  He had to secure our freedom, and only He was able to pay the price.  Because He wanted to adopt us.  He wanted to adopt you.  He wanted to adopt me.  Warts and all.  Slaves to royals - that's our story.  The King of the universe wanted to buy us back and bring us into His family, because He made us.  He designed us in the first place, full of wonder and glorious potential.  Just waiting to be released.  Thus were we.  And thus did He.  And now... we’re free, free to be all we were ever meant to be...

Galatians 4:4 - One small step and a giant leap?

"Bt when came the fullness of time, God sent out His Son, having come to be out of woman, having come to be under law..."

-Yes, God made a way, a way for us to be set free from bondage to the elemental things of the world, from enslavement to the childish, oppressive law of works which could never make any of us acceptable or pleasing to God.  So He made a way.  And it was not the way we would have guessed...

-He sent out His Son, in the fullness of time, on the date determined by the Father Himself (cf v. 2).  The picture here is that of One Who had pre-existed (as God) and Who had been with the Father in glory from eternity past (cf Philippians 2.6).  And yes, this sending out was the consummate picture of humbling oneself, of not simply staying in heavenly glory and of not holding on to rights and rank and status and prerogatives (of deity), as this Son of God did step down onto the world stage not with pomp and pageantry but rather thru the womb of a young woman in some unassuming Jewish backwater.  No parade, no trumpets (altho I do believe at one point there was a chorus of angels!).  But further constrained (and humbled) was God the Son by the taking on of human flesh, confined for the first time in history to a single place and time in history and subject to the same frailties and limitations as the rest of humanity.  Hunger.  Fatigue.  Bodily functions.  Infinite God became entirely (and finitely) human (try wrapping your gray matter around that one!).  AND He was born "under the Law", fully subject to all its dictates, you name it - circumcision, the feasts, everything.  Not only did He walk in our shoes, but inasmuch as He would do so perfectly, missing not even a single step, not missing the mark or transgressing the Law at any point, He would thus come to be the perfect sufficient sacrifice for our multitudinous missteps, the spotless Lamb of God, Whose precious human blood would finally and forever take away the guilt of our sins.  One small step for the Son of Man, a giant leap indeed for all mankind...!

Galatians 4:3 - The Ever-popular "Elements Cocktail"

"Thus also we, while we were minors, under the elements of the world we were having been enslaved.’

-Paul compares the ones in their pre-Christian state to those minor children who were basically slaves to their guardians and house-stewards.  Not at liberty in the least to enjoy the freedom to choose their own way in the world.  In this case, however, the enslavement is to the 'elements of the world’.  The elements of the world are mentioned also in Colossians 2.8 and 2.20, and there are various interpretations as to what exactly Paul is referring.  It could mean basic elements of religion (works), or basic elements of nature (the celestial bodies and ceremonial days/months/times as regulated by them), or basic spiritual entities (as in spirits - aka angels, typically of the fallen variety).  It could be any of these three, or perhaps a combination thereof, an "elements cocktail".  Think about the natural default religious posture which prevails among the nations - it is most certainly a combination, entirely a concoction of slavish devotion to appeasing spirits, of working one’s way towards earning favor with the deity(ies) and towards some ultimate religious goal, and a strict observance of various religious festivals and days.  Days have times, weeks have days, months and years have weeks and months, and so on and so forth.  Paganism, Animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, even the great forms of monotheism besides Christianity are chock full of these.  This is without a doubt the way of the world.  What Paul is saying is that devotion to demons and days and any form of works-based religion is tantamount to religious slavery and is ultimately childish.  It's religious child's play, an immature approach to religion and no way at all to approach the God Who made us.  The bad news is that this bondage is universal - the nations are caught up in endless systems of works and days and spirits and they are tragically ignorant that there is a better way, a way to be free at last, free at last...  Thank God almighty, there is good news - He made a way to be free at last...!

Galatians 4:1-2 - Grounded

"But I am saying, over as much time as the heir is a minor, he is not better than a slave, [even] being lord of all, but rather under guardians he is and stewards until the set-time of the father."

-Paul now employs a slightly different metaphor of child.  Previously we were young children in need of a pedagogue, an ancient nanny, someone to watch over us (i.e. the law).  Here, we are (were) minors, members of the family and destined to one day be in charge but now lacking the freedom and privileges accorded to adults.  We were no different than slaves, he says.  The Greek word is carrying through.  If a person or thing is ‘carrying thru’ in a comparison (as opposed to being carried thru), they are better somehow than that to which they are being compared.  And in much the same way that slaves do not enjoy the freedom to be able to make their own choices, minors do not possess any greater degree of autonomy.  In this sense they are no better than slaves, than those who are so much property of the family, even though these minors as heirs actually have a share in owning the slaves.  Yet they are not free.  Guardians and house stewards do all the deciding for them.  They must do what they are told - until such a day as they are declared to be an adult, an honor and status which will typically be conferred to them by their father.  Dad is ultimately in charge.  But the point here is that for all intensive purposes the heir is a slave, essentially in bondage to the guardians and managers.  Do you remember those days, that time when you were (or should have been) under the authority of your parents (or those in their employ)?  And the angst you felt as you entered adolescence and began to chomp at the bit, wanting more and more autonomy, freedom to spread your wings and try them out, and never seeming to have enough?  This is the way we were, grounded by the law.  Read on...