I Beg You . . . Don't be Enslaved

Galatians 4:8–11 ESV

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

1. Why Are You Turning Back to the Law? (4:8-11)

Remember Your Past (v.8)

Galatians 4:8 ESV

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

Paul reminds them of their past.

They didn’t know God and were, in fact, enslaved to idols.

Galatia was filled with idols => Temple to Zeus outside of Lystra; In Iconium, goddess Dindimene (4 heads, 10 breasts)

Paul says they were enslaved to these. Theme of “slavery” repeated. Enslaved to law is always in view.

To use the Law as a means of salvation is heresy, false teaching. And false teaching and ideas always have Satan and demonic forces as their ultimate source. False gods and idols are none other than demons masquerading as God.

Know Where You Are Now (v.9a)

Galatians 4:9 (ESV)

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God . . .

Paul now reminds the Galatians where they are now: they are under the grace of God. The know God. They are no longer enslaved to idols and false gods.

“to know God” is not just mental assent—to know that God exists and that he has accomplished salvation in Christ. Knowledge here is not merely content of facts. Demons and Satan even have this kind of knowledge.

James 2:19 ESV

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

The kind of knowing here is an intimate relational type of knowing.

I can know that Jennifer is my wife, that she plays piano, that she is the Children’s Ministry Director, etc. But if that is the only kind of knowing I have with Jennifer, then my marriage is going to be quite non-existent. I know my wife intimately: her likes, dislikes, personality, character, spiritual and faith position, etc., AND how all that culminates into living life with me and me with her. I can sometimes think her thoughts after her.

This is the kind of knowing that we are to have of God.

If this is the case, we need to certainly have factual knowledge of who God is and what he has done. We cannot have a relationship with someone without knowing who and what they are. One reason why theology is important.

But it’s also more than mere facts—it’s about belonging to God, knowing his will, thoughts, and living these out in our daily lives.

One reason is can be difficult to have an authentic, real relationship with God is because we lack even the basic knowledge of who God is and what he has done and does.

We being what we are and all things else being what they are, the most important and profitable study any one of us can engage in is without question the study of theology.

A. W. Tozer

But it is more:

The business of the Christian faith is not to give us a knowledge of theology. You can have a great knowledge of theology and still not know God. I am the last man to decry theology, one of the greatest troubles is the lack of a knowledge of theology, but I say you may have a knowledge of theology and still be a stranger to the love of God.

Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons, 40

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

True theology always moves the heart.

Christian Conduct, 31

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Interesting that Paul says more precisely: “You are known by God.”

Reminder of 1 John 4:10

1 John 4:10 ESV

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,   That saved a wretch; like me! I once was lost, but now am found,   Was blind, but now I see.

These verses (8-9) are reminiscent of Eph 2:1-5:

Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Remember where you were: under law, sinners, guilty, and as such, under God’s wrath and condemnation. But now, in Christ, you are under grace: free of the guilt and punishment of sin.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save me from its guilt and power.

Why Are You Going Back? (v.9b-11)

Galatians 4:9–11 (ESV)

. . . how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

You observe days and months and seasons and years!

I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

The Galatian Christians were listening to the the Judaizers. They were returning to the law that enslaved them to sin. They were requiring observation of the Old Covenant holy days for salvation:

“Days” = Sabbath

“Months” = new moon festivals

“Seasons” = Passover and Feast of Tabernacles

“Years” = year of Jubilee

Note Paul’s description of these: “weak and worthless.” This is in regard to salvation. Remember what the Law was for: to point out that one is in need of a Savior, sinner—and the different holy days even pointed to this.

Then Paul observes that they “want” to be slaves to all this again. There’s an actual desire to be enslaved, wanting rules and regulations to be “good” or “saved.”

Ways we revert back to the Law: (1) Demand for Sabbath-keeping, (2) demand for tithing, (3) demand to follow 10 Commandments to “be a good person,” (4) making deals with God, (5) demand or expect others to follow your man-made rules or opinions

But all these, like Paul says, are week and worthless. They enslave us to Law-like thinking rather than grace.

2. I Beg You: Don’t Do It! (4:12-19)

We are now going to see in the next several verses Paul appealing to the Galatians from a pastoral, shepherding standpoint.

Don’t You Know Me? (v.12-16)

Galatians 4:12–16 ESV

Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?

“Brothers” - his appeal to them as a brother; he was the one who led them to Jesus, out from slavery into freedom.

The Judaizers were portraying themselves to have a superior understanding of the Gospel, even saying Paul’s physical appearance and his presence were unseemly.

Don’t You Know the Judaizers? (v.17-19)

Galatians 4:17–19 ESV

They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

“My little children” - continued pastoral appeal

The Judaizers have been puffing up the Galatian Christians—making them feel good about themselves for following the Law. The Judaizers were zealous in their teaching.

Paul says it’s good to be zealous, IF it’s for the right reason.

Note that some preachers or pastors can be zealous for the message they proclaim, but it does not mean they are teaching the Gospel.

Zeal without doctrine is like a sword in the hand of a lunatic.

John Calvin

(1) We need to be discerning.

We must train ourselves to evaluate the message proclaimed apart from the zeal, emotion, rhetoric—the manner—in which it is said. Emotions can easily manipulated to carry you away to accept a false Gospel.

If we are not careful, we can be more zealous for a false gospel than we can for the true gospel.

(2) It is possible and necessary to be both strong and forthright when a false gospel is being preached and yet also pastoral.

(3) Perhaps we struggle with just being zealous for Christ and the Gospel? It has been said that to be “zealous” means to be “boiling hot.” Are boiling hot for the Gospel?

We can be zealous for so many things, but what about for the Gospel?

Awake, my soul! stretch every nerve,

And press with vigour on;

A heavenly race demands thy zeal,

And an immortal crown.

Zeal and Vigour in the Christian Race.

Philip Doddridge

3. I Don’t Get It (4:20)

Galatians 4:20 ESV

I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Paul wishes he could be with them. He does not like that he has to take the tone that he has in this letter. But the situation requires that he take a strong stand: their very salvation is at risk. A false Gospel requires a strong tone; it must be rebuked. Paul is perplexed, confused why the Galatian Christians would so quickly give up the message of the grace of Jesus to go back under law.

It is not easy to have to take a strong tone—to point out when a false Gospel or teaching is propounded. It’s not easy for a shepherd, a pastor, to protect sheep from the wolf who is ready to pounce on them. Sometimes the sheep are unaware of the wolf lurking behind some brush and do not understand the motive of the shepherd. But the shepherd’s motive of taking a strong tone is not meanness. It is for the good and protection of the sheep. It is grace and truth in action.

A preacher must be both soldier and shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth, and be able to bite and fight.

Martin Luther

This is not easy in our society. We do not want shepherds. We do not want any authorities over us. We want to the be the authority. We want an infinite number of kings, namely, “myself,” not shepherds.

As the conclusion of a recent Burger King commercial says, “You rule!”

Or “Glory to man in the highest! For man is the master of things.” Algernon Swinborne, “Hymn of Man”

Anti-authoritarianism is just in our blood. But when we become a Christian, a large part of that is a confession that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is King (not me).

As a result, we are to live differently. The community of Jesus, his church, is organized differently. We are to recognize divinely-established authorities: God, parents, the father, elders and ministers in the church.

These authorities at times need to take a strong tone, not because they are to beat people into submission, but because they are to protect and love those in their care. In our society it’s easy, and a temptation, to confuse authority with power to oppress. But this is not so in the Kingdom of God.