Having spoken of the majority which it is intended we should realize through the gospel, Paul proceeds next to speak about the return to legalism which had characterized the Gauls. Before Paul's advent to Galatia and his gospel message, they had been idolaters, but his preaching had brought them face to face, so to speak, with God. Into this Divine knowledge they had dipped, but, alas] it had only been a swallow-flight, for, after tasting the liberty of the gospel, they had flown back to bondage. They had skimmed the surface of salvation, and had winged their way back to the old legalism which had characterized their idolatrous days. Here, then, we have suggested -

I. THE LEGALISM WHICH NECESSARILY CHARACTERIZES IDOLATRY. (Ver. 8.) The philosophy of idolatry is a most interesting inquiry. Nowhere is it more succinctly set before us than in Psalm 115. The idols are there shown to be after the image of their makers (ver. 8), and, conversely, their worshippers become assimilated to them. The stolid idols which the poor artists make are simply copies of the stolid life around them; and the worship of the idol makes the stolidity perpetual. It is the apotheosis of inaction and of death. Hence it will be found that idolatry can secure nothing higher than ritualism, that is, the performance of rites and ceremonies for the sake of achieving a religious reputation, and not for the rake of communion with the object of worship. For in the case of the idol there can be no communion of mind with mind or of heart with heart. The form consequently is everything and the fellowship is nothing. If there be no self-righteousness promoted by the ceremony, it promotes absolutely no interest at all. Hence the whole genius of idolatry is legalism. If men are not achieving some religious reputation, they are achieving nothing at all. Paul consequently was looking back to the idolatrous life of the Galatians, and carefully analyzed it when he recognized in it the expression of a purely legal spirit.

II. THE GOSPEL PROMOTES ACQUAINTANCESHIP WITH GOD. (Ver. 9.) It seeks to bring about an interview with God. Paul's experience on the way to Damascus is typical. lie there became acquainted for the first time with Jesus Christ as his Divine Saviour. He there felt that it was nearer the truth to say that Jesus had found him than that he had found Jesus. It was true that he had come to know God in Christ, but this was the consequence of God in Christ in the first instance knowing him. Now, Paul's missionary life was to promote the same acquaintanceship among men. He wanted these Galatians to know God through realizing that God previously knew them. And he had hopes that they had entered the charmed circle of the Divine acquaintanceship. He hoped that they had experienced the truth, "Acquaint now thyself with God, and be at peace." This is the essence of the gospel. "This is life eternal, to know [i.e. to be acquainted with] thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

III. THE RETURN TO LEGALISM. (Vers. 9, 10.) The false teachers had come from Jerusalem to preach up the virtue of Jewish rites and ceremonies. Hence the fickle mountaineers of Galatia fell into their superstitious observances, and fancied that, if they kept carefully the Jewish calendar, with its weekly, monthly, annual, and septennial feasts and fasts, they must hereby propitiate the Supreme. Accustomed as idolaters to the making of religious reputations, they could enter the more easily into the legal spirit for which the false teachers called. And indeed there is nothing so insidious, because there is nothing so palatable to the natural heart. To be in a position to achieve a religions reputation, to win by our own hands certain characters and certain rights, is wonderfully flattering and grateful to human pride. We need to be constantly on our guard against the temptation.

1. One way is by remembering how "weak," as Paul here puts it, the elements out of which we would manufacture our reputation are. They do not bear analysis. Once we touch them with honest thought they stand in felt helplessness before us. Ceremonies which do not lead to communion with God, ceremonies which are simply to add to human pride and foster self-righteousness, are weak as water, and can only harm us.

2. We should remember also how "beggarly" they are. They can minister no wealth of thought or feeling to the superstitious soul. They are merely the instruments of bondage.

IV. THE DANGER OF THE LEGAL SPIRIT. (Ver. 11.) If Paul's preaching only resulted in such an outbreak of legalism, then he would regard his mission among them as "love's labour lost." There is no difference between the legalism of Judaism and the legalism of idolatry. Both are mere phases of self-righteousness. The gospel has missed its aim altogether if it leave people in legal bondage. The gospel is the great scheme for overthrowing self-righteousness. It emancipates the soul from the delusive hope of establishing any claim before God. It shuts us up to the acceptance of salvation as God's free gift. It deposes self and makes free grace supreme. Hence Paul's anxiety to see the Galatians brought back from legal bondage to gospel liberty. Unless they gave up their helm from ceremony, and betook themselves to hope in the Saviour alone, then they must be lost. It is most important that the exceeding danger of the legal spirit should be constantly kept in view, that we may maintain our standing on the footing of free grace. - R.M.E.

I. BEFORE THEIR CONVERSION.

1. Ignorance of God. There is a twofold knowledge of God.(1) Natural (Acts 14:17; Romans 1:20), but this is

(a)imperfect,

(b)weak.(2) Revealed: of the Father in Christ; neither of which did the Galatians possess.

2. Idolatry.(1) False gods are set up in two ways,

(a)when that which is not God is worshipped as God,

(b)when men acknowledge the true God but do not conceive of Him as He will be conceived.(2) There is a spiritual idolatry. What a man loves most is His god — wealth, pleasure, sin.(3) That the sin of idolatry be rooted out there must be

(a)an illumination of the mind,

(b)a renovation of the heart.

II. IN THEIR CONVERSION.

1. They knew God.(1) The foundation of this knowledge: the revelation of God in Christ (Hebrews 1:2; 2 Corinthians 4:6).(2) Its properties

(a)special: whereby we acknowledge Him to be our God in Christ through faith;

(b)distinct, not confused: His presence with us, providence over us, will concerning us; life is as

(c)effectual (1 John 2:4; 1 John 3:6).

2. God knew them.

1. This knowledge is the root of ours. We know Him because He first knew us.

2. The ground of all our hope and comfort (Isaiah 49:15).

III. IN THEIR APOSTASY, which was —

1. An intolerable sin.

2. A voluntary sin.

3. A senseless sin.

4. A common sin.

(W. Perkins.)

Many people have their own god; and he is much what the French mean when they talk of le bon Dieu, — very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such-a god is as much an idol as if he were an image of wood or stone.

(Archdeacon Hare.)

It is, as it were, putting a mask on the face of God. Now if we do not make idols, still we may misrepresent God. We often speak as though God did not rejoice to see us enjoying ourselves.

(T. T. Lynch.)

Idolatry is one of the most unconquerable of all the corrupt propensities of the human soul. Miracles under the new dispensation had scarcely ceased, the apostolic fathers were scarcely cold in their graves, before idolatrous forms were superinduced upon the pure spirituality of the holy gospel.

(J. B. Walker, M. A.)

How senseless it is! We should think that artist beside himself who would undertake to draw a likeness of something which he had never seen, nor ever could see; to paint a portrait of the air, the wind, the fragrance of flowers. And God is a Spirit. To what shall we liken Him?

(D. Thomas, D.D)

It is a very important truth that the prevalence of idolatry is in itself a strong testimony for the existence of one supreme God. For we find idolatry in some form amongst all but the most degraded and debased of nations, such as are some of the African tribes, and it is not certain that its remnants are not traceable there. As Luther puts it: "All idolatry in the world arises from this, that people by nature have had the common knowledge that there is a God, without which idolatry would remain unpractised. With this knowledge engrafted in mankind, they have (without God's Word) fancied all manner of ungodly opinions about God."

(Biblical Treasury.)

Agar, Galatians, Hagar, Isaac, PaulGalatia, Jerusalem, Mount SinaiBeings, Bondage, Exist, Formerly, Gentiles, Gods, Howbeit, However, Indeed, Nature, Reality, Servants, Service, Servitude, Slaves1. We were under the law till Christ came, as the heir is under the guardian till he be of age.
5. But Christ freed us from the law;
7. therefore we are servants no longer to it.
14. Paul remembers the Galatians' good will to him, and his to them;
22. and shows that we are the sons of Abraham by the freewoman.

Galatians 4:8

     1403   God, revelation
     6628   conversion, God's demand
     8138   monotheism
     8770   idolatry, in NT
     8799   polytheism

Galatians 4:7-9

     6610   adoption, descriptions

Galatians 4:8-9

     1436   reality
     4963   past, the
     5881   immaturity
     8136   knowing God, effects

Galatians 4:8-10

     7328   ceremonies
     8707   apostasy, personal
     8748   false religion

Galatians 4:8-11

     8743   faithlessness, nature of

May 7. "I Travail in Birth Again Until Christ be Formed in You" (Gal. Iv. 19).
"I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. iv. 19). It is a blessed moment when we are born again and a new heart is created in us after the image of God. It is a more blessed moment when in this new heart Christ Himself is born and the Christmas time is reproduced in us as we, in some real sense, become incarnations of the living Christ. This is the deepest and holiest meaning of Christianity. It is expressed in Paul's prayer for the Galatians. "My little children, for whom I …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Fourth Sunday in Lent
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Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

The Allegories of Sarah and Hagar
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

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The divinity of each of these sacred persons is also to be gathered from the text and its connection. We do not doubt tee the loving union of all in the work of deliverance. We reverence the Father, without whom we had not been chosen or adopted: the Father who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We love and reverence the Son by whose most precious blood we have been redeemed, and with whom we are one in a mystic and everlasting union: and …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 24: 1878

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Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

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Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation, was born at Eisleben in 1483, and died there 1546. His rugged character and powerful intellect, combined with a strong physique, made him a natural orator, so that it was said "his words were half battles." Of his own method of preaching he once remarked: "When I ascend the pulpit I see no heads, but imagine those that are before me to be all blocks. When I preach I sink myself deeply down; I regard neither doctors nor masters, of which there are in the church …
Various—The World's Great Sermons, Volume I

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We are now prepared to present in detail that general system of beneficence, demanded alike by Scripture and reason, and best fitted to secure permanent and ever-growing results. While universal, it must be a system in its nature adapted to each individual, and binding on the individual conscience; one founded on, and embracing, the entire man,--his reason, his heart and will, including views and principles, feelings and affections, with their inculcation, general purposes and resolutions, with corresponding …
Sereno D. Clark—The Faithful Steward

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William Law—An Humble, Affectionate, and Earnest Address to the Clergy

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William Law—An Humble, Affectionate, and Earnest Address to the Clergy

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St. Augustine—On Lying

Introductory Note to the Epistle of Barnabas
[a.d. 100.] The writer of this Epistle is supposed to have been an Alexandrian Jew of the times of Trajan and Hadrian. He was a layman; but possibly he bore the name of "Barnabas," and so has been confounded with his holy and apostolic name-sire. It is more probable that the Epistle, being anonymous, was attributed to St. Barnabas, by those who supposed that apostle to be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and who discovered similarities in the plan and purpose of the two works. It is with …
Barnabas—The Epistle of Barnabas

The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

How Can I Obtain Faith?
May the Spirit of God assist us while we meditate upon the way by which faith cometh. This shall be followed by a brief indication of certain obstructions which often lie in that way; and then we will conclude by dwelling upon the importance that faith should come to us by that appointed road. I. First, then, THE WAY BY WHICH FAITH COMES TO MEN. "Faith cometh by hearing." It may help to set the truth out more clearly, if we say, negatively, that it does not come by any other process than by hearing;--not …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

The Blood of Sprinkling
Our apostle next tells us what we are come to. I suppose he speaks of all the saints after the death and resurrection of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost. He refers to the whole church, in the midst of which the Holy Spirit now dwells. We are come to a more joyous sight than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire. The Hebrew worshipper, apart from his sacrifices, lived continually beneath the shadow of the darkness of a broken law; he was startled often by the tremendous note of the …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886

"But Ye have Received the Spirit of Adoption, Whereby we Cry, Abba, Father. "
Rom. viii. 15.--"But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God," 1 John iii. 1. It is a wonderful expression of love to advance his own creatures, not only infinitely below himself, but far below other creatures, to such a dignity. Lord, what is man that thou so magnified him! But it surpasseth wonder, that rebellious creatures, his enemies, should have, not only …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"For as Many as are Led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God. For Ye have not Received the Spirit of Bondage
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Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

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The Moral Reactions of Prayer All religion is founded on prayer, and in prayer it has its test and measure. To be religious is to pray, to be irreligious is to be incapable of prayer. The theory of religion is really the philosophy of prayer; and the best theology is compressed prayer. The true theology is warm, and it steams upward into prayer. Prayer is access to whatever we deem God, and if there is no such access there is no religion; for it is not religion to resign ourselves to be crushed …
P. T. Forsyth—The Soul of Prayer

Christ's Humiliation in his Incarnation
'Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.' I Tim 3:16. Q-xxvii: WHEREIN DID CHRIST'S HUMILIATION CONSIST? A: In his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross. Christ's humiliation consisted in his incarnation, his taking flesh, and being born. It was real flesh that Christ took; not the image of a body (as the Manichees erroneously held), but a true body; therefore he …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

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4. Her virginity also itself was on this account more pleasing and accepted, in that it was not that Christ being conceived in her, rescued it beforehand from a husband who would violate it, Himself to preserve it; but, before He was conceived, chose it, already dedicated to God, as that from which to be born. This is shown by the words which Mary spake in answer to the Angel announcing to her her conception; "How," saith she, "shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" [2031] Which assuredly she would …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

But if Moreover any not Having Charity, which Pertaineth to the Unity of Spirit...
23. But if moreover any not having charity, which pertaineth to the unity of spirit and the bond of peace whereby the Catholic Church is gathered and knit together, being involved in any schism, doth, that he may not deny Christ, suffer tribulations, straits, hunger, nakedness, persecution, perils, prisons, bonds, torments, swords, or flames, or wild beasts, or the very cross, through fear of hell and everlasting fire; in nowise is all this to be blamed, nay rather this also is a patience meet to …
St. Augustine—On Patience

Therefore at that Time, when the Law Also...
27. Therefore at that time, when the Law also, following upon the days of the Patriarchs, [2010] pronounced accursed, whoso raised not up seed in Israel, even he, who could, put it not forth, but yet possessed it. But from the period that the fullness of time hath come, [2011] that it should be said, "Whoso can receive, let him receive," [2012] from that period even unto this present, and from henceforth even unto the end, whoso hath, worketh: whoso shall be unwilling to work, let him not falsely …
St. Augustine—On the Good of Marriage

Letter xiv (Circa A. D. 1129) to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln
To Alexander, [15] Bishop of Lincoln A certain canon named Philip, on his way to Jerusalem, happening to turn aside to Clairvaux, wished to remain there as a monk. He solicits the consent of Alexander, his bishop, to this, and begs him to sanction arrangements with the creditors of Philip. He finishes by exhorting Alexander not to trust too much in the glory of the world. To the very honourable lord, Alexander, by the Grace of God, Bishop of Lincoln, Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, wishes honour more …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Eighth Sunday after Trinity Living in the Spirit as God's Children.
Text: Romans 8, 12-17. 12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: 13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

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