Galatians 4 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Galatians 4:1-7

A. Find Out:

1. Why is a child no different from a slave? v.1,2
   • What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.
2. To what had they been in slavery? v.3
   • So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.
3. Why had God sent His Son? v.4,5a
   • But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law,
4. With what consequence? v.5b
   • that we might receive adoption to sonship.
5. What also had God done? v.6
   • Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’v
6. So what are we now? v.7
   • So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

B. Think:

1. What difference is there between slaves, children and Sons according to these verses?
2. What brought the change from children to Sons?

C. Comment:

In this passage Paul draws the distinction between children and sons in respect of the whole subject of inheritance. He had just said previously that they had become heirs. Now, he explains, before Christ came, followers of God were indeed heirs of the promises of Abraham, but it was as if they were little children.

Yes, they were certainly those to whom the promises would apply but to all intents and purposes they were still slaves. How? Well they were still bound by the rules and regulations of life in this world, and so they were not completely free. The thing that changed that, he says, was the death of Jesus who died for our sins and failures and earned us the right to receive all of God’s blessings, free from the fear of condemnation and judgement.

Not only that, He put his Holy Spirit within us, who cries out from within us, calling God, Father. Jesus has thus opened up a whole new depth of relationship which is the difference between a “child” and a “Son”.

As Sons we are indeed heirs who are NOT slaves, as receivers of all God’s blessings, now in a closer and more real way. Little children will get the inheritance one day, “Sons” start to receive it now and share Father’s heart in a way the little child never did.

D. Application? 

1. Today the Holy Spirit helps us to know the wonder of a relationship with God as Father.
2. Sons share Father’s heart and walk in Father’s footsteps.

Passage: Galatians 4:8-11

A. Find Out:

1. What was their state before knowing God? v.8
   • Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods
2. What were they now doing? v.9a,b
   • But now that you know God – or rather are known by God – how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces?
3. What did Paul say would happen? v.9c
   • Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
4. What were they now doing? v.10
   • You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!
5. What was Paul’s fear? v.11
   • I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

B. Think:

1. What had been the Galatian’s former state?
2. Why?
3. How were they now going back into that?

C. Comment:

In these few brief verses Paul comes to the heart of his concern for these Galatians. Before they had known God, he says, they were bound by beings, things, situations, rules, whatever you like, that were less than God. They had led restricted, limited lives, that were influenced and even bound by people or things.

By inference here, when they came to God they were released from all these influences upon their lives. Now, he says, I see that you are in fact returning to that old state of bondage. I see, he says, that you are now following special days, special festivals, being bound to do certain things at certain times because of certain rules that you now have to follow.

These matters challenge the church of the twentieth century at its very heart! How many of us are doing things because of the rules we have established, that are man-made rules of our own making and not from God? He came to release us but so often we put ourselves back into bondage to such things.

Check afresh today; look at your Christian life, and see if what you are doing you are doing because you have the feeling you ought to because it is expected of you, rather than because it is your simple expression of love to God.

D. Application? 

1. Jesus died and rose again to release us from the bondage of rule keeping.
2. Am I free to be led daily by His Holy Spirit in each new situation?

Passage: Galatians 4:12-16

A. Find Out:    

1. How had Paul originally approached them? v.12
   •  I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong
2. How had he originally preached to them? v.13
   • As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you,
3. How had they received him? v.14
   • and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
4. What had they obviously had? v.15a
   • Where, then, is your blessing of me now?
5. What had been their feelings towards him? v.15b
   • I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.
6. What did he almost fear now? v.16
   • Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

B. Think:

1. What do we learn here about Paul’s state when he preached?
2. What lesson does that convey to us?
3. What sort of relationship has Paul had with these Galatians that enables him to speak this openly?

C. Comment:

Now Paul reminds his readers how they had originally received him. He had come and brought the Gospel to them and they had gladly received it, and that brought a bond between them. But it was much deeper than that! When Paul had come to them it appears that some illness had caused him to preach to them. How this was we don’t know but sometimes when we despair of self-strength we just abandon ourselves and speak out in circumstances that otherwise we might have held back in.

Even this great apostle with all his experience of the Lord, revelation and power, suffered illness. Illness or infirmity sometimes strikes even the most full of faith, but the thing to see is that even in the midst of illness, Paul carried on and preached the Gospel. (Yes, God frequently heals but the point being made here is are we ALSO open to receive His grace in the midst of the illness when healing isn’t coming?)

 There is a great deal of difference between falling under an illness and triumphing in the midst of it!   Paul wasn’t afraid to confess his weakness (see 1 Corinthians 2:3) but he knew it was God’s grace that would see him through (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Philippians 4:13). What a lesson!

D. Application?

1. Illness doesn’t necessarily mean guilt of sin!
2. God’s grace is available in the midst of it!

Passage: Galatians 4:17-20

A. Find Out:

1. What did the religious Jews want to do? v.17
   • Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good
2. Why? v.17
   • What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them.
3. What 2 conditions are there on zealousness? v.18
   •  It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you.
4. In what did Paul feel he was? v.19a
   • My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth
5. What was he waiting for? v.19b
   • until Christ is formed in you
6. What was he also feeling? v.20
   • how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!

B. Think:

1. What were the religious Jews out to do?
2. What is zealousness and how may it be wrong?
3. What did Paul want from the Galatians?

C. Comment:

Again there are significant lessons from these few verses. First, observe the possibility of wrong motivation; the religious Jews had come to upset the Galatians; they wanted to be divisive, to separate the Galatians from their spiritual father, to take them from Paul to follow the way they were advocating.

Second, observe wrong possibilities in respect of zealousness. Merely because someone is zealous, does not mean that that is right and good. It may be that they are zealous for a wrong cause, as were these Jews. It may be that they are zealous only to impress others, in other words only when they are watched or seen. The Lord wants us to be zealous, but for the right things and in the right way.

Third, see Paul’s yearning for the Galatians, that Christ be formed in them. From what has gone before that implies freedom and relationship, freedom to be the people they are without pretence, and with an alive relationship with God the Father.

Paul indicates that, even as he anguished for them before, so he now anguishes for them that they might come into the fullness of knowing Christ and being like Him. Do we have such a strong yearning for people that we know, that they come to know Christ and become like Him?

D. Application?

1. Motivation is all important! A wrong motivation annuls our activity
2. Being a Christian means feeling for others. Am I moved for others?

Passage: Galatians 4:21-26

A. Find Out:

1. What illustration does Paul now use? v.21,22
   • Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.
2. How did the two sons differ? v.23
   • His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
3. What do the two women represent? v.24a
   • These things are being taken figuratively: the women represent two covenants.
4. What were the children of the first covenant? v.24b
   • One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: this is Hagar.
5. To what does that correspond? v.25
   • Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
6. What does the other one refer to? v.26
   •  But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

B. Think:

1. What are the characteristics of life under the old covenant as seen here?
2. What are the characteristics of the new? 
3. Why is it important to see the difference?

C. Comment:

Now we consider a “type” in the Old Testament, which is a picture from an historical illustration that conveys spiritual truth. Paul uses this type as he moves back to speak directly about the law again.

Look, he says, if you want to go back to living under the law again, stop and think about what we find Scripture says. To illustrate this he uses the picture of Abraham’s two wives, Hagar and Sarai, and his two sons Ishmael and Isaac.

They are like law and grace. Ishmael’s mother was a servant or slave and so technically Ishmael was as well. His birth was quite normal, the result of the activity of two human beings. Isaac, on the other hand, was the miraculous result of the promise of God, a human impossibility.

Right, says Paul, these two mothers represent two covenants. Hagar represents slavery and the law given on Sinai which only produced slavery to sin. To go further, he continues, it represents life today (in Jerusalem) where people, however religious, are still in bondage to sin. But look, he says, there is a new life coming down from God above that brings freedom, for such is God’s grace.

D. Application?

1. Trying to live “by the rules” only creates an awareness of our failure.
2. Christianity is about grace, living in the light of God’s love and mercy.

Passage: Galatians 4:27-31

A. Find Out:

1. Who is to rejoice? v.27a
   •  For it is written: ‘Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; break forth and cry aloud, you who were never in labour;
2. Why? v.27b
   • because more are the children of the desolate woman
         than of her who has a husband.’
3. Who were the Galatian Christians like? v.28
   • Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.
4. Who had persecuted who? v.29
   • At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.
5. What had been commanded? v.30
   • But what does Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.
6. Who were they therefore? v.31
   • Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

B. Think:

1. Look up Isaiah 54:1 How is Paul now using that Old Testament reference?
2. What does he infer ordinary “religious” people will do to true believers?
3. What is the main point he is making?

C. Comment:

Paul concludes this allegorical example by contrasting law and grace, by citing from Isaiah, a prophecy spoken to Israel many years after Abraham. He says that was a promise to Israel and they therefore are just like Isaac, they are to be people of promise who will come forth by supernatural means.

Don’t forget, he says, the natural son, Ishmael, persecuted the Spirit born son, Isaac, and in the same way you who are born again will be persecuted by people who are just religious.

Coming to his conclusion, he says get rid of the slave woman, the law or the purely religious. You don’t want that in your life, you are those who have life because it was promised, not because you worked for it, you received it as a gift not by earning it.

Our tendency is to try to hold onto the old as well as having the new. We so often try to live by rules while being the people of supernatural promise, but the two things are incompatible, they just won’t go together.

We cannot live by faith AND a mechanical, organised religion at the same time. The mechanical depends on written rules, faith depends on hearing the Living God today.

D. Application?

1. The rules are there as a safety barrier when we cease to live by faith.
2. Faith comes by hearing – God today!