Lesson 10
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The Elements of the World
Galatians 4:8-20
8
Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by
nature are no gods.
9
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how
turn ye again to the weak and
beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
10 Ye observe days, and
months, and times, and years.
11 I am afraid of you, lest I
have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
12 Brethren, I beseech you, be
as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.
13 Ye know how through
infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
14 And my temptation which was
in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God,
even as Christ Jesus.
15 Where is then the
blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible,
ye would have
plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.
16 Am I therefore become your
enemy, because I tell you the truth?
17 They zealously affect you,
but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.
18 But it is good to be
zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with
you.
19 My little children, of whom
I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
20 I desire to be present with
you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
“Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature
are no gods.” We have seen
in this letter that the Galatians, who had been brought out of heathen darkness
into the light and liberty of the gospel
through the ministry of the apostle Paul, had fallen under the charm or spell of
certain false judaizing teachers who were
carrying them into subjection to the law of Moses, telling them that unless they
were circumcised and kept the law of
Moses they could not be saved, that while they began in faith, they had to
complete their salvation through works of
their own, acquiring merit by obedience to the commands of the law. The apostle
has been showing them that the law
could only condemn, could only kill, could not justify, could not give life,
neither could it sanctify, and that our
sanctification is truly by faith alone as is our justification.
Now he reasons with them, trying
to show the folly of their course in giving up Christianity with all its liberty
and light
for the twilight and bondage of Judaism. He reminds them that they were enslaved
to heathen customs, served those
that they esteemed to be gods who really were not gods, were worshippers of
idols, and were misled by pagan priest-
craft. Paul says, “You were slaves to worldly customs in those days of your
heathenism.” The thing that amazed Paul
was that they were willing to go into another bondage after having known
something of the liberty of grace.
“But now, after that ye
have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and
beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” Paul says,
“Isn’t it a shame that after you have
known God, or rather have been known of God, after you have come into this
blessed relationship with Him as your
Father, if you really know what it is to be born again, isn’t it strange that
you would turn now to a system similar to tha
which you were delivered?” “How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly
elements, whereunto ye desire again
to be in bondage?” They were turning to the bondage of the law, to
observing Jewish feasts and Jewish Sabbaths,
Jewish ceremonies. Since they never knew those things in their heathen days, why
does Paul say, “How turn ye again?”
The principle was exactly the same. Why do the heathen go through their forms
and ceremonies? Because they hope
to gain merit and save their souls. Today, heathen practices are found in
religions that depend on forms and ceremonies
to gain merit and salvation by works. The Jewish laws and ceremonies had their
place once, and men of faith could
observe them in obedience to the Word of God, but that place is not theirs now,
because “For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom 10:4). The worldly
principle is to try to merit salvation by
works of your own.
There are only two religions in
the world, the true and the false. All forms of false religions are alike, they
all say,
“Something in my hand I bring,” the only difference being in what that
something is. But true religion leads a man to sing,
“Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.” Christianity
says, “Not by works of righteousness which we
have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost”
(Titus 3:5). Today there are churches filled with images. They are not images of
Mars, Jupiter, Venus, or Isis, or Osiris,
but images just the same – images of St. Joseph, St. Barnabas, St. Paul, the
twelve apostles, the blessed Virgin Mary,
and even of Christ. Candles are burnt in front of them and people bow before
them. One might ask, “Why do you
worship these images?” And they answer, “We do not worship them; we
reverence them, and they are simply aids
to worship. These images help to stir up our spirits and help us to worship.”
A protestant minister speaking
to a group of ministers said, “I find that it is very helpful to have before
me a very beautiful
picture of the thorn-crowned Christ to contemplate. It makes me realize what He
has done for me. It draws out my heart
in worship and adoration.” There is no painter on earth who can paint true
Christ. You need to go the Bible to get that
picture. If you want to be stirred up and put in a worshipful spirit, sit down
over your Bible and read the fifty-third chapter
of Isaiah, or the account in the Gospels of what Christ accomplished, and as you
are occupied with the truth of God your
heart will be drawn out in worship. You do not need pictures or images to help
you worship. These are just “the weak
and beggarly elements” of the world. In this dispensation of grace we are
to worship “in spirit and in truth.”
John 4:24
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth.
So the apostle says, “I’m
sorry to see you go back to these things” – “Ye observe days, and
months, and times,
and years.” That is, they were going back to the Jewish Sabbaths and other
holy days and festivals, the Jewish
Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee. But, you see, these things are not
binding on us today. Why? Because the
Sabbath day of the Jews has found its fulfillment in Him who said, “Come unto
me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “There remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9).
We have found our Sabbath in Christ, and so we observe the first day of the
week, the day of His resurrection. The
seventh-day Sabbath was the memorial of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Paul
would also write these words of us:
Colossians 2:16-17
16 Let no man therefore judge
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of
the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of
things to come; but the body is of Christ.
We do not find our rest on the
Sabbath of old, but daily rest in Him, who delivered us from the Sabbath of the
Law.
There were sacred months at that
time. There was the month in which they had the Passover and the feast of the
firstfruits. Then the seventh month, in which was the great day of atonement and
the feast of tabernacles. But all of
which those months and feasts speak has been fulfilled in Christ. He was the
true Passover:
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
7
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are
unleavened. For even Christ our
passover is sacrificed for us:
8
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the
leaven of malice and wickedness; but with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The feast of the firstfruits had
its fulfillment in the resurrection of Christ, and it was He who said,
“Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”
(John 12:24). Christ fell into the ground in death and now has become the
firstfruits of them that slept.
1 Corinthians 15:20
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that
slept.
The great day of the atonement
has had its fulfillment by Christ at the cross. We read:
Leviticus 17:11
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the
altar to make an atonement for your souls:
for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
Paul said they observed “years.”
There was a Sabbatical year; every seventh year had to be set apart as a Sabbath
to the Lord. No crops would be planted that year. It was a “day of rest” for
the earth. Crops would have to be stored
ahead in preparation for this year. One could not pick out certain parts of the
law and keep them only; if you were
bound to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, you were bound to keep the seven-year
Sabbath also. As Christians we are
all delivered from this. It was only bondage and we are free from it.
“I am afraid of you, lest I
have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” He really stood in doubt as to
whether they
were truly converted. He remembered how they had confessed their sins, and the
joy they had, and now he says, “Was
that not genuine?” One may often feel that about people. Some make a good
start and apparently seem to be real
hristians, but the next thing you know they are taken up with some most
unscriptural thing, and you wonder whether
it was all a mistake. If people are saved, the Holy Spirit seals them. He is the
Spirit of Truth and He comes to guide them
into all truth. But all that say, “I’m saved,” may not be. Saying it and
believing it are two different things. John points this out.
I John 2:19
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us:
but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of
us.
Now Paul turns directly to these
converts of his, and in the most tender way says, “Brethren, I beseech you,
be as
I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.” What does he
mean? He is saying, “There was a time in
my life when I observed all of these things that you are going into now; when
all my hope of heaven was based upon
working out a righteousness of my own; and I was very formal about all these
things that you now are following. I
observed the Passover, I kept the feast of firstfruits, and I kept the feast of
tabernacles. I did all these things about meat
and drinks, I looked upon certain foods as unclean and would have nothing to do
with them, but I came to you as one
of you. You did not know anything about the law, and I came to you as a man
utterly delivered from the law of Moses,
completely freed from it. I am not under the law but under grace, and I want you
to be under grace rather than under law.”
1 Corinthians 9:20-21
20 And unto the Jews I became
as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under
the
law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without
law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to
Christ,)
that I might gain them that are without law.
Paul’s position is clear. He
says, “I do not belong to either company since I am saved by grace, but stand
between
the two, and being regenerated I am subject to Christ. In order that I may reach
the Jew I go over there where he is,
and am willing to sit down with him and partake of the kind of food he eats, and
to go with him to his synagogue, in
order that I may have an opportunity to preach to him. And I will use the law of
Moses to show him his sin (remember
the Law was the schoolmaster unto Christ), and the prophets to show him the
Saviour (the promised Messiah). Then
I go to the Gentiles, but I do not preach the law of Moses to them” He could
say, “When I came among you I took my
place as a man not under the law but in the liberty of grace, and preached
Christ to you as the Saviour of all who
believe. I wish you would appreciate that enough to stand with me. You leave me
and go to the place God took me
out of before He saved me. Do you not see the mistake you are making? You are
giving up grace for the law.”
“Ye know how through
infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And
my temptation
which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel
of God, even as Christ
Jesus.” He came not as one professing to have authority over them, as did
those false teachers who said James sent
them, but one who was a lowly man preaching Christ and Him crucified. Paul was
used of God to heal many sick
people, but he never healed himself, and did not ask anybody to heal him except
God. He prayed for deliverance three
times, but God said, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made
perfect in weakness,” Paul answered,
“Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power
of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
He was a sick man for years as
he preached the gospel. He would come in among people, weak and tired and worn,
and if there were not money enough to support him he would go to work and make
tents to earn money for bread, and
then at night would go and look for people to whom to preach Christ. He
commended the gospel to these Galatians
by his self-denying service and his readiness to suffer. As they (in those days,
poor heathen) looked upon him they
wondered that he should so love them, and they marveled at his message, and
believed it, and were saved.
Now he says, “You have lost
all that; you do not care anything about me any more; you have gone off after
these
false teachers, and you have lost your joy.” “Where is then the
blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record,
that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have
given them to me.” His
suffering was due to a problem he had with his eyes. It might have been
difficult for him to read and to see those to
whom he was witnessing. People felt sorry for him because of his eye problem and
some would have been willing to
give Paul their own eyes, if it were possible.
“Am I therefore become your
enemy, because I tell you the truth?” Paul was not upset with those he
talked to,
but with the evil teachers. “They zealously affect you, but not well; yea,
they would exclude you, that ye might
affect them.” In other words, they have come to make a prey of you with
their false teaching, trying to affect you
adversely in order that you might rally around them. They are not seeking your
good, but trying to extend their own
influence. “But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing,
and not only when I am present with
you.” That is, It is good for a man to be zealous in what is right, it is
good to go after people with the truth and bring
them into the light, and they who had started in the truth should have continued
in it. “My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” I remember when you
were saved, I went through the very
pangs of birth in my soul, and now I am going through it all again because I am
concerned about you. “I desire to be
present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.”
Paul is saying, “I am writing some
strong things to you, but I would like to talk tenderly, lovingly, to you if I
were there. I am not sure about you.” False
religion never can give certainty, but the blessed gospel of the grace of God
does. It fully assures us of complete and
final salvation if we believe God. Who then would turn away deliberately from
the liberty that we have in Christ to the
bondage of some questionable actions? How many people do you know who say they
are Christians and don’t go
to church, Christians who would ask you to pray for them and don’t go to
prayer meeting, and Christians who do
wrong and don’t care about their testimony before all.
Lesson
10 Quiz on Galatians 4:8-20