BRUCE C WEARNE, in his series on Galatians, looks at Paul’s rebuttal to those who would like to live under the law…
So then fellows [brothers and sisters], we are children not of the slave but of the free woman. [It is] for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not become entangled in a yoke of slavery. – Galatians 4:31-5:1/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne
Freedom in Christ! PICTURE: Grant Ritchie/Unsplash
IN A NUTSHELL
By entering fully into the details of the argument put forward by the Galatians, Paul explains why they have gotten themselves tied up in knots and need to be disentangled.
Paul rejects the Galatian desire to be “under the law” with an argument that left the Galatians in no doubt about where he stood, and of where they were called to stand. If it is a subtle argument, it is so for us reading it in another time and place. It is clear that Paul is responding in full to their change of direction.
To insist that believers in Christ come “under the law” can only divide the community of faith down the middle and destroy it.
The division will not only make second-class believers of the Gentiles, it will presume to elevate those circumcised in a way quite contrary to Jesus’ teaching. It is not just to adopt a false form of argument from the Scriptures; it is to live like Gentiles.
To the Galatians, Paul expands upon the criticism he had launched at Peter for his duplicity.
It is difficult to see how the pattern established by the circumcision of Ishmael and confirmed in the Law – Genesis 21 – could be put into practice in an everyday sense. Insisting on the rite of circumcision would give a kind of priority in membership to those declared “free men” (and of course “free women”) by their Jewish descent. But then the coming of Messiah Jesus will have to be reinterpreted as a bequest that gives priority to the sons of Israel (and it is simply no longer clear how the daughters are to fare) enabling them to presume their right as rulers of the Gentiles.
If now they require Gentile circumcision it is the Gospel, as the fulfilled Promise of blessing to all nations, which will have been lost.
No, says Paul. That way simply means enslavement, getting entangled in a spiritual slavery. It will not only bring Gentile believers into a form of servitude. The Christian identity of their community – characterised by allegiance to Christ Jesus and neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free (3:28) – will be cancelled straight away. As soon as you bind your future to the rite of circumcision, you will bind yourselves to the institution of slavery itself.
So what does Paul mean by “children of the free woman” (4:31)? Is he saying that an historical, if not allegorical, alignment should be to Sarah?
The answer is also subtle and found in how Sarah’s freedom was gained – that is, according to the Promise “from above”. It was not found by way of what Sarah did. That only made her own life even more entangled with the slave and the child of her slave. Her freedom was certainly not found in “works according to the flesh” – which included her demand to her husband, the father of Ishmael, to “cast out the slave and her child!” It was found in the freedom the Lord gave her, she indeed gave birth to a child when she was well past the age of child-bearing.
Was Sarah the free woman? Yes. But not because she had a slave. She was, and became, the free woman only because of the Lord’s grace and mercy to her, as mother of Isaac according to His Promise.
God keeps His promises. Sarah was the “free woman” because God had freed her to raise Isaac herself without the assistance of Hagar, and without having to deal with Ishmael.
The Lord, by His Promise, freely gave her this role as Isaac’s chuckling mother. And in that freedom, we now, in Christ, can laugh happily at the goodness of the Lord who disentangles us from all kinds of dominance which are but servitude to the “weak and beggarly elements” of our nature, to walk with Jesus as recipients of His Promise.
OPEN BOOK – PAUL’S GALATIAN LETTER: FREEDOM IN CHRIST
BRUCE C WEARNE, in his series on Galatians, looks at Paul’s rebuttal to those who would like to live under the law…
So then fellows [brothers and sisters], we are children not of the slave but of the free woman. [It is] for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not become entangled in a yoke of slavery. – Galatians 4:31-5:1/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne
Freedom in Christ! PICTURE: Grant Ritchie/Unsplash
IN A NUTSHELL
By entering fully into the details of the argument put forward by the Galatians, Paul explains why they have gotten themselves tied up in knots and need to be disentangled.
Paul rejects the Galatian desire to be “under the law” with an argument that left the Galatians in no doubt about where he stood, and of where they were called to stand. If it is a subtle argument, it is so for us reading it in another time and place. It is clear that Paul is responding in full to their change of direction.
To insist that believers in Christ come “under the law” can only divide the community of faith down the middle and destroy it.
The division will not only make second-class believers of the Gentiles, it will presume to elevate those circumcised in a way quite contrary to Jesus’ teaching. It is not just to adopt a false form of argument from the Scriptures; it is to live like Gentiles.
To the Galatians, Paul expands upon the criticism he had launched at Peter for his duplicity.
It is difficult to see how the pattern established by the circumcision of Ishmael and confirmed in the Law – Genesis 21 – could be put into practice in an everyday sense. Insisting on the rite of circumcision would give a kind of priority in membership to those declared “free men” (and of course “free women”) by their Jewish descent. But then the coming of Messiah Jesus will have to be reinterpreted as a bequest that gives priority to the sons of Israel (and it is simply no longer clear how the daughters are to fare) enabling them to presume their right as rulers of the Gentiles.
If now they require Gentile circumcision it is the Gospel, as the fulfilled Promise of blessing to all nations, which will have been lost.
No, says Paul. That way simply means enslavement, getting entangled in a spiritual slavery. It will not only bring Gentile believers into a form of servitude. The Christian identity of their community – characterised by allegiance to Christ Jesus and neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free (3:28) – will be cancelled straight away. As soon as you bind your future to the rite of circumcision, you will bind yourselves to the institution of slavery itself.
So what does Paul mean by “children of the free woman” (4:31)? Is he saying that an historical, if not allegorical, alignment should be to Sarah?
The answer is also subtle and found in how Sarah’s freedom was gained – that is, according to the Promise “from above”. It was not found by way of what Sarah did. That only made her own life even more entangled with the slave and the child of her slave. Her freedom was certainly not found in “works according to the flesh” – which included her demand to her husband, the father of Ishmael, to “cast out the slave and her child!” It was found in the freedom the Lord gave her, she indeed gave birth to a child when she was well past the age of child-bearing.
Was Sarah the free woman? Yes. But not because she had a slave. She was, and became, the free woman only because of the Lord’s grace and mercy to her, as mother of Isaac according to His Promise.
God keeps His promises. Sarah was the “free woman” because God had freed her to raise Isaac herself without the assistance of Hagar, and without having to deal with Ishmael.
The Lord, by His Promise, freely gave her this role as Isaac’s chuckling mother. And in that freedom, we now, in Christ, can laugh happily at the goodness of the Lord who disentangles us from all kinds of dominance which are but servitude to the “weak and beggarly elements” of our nature, to walk with Jesus as recipients of His Promise.
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