God’s Word for You

Galatians 4:1-3 the basic principles of the world

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, July 18, 2024

4:1 What I am saying is that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, even though he is going to be the owner of everything. 2 He still has to do what guardians and managers say up until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way, when we were young children, we were also enslaved to the basic principles of the world.

Before the Judaizers can raise any more objections, Paul calls up another point from everyday law at that time. This is also related to his earlier point about the childhood chaperone. According to Roman law, an heir to an estate who was underage was under the control of a guardian. The guardian was the child’s superior in every way, in order to teach and make a good citizen of him. Such teaching involved reading, math, writing, manners, ethics and so forth. But at a fixed time, when the child came of age (Roman law fixed the upper limit of this at twenty-five years), he became the master of the estate willed to him, and he was even the master of the guardian who had trained him.

Paul tells the Galatian Christians that the idea of a master for a limited time is also true of the Old Testament laws. They were there as a kind of master for God’s people, but only for a specific time: Until Jesus the Messiah came. The law, given at Mount Sinai, was a guardian telling them, “Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery,” and so on. These were the “basic principles of the world” for Israel, like an immature son waiting for an important day to arrive. Notice that Paul is obviously talking about the moral law, and yet he does not say, “the basic principles of God,” but “the basic principles of the world.” Later, in verse 9, he will call these same laws “principles that are weak and miserable (beggarly).” They can only tell us what God’s will is; they give us no power at all to keep them. They leave us humiliated. These principles leave us as beggars.

The heir of the estate would be wise to continue to ask his former teacher for guidance. As Christians who are free from the Old Testament laws, we are wise to still look to some of the laws, such as the Ten Commandments, for guidance. They do not govern our lives any longer. For example, we no longer need to worship on Saturday, the Old Testament Sabbath. But the spirit of that law, setting aside a time for regular worship, is certainly God-pleasing and something we continue to do. We normally do it on Sunday in memory of Easter (Revelation 1:10), when Jesus proclaimed his victory over the grave, which is also our victory.

Paul calls this subordination to the law “slavery.” He is using strong language to refute the false teachings that were infecting his dear Galatians. But he is careful not to go too far and throw out the law altogether, since the law is good and shows us the depth of our sin and the absolute necessity of Christ and the crucifixion.

Why do we need such tutoring and babysitting now that Christ has come? There is only one answer that we need: Look in the mirror. Look in the mirror, into eyes that have so recently sinned, at a face that has so recently been twisted into a rage, at the barrel of a chest that has been heaving out denials and blasphemies such as Peter did in the courtyard of Caiaphas (Mark 14:71). You should need no rooster to crow and announce to you your sinfulness. Each of us is born with the stain of sin already penned into the Book of God’s Divine Judgment (Daniel 7:10; Revelation 20:12). And that’s only the original sin that hangs around our necks like a millstone. Each day’s sins soil and dirty our lives, like mud caking a man’s boots and pant legs, his arms and elbows and shoulders and face. What wretched creatures we are! We know of the love of Christ, but the Old Adam claws and scratches us so that we sin even while we pray at the very feet of God Almighty.

Long ago, in the fourth century, a wise and kind pastor wrote to a brother in the ministry who had fallen into sin (“like a stag pierced with an arrow,” Proverbs 7:22-23):

“The tower of our strength has not fallen, brother; the remedies of amendment have not been mocked; the city of refuge has not been closed. Do not abide in the depths of iniquity; do not give yourself over to the slayer of men. The Lord knows how to raise up those who have been dashed down. Flee to no distant place, but hasten back to us. Take up the labors of youth again, and by succeeding in a second trial end that indulgence, which wallows in sticky mire. Look up toward the last day, that has approached so near our lives… and do not, once for all, deny the Saviour of the world” (Basil, Letter to a Fallen Monk).

Our sins are vast, and obscene, and damning, and continue to the very end of our days. But we who keep our eyes fixed on Jesus set aside the taunts of the unbelieving world, cries of “Hypocrite!” and “Fool!” We know our sin, but we know our Savior. Don’t give up on your life; your own immortal soul. Jesus has not given up. The law has its place as a childhood chaperone—and shame on me for needing one even so late in my life! But the law is holy and points out a man’s faults. Glory be to Jesus that he grasps my chin with his compassionate hand and says, “I forgive you. It’s going to be all right.”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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