3668 — Weak and Beggarly Elements
What are the weak and beggarly elements referred to in Gal. 4: 8-10? H. The very scripture itself clearly shows us to what the apostle refers. Man by sin is under bondage, under the bondage of sin. Under that bondage he does all that he can to free himself; he uses everything in his power to do this; but he finds them all weak, and all beggarly, and instead of giving him freedom they give him bondage. Every system of idolatry is based on the thought of self-salvation. Out of this God saved the heathen Galatians, or Gauls. Certain Jews came there and told them to be circumcised if they would be saved. Circumcision of itself was nothing either way, but when it was made a matter of salvation it became an enemy to Christ; and the apostle would teach them that to go back to any of those things as saving ordinances would throw them right back where they were in the beginning, of endeavoring to be saved by their own works. And so therefore, "Now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again?" And that very thought, that returning to that same idolatry (for if circumcision would help, why, their old idolatrous feasts, and fasts, and days would also help), led them back again to the days, and the months, and the seasons, and the years. This does not refer to God's days, or God's appointed seasons, which have their purpose and their object. The Sabbath is a worship day; the Lord's Supper is to call to remembrance the Lord Jesus Christ; so with all of His simple ordinances. The text makes no reference to these. It is to those things that men have themselves devised, or used as a means of salvation, leaving out the Lord Jesus Christ. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6), and love keeps all of God's commandments (1 John 5:3).