Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
Even so when we were children we were under age and not yet come into the inheritance, differing nothing from a bond-servant like an heir under guardians and stewards and tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. The elements of the world are earthly rather than heavenly and opposed to both the Father and the Son, weak because they cannot give liberty or peace and beggarly because sin is despicable. That bondage is by nature and by birth a state of sin, walking after the flesh and serving those who are not gods, which is at the same time to be under the law as its transgressors under its condemnation and curse, and it holds for all people and not for Jews or former idolaters only. It is the state before the fullness of the time, when God sent forth His Son made of a woman and made subject to law to take the place of those subject to law and buy them back by suffering its penalty. Because of that redemption those who were children receive adoption as sons and receive the Spirit of His Son crying Abba Father, so they are no longer servants but sons and heirs, made free from sin and from the curse due for past transgressions and not released from the law itself.
Words and Immediate Context
When we were children means when we were under age and had not yet come into the inheritance, and in that state we were in bondage differing nothing from a bond-servant. Like an heir who though lord of all is still a child, we were placed under guardians and stewards, tutors and governors, until the term appointed by the father. Before that appointed time of redemption God's people were like children under authority and held in bondage to the elements of the world.
The elements, rudiments or principles of the world are earthly rather than heavenly, having nothing to do with God and standing totally opposed to both the Father and the Son. They are sin in its various forms, including idolatry, and they are called weak because they cannot give liberty or peace, and beggarly because sin is despicable.
There is no real division between the closing verses of Galatians 3 and this verse, which continues the same thought, so Galatians 3 must be kept fresh in mind to understand it. It belongs to the chapter's opening account of God sending His Son made human to die so that people could become God's children, describing the condition before that gift brought them into sonship. It carries the key-note of the epistle, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ with the emphasis upon Christ, parallel to Romans that people are saved by faith, justified by faith and kept by faith. That emphasis stands in correction of the teaching that there is salvation in human doing and human works and that man must do something to save himself.
Bondage Under the Elements
By nature and by birth all stand in bondage under the principles of the world, which is a state of sin in which life is lived according to the course of this world and the lusts of the flesh. That bondage is walking after the ways, lusts and customs of the world, serving the devil and serving those that are not gods, held helpless under sin's dominion even while recognizing the law as good. Like an heir while a child differing nothing from a servant, the sinner is under tutors and governors, under a schoolmaster, under condemnation, and the bondage lies not in God giving His law but in being its transgressors and servants of sin.
To be in that bondage is at the same time to be under the law as its transgressors, standing under its condemnation of death and its curse. Only those transgressing the law are under the law, and that condition is outside the blessings of grace until pardoning grace is accepted, which takes the person out from under condemnation so that the law no longer condemns. That condemnation reveals the need of the gospel and brings sinners to Christ, where they may be justified by faith, for the people under the law are the sinners and lost whom Christ came to redeem by taking their place and suffering its penalty.
The elements of the world are sin in its various earthly forms that govern life apart from God, including idolatry and heathenism. They are the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, the works of the flesh, and worldly desires lived out as natural men who do not receive or know the things of God's Spirit. It is life without Christ, separated from God's people and promises, without hope and without God, and after turning from faith back to works there is a return to those same heathen practices and to that same bondage.
This condition is not limited to the Jews and not limited to former idolaters in the usual sense, for in the strict sense all who are not in Christ are outside the knowledge of God. Paul classes himself with the Galatians in it, describing all as children not yet having received the adoption of sons, by nature children of wrath, immature and easily misled. The same bondage holds for anyone who does not know God, whether raised in a Christian or a heathen land, yet at the same time all while children under age differing nothing from bond-servants are heirs of all God's possession, of God Himself, and this is true of every person on earth.
Redemption Into Sonship
Childhood slavery is the state before the fullness of time, when God sent forth His Son made of a woman and made subject to law in order to buy back and redeem those subject to law. He took their place and suffered the penalty of death under condemnation for transgression, purchasing freedom for every person born of a woman. To be in that bondage is to be under the law as its transgressor, held fast as by a jailer because the law will not compromise with sin, and Christ redeems from that bondage to which men were held. Deliverance came when the fullness of the time came, and freedom comes to each person individually when he believes, for faith has no fixed time but comes as each is ready to exercise it.
When Satan overcame Adam and Eve and despoiled them of their inheritance he reduced Adam and his posterity to bondage. Jesus took Adam's nature to be near of kin as man's Goel, and as substitute standing in man's place He redeems man and his posterity from that condition. Through the new birth He then raises them up as a new seed and finally restores to them their lost inheritance. Because of that redemption those who were children receive adoption as sons, receive the Spirit of His Son in the heart crying Abba Father, and each one is no longer a servant but a son and as a son an heir through God by promise. Christ's bondservants are therefore adopted children and heirs by promise, and the bondage from which He frees is the dominion of sin, not ordinary service to a human master or obligation to civil authority.
The liberty of God's children is deliverance into the Spirit of adoption by whom they call God Father with assurance that they are His children and heirs, not back into fearful bondage. That freedom does not consist in the abolition of the law but in being made free from sin through Christ, redeemed from the curse of the moral law and the punishment due for past transgressions rather than released from the law itself. The bondage did not consist in God giving His law but in being its transgressors and servants of sin, walking according to the course of this world and the lusts of the flesh like an heir while a child differing nothing from a servant under tutors and governors. Turning back to the weak and beggarly elements is returning to a life of sin, not returning to the Levitical law, although the bondage is also described as bondage to the ceremonial law of Moses distinct from freedom from God's moral law.
The time when we were children is wholly different from the adoption of sons, for the unbelieving sinner is counted as a minor child and when he believes he comes of age, is no longer under a pedagogue, is ruler instead of servant, and receives the adoption of sons in Christ through a coming back so great it is a new birth. God regards all sinners as wandering prodigal sons whom He loves unchanged from first to last, and the change from slavery to sonship and from death to life is wholly in man and not in God. Unless sinners return like the prodigal they will die as slaves, and no one is lost unless he runs away from the Father's house and stubbornly stays away resisting the drawing power of God's everlasting love. Jerusalem above is free and the mother of God's people, while the unregenerate are reckoned as children of the bondwoman and citizens and children of earthly Jerusalem, born servants of sin after the flesh by natural descent, opposite the freeborn children of promise who know the truth and are made free by the truth. Being born free of the free woman refers to the resurrection birth into the kingdom and eternal life, for believers are now only begotten through the truth with the spirit of adoption as its pledge while awaiting the redemption of the body, when Isaiah's words Thy Maker is thine husband are fulfilled in the New Jerusalem as bride and mother with Christ as everlasting Father and the subjects of the first resurrection as the children.
Law Covenant and Disagreement
The covenant from Sinai has been taken to be the Ten Commandments themselves, so that to be under that covenant is to be held in bondage and kept from inheriting with the free. That identification fails on its own terms, for if keeping the commandments enslaves then keeping nine of them cannot make a person free. Rest is a gift rather than oppression, and the Sabbath is appointed as delight, resisted only by the carnal mind.
The weight of teaching associates the bondage instead with the old covenant and with bondage to the ceremonial law of Moses. That ceremonial law, with its sacrifices and offerings, is the law treated as the subject of Hebrews and is distinct from the ten commandments. Redemption from the law in this sense is redemption from its curse, the punishment due for past transgressions, not release from the moral law itself. In their former condition as children, people were held in bondage under the elements of the world, and being under the law in that context means this old-covenant bondage.
Adoption as sons rests on Christ as the Seed, in whom all believers are only one seed with no distinctions of nationality, rank, or sex. The Seed is not complete while one grain is lacking, so the coming of the Seed to whom the promise was made is at the harvest at the end of the world when the promise of the new earth is fulfilled. Until that second coming the law as spoken from Sinai without change of a letter remains an integral part of the Gospel. Afterward it is not done away but is indelibly engraved in every heart by the Spirit of the living God.
To be under the law is to be a servant in bondage, governed after the manner of servants by demanded rules. To be under the gospel is to be a son, no longer governed in that servant manner, so that for a son it is sufficient to know a day is the Lord's without a code of rules regulating its observance. Only those transgressing the law are under the law, while those walking in Jesus Christ, who is the personified law, have peace. This is the key-note of the epistle, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ with the emphasis upon Christ, parallel to Romans that people are saved by faith, justified by faith, and kept by faith, in correction of teaching that there is salvation in human doing and works and that man must do something to save himself.
Before redemption people were in bondage under the law because they were transgressors and servants of sin in a natural or carnal state, and Christ redeems them from under the law so they can receive adoption as God's children. Those with God's law written in their hearts become heirs and children of Jerusalem above, while those without it remain in bondage and under condemnation. The former state as children was rebellious, deceitful, and unwilling to hear the Lord's law. That disobedience stands in contrast with receiving adoption as sons, which is a state of obedience.
History and Christian Living
The fullness of the time was the seventy weeks when the promised Seed came, and the transition from the old covenant to the new began with John's preaching and ended with Christ's preaching. The Galatians had formerly been heathen who never were Jews, in bondage under the elements of the world to idolatry and former habits of life before accepting Christ. Those elements are the same weak rudiments of the world named again in verse 9, namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the works of the flesh, which are sin. When unbelievers are children under age they differ nothing from bond-servants, yet at the same time they are heirs of all God's possession, of God Himself, and this is true of every person on earth.
Paul classes himself with the Galatians in that bondage, and all unbelievers share it, so since the Galatians were heathen who knew nothing of God before the gospel, the bondage cannot be to any precept given by God but is the bondage of sin in which the law holds sinners fast as a jailer. Deliverance came when the fulness of the time came and God sent forth His Son, and freedom comes to each person individually when he believes, for faith has no fixed time but comes as each is ready to exercise it. The time when we were children is wholly different from the adoption of sons, for the unbelieving sinner is counted as a minor child, and when he believes he comes of age, is no longer under a pedagogue, is ruler instead of servant, and receives the adoption of sons in Christ through a coming back so great it is a new birth, like the prodigal son who was his father's son even while a bond-servant away from home. God regards all sinners as wandering prodigal sons whom He loves unchanged from first to last, and the change from slavery to sonship and from death to life is wholly in man and not in God, but unless sinners return like the prodigal they will die as slaves, and no one is lost unless he runs away from the Father's house and stubbornly stays away resisting the drawing power of God's everlasting love.
Turning back to those things was relapsing into heathenism and friendship with the world from which they had been delivered, including observing days and times and months after the manner of heathen augury. When led by false brethren into another gospel of trust in their own works instead of faith in Christ, and thus led away from Christ, they lost the power that held them to God and drifted back into the works to which they had previously been accustomed. Turning to another means of justification would return them to the idolatry from which they had been converted, and after turning from faith back to works they returned to the heathen practices they had formerly followed and to that same bondage. Christians who are still like children or babes in knowledge and grace are contrasted with mature Christians who have full knowledge of the Christian faith and are justified and saved through Christ.
Being in bondage under the elements of the world is a condition from which people should not be content to remain, serving the Devil, the world, and one's lusts rather than serving Jesus. Egypt represents not only a place but also this sinful condition of bondage under the rudiments of the world from which God calls people out of sin to a higher life. The Sabbath is a sign of God's creative, converting, and sanctifying power at work to deliver His people from the world, separate them from sin, and establish them as true followers of the truth in Jesus.
Even so when we were children we were under age and not yet come into the inheritance, differing nothing from a bond-servant like an heir under guardians and stewards and tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. The elements of the world are earthly rather than heavenly and opposed to both the Father and the Son, weak because they cannot give liberty or peace and beggarly because sin is despicable. That bondage is by nature and by birth a state of sin, walking after the flesh and serving those who are not gods, which is at the same time to be under the law as its transgressors under its condemnation and curse, and it holds for all people and not for Jews or former idolaters only. It is the state before the fullness of the time, when God sent forth His Son made of a woman and made subject to law to take the place of those subject to law and buy them back by suffering its penalty. Because of that redemption those who were children receive adoption as sons and receive the Spirit of His Son crying Abba Father, so they are no longer servants but sons and heirs, made free from sin and from the curse due for past transgressions and not released from the law itself.
Words and Immediate Context
When we were children means when we were under age and had not yet come into the inheritance, and in that state we were in bondage differing nothing from a bond-servant. Like an heir who though lord of all is still a child, we were placed under guardians and stewards, tutors and governors, until the term appointed by the father. Before that appointed time of redemption God's people were like children under authority and held in bondage to the elements of the world.
The elements, rudiments or principles of the world are earthly rather than heavenly, having nothing to do with God and standing totally opposed to both the Father and the Son. They are sin in its various forms, including idolatry, and they are called weak because they cannot give liberty or peace, and beggarly because sin is despicable.
There is no real division between the closing verses of Galatians 3 and this verse, which continues the same thought, so Galatians 3 must be kept fresh in mind to understand it. It belongs to the chapter's opening account of God sending His Son made human to die so that people could become God's children, describing the condition before that gift brought them into sonship. It carries the key-note of the epistle, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ with the emphasis upon Christ, parallel to Romans that people are saved by faith, justified by faith and kept by faith. That emphasis stands in correction of the teaching that there is salvation in human doing and human works and that man must do something to save himself.
Bondage Under the Elements
By nature and by birth all stand in bondage under the principles of the world, which is a state of sin in which life is lived according to the course of this world and the lusts of the flesh. That bondage is walking after the ways, lusts and customs of the world, serving the devil and serving those that are not gods, held helpless under sin's dominion even while recognizing the law as good. Like an heir while a child differing nothing from a servant, the sinner is under tutors and governors, under a schoolmaster, under condemnation, and the bondage lies not in God giving His law but in being its transgressors and servants of sin.
To be in that bondage is at the same time to be under the law as its transgressors, standing under its condemnation of death and its curse. Only those transgressing the law are under the law, and that condition is outside the blessings of grace until pardoning grace is accepted, which takes the person out from under condemnation so that the law no longer condemns. That condemnation reveals the need of the gospel and brings sinners to Christ, where they may be justified by faith, for the people under the law are the sinners and lost whom Christ came to redeem by taking their place and suffering its penalty.
The elements of the world are sin in its various earthly forms that govern life apart from God, including idolatry and heathenism. They are the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, the works of the flesh, and worldly desires lived out as natural men who do not receive or know the things of God's Spirit. It is life without Christ, separated from God's people and promises, without hope and without God, and after turning from faith back to works there is a return to those same heathen practices and to that same bondage.
This condition is not limited to the Jews and not limited to former idolaters in the usual sense, for in the strict sense all who are not in Christ are outside the knowledge of God. Paul classes himself with the Galatians in it, describing all as children not yet having received the adoption of sons, by nature children of wrath, immature and easily misled. The same bondage holds for anyone who does not know God, whether raised in a Christian or a heathen land, yet at the same time all while children under age differing nothing from bond-servants are heirs of all God's possession, of God Himself, and this is true of every person on earth.
Redemption Into Sonship
Childhood slavery is the state before the fullness of time, when God sent forth His Son made of a woman and made subject to law in order to buy back and redeem those subject to law. He took their place and suffered the penalty of death under condemnation for transgression, purchasing freedom for every person born of a woman. To be in that bondage is to be under the law as its transgressor, held fast as by a jailer because the law will not compromise with sin, and Christ redeems from that bondage to which men were held. Deliverance came when the fullness of the time came, and freedom comes to each person individually when he believes, for faith has no fixed time but comes as each is ready to exercise it.
When Satan overcame Adam and Eve and despoiled them of their inheritance he reduced Adam and his posterity to bondage. Jesus took Adam's nature to be near of kin as man's Goel, and as substitute standing in man's place He redeems man and his posterity from that condition. Through the new birth He then raises them up as a new seed and finally restores to them their lost inheritance. Because of that redemption those who were children receive adoption as sons, receive the Spirit of His Son in the heart crying Abba Father, and each one is no longer a servant but a son and as a son an heir through God by promise. Christ's bondservants are therefore adopted children and heirs by promise, and the bondage from which He frees is the dominion of sin, not ordinary service to a human master or obligation to civil authority.
The liberty of God's children is deliverance into the Spirit of adoption by whom they call God Father with assurance that they are His children and heirs, not back into fearful bondage. That freedom does not consist in the abolition of the law but in being made free from sin through Christ, redeemed from the curse of the moral law and the punishment due for past transgressions rather than released from the law itself. The bondage did not consist in God giving His law but in being its transgressors and servants of sin, walking according to the course of this world and the lusts of the flesh like an heir while a child differing nothing from a servant under tutors and governors. Turning back to the weak and beggarly elements is returning to a life of sin, not returning to the Levitical law, although the bondage is also described as bondage to the ceremonial law of Moses distinct from freedom from God's moral law.
The time when we were children is wholly different from the adoption of sons, for the unbelieving sinner is counted as a minor child and when he believes he comes of age, is no longer under a pedagogue, is ruler instead of servant, and receives the adoption of sons in Christ through a coming back so great it is a new birth. God regards all sinners as wandering prodigal sons whom He loves unchanged from first to last, and the change from slavery to sonship and from death to life is wholly in man and not in God. Unless sinners return like the prodigal they will die as slaves, and no one is lost unless he runs away from the Father's house and stubbornly stays away resisting the drawing power of God's everlasting love. Jerusalem above is free and the mother of God's people, while the unregenerate are reckoned as children of the bondwoman and citizens and children of earthly Jerusalem, born servants of sin after the flesh by natural descent, opposite the freeborn children of promise who know the truth and are made free by the truth. Being born free of the free woman refers to the resurrection birth into the kingdom and eternal life, for believers are now only begotten through the truth with the spirit of adoption as its pledge while awaiting the redemption of the body, when Isaiah's words Thy Maker is thine husband are fulfilled in the New Jerusalem as bride and mother with Christ as everlasting Father and the subjects of the first resurrection as the children.
Law Covenant and Disagreement
The covenant from Sinai has been taken to be the Ten Commandments themselves, so that to be under that covenant is to be held in bondage and kept from inheriting with the free. That identification fails on its own terms, for if keeping the commandments enslaves then keeping nine of them cannot make a person free. Rest is a gift rather than oppression, and the Sabbath is appointed as delight, resisted only by the carnal mind.
The weight of teaching associates the bondage instead with the old covenant and with bondage to the ceremonial law of Moses. That ceremonial law, with its sacrifices and offerings, is the law treated as the subject of Hebrews and is distinct from the ten commandments. Redemption from the law in this sense is redemption from its curse, the punishment due for past transgressions, not release from the moral law itself. In their former condition as children, people were held in bondage under the elements of the world, and being under the law in that context means this old-covenant bondage.
Adoption as sons rests on Christ as the Seed, in whom all believers are only one seed with no distinctions of nationality, rank, or sex. The Seed is not complete while one grain is lacking, so the coming of the Seed to whom the promise was made is at the harvest at the end of the world when the promise of the new earth is fulfilled. Until that second coming the law as spoken from Sinai without change of a letter remains an integral part of the Gospel. Afterward it is not done away but is indelibly engraved in every heart by the Spirit of the living God.
To be under the law is to be a servant in bondage, governed after the manner of servants by demanded rules. To be under the gospel is to be a son, no longer governed in that servant manner, so that for a son it is sufficient to know a day is the Lord's without a code of rules regulating its observance. Only those transgressing the law are under the law, while those walking in Jesus Christ, who is the personified law, have peace. This is the key-note of the epistle, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ with the emphasis upon Christ, parallel to Romans that people are saved by faith, justified by faith, and kept by faith, in correction of teaching that there is salvation in human doing and works and that man must do something to save himself.
Before redemption people were in bondage under the law because they were transgressors and servants of sin in a natural or carnal state, and Christ redeems them from under the law so they can receive adoption as God's children. Those with God's law written in their hearts become heirs and children of Jerusalem above, while those without it remain in bondage and under condemnation. The former state as children was rebellious, deceitful, and unwilling to hear the Lord's law. That disobedience stands in contrast with receiving adoption as sons, which is a state of obedience.
History and Christian Living
The fullness of the time was the seventy weeks when the promised Seed came, and the transition from the old covenant to the new began with John's preaching and ended with Christ's preaching. The Galatians had formerly been heathen who never were Jews, in bondage under the elements of the world to idolatry and former habits of life before accepting Christ. Those elements are the same weak rudiments of the world named again in verse 9, namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the works of the flesh, which are sin. When unbelievers are children under age they differ nothing from bond-servants, yet at the same time they are heirs of all God's possession, of God Himself, and this is true of every person on earth.
Paul classes himself with the Galatians in that bondage, and all unbelievers share it, so since the Galatians were heathen who knew nothing of God before the gospel, the bondage cannot be to any precept given by God but is the bondage of sin in which the law holds sinners fast as a jailer. Deliverance came when the fulness of the time came and God sent forth His Son, and freedom comes to each person individually when he believes, for faith has no fixed time but comes as each is ready to exercise it. The time when we were children is wholly different from the adoption of sons, for the unbelieving sinner is counted as a minor child, and when he believes he comes of age, is no longer under a pedagogue, is ruler instead of servant, and receives the adoption of sons in Christ through a coming back so great it is a new birth, like the prodigal son who was his father's son even while a bond-servant away from home. God regards all sinners as wandering prodigal sons whom He loves unchanged from first to last, and the change from slavery to sonship and from death to life is wholly in man and not in God, but unless sinners return like the prodigal they will die as slaves, and no one is lost unless he runs away from the Father's house and stubbornly stays away resisting the drawing power of God's everlasting love.
Turning back to those things was relapsing into heathenism and friendship with the world from which they had been delivered, including observing days and times and months after the manner of heathen augury. When led by false brethren into another gospel of trust in their own works instead of faith in Christ, and thus led away from Christ, they lost the power that held them to God and drifted back into the works to which they had previously been accustomed. Turning to another means of justification would return them to the idolatry from which they had been converted, and after turning from faith back to works they returned to the heathen practices they had formerly followed and to that same bondage. Christians who are still like children or babes in knowledge and grace are contrasted with mature Christians who have full knowledge of the Christian faith and are justified and saved through Christ.
Being in bondage under the elements of the world is a condition from which people should not be content to remain, serving the Devil, the world, and one's lusts rather than serving Jesus. Egypt represents not only a place but also this sinful condition of bondage under the rudiments of the world from which God calls people out of sin to a higher life. The Sabbath is a sign of God's creative, converting, and sanctifying power at work to deliver His people from the world, separate them from sin, and establish them as true followers of the truth in Jesus.