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THE KING’S BUSINESS
Thursday, May p. Gal. 4 : 8 , 9 .
people), and utterly inconsistent with Christian liberty and the spirit o f the gos pel (cf. Col. 2:16, 17). O f course, a true child of God will welcome the Lord’s day as a blessed privilege and make the most o f it for his own and his neighbor’s good (Mark 2:27). But even that glorious gift o f God’s love and memorial o f otxr resur rection privileges in Christ, he will not observe as a law by the keeping o f which he is to win merit before God, and he will use it with liberty as the leading o f the Spirit of His Son within directs. Because these believers in Galatia observed Sabbath . “ days” and other “days and months and seasons and years” as legal requirements, Paul was “afraid o f them, lest by any means” his labor upon them Tiad been “ in vain” ; for they were certainly not walk ing as sons, and it was in order to make them sons that he had labored (cf. v. 19). Saturday, May 11 . Gal. 4 : 12 - 16 . Paul here brings forward still another argument, viz., the way in which they had received him at his first visit. He begins by beseeching them to “become” as he him self was, i, e., free from the constraint o f the Jewish ordinances. He gives as a rea son for this, “because I also am become as ye are,” i. e., I have cast off these Jewish customs (to which I had a right as a born Jew) while among you, and this shows that I do not regard them as o f any value, either as to contributing to my justifica tion or as to my progress in true living.” Paul when among Jews observed Jewish usages (Acts 21:20-26), not as being any longer o f any Value o f themselves, but as a means o f winning the Jews (1 Cor. 9:20- 22). Paul is very tender in his appeal to the Galatians to become as he is. In the , Greek the “Brethren, I beseech you,” comes at the close o f the appeal and not at the beginning, as in the Authorized and Revised Version. It is more expressive at the end. Paul fears lest they think he felt personally aggrieved, so he adds, “Ye did me no wrong.” Then he recalls his first experience among them. It was because o f a physical
Paul now comes back to their old experi ence o f bondage and asks why they wish to repeat it, in a somewhat changed form : “At that time (i. e., when heathen, before your conversion to Christ) not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them which by nature are no gods (i. e., dumb idols or demons, cf. 1 Cor. 10:20, R. V. Marg.).” But now they had come into a glorious experience in a bondage to them which were no gods, but sonship to Him who really was God. “But now that ye have come to know God, or rather (better) to be known of. (by) God (not merely to be understood by Him, but to be recognized by Him as His own, to be known with love, cf. Matt. 7:23; 1 Cor. 8 :3 ; 2 Tim. 2:19; Ex. 33:12, 17), how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again?” The “ over again” is very emphatic, two strong words being used in the Greek, both o f which mean again. Paul here protests strongly and in amazement against the folly that having tried “bondage” and then found liberty wills to go back into bondage over again. O f course, it was a different kind o f bondage: the former bondage was “to them which are not gods,” and this was to a law that came from God, but nevertheless it was after all “bondage” when they might have the liberty o f son- ship. The ordinances o f the law were “ rudiments.” The Galatian believers might be and ought to be, not in rudiments, but in advanced grades, and these ordinances were also “ beggarly” when the Galatian believers might have “the riches o f the glory” (Eph. 1:18; Phil. 4:19). Friday, May 10 . Gal. 4 : 10 , 11 . Paul here points out one o f the ways in which they showed their choice o f bond age, “ Ye observe days, and months, and seasons; and years.” The keeping o f holy days as a work o f merit is legalism, and a bondage that Christians are contantly fall ing into (fo r example, the Seventh Day'
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