The Gospel and the New Covenant: Galatians 4:8-31

Welcome to Episode 4 of Series 2 in our study of the book of Galatians.

Recap and Background

Series 1 spoke about Paul’s relationship with the Galatian church and some of the history behind that. Series 2 talks about the theology of the gospel that Paul is wanting to defend against a dangerous attack that has taken place in the Galatian churches, from a group of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem known as the Judaizers, who had tried to persuade these Gentile Christians that they needed to obey the Jewish religious law, the Law of Moses, in order to be saved. Paul was horrified by this. Paul is advocating very clearly the power and significance of the gospel. He is explaining it in some depth to the Galatians so that they don’t have a superficial understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

In the last episode, Paul drew a very strong contrast, saying that before coming to Christ the Galatians were subject to demonic forces, ‘the elemental spirits of this world’, they were in in spiritual darkness, and that the Jews, who had failed to obey the Law of Moses, were also in spiritual darkness. The gospel had brought a complete change to their spiritual situation. He spoke about us being adopted into God’s family. What does it really mean to be part of God’s family? What do we feel in our hearts? How do we relate to God? He speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit in a wonderful way that enables us to call God our heavenly Father, to relate to him in prayer and to trust him in our lives. This is a wonderful reality that Paul has been explaining.

He has also been helping the Galatians to think about their Christian life in terms of how it is going to develop in the future, rather than looking back to how they used to live and what their spiritual state used to be. The gospel has the power to deal with everything in our past - forgiveness comes from God; healing comes; resolution comes and we can move forward. Paul wants the Galatian Christians to realise what a great reality it is to be a Christian now and also what a great future they have got. He speaks of them being God’s heirs. They are going to inherit all his promises and all his blessings in the future. He is referring to our eternal future, beyond this life. Christianity isn’t only about this life, it is about the eternal world as well. He explains to the Galatians that they will participate in God’s eternal future - the new heaven and the new earth.

He is deeply concerned because he feels that the Galatians are standing on a knife edge. Are they going to really embrace the gospel or are they going to go backwards? He writes this letter appealing to them very strongly. He is challenging false ideas powerfully, using really strong language because he is determined to preserve the faith of the Galatian Christians.

The Jewish Influence

“Formally, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature not God’s. But now that you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.”

Galatians 4:8-11, NIV

Paul questions the Galatians about why they have come under the influence of the Jewish teachers? They have suddenly decided they needed to obey special religious days, months, seasons and years. Paul is talking about obeying the Jewish Sabbath which would mean they have to go to the synagogue in order to be a Christian in the towns and cities in Galatia. Paul tells them they don’t need to do that. Special months and seasons is a reference to the religious festivals of the Jews. There are three main festivals every year – Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles and all Jews were encouraged to celebrate these religious festivals and, if possible, to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate them there. Some of these Gentile Christians in Galatia might be thinking that they need to take a trip to the Holy Land in order to attend a festival, in order to confirm their faith. Paul says they don’t need to do any of that; their faith is based on Christ, not on these observations. The Jews also had special sacred years; every seventh year was a sacred year with certain religious obligations.

Paul realises that they are slipping back into obeying Old Testament rules. The risk still exists today for Christians who adopt other religious practices as an insurance policy, in case Christianity is not sufficient. Some people say they follow Christ and go to church, but they also follow another religious tradition from their background as a spiritual insurance policy. In a sense, that is what these Galatians were doing. They were following the Jewish practices to make sure they were right with God. Paul completely disagrees with this idea because it totally undermines his preaching of the gospel. He said that, Christ had been clearly portrayed as having died on the cross, to them. In other words, he had explained to them fully the sufficient power of Jesus Christ to deal with sin. Paul knows that it is a spiritual battle to help people understand the power of salvation. We tend to modify it, to mix it up with other things very easily and we lose an understanding of what Christ has done. Paul was determined to resist that at all costs.

Paul’s Vulnerability

He makes a very human plea to his friends in Galatia in these next few

“I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. Where, then, is your blessing of me now? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes, and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?”

Galatians 4:12-16, NIV

Paul is expressing some very deep feelings here. It is only about a year ago that he was with them in person. He remembers the wonderful connection he had with the new believers in these cities - that sense of fellowship and friendship and respect between them. They almost treated him as if he was Christ Jesus himself coming in their midst. They gave him great honour and great esteem when they believed. They really showed their respect for him.

He reveals a detail here about his visit to those churches, which is not described in the book of Acts 13 and 14, when this missionary trip is described. He reveals that he had a significant illness at the time and remembers how kind they were to him, even though he was unwell when he was preaching the gospel. What was his illness and why was it significant? Something was going on in Paul’s body, at the time, that made preaching and his ministry very difficult for him. He doesn’t tell us exactly what this illness is, but there are a number of different possibilities. He uses a very interesting expression in verse 15, ‘you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.’ That is possibly a reference to the fact that he actually had a painful or difficult eye condition at the time. We can’t be certain. Some other people have suggested that he might have had an illness like malaria, which was very common in the Roman Empire. Mosquitoes were everywhere in southern Europe and malaria is very debilitating causing tremendous lack of energy and tiredness and periods of rest being needed. Maybe Paul had an illness like malaria or some other infectious disease. We don’t know. He doesn’t actually say what happened but he had an illness that made the whole process of preaching to them really rather difficult. It must have been an illness that continued for some time because he is writing to a series of churches here in different places, and he is writing as if they all had the same experience when he came to their cities, that Paul wasn’t particularly well.

This may be a reference to what Paul describes elsewhere as his ‘thorn in the flesh’. We often see Paul as a very strong, determined, capable, very good speaker, very well-organised and pushing ahead. But here we have an insight into his vulnerability. It appears in the pages of Galatians quite unexpectedly, and probably links to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12: 7 – 10,

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I’m weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10, NIV

Many people have speculated what the ‘thorn in the flesh’ is but, it is very likely to be a physical condition, an illness or a weakness that affected Paul quite often in his ministry. It is interesting that God didn’t heal him of it particularly because Paul was used by God to heal many other people. We see examples of his healing ministry all the way through the book of Acts. He speaks in 2 Corinthians of the fact that he exhibits the signs of an Apostle, and these were miraculous events and healings. But he himself experienced some physical weakness. He asked God to take it away three times and three times it didn’t happen. But the Lord spoke to him and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” This is quite an emotional passage because Paul remembers they were really kind to him concerning his weakness, whatever it was, and they were kind to him in the sense of the respect they gave him. But now, only a year later, he is getting reports that they have turned against him. They are saying they no longer followed Paul but were following the other Jewish teachers. The pain that Paul experiences is very considerable. He is pleading with them to show him the respect they showed him before, by taking note of his letter, and by following his teaching about the gospel.

Other Motives

“Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I’m perplexed about you!”

Galatians 4:17-20, NIV

He doesn’t like the motive of his opponents. They were coming to literally change the loyalty of the people in the Galatian churches. They were manipulating them against a true Apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul. That is very painful for Paul. He wished he could actually be with them. He wanted to talk to them about these issues rather than write to them. You know what it is like with difficult issues of communication between people. Writing is difficult. It is harder to get a reconciliation through writing to each other, in any form. It is better to be in the same room and to have a conversation and a discussion, even an argument, in order to get through. Paul really wanted to be with them but he couldn’t. He is perplexed about them and he feels something very spiritual. He described it like being ‘in the pains of childbirth’. He was trying to understand the feelings that a woman has as she is giving birth to a child. He wants to give birth to his spiritually healthy children. He wants to see the Galatians really flourishing and growing up in their faith and not being side-lined and manipulated by these Jewish teachers. He is very upset about this and sad about it.

He doesn’t trust the motivation of the Jewish teachers and he totally disagrees with their teaching. Maybe they were jealous of Paul. We don’t know fully their motives but they were doing terrible damage to the Galatian churches.

True Faith V Jewish Law

In the final section of our episode, Paul goes on to tell an Old Testament story, to try to illustrate the difference between the true faith in Jesus Christ and the Jewish old way of the Law of Moses. This is a complicated story where he uses the events of Abraham’s life and particularly his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, as the main characters.

“Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are taken figuratively: the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: this is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: ‘Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child;shout for joyand cry aloud, you who were never in labour; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.’ Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.’ Therefore, brothers and sisters, We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”

Galatians 4:21-31, NIV

Paul is using an Old Testament story to make a point about things that were happening then. The story of Abraham’s family and the conflict that existed between Hagar and Ishmael, and Sarah and her son Isaac is in Genesis. It tells us that Abraham had these two children in very significant ways. God had promised him a miraculous son by his wife Sarah, who was infertile, and whilst waiting for this to happen he married Hagar and had a son by Hagar whose name was Ishmael. But Ishmael was not the child of promise; it wasn’t God’s plan. God’s plan was through Isaac. Paul sees a contrast between these two figures. He sees them as representing two spiritual realities. Hagar and Ishmael represent the Old Testament Law of Moses, according to the way he uses the story. Whereas Isaac and his mother Sarah, represent the New Covenant. He associates them with two cities because the city of Jerusalem, as it existed in Paul’s day, was controlled by the Law of Moses and the Jewish people advocating the Law of Moses. Paul was basically saying, we are not part of that system anymore. That is the very thing he has been fighting against in the book of Galatians. Hagar and Ishmael represent that city and that system but we are actually the children of God’s promise through Isaac, and we are the spiritual descendants of Isaac through the gospel, and through Jesus Christ. The basic point that Paul has in mind is that he sees a difference between Jerusalem as it existed then, the very place where these false teachers had come from, and saying, that is not our spiritual world. We are not in the Law of Moses we, the church, are under Jesus Christ; we have been saved from that system. He describes our spiritual home as the Jerusalem that is above. He contrasts earthly Jerusalem with heavenly Jerusalem. He doesn’t explain very clearly what he means, but when we read on in the New Testament, we realise that in the eternal world there is a spiritual Jerusalem which is going to come to this earth, which is going to be the very place where we live in eternity. Paul says our destiny is in that new Jerusalem, not with the old system in the old Jerusalem. That is the contrast he is making there.

The other point he is making is about persecution. The Judaizers, the Jewish teachers, are persecuting Paul and his followers. They are opposing them; they are dividing them; they are resisting them. They sometimes go as far as to try to threaten and kill Paul. He points out that, in the same way, Ishmael persecuted Isaac. This is a reference to Genesis 21:8 - 10. When Isaac was born, Ishmael was about 13 years old. When Isaac was weaned, there was a feast to celebrate and Ishmael was present, mocking Isaac. Just as Ishmael mocked Isaac and persecuted him, so the Judaizers are mocking Paul and persecuting Paul’s followers. That is what Paul has in mind in using this rather complicated picture to explain the conflict that is taking place spiritually at this time between those who come from Jerusalem as Jewish teachers, and the Apostles who are preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Reflections

Firstly, there’s a lesson here about honouring those who preach the gospel and teach the Bible. Paul was honoured by the Galatians initially, but not honoured by them later on. It is important for us to honour those who bring Christ to us, and teach Christ to us. I have had many teachers over the years and always want to honour the contribution that they have made to my salvation.

The second reflection I would make is that legalism is sometimes attractive, because people are very committed to it, very zealous. Paul uses the word ‘zeal’. His opponents had plenty of zeal but he said it is not the zeal that makes it true. In today’s world, we have many religious groups that are very zealous. We have Christian sects, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Mormons. We have Islamic groups that are very zealously Islamic, extremist groups. Should we be following them because they are zealous, and Paul says, no - you follow the truth. It is the truth of the gospel that matters.

The third application I would make here is that this is another example of Paul teaching us that when we become Christians we should start looking forward, focusing on the future, and not being stuck in the past.

My final reflection would be this: many of us will have been struck by the significance of Paul’s illness here - just the little detail that he puts in without very much explanation, but it is very significant. Many Christians suffer from illnesses, or personal difficulties, or problems that are long-standing and hard to overcome, that haven’t responded to the prayer for healing. Paul prayed three times that he would be set free from whatever this illness or restriction was, but on that particular occasion, for reasons that are not explained, God did not heal him. But God did give him remarkable grace. Sometimes when we are weak, God’s strength is very great within us. That may be an important point for some of you following this episode. I want you to take encouragement from the fact that even though you may feel weak and have some personal difficulties that are quite significant and long- lasting, God can still use you. His grace is sufficient for you.

Thanks for listening, join us again for the next episode.