(Continued from page 75.)

Chapter 4:1-20.

We have seen that believers under the law were children of God, but were not granted the right to take practically the place or position of sons. Their position was that of servants. They were children of God by faith, but kept in the place of servants. In contrast with this as we have seen, we Christians are sons as well as children. We have the right, because it has been given to us, to take practically the position of sons. This position of sons we are born into, for verse 26 of chapter 3 tells us, "Ye are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

But if we believers are now by faith in the position of sons, what is our condition ? Is it the same as that in which the children were before Christianity came in ? The apostle fully and clearly answers this question in chapter 4 to which I now turn. Here, we are told, that to be in the position of servants is to be in the condition of bondage. Old Testament believers were heirs to faith's portion. The children of God under the law were all heirs, but their condition differed "nothing from servants" (verse i). The word for child in this verse is one used to express minority. The heirs then were in their minority. The heirs now, that is in Christianity, are in their majority. Minority and majority express the characteristic difference between the Mosaic dispensation and the Christian.

Under the order of the things set up by Moses the heirs, although children of God, as to their condition differed nothing from servants. God's time for His children to be in the practical enjoyment of the liberty that characterizes the position of sons had not then come. It has now. Then they were in their minority, under "tutors and governors," in a condition of bondage to worldly or human principles (verses 2 and 3). The principles of the law are human principles. God took them up to show how they work out; and while He was doing that His children, though in reality His heirs, were involved in the necessity of complying with them. They were under them. It was a condition of bondage.

But the Father's time has now come-that "fulness of the time," when " God sent forth His Son." Now of this Son whom God has sent forth we should take particular notice two things are said:First, we are told, He was "made of a woman;" second, He was "made under the law." He needed to be not only a Man, but a Man under law in order to give to all the heirs the right to take the position of sons. To redeem from the law, or buy out the heirs that were under it, He needed to be a Man under the law. He was made so, and has effected for them their release from its claims upon them.

But He is not only the Redeemer of the heirs under the law. He is also the Redeemer of the heirs taken out from among the Gentiles; and having effected the redemption of both He gives both the right to take the position of sons. In Christianity both believing Jews and believing Gentiles have the adoption of sons (verse 5).

It is because the heirs are now given the place of sons that the Spirit is given to them. God has now sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts (verse 6). Here I must remark, The teaching that we are made sons by receiving the Spirit is not according to Scripture. Nowhere does it so speak. Here it is very expressly affirmed that because God has now made His children to be sons He has given them His Spirit. It is not He sent the Spirit of His Son into their hearts to make them sons, but rather to be able to realize and enjoy the liberty that belongs to the place in which they have been put. Having been given the right to take the position of sons, having been put in that place, the gift of the Spirit is God's testimony to them that they are in it. In bestowing the Spirit He formally acknowledges them as being in it. Being in it and having the Spirit they cry, Abba, Father. The cry is by the Spirit. It is by His power they realize and enjoy the liberty of their position. What a wonderful condition! How different from the condition of bondage the heirs under law were in !

Verse 7 is the apostle's summing up of this part of his argument. Believers in Christianity, even if once they were minors and in the condition of servants, are no more that. No Christian is that. All Christians are sons-in the place of sons. With the apostle this settles unquestionably the matter of heirship. Under the law the children were heirs, surely the sons of Christianity must be heirs also. We Gentile believers of Christian times may rejoice in the assurance that God in His unmeasured grace has made us His heirs. We are surely the heirs of God's promises to faith-heirs of faith's portion.

We have already seen how far that portion is now possessed. We have begun to possess. The Spirit given to us is the commencement of possessing, but in a day fast approaching we shall fully possess the whole inheritance promised us. Now, possessing the Spirit, we are able to enter in faith into what shortly we shall actually inherit. We are already inheriting the adoption-the position of sons. We will ere long inherit the full blessing that has been promised. Once the heirs had promises and saw them afar off (Heb. 11:13). Now the heirs have received the adoption-the place of sons, and, being given that place, they have received the Spirit. He is the beginning of the fulfilment of promise-a present pledge of all that God has promised to faith, and a real foretaste of it all.

If we consider what Christianity means as unfolded by the apostle we cannot wonder at his touching appeal to the Galatian saints whose folly and delusion he has so fully exposed. Think of sons-those who have received the adoption, who by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ have the right to be in the position the grace of God has secured for them and have been supplied with the divine power needed to realize and enjoy the liberty of that position- turning away from it all in their minds and seeking to be again in the bondage from which they have been delivered! Surely it is great folly and those who are doing this must be under the power of a great delusion.

It may be asked here:Were not the Galatians Gentiles ? Were they under the law ? How can it be said of them, They have turned again to "the weak and beggarly elements ?" How can they be charged with desiring to be again in bondage to them ? The answer is simple. Self-help is a human principle. It characterizes every human system men have resorted to as a means of escaping from the evil of this present age. God took up that principle in the law of Moses to demonstrate its weakness and unprofitableness (Heb. 7:18). The nation of Israel was not the only nation that was under that principle. All men were really under it. The redemption that is in Christ Jesus, not only delivers believing Jews from the principle of self-help, it delivers from it also believing Gentiles-those who knew not God, had not the "form of knowledge and of the truth in the law "(Rom. 2:20). The Galatian saints were such, yet they had become the subjects of the redemption of God. They had been delivered from the principle of self-help, though they had never been formally under the law of Moses. But in taking up the law after becoming the subjects of God's redemption they were turning again to a principle to which they were formerly subject, the bondage of which they had been delivered from (verses 8-10).

Is it any wonder the apostle tells them, " I am afraid of you ?" Does it not look somewhat as if the apostle's labor among them had been in vain ? But if, in verse n, he raises the question of the reality of their conversion by way of rousing up the conscience, he at once lets them know that his remembrance of those days in which they heard and received the gospel of God from his own lips will not permit him to think his work among them was all for nothing.

Firm in this conviction he makes a most touching appeal to them (verses 12-18). First, he implores them to be as he himself is. He is still as he was in the days of his labor among them. If they have changed he has not. But more, he tells them their turning in their minds away from the truth has not in reality altered what they are before the face of God. It is still true he says, that "I am as ye are." He could say this as knowing how unchangeable the gospel of God is. He could thus tell them their surrender of the truth had in no way affected what he was before God. But beside this he gives them the evidences of the reality of their conversion. He tells them he has proof of the power of the gospel in their souls. He would have them recall those days when first he preached among them. As a man weakness characterized him. They must have remembered his infirmity-his "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7), what was manifestly a very great trial to him when he sought to declare the message of God. Well, he says, the power of what I declared to you so laid hold of your souls that you did not despise my infirmity. Such was your enjoyment of the truth I brought you that you did not reject me on that account. The truth so wrought in your souls that you received me as an angel of God-even as Christ Jesus. You spoke of the blessedness of the gospel as those who realized it, who were tasting and drinking in its preciousness. Had such a thing been possible you would most gladly have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me.

All this was fresh in the apostle's mind. It was to him a clear evidence of the reality of their conversion. He was fully confirmed in the belief that they were in Christ. The evidence of it was too strong for him to question it, though he did question it to sting their conscience.

But then it thus becomes the more manifest that their present attitude towards the truth is folly. It is very evident they have become deluded.

But we must notice a further argument. The apostle will leave no stone unturned in the ardor of his zeal to see his beloved converts recovered from their folly and delivered from the terrible power of the delusion they have fallen under. He asks now, Am I your enemy in telling you the truth ? I was not an enemy when I brought to you the gospel by which you were saved. Your reception of me and the message I declared to you is ample proof that you did not then see an enemy in me. Am I that now ? I am telling you the truth now. I am insisting on what I taught you then. Can it be that I am an enemy now if I was not then. If, then, you judge me now to be an enemy, what is it that makes me one?

What an irresistible argument! How the Galatian saints must have felt the force of it! Plainly the change was in them, not in the apostle. The real truth is, it was their defection from the truth they once had welcomed with great ardor that determined the present attitude of their minds towards Paul. They judged him to be an enemy, but it was not through any change in him that he had become one. It was through the change in themselves.

But this change in their minds towards the apostle had been brought about through the influence of the perverters of the gospel. Men had come among them who sought recognition, place and authority. To secure this they had labored with great zeal. They wanted the Galatians to be subject to them- to own their authority. They wanted to destroy their confidence in Paul. They wanted to so establish their own authority over them that they could make use of them in maintaining it. They desired to separate the apostle from them thereby to have them the more securely in their own power (verse 17) These self-seeking men were taking advantage of Paul's absence to intrench themselves in the minds and affections of the Galatians. Paul, in the wisdom of the Spirit, exposes them, shows" up their aims and motives. Having done this he reminds the saints of Galatia of their responsibility to continue in the same zeal by which they were characterized at the first. Their zeal then was for "a good thing "-the truth from God. He counsels them to persevere in that zeal, to suffer no man to take advantage of his absence to rob them of the truth and destroy its power in their souls (verse 18).

In verses 19, 20 he concludes the appeal he is here making by assuring them of his unchanged interest in them, of how delighted he would be to be back in their midst in the same happy, blessed way in which he had mingled with them. He lets them know that he is earnestly laboring to the end that Christ may "be formed in them." He had been formed in them at the first, but the development had been interfered with. Growth had been checked and the image of Christ had been shaded. Paul says, I want to see that image so developed that there shall be an uninterrupted reflection of it-a reflection continually increasing in the brilliancy and power of what Christ is. That was the apostle's desire, for that he was striving. Gladly would he be present with them to labor for it. How much happier and more blessed the positive ministry of Christ to the souls of God's people than the service of exposing the work of evil. The apostle did not shrink from this when it was necessary, but the other was more delightful. There was however a need for him to change his voice as he had done. Their folly and delusion made it necessary. Their defection from the truth was cause for real hesitation. It raised serious question. Yet he would have them know how ardently he desired to be with them with the same voice with which in former times he had served them. C. Crain

(To be continued.)