Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Galatians 4:8-20 ESV

When God first called Jeremiah to be His prophet, the LORD touched his lips and said, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:9-10). But as with the early church, those words did not always come to pass exactly as Jeremiah may have originally hoped. You see, as a prophet of Yahweh, the kings of Judah did not submit to his words and follow his counsel; rather, they treated him as Israel tended to treat Yahweh Himself: with scorn and contempt. As God commanded, Jeremiah warned them of God’s coming judgment against their sin, but the people refused to listen. Instead, they gave their ears to false prophets who promised them peace and security, accumulating “for themselves teachers to suit their passions” (2 Timothy 4:3).

Sadly, that is the natural default setting of the human heart. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Intellectually, we know that is true, but resetting a bone still hurts however good and necessary it might be. Throughout his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul has been logically dismantling the false teaching that his readers were being swayed into, which has included some painful rebukes. Now in our present passage, Paul very much resembles Jeremiah as he laments over the error that the Galatians were accepting and over their rejection of him for speaking the truth of the gospel.

HOW CAN YOU TURN BACK? // VERSES 8-11

Paul’s logical flow reached its climax in our previous passage. After highlighting the purpose and limitations of the law throughout chapter 3, the Apostle concluded that section by emphasizing that the law was like a guardian over God’s people until the time of receiving the inheritance has come through Christ. Indeed, our text ended with the supreme wonder of our adoption through Christ under God the Father. With this greatest of all blessings before own eyes, Paul continues:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, who slaves you want to be once more?

Before knowing Christ, the Galatians were pagans who worshiped as gods things that are not gods. They worshiped a multitude of gods, most of whom embodied particular elements, such as Neptune being god of the sea and Pluto being god of the underworld. On one hand, these deities were nothing, which Isaiah 44 displays poignantly. But on the other hand, the false gods were demonic. Thus, whenever Paul says that they were enslaved to these things that are not gods, that enslavement was often quite blatant. Augustine tells the story of a man who was stricken sick by the gods to have the Roman Senate reinstate a festival of games in their honor and then comments:

Any man in his senses could see that men who were under the sway of malignant demons–a domination from which only the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, could free them–were constrained by force to offer to such gods exhibitions which to a right judgement could only appear disgusting. (City of God, 168)

But while overt demonic enslavement is sometimes the case, many of us before salvation were enslaved to our own desires. Although our wrestling is against forces of evil in heavenly places, our greatest and most treacherous enemy is most often ourselves. F. F. Bruce writes that “from the context it may be gathered that the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου [elementary principles of the world] ‘cover all the things in which man places his trust apart from the living God; they become his gods, and he becomes their slave.'” And because our hearts are idol factories, that can be anything. Money, power, comfort, convenience, entertainment, the list of possibilities is endless. Even good gifts like food and sex enslave us whenever they become our gods.

But that was before we knew God, the giver of “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17). How can demons or simply our own desires still enslave us whenever we know God or, as Paul rhetorically corrects himself, whenever God knows. Of course, the knowledge that Paul means is not simply intellectual but experiential. Being omniscient, God knows everything about us, and it quite possible to learn much about Him. However, in Christ, God now knows us relationally. We are now His children. And we know Him as our Father. Now learning about a loved one is necessary to continue fostering our love for them, but love is fundamentally experiential. For example, I think I can do well on a quiz about my wife’s likes and dislikes, but more importantly, I know the feel of her hand in mine. Likewise, there will be some who wrote articulate treatises on who God is that will hear from Him, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

But even though they were known by God Himself, the Galatians were turning back to their enslavement. Ryken gives a great illustration for how ridiculous this was:

Imagine a tiny baby girl living in an orphanage. A man comes for a visit. As he sees the baby lying in her crib, he loves her so much that he adopts her into his family. She grows up to call the man “Father” because he is the only father she has ever known. But she knows him as her father only because he first knew her as his daughter. This is the love that God has for all his sons and daughters in Christ. Anyone who receives such grace, such undeserved favor, could never go back to the orphanage. Yet this is exactly what the Galatians were trying to do! (171)

In verse 10, Paul notes how the Galatians were turning back to their enslavement: You observe days and months and seasons and years! More than simply being circumcised, the Galatians were keeping the whole Jewish calendar. They observed Sabbaths, new moons, and feasts and festivals. As with circumcision, Paul did not much care about whether a Christian chose to celebrate or not. In Romans 14:5-6, Paul writes:

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

A Christian can celebrate Passover just as much as he can celebrate Advent or Easter. But with any holidays or special seasons, he must do so in honor of Christ and not in an effort to be justified or in judgment of other Christians. But the Galatians were doing just that! Thus, they had left the realm of Christian freedom and entered sinful legalism. And through this legalistic observance, they were essentially returning back to the paganism. Thus, Paul’s statement in verse 11: I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

BROTHERS, I ENTREAT YOU // VERSES 12-20

Paul goes on: Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. This is likely similar to Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that i might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Although Paul could call himself a Hebrew of Hebrews, he did not come to the Gentile Galatians with a Jewish gospel that they must receive. In his meals with them, he freely ate non-kosher food and set aside other Jewish observances, observances that he was fine to keep when fellowshipping with Jews. In Christ, he was free to be all things to all people. He could eat pork or not. Since he became like them, now Paul asks that the Galatians imitate him.

He then adds: You did me no wrong. I think Calvin is right to comment:

This is intended to remove the suspicion which might have rendered his former reproofs more disagreeable. If we think that a person is speaking under a sense of injury, or revenging a private quarrel, we turn away our minds from him entirely, and are sure to torture whatever he says into an unfavourable interpretation. (126-127)

In other words, Paul is clarifying that he doesn’t take their turning away as a personal attack. He is zealous to defend the gospel and for their salvation but not for himself. Indeed, he goes on in verses 13-14 to remind them of how they once treated him:

You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

Much speculation has been made over what exactly Paul’s bodily ailment was, and many have wondered whether it was the same as the thorn in his flesh that he mentions in 2 Corinthians 12:7-8. Quite simply, no one knows. Perhaps it was an illness that stopped him in Galatia and providentially led to him preaching the gospel to them. Whatever it was, Paul’s condition was severe enough to be a burden upon the Galatians. Ryken writes:

This suggests that whatever Paul’s illness or injury may have been, it was unsightly, perhaps even visually repulsive. As a result, it would have been easy for the Galatians to be turned off by Paul’s appearance. His deformity actually posed a temptation for them. Here it helps to know that most ancient Greeks considered disease and disability to be signs of divine displeasure, or even demonic influence. When Paul says that the Galatians did not despise him (Gal. 4:14), he literally says that they did not spit at him, as pagans usually did when they saw someone they thought was disfigured by a demon. (174)

Instead, they welcomed Paul as if they were caring for an angel from heaven or even Jesus Himself. Of course, that is exactly how we ought to be hospitable to any of our brothers and sisters in Christ. If any angel were to visit us, we would certainly give him the welcome that Abraham did. An angel, however, shines with the heavenly glory of God, but we now have God the Spirit dwell within us. We each belong to Christ’s earthly body and are co-heirs with Christ as sons and daughters of God. Amen! Let us, therefore, serve one another according, for Christ is in our midst.

In fact, he goes on in verse 15 to say: What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Even though Paul’s condition was a trial upon the Galatians, they counted themselves as blessed for being able to care for the apostle. Indeed, Paul would be ready on solemn oath to testify that the Galatians would have given their very eyes to him, if eye transplants had been possible. Some have proposed from this verse that Paul’s ailment was related to his eyes. But it is better to simply understand Paul as saying: “You would have given me your most precious possessions; you would have given me the very eyes out of your heads” (Bruce).

Despite such a warm and compassionate history with one another, Paul now asks in verse 16: Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question that he is wanting his readers to consider. If they continued to listen to the Judaizers, they would reject Paul’s ministry as an apostle, the gospel that he proclaimed, and the apostle himself. They and Paul would become enemies. But Paul emphasized that he has no intent on being their enemy. He will stand firmly upon the truth of the gospel and will not be moved from it. If they come to see Paul as their enemy, it is because they have changed, not Paul. Indeed, they will become enemies of the truth.

Paul’s refusal to tell the Galatians anything but the truth may have been unpleasant for them to hear, but it was ultimately loving. With regard to parenting, Proverbs 13:24 says, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” As we will see in verse 19, Paul sees himself as their spiritual father, who is disciplining them for their own good.

The false teachers, the Judaizers, did not follow that pattern. Instead, they make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. Of Paul’s wording, DeSilva writes:

The verb generally speaks of admiring people with a view to imitating them and thereby acquiring the good reputation or success that they had also enjoyed. Here it carries the sense of “making a big deal of someone,” “showing earnest interest in someone,” hence “courting.” The verb is used both to speak of the behavior of men and women pursuing one another and of the relationship of teachers and students, both of the teachers’ quest for followers and of the followers’ attachment to their teachers. (90-91)

They were courting the Galatians, evidently through flattery. While this no doubt made the Galatians feel good, it was all a ploy. Unlike Paul, they were not speaking the truth in love for purpose of building one another up in Christ. Instead, like all flatterers, they were fanning the flames of pride in the hearts of the Galatians so that they would think little of Paul and his ministry and think highly of them and their ministry. That was, of course, how the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day became more popular than him. Like Paul, Jeremiah preached the necessity of repentance, which has never been a warmly received message.

And that is still the pattern of many false teachers today. Their messages are full of affirmation and encouragement. They make much of their hearers, knowing that their hearers will then make much of them.

Ministers who are faithful to God’s Word often tell people things that they don’t want to hear. (Truth be told, they sometimes preach things they themselves don’t want to hear either.) But if it really is God’s message, God’s true children rejoice to hear it. They know that if their loving Father is telling them something they would prefer not to hear, it must be for their own good. (Ryken, 176)

That is why churches must bind themselves to God’s Word.

It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you… Courting someone is not an inherently sinful practice. In fact, it can be a wonderful thing. But only when done with the actual good of the person being courted in mind. The same applies with how the Galatians were being courted by these false teachers. Affirmation and encouragement are not sinful in and of themselves. Indeed, when properly applied, it is like a cup of cold water on a summer’s day. Indeed, by saying not only when I am present with you, he likely means that he is glad for other teachers to continue the work that he began with them. Paul would have been joyful to see the Galatians being courted by teachers who had their best interests at heart. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

My little children, for whom I again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Paul concludes our passage with an emotional outpouring of his confusion over the Galatians. Again, notice his parental tone and wording. He compares his anguish over the Galatians to the anguish of childbirth, which is heightened by his distance from them. If he were physically present with them, he could spend whatever hours, days, or weeks were needed to help them see the errors of their ways, but he is not with them. And it is right that we would be so emotionally invested with one another.

Yet notice what Paul’s goal in all of this is. Remember that the goal of the Judaizers was to be made much of by the Galatians. Paul’s goal, however, was not for the Galatians to make much of him; instead, he desired for Christ to be formed in them. This is very opposite of the legalism that they were being swept into. The Galatians were being deceived by being told all of the various steps that they needed to follow in order to be true Christians. If they did the right things and did them well enough, then God would accept them. But as Henry Scougal once said,

True religion is quite another thing. Those who are acquainted with it will entertain far different thoughts about it and avoid all false imitations of it. They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God. It is a participation in the divine nature. It is the very image of God drawn upon the soul. In the apostle’s words, it is Christ formed within us. (29)

That is Paul’s great hope for the Galatians, and it is the Spirit’s purpose in both inspiring and preserving it for us today. The goal of the Christian life is for Christ to be formed in us, for us to more and more resemble Him. Indeed, becoming like Christ is the greatest good that the Father can give to us. Being triune, God eternally loves, enjoys, and glories Himself as the supreme Good. The Father loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Son and the Spirit. The Son loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Father and the Spirit. And the Spirit loves, enjoys, and glorifies the Father and the Son. In an act of pure grace, God created us to share in His eternal joy in Himself. We, therefore, most image God whenever we love, enjoy, and glorify Him, in the same way that He loves, enjoys, and glorifies Himself. We least image God whenever we turn our love, enjoyment, and glory inward upon ourselves.

As Christ is formed in us, we are being remade into the image of Christ, who is the only person to ever fully and perfectly image God (see Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3). Indeed, we are being born again into new and everlasting life in Him, for the purpose of sharing in His eternal love by enjoying and glorifying Him forever.

As we come to the Table before us, let us meditate deeply on this wonderful mystery. Let forsake the multitude of weak and worthless idols that continuously vie for our attention, and let us hold fast to Christ, who became like us in order to make us like Him, taking the form of a man so that through His Spirit He could be formed in us. Through this bread and cup, may we taste and see the goodness of our God and King.