Slave Under Law or Son Under Grace? (Galatians 4:1-10)

The believers in Galatia were set free from the days, diets, duties, and demands of the law.

They were set free from its rules, rituals, and requirements.

This freedom came when Jesus redeemed them from the law through his death and set them free to enjoy God’s grace, to enjoy knowing God personally as their loving Father.

For the Jewish believers, their previous life of living under the law was like living as a slave.

And for the Gentile believers, life in their previous religious, performance-based system was the same...a slave’s life.

In both systems, people never knew where they stood with God.

In both systems, there were expectations to follow, work to be done, and disciplines to maintain if a person was to avoid the rejection of God and rejoice in the acceptance of God.

Both the Jewish and Gentile religious systems required daily adherence to prescribed requirements for people to feel good about where they stood before God.

If they performed well, they could feel good about how they stood before God.

If they performed poorly, they felt guilty before God.

Yet when Jesus came, he established a new way to relate to God...a way that was foreign to both Jews and Gentiles in their religious systems...a way that set both Jews and Gentiles free from this performance-based, achievement-based acceptance with God, where one day they felt good about their standing before God and the next day they felt guilt.

What was the new way?

Grace!

Grace is relating to God as sons and daughters.

Grace is relating to God guilt-free because Jesus took all our guilt upon himself and gave us his innocence, his righteousness, his forgiveness, bringing us into a close, intimate, loving relationship with God as our loving Father.

In this relationship, we are confident, as sons and daughters, that we are always loved and accepted by God, in fellowship with him (close to God), and forgiven and righteous before him.

This confidence has nothing to do with meeting expectations, maintaining disciplines, or following rules, rituals, or requirements.

This confidence is in Jesus alone.

The people of Galatia were enjoying their freedom in Jesus...their freedom in grace...until the religious leaders from Jerusalem came to their churches and persuaded them to return to the law to earn God’s love, acceptance, forgiveness, righteousness, and fellowship (being close to God).

They went from trusting in Jesus for these to trying to merit them through personal effort.

They went from being sons and daughters under grace and returned to slaves under law.

Sadly, this describes the life of many believers today.

They came to faith in Jesus and were freed by his grace to enjoy God’s love, acceptance, forgiveness, righteousness, and fellowship.

Then a church, ministry, or religious leader persuaded them to begin adhering to a religious system, maintain a set of spiritual disciplines, commit to a certain program, or follow rules, rituals, or requirements to remain in right relationship with God.

If they fulfilled the expectations of this system, maintained the disciplines, committed to the program, or followed the rules, rituals, or requirements, they could feel good about their standing before God.

However, if they did not, they would feel bad...guilty...about their standing before God.

Where once they enjoyed God’s grace and the freedom it produced, they now lived as slaves to the system, disciplines, program, rules, rituals, or requirements.

They went from being sons and daughters to being slaves.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we learn that God doesn’t want us living as slaves to a religious system, set of disciplines, spiritual program, or to rules, rituals or requirements to gain his love, acceptance, forgiveness, and righteousness, or to stay in fellowship with him.

Through Jesus, he provided each of these freely, fully, and forever.

They can’t be gained or earned through personal effort.

They are gifts of God’s grace.

They are received by faith in Jesus.

They are eternally ours.

You are not a slave who is on a performance-based, achievement-based system with God.

Through faith in Jesus, you are a loved, accepted, forgiven, and righteous son or daughter of God your Father, and you are always in fellowship with him through what Jesus has done for you and because his Spirit indwells you.

This is from my commentary on Galatians: Return to Grace