Because there is such a relationship between what Paul was confronting in both Galatia and Colossae, we are going to go to those scriptures in Galatians 4 that people find so objectionable. We are going to start there. And then we are going to go back to the beginning of Galatians and come back up to there.
We are not going to cover every verse here. Let us go back to verse 3. "Even so we—" Now, who is the "we"? When Paul uses this in this kind of context, "we" means "church members." "We" means "Christians"—those of us who are brothers and sisters in the household of God. "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage." Let us go to Ephesians 2.
Here is the same kind of context we find in Galatians 4. "You" in this case very, very likely means Gentiles.
I read that because we need to understand that all of us—Israelite, Gentile, it does not matter who—have been in bondage to Satan and his demons to some degree, some more than others. All slaves, but some more than others.
In Galatians 4:3 he says, "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world."
Who is the "you" here? Again, even the Protestants agree that it was the Gentiles. So let us put these two together. All of us have, at one time or another, been slaves—we have been held in bondage to Satan, sin, and this world. But, as I said, some more than others.
In the case of the Gentiles, they were completely in bondage because there were things from their spiritual lives that were absolutely absent from them. God had made a covenant only with one people. He tells us:
The "you" were Israelites. So those people knew God. The Gentiles did not. The Israelites did know God, and some of their religion (Judaism) came from the Old Testament. Not all of it, but some of it. They were not lacking in knowledge of God. It was not right knowledge. It was very poorly interpreted. And I want to add one more thing.
What is the law of liberty? First of all, it is the Ten Commandments, but we can just consider it broadly as the law of God. Israel had the benefit of the law of liberty. They did not use it rightly, but they did have the benefit of it.
Galatians does put a twist on things, because the Judaizing element in that area is addressed much more strongly than in Colossians. It seems to imply then that the things mentioned here might be the holy days of God. There are, however, some very clear clues that render this view impossible. Hang on to this, because it is important to understanding verse 10.
I have already given you a little preamble. To whom is he primarily speaking? It has to be the Gentile Christians. They were the ones who did not know God. They were the ones who did not have the law of God. They were the ones who worshipped things that were not God. A second area here is that the Jews are consistently shown in the Bible as having God, but turning from Him. There is a big difference there.
A second point: This one has three aspects to it. In verse 3 and again in verse 9, we are confronted with the phrase "elements of the world." This term can mean elementary things. It means things that are put in order. So it can mean things like the "ABCs". But, first of all, there is the phrase "of the world" attached to this. The law of God was not from the world. It was from God! In Luke 2, even the law of Moses was called "the law of God." So it does not say, "the elementary things of God" and it is in the same context of "when you knew not God."
The second big clue under this second point is that they worshipped those things "which by nature are no gods." You put this together with "elements of the world;" and then the "elements of the world" are viewed as personal powers capable of being worshipped and obeyed by people who are ignorant of what they are doing—demons, again.
Paul says, in verse 3, that they were "in bondage under the elements of the world." God's law is not … . . .
The Galatians were Gentile believers who heard the gospel but who were also listening to other teachers who were leading them astray. Those teachers were ensnaring them with a gnostic form of Judaism. I mentioned Galatians 1:4 earlier, which is about Christ’s deliverance from this present evil age. Well, the Galatians were reversing their deliverance. They were turning again to “weak and beggarly elements” and “elements of the world” that would enslave them. The “elements” in these verses refer to demonic principalities.
Notice, though, that their return to bondage was not simply renouncing religion altogether. That seems to be what happened to Paul’s companion, Demas, who loved the present age more than the deliverance God had given him. But the Galatians were different. They were returning to bondage, but it was a religious bondage. It probably felt like enlightenment, and undoubtedly it was exciting as their minds expanded with knowledge. But Paul warns them they would become enslaved again. They would be enslaved to a different set of beliefs than the enslaving ones in their pre-conversion days, so they didn’t see the chains.
Paul gave a similar warning to the Gentiles in Colossae regarding the basic principles or elements of the world. Paul warns the Colossians against being taken captive through a deceitful philosophy that is according to the traditions of men and the demonic principalities behind them (Colossians 2:8). So, they too were in danger of becoming enslaved in a different way from their former bondage, but it was enslaving nonetheless because it was leading them away from Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:20-23).
The lesson is to be cautious with the ideas that we entertain and accept. The simple fact is, there are some adventures, some side roads, that people don’t come back from, even though the path may look like the right one. The road back to Egypt probably won’t look like the one God brought us out on, so we may not realize where we are headed.
In its broadest sense, leaven is a symbol of corruption. It includes sin, but it is not limited to sin because it also includes the ideas, philosophies, and approaches that lead to sin. This connects with what we saw in Galatians. The Galatians (and Colossians) were being influenced by philosophies and doctrines that would lead them into bondage. Leavening was corrupting them, and a new slavery would be the result if they didn’t return to Christ.
