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 … . . .