Galatians 4:8-11
- David Fairchild
- Oct 22, 2006
- Series: Galatians
TEXT
Galatians 4:8-11: "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 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? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain."
INTRODUCTION
We are continuing our study of Galatians and find ourselves now working in chapter 4. We're only going to look at four verses this morning because it is an important point that Paul is making, but is easily missed at first glance.
This is a very powerful passage but not all that easy to interpret because of the Greek that is used. We have no easy equivalent in our modern English. When translators or commentators handle this passage, there is usually some quick nod of the difficulty of the passage, but there are not many that have chosen to elaborate and plumb the depths of this passage because it sounds so incredible if it really is saying what it seems to be saying. I have to admit it is really startling.
If I were to ask what is so amazing about this passage, you might just look at me like a deer in headlights because it just doesn't seem obvious. Truth be told, were it not for greater preachers and scholars than I, I would have missed it as well, so please make sure that you continue to support the elders' study so that we don't stay thick-headed and miss these beautiful truths to feed you with!
You know the history of Galatians: Greek Christians were converted from a Pagan background and they were wanting to grow and mature in Christ. At a critical time of their maturation process, teachers came and attempted to woo them into their form of sanctification, which was essentially teaching that in order for us to truly grow in our acceptability to God, it is not enough to only accept Christ, we have to adopt and observe certain days and months, certain seasons and festivals as well as obeying all of the Mosaic moral and ceremonial laws and be circumcised. Jesus is not enough because we also have to obey everything in the Bible to gain our Father's favor since this is how Jesus did it. Jesus is seen as an example for what we should do more than a substitute for what we could not have done. He's seen as the teacher and rabbi who sets a pattern for how to win God's favor, rather than the only One who kept the Law and whose righteousness is given to us as a free gift by faith alone. If we fall back into this way of thinking (according to these false teachers) we are going to go back to slavery under the bondage of non-gods.
Paul addresses this in a powerful way in this passage starting with verse 8.
STUDY
Verses 8-9: "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 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?"
We need to ask three questions when coming to this passage:
- 1- What are the non-gods? Who are they?
- 2- How do they enslave us? How have they enslaved in the past (before conversion) and how do they enslave in the present and future as Christians if we're not careful.
- 3- How can we be free from them?
In this brief little passage, all these questions are answered for us by Paul.
#1- What are the non-gods?
Let's take a look at the first question: What and who are the non-gods?
This isn't easy so you'll have to stay alert as we're talking about this. I think the payoff will be incredible though, so please think this through.
Paul uses a term verse 9 that is hard to explain. He says, "how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world...?"
This same word is used in verse 3 that we looked at last week. It says in verse 3, "In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world."
This is such a difficult phrase, as I mentioned earlier, we're not really sure exactly how to translate it. If you read the different versions, you're going to have different renderings of this text because they are all trying to concisely convey the meaning.
The Greek word is stoicheion. It is the stoicheion of the world (kosmos). The NIV renders it "basic principles of the world." In the RSV it is rendered the "elemental spirits of the world." In the KJV it is "the elements of the world."
One way to understand this word is to trace its historical usage or etymology. Etymology looks at what the original root word meant. The problem is that the etymology doesn't tell us how the word was or currently is used, it just gives the root meaning. For instance, we use the word "awful" to describe something that is distasteful or disgusting. Yet the historical usage of the word meant something entirely different. It was spelled "aweful" and meant to be filled with awe and respect. Obviously this means something different today.
So many commentators come to this and look at the etymology. If we were to do that, the meaning would simply be the "ABCs of the universe." Nobody translates it that way because it doesn't make much sense to us. It meant the basic principles instead of the advanced. So, many commentators attempt to explain this by saying that it means that Paul was saying that the Pagan religion they once believed in was primitive and very basic, but now they've come to Christianity which is far more advanced and progressive. In other words; don't go back being primitive, stick with the advanced. This is a much easier translation, and it certainly makes us feel good about our religion, but it really isn't what's being said. Paul isn't a religion snob in the sense of calling others to believe in something simply because it's more current or progressive.
Paul doesn't call these the, "elementary principles of religion," he says the, "elementary principles of the world." These "basic principles" in verse 9 are understood best by verse 8 where Paul teaches that we are enslaved to those things which are by nature are not gods. This means something that is treated as a god, but is not a god.
It isn't that we just have a more advanced religion, it has come down from heaven and therefore is off the charts. We can't put it in merely human categories. So what is he saying? He's using the other meaning of the Greek word. The way the word was often used is explained by the beliefs of the Pagans. For them, behind everything in the universe, there was some god. Behind the earth, wind, fire, moon, stars, fertility, and agriculture, there was a deity to them. Baccus was the god of the party. Aries was the god of war. Aphrodite was the god of sexual love and beauty. Everybody had their own personal or pet god. The stoicheion were behind every created thing, and they were worshipped. Farmers would sacrifice to the agriculture god; sailors would praise and sacrifice the sea god. It was a relationship purely for the person's benefit of keeping fate in check, or for luck. Paul is speaking about this very thing.
He views any basic thing-whether it's making money, having sex, keeping a family, owning a home, plowing a field, mountains, nature, trees, whales, the sea, or anything-can be and is worshipped and treated as a god. Paul says the only alternative to the gospel is idolatry. No one is an unbeliever. There is no such thing as an irreligious person.
You either believe in the true God or you are a slave to a non-god. Every human culture void of the One True God does not become atheistic; it becomes idolatrous. We will always worship something by treating it as a god when it's not.
This is really, really important. When this begins to dawn on you, it will change the way you handle yourself, your sin, how you counsel others, how you speak about God and view humanity. It certainly has affected me and how I preach and teach the Word of God.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
God chooses to take ten things and boil down how He sees how we're to view and worship Him and how we're to treat one another. He expresses His moral character in a way that is summarized by the Laws He institutes to show how we're to relate to Him and one another. Of course there are more than just the 10 commandments as we read the rest of the Law in the Old Testament, but as it relates to a clear explanation of His moral law, He chooses these 10 things for us to know what it means to be truly human.
He boils this all down and the first two are about idolatry. If you go to God and ask Him how He wants you to live your life and relate to Him, the first two things He'll speak to you about is idolatry.
In the Old Testament, idols were more obvious and ubiquitous, but in the New Testament, they are more difficult to find and more subtle, yet still very active.
One very interesting place to get a hint about the nature of idols is in 1 John chapter 5. 1 John is a five-chapter letter and in it He writes to Christians about living in the light, living in love, and living in God-living a holy life, how you can be holy to others, and how you can live a holy life before God. It is a short, compact, powerful and direct letter and the Apostle John finishes his first letter with this short and final verse:
1 John 5:21: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen."
This is the first time this has come up in this entire letter. He's said nothing previously about idols. There is nothing to be found. Either he is a terrible writer and throws this in at the end as an extra post script that has nothing to do with the letter, or the only possible way to understand this is that John is giving us a summary of everything he's said. He's basically saying that if you've ever failed to live in light, ever failed to live in love, or ever failed to love in God in any way, it all comes from idolatry. To say, "keep yourself from idols," is a summary statement of everything he's said.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this when commenting on this passage:
"John is teaching us that the greatest danger that confronts us is not a matter of deeds or actions but of idolatry. This might sound strange to some who think we need to be warned about doing certain things. But our deeds and our actions are always outcomes of our attitudes and thoughts, so John takes the same procedure as the 10 commandments and all the Scriptures always start like this- they always say the greatest danger is idolatry."
The 10 commandments start with 1: Have no other God's before me, and 2: Make to graven image. Why are they the first two? What Dr. Lloyd-Jones, the Apostle John, and the rest of the Bible are saying is that if you ever break commandments 3-10 it's because you've broken commandments 1 and 2. The reason you're doing what you do in sin, the problems that you're having, the reason for any flaw or any brokenness in your life is always idolatry. That's the principle here in this passage.
The only alternative to worshipping the True God in purity is idolatry, and the reason we ever fail to do that is idolatry. This is incredibly profound.
When you fail to be like Jesus. When you fail to be honest, gentle, merciful, forgiving, gracious, generous or noble, something is at work. Why are you lying? Why are you so rude to people? Why are you so unmerciful when someone makes a mistake? Why are you so unforgiving? Why do you give so little grace? Why are you so stingy in your giving and generosity? Why are you so cowardly instead of noble and courageous? Why are you bitter or anxious? Why are bored or despondent? Why are you being so selfish?
The way we usually respond is by saying that we do these things because we're sinners. Though this is true, it is cheap. On the one hand your admission of being a sinner seems to indicate you are totally powerless or not responsible for your actions. It is used as a copout for your actions or attitude. When you say, "What can I do, I'm just a sinner?" what you're really saying is, "Please don't hold me accountable, I can't help it," or, "It's just the way I am."
But what this is telling us, and what the 10 commandments teach us is that when we fail at anything it's because something is an idol. Whenever you have blown it, instead of saying, "What can I do, I'm a sinner?" you should say, "What have I placed such importance on that it has replaced God? What is in the place of God that is causing me to do this or that?" Now that will revolutionize your living, acting and thinking about why you do what you do.
For the first time you'll be able to make changes in your life because you are appropriately diagnosing the reason for your behavior, rather than just managing the behavior itself. This is why secular counseling can be so destructive at times. The counselor can not appropriately diagnose the reason for your actions. They can not go beyond the actions to the cause and flesh out the idol, so instead, they give you a new diet, a new drug, or tell you to get a job or start working out. When it comes to the cause, they are left only with your body and not with your worship. It begins with what you're giving yourself to in worship, and ends with behavior that is consistent to the god you worship. If this god is a non-god, an idol, your life and behavior will eventually show it.
Instead of wailing on you and saying, "don't do this," or, "don't do that," we can say, "why are you doing this?" or, "why are you thinking that?" The answer will always be because something other than Jesus has claimed the functional title to your heart. Something besides God is your beauty. Something besides God is your highest good or delight. Something besides God is being adored. Idolatry is under every sin, without exception. It is the only alternative to knowing God in purity.
So then the definition for idolatry, according to Martin Lloyd-Jones is this:
"An idol is anything in my life that occupies the place that should be occupied by God alone. An idol is anything that is central to me. An idol is anything that seems to me essential or absolutely necessary. An idol is anything upon which I live, and anything upon which I depend. An idol is something that holds such a controlling position in my life that it moves and rouses and attracts me so easily that I give my time, attention, and money to it effortlessly."
When you put it this way, you begin to see why Paul uses the word stoicheion. Idols are not necessarily bad things in and of themselves. Idols are not necessarily sins (at least they don't start out that way).
Idols are good things that are made into being the best thing. Idols are basic things, stoicheon-sex, food, drink, recreation, housing, clothing, personal health, or a multitude of other things that are good on their own but have been turned into something that you have to have, which becomes an idol. That's what causes you to do what you do and makes you such a mess.
When something good becomes the best, it becomes a deity in your life and therefore it becomes a demonic idol that promises you what it will never eternally deliver. It is why you are the way you are.
#2- How do they enslave us?
Notice that Paul says a couple of times that they'll enslave you. How though?
In the Bible, the way idols control us is best described by a word that is used again and again in Scripture but we often don't connect the dots and see them together.
It's the Greek word epithumiai (inordinate desires). It is used in Galatians 5:16, which we'll get to in a few weeks, Ephesians 2:3, 4:22, 1 Peter 2:11, 4:2, 1 John 2:16, James 1:14, and is the catch-all for what is wrong with us. It literally means "over desire" but no one really knows how to translate it.
"The New Testament merges the concept of idolatry and the concept of inordinate, life-ruling desires...for lust, demandingness, craving and yearning are specifically termed ‘idolatry' (Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5)."
-David Powlison
The old translations used to translate it as lust, but when you think of lust you think of sex. The new translations use the term "sinful desires" but that is so broad and general and most people think of that word as having to do with lust and sex.
In the Bible, the word lust doesn't mean necessarily an over-desire for something evil as it does more an over-desire for something good. Lust in the Bible is not a normal desire for something evil, it's an over-desire for something good and idols create it.
You can lust after fame, or you lust after love, or you lust after achievement, or you lust after your children's happiness. An idol comes in and says, "if you have me then you'll truly be happy." It creates a delusion by which we take a normal or good desire and turn it into something enslaving. It turns them into drives and motivations. It turns them into a chain that shackles us to make us a slave.
Whenever you find yourself feeling as if you have to sin, like you can't stop yourself, always look for the chain of the idol.
Some people say, "I'm bitter and I can't get rid of the bitterness. I know it's wrong, but I can't stop it." The reason you are bitter, and the reason you are enslaved to bitterness is not because that person did something to you, even if what they did was terribly wrong, the problem is what your heart is making of the thing you've lost when that person robbed you of something. Since that person took something from you, the reason you can't get past your anger or bitterness is not what they did, it's because you feel like you have to have what you've lost and you can never forgive him or her for what you've lost. The only reason you can't love someone or the reason you break one of the commandments is because you're breaking 1 and 2. Is it respect, trust, confidence, a boyfriend, or a feeling that you've idolized that has been taken and now you can't forgive? The idol has to be destroyed by Christ. How about another example:
Sometimes people hate themselves, can't forgive themselves, and have a terrible self-esteem or self-image. They are riddled with guilt. This is very common in the Christian church because of all the pressure we put on one another to live up. It's very typical for someone to say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself." What is the response we should give? The reason someone is locked in guilt, a poor self-image, is not really because of guilt. The reason someone is gripped with guilt is because of what your heart is making of the thing you failed to do. If you've failed because of a lack of discipline and have blown your career, if you've failed because you blew a relationship, if you've failed because your kids are not respectful or godly and you feel guilty because of your failure, and you just hate yourself, what is at play is the idol in your life which says that if you would have gotten the promotion, or kept that person you cared about, or raised kids you could be proud of, then you would be truly satisfied, truly happy, truly peaceful, truly content. It is what your heart is making of the thing you think you have to have.
Lust is not a normal desire for something evil (though that's wrong), the root of our problem is an over-desire for something good created by our idol.
The verse basically says you were once a slave to idols, do we foolishly want to be enslaved again by these gods that are not gods? Have I been wasting my breath on you?
This is pretty amazing to think about. What were the Galatians before coming to Christ? They were Greek Pagans and were incredibly loose with their morals and lifestyle. They were pretty buck-wild. By Biblical standards, they were sleeping with everyone, were drunks, gluttons and whores. They were worshipping little statues, like in the movie Gladiator. They had physical idols that were carved images they bowed down to worship. They were hating and being hated, as Paul says in other letters. But what is Paul saying to them in this letter? What were they being tempted and drawn to? Teachers were coming to them and telling them if they wanted to be holy and accepted, they need to be absolutely moral and strictly follow God's word and not stray from its demands. They were being tempted into a biblical legalism. Before they were having sex in the streets and now they're moving to an absolutely rigorous program of denial and obedience to biblical detail to seek God's favor.
How does Paul deal with this? He says they are doing nothing but going back to where they were. How could he say that? This is incredible. Paul would dare say that by being incredibly biblical, and incredibly moral, and having all your I's dotted and your T's crossed, and being outwardly pristine and pure, you will be just as enslaved to idols as you were when you were sleeping with everyone in a drunken bash.
Paul is saying that you can either be your own lord and savior through your freedom to do and say whatever you want without regard to God, or you can become your own lord and savior by trying to win favor by working really hard to impress God. Ultimately you're refusing the Gospel and therefore refusing Jesus. You're finding a religious way to avoid Jesus, which is the most dangerous way of avoiding Jesus because it looks so good. You're just trying to earn your own salvation and Paul nails it by saying it's just another form of slavery and idolatry. Either way you're doing the same thing.
Instead of following Christ, you can avoid Him by following Christianity. Think of the story of the prodigal son and elder brother. The prodigal is like the older Galatians who were sinning outright without a care. Licentious and not hiding it. The elder brother was very good and very moral and very religious and stayed very close to the father and did everything he asked. Yet the whole point of the parable was that neither of them understood the father. Neither of them understood grace. Neither of them related to the father the way he desired. Both of them wanted to control the father. This is what idolatry does, it causes us to want to control everything in our lives, including God. The point Jesus makes is that they were both equally lost. At the end of the parable the younger one enters the father's heart. The father had two sons, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and in the end Hyde goes in and Jekyll will not go in.
The point is that religious slavery is worse because you don't know you're dead and estranged when you do everything the father seems to ask of you. You think you're alive by the things you do, and instead you are far from the father's heart.
Lastly,
#3- How can we be free from the non-gods that enslave us?
We'll cover this again in chapter 5 of Galatians at a later time. But let me just end with this.
Paul says this in verse 9:
Verse 9a: "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God"
Here it is! Paul is teaching us what is primary. What makes you a Christian? Is it that you found God and you pray, etc. Paul is saying that what ultimately makes you a Christian is that God knows you, God loves you, God has chosen you, He came to die for you while you were yet a sinner, and God has poured out His grace upon you.
Paul is explaining how to deal with idols here. He touches on this in 1 Corinthians 4:
1 Corinthians 4:3-4: "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me."
Any idol will make you a slave to someone's judgment. If you're a people-pleaser, you'll be held a slave to how others feel about you. If you're religious, you'll want everyone to think you're godly. What Paul is saying is that your performance and popularity means nothing. All that matters is that God knows you. It's what God thinks of you. It's what God feels about you in Jesus Christ!
Paul thinks about this all the time. He's not up and down because he's focusing on the thing that's most important. My opinion and the opinion of others can be up and down daily, but God's opinion of me is unchanging. He will never forsake you.
Yet this verse also shows us that we need to know Him, too. We need to experience His grace and know His love for us. Telling ourselves the truth is good, but the goal is not just to have minds filled with knowledge, but hearts filled with His love. The Father's desire is that you would see Him with the eyes of your heart. It's not enough to just tell yourself the truth if you don't sense His love for you. The truth is good and we should preach it to ourselves, but this will only work for a while. The thing that will remove our idols will be the replacement of the love of God in our hearts so that we no longer desire those things that are non-gods.
You can't just casually pursue God in prayer or in the study of His word, not if you want to see these idols toppled. The Gospel has an expulsive power to it that can remove the most stubborn of idols if we believe not only with our intellect, but see that our emotions are gripped by Him.
When you identify an idol, you must see that the only One strong enough to remove the idol is Christ Himself. And the way Christ removes this idol is by taking the place that it once occupied, the seat of your desires and affections. The desire of Christ is that you would be His and He would be yours. This is what Christ came to die for. This is what He left His throne for-to remove the separation between you and the Father so that you might have Him. Go to Him on His terms and know that He won't cast you out. This is His desire, written in His commandments and accomplished by the Son upon the Cross.
Know that the only eyes in the universe that you need approval from, love you and sees you as fully accepted. He is pleased with you and He says to you, "this is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased."
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