Slave Or Free?
SLAVE OR FREE?
GALATIANS 4:26–5:1
We must resist any suggestions by those who want to make us slaves again to rigid adherence to the law.
If the line from Ishmael produces only slavery and misery, how different is the ancestral chain which begins with Isaac whose name is associated with the laughter of rejoicing (Genesis 18:12-15; 21:1-7). We therefore see the appropriateness of quoting Isaiah 54:1 in 4:27.
The reason for such gladness is now explained. From the same patriarch runs also the line of messianic promise (4:23), via Sarah and Isaac to “the Jerusalem above,” ie the heavenly Zion of Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 3:12; 21:2, which is now a present reality in the church. The primary reference in this term is to the kingdom of God, inaugurated by Christ and proclaimed by the church, but not to be identified with it. Rather, it is in the church now that the powers of the age to come are already being felt (Hebrews 6:5) and Christians receive a foretaste of what will be the final blessing of the fully established and perfected rule of God.
The line which Isaac began is one of liberty, which must not be surrendered (5:1), even though there are pressures to yield.
Paul’s conclusion has been reached by way of an intermediate stage in which he shows from the mutual disagreement and eventual hostility between Ishmael and Isaac that the two lines are irreconcilable (4:30). In the same way those who are “children of promise” (4:28,31) must expect to be misunderstood and persecuted by those who cling to Jewish legalism. The hint should be obvious for the first readers to see and act upon: “The Galatians are to drive away Judaizing suggestions” (Grayston).
The section 4:21–5:1 has demonstrated the tension between freedom and slavery. Such a discussion was necessary in view of earlier references to what the Galatians were before conversion (4:3,8) and what is their present status as free children of God. Nothing can alter that, but liberty can be easily lost (Paul warns) by a false acceptance of the persuasions of those who wished to recall them to a state no better than the paganism they had been grateful to leave—the Judaizers’ insistence on the law which meant nothing short of a submission to a “yoke of slavery” (5:1; contrast Matthew 11:28-30; John 8:36).