Galatians 4:8 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the apostle reminds the Galatians what they were before they came to faith in Christ, and how great a change the gospel made in them. He does this to show how foolish it was for them to listen to people who wanted to put them back under the bondage of Moses’ law. The law of Moses was the old covenant system given to Israel, with its rules, sacrifices, and ceremonies.

First, he calls them back to their past state. Before the gospel came to them, they did not know God. They were deeply ignorant of the true God and of the right way to worship him. Worse still, they were trapped in the worst kind of slavery, because they served things that were by nature no gods. They gave themselves to many superstitious and idolatrous practices, worshiping beings that were thought to be gods, but were really just creatures, or even things made by human hands, and therefore unable to hear or help them.

This teaches us two things. People who do not know the true God will usually turn to false gods. When people leave the God who made the world, but still want some kind of god, they often end up worshiping something they made themselves. It also reminds us that religious worship belongs only to the one who is God by nature. When Paul speaks against serving those who are by nature no gods, he makes it plain that only God himself is the proper object of worship.

Then Paul points them to the happy change that came through the gospel. Now they had come to know God, meaning they had been brought to know the true God and his Son, Jesus Christ, and so were delivered from their former ignorance and slavery. Or better still, they were known by God. This change did not begin with them. It was the work of God’s free and rich grace. Since he had turned them from idols to the living God and given them adoption as sons, they should have valued their new freedom all the more and held firmly to it.

The truth is, all our knowledge of God begins with him. We know him because he knows us first. That should make us humble and grateful, and it should also make us careful not to give up the grace we have received.

From this, Paul asks how they could be so unreasonable as to let themselves be brought back into slavery. He speaks as one deeply surprised and troubled. How could they, after learning to worship God in the gospel way, be willing to accept the ceremonial way again? How could they, after living under a message of light, freedom, and love, submit again to a system marked by darkness, bondage, and fear?

They had even less reason to do this because they had never been under Moses’ law as the Jews had. That made their turning back more blameworthy, not less. What they were returning to were only weak and beggarly elements, things with no power to cleanse the soul or bring lasting peace to the mind. They were meant only for the church’s childhood, a time of training and waiting that had now passed. So it was all the more serious that the Galatians were giving in to these things again, and joining the Jews in keeping special days, months, seasons, and years.

This warns us that people may make a strong profession of faith and still later fall into serious error. That was happening here. It also shows that the greater God’s mercy has been in bringing a person to know the gospel, and its freedom and privilege, the greater the sin and folly of giving that up. Paul places special weight on this point, that after they had known God, or rather had been known by God, they now wanted to be slaves again under the weak and beggarly elements of the law.

Finally, Paul shows his fear for them, that he may have labored over them in vain. He had spent much effort preaching the gospel to them and trying to confirm them in its truth and freedom. But now they were abandoning those truths, and that made his work seem fruitless. He could not think of that without deep sorrow.

This is a painful truth for faithful ministers, much of their labor may end up seeming wasted, and that grieves them greatly because they care for souls. Their labor is in vain when people begin well in the Spirit but end in the flesh, seeming to start rightly but later turning away from the gospel. Those who receive such faithful labor and still reject it will have much to answer for before God.