the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 5 of 5
Galatians 4:19-31
The apostle is full of distress and perplexity. Is his patient labour so to be brought to nothing? (v. 1). He feels constrained to take up again with the Galatians the very rudiments of the Gospel. Let us seize the opportunity of taking them up again at the same time. For if Paul regrets not being able to be present to teach his children in the faith (v. 20), we can understand the motive underlying this: God wanted to give us this letter.
Nevertheless, you will say, we hardly run the same risk today of putting ourselves again under the law. How little we know ourselves! Every time we smugly assume by our behaviour that God owes us something or other, that is nothing more or less than legalism. Every time we make a resolution without waiting on the Lord, every time that we compare ourselves with others to our own advantage, we show this spirit of self-righteousness, the declared enemy of grace (cf. v. 29). To illustrate this enmity, Paul uses the two sons of Abraham. Isaac, the son of promise, is the only one who can inherit. Ishmael, a child of the flesh, born of the slave Hagar, has no right to the riches and blessings of the father. Do we all belong to the Jerusalem which is above? With Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are we co-heirs of the same promise, the heavenly city (v. 26; Hebrews 11:9-10; Hebrews 11:16)?
