4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Although the climax of Paul's argument is contained in the closing verses of chapter 3, he continues it here with a further and fuller explanation of what is involved in being a 'minor' as compared with adult freedom. Constraint and discipline and, in a sense, bondage, belong to the one, liberty and fulfilment to the other. The contrast is of course between the time referred to in the phrase 'before faith came' (3:23) and 'the fullness of the time' (4:4) when Christ came forth from God to redeem (this does not, however, mean that before Christ came there was no faith. The saints in the old economy had faith in the promise. This is not Paul's point here, he is simply concerned with the contrast of law and grace. An intriguing thought arises here. It is often said that childhood days are the happiest of one's life. This is a statement Paul would call in question in the natural as well as in the spiritual life, for the reasons which he gives in these verses. Only people who have never experienced the fullness and freedom that years of maturity and responsibility bring to life could ever hark back wistfully to the so-called halcyon days of childhood. Childhood days are for children, not adults, and the poets are deceiving us when they encourage us to return to them in the hope of finding true happiness. To refuse to grow up is to retreat from life, not to find it.