“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 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? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.”
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It seems clear, from what Paul says here, that, so far as the Galatians were con- cerned, their religion had degenerated - or was in the process of degenerating - into an external formalism that was robbing them of all the glorious freedom that was theirs in Christ. As Stott puts it, 'it is no longer the free and joyful communion of children with their Father; it has become a dreary routine of rules and regulations'. It is clear, from what we have already studied in this section, that Paul bases his exhortation on the facts of the situation, the facts of our position as sons of God in the adoption of grace. This is the force of the words in 9, 'But now, after that...ye are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements...?' The great thing for Paul is that we should recognise our position in Christ, and what God has made us in Him. To quote the same commentator again, 'It is not impossible to turn back to the old life: the Galatians had in fact done it. But it is preposterous to do so. It is a fundamental denial of what we have become, of what God has made us, if we are in Christ.'