§17 A Reminder of What the Galatians Have Been Liberated From (Gal. 4:8–11)
4:8 / After proclaiming what the Galatians are, Paul reminds them of what they were. In contrast to their present state, in which they know God, the Galatians’ former life was one of slavery to those who by nature are not gods. This may recall Paul’s evangelistic preaching, in which he brought them to a recognition of the one God. Implicit in this description is the contrast between slavery and freedom, which will become an increasingly prominent theme of the letter.
4:9 / Paul again describes and contrasts the Galatians’ present and former life. Reiterating that the Galatians know God, Paul further describes their present life as one of being known by God. A similar concept is expressed in 4:6–7, where Paul claims that the Galatians have been adopted by God and made heirs.
Stressing his incredulity that his readers might be willing to give up so much, Paul asks how they can think of turning back. His question reminds them that their desire to add law-observance brings them nothing new but only returns them to their former state of slavery. Pushing his point still further, Paul describes the principles as the worst kind of masters—weak and miserable. Instead of living in the freedom of children of the one God, the Galatians are being seduced into returning to the service of impotent and grasping masters. For Gentile believers the practice of Judaism is equivalent to their former life of servitude “to those who by nature are not gods.”
4:10 / The accusatory statement that the Galatians are observing special days and months and seasons and years uses the present tense, as does the previous question in verse 9, “do you wish to be enslaved … all over again?” While it is clear from 5:2–11 that the majority of the Galatian believers were not yet circumcised, there is nothing theoretical in Paul’s current statement. Every indication in their behavior leads Paul to fear that his readers are close to taking the ultimate and irrevocable step of becoming circumcised.
It has been suggested that by “months” Paul may be referring to Jewish observance of monthly events, perhaps particularly events in the seventh month (Num. 29; also Num. 10:10; 28:11), and that by seasons Paul refers to Jewish festivals that went on for more than a day (so Burton, Galatians, pp. 233–34). However, it is difficult to fit Jewish cultic practices neatly into Paul’s description of his readers’ practice of observing special times. For one thing, Jewish time keeping referred to “festivals,” not “seasons.”
Honoring of seasons and cycles of the year was part of Celtic religion (A. M. Draak, “The Religion of the Celts,” in Historia Religionum [ed. C. J. Bleeker and G. Widengren; vol. 1; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969], 629–46, esp. p. 644). Given that Paul is saying both that the Galatians are returning to serve the “basic principles” and that they are observing special times, the practice he describes in this verse is likely that of a return to former pagan religious customs, albeit interpreted and reshaped somewhat under the direction of the troublemakers. The rival evangelists may have been encouraging the Galatians to adopt the law on the basis of the principle that Jesus was the Messiah and that the inheritance of Abraham accrued only to law observers. They may also have favorably related the Galatians’ previous pagan rituals with a law-observant life. The option of adding the law to their faith would then appear to the Galatians to be a return to a familiar way of living in the world, one in which the rhythms of the year were observed and celebrated. As Paul writes, he is aware that the Galatians have already given up part of the new way of living that was theirs in Christ and have begun to take on a self-identity more akin to their former paganism—one that feels beholden to the forces of the world and that, in pursuit of security, seeks a defining framework of religious observance.
4:11 / Paul ends this part of his appeal with an expression of anxiety: I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. Throughout the letter Paul has made his emotions plain: he has expressed astonishment (1:6), bewildered concern (3:1–5), and now fear. Paul uses all the resources at his disposal to convince the Galatians that they have all they need in Christ and that to take on law observance is to lose the new, free, and sufficient life into which they have entered.
4:8 / This verse makes clear that the Galatians were pagans prior to conversion to Christ. Paul speaks of pagan gods in a similar way in 1 Cor. 8:5.
4:10 / Cf. T. Martin, “Apostasy to Paganism: The Rhetorical Stasis of the Galatian Controversy,” JBL 114/3 (1995), pp. 437–61; “Pagan and Judeo-Christian Time-Keeping Schemes in and Col. 2.16,” NTS 42 (1996), pp. 105–19, esp. pp. 113–19.
The word observing (paratēresthe) in connection with religious practice occurs only here in the NT. A similar use is found in Josephus, who speaks of Jews observing sabbath days (Ant. 3.91; 14.264).
4:11 / Paul’s concern for the Galatians themselves is evident from the fact that the word you is repeated twice.