விரிவுரை தற்போது ஆங்கிலத்தில் மட்டுமே கிடைக்கிறது. தமிழ் மொழிபெயர்ப்பு நடைபெறுகிறது.
Galatians 4 — Abba, Father
Paul continues the legal-status argument with a household analogy: even an heir is no different from a slave until the appointed time. When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. The Spirit of the Son cries in our hearts, Abba, Father. Paul pleads tenderly with the Galatians not to return to the bondage they have been delivered from, and closes the chapter with an extended allegory of Hagar and Sarah representing the two covenants.
“And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”
— Galatians 4:6
- v.1-7 No longer a servant, but a son — and an heir
- v.8-11 How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements?
- v.12-20 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again
- v.21-31 Hagar and Sarah — two covenants, two cities, two mothers
Two purposes — redeem (purchase out) and adopt (place as son). The Roman practice of adoption gave the adopted son full legal rights as if natural-born. So with believers: not merely forgiven, but installed as sons.
Notice the order: because ye are sons, the Spirit is given. The Spirit comes not to make us sons but because we already are.
Abba — Aramaic, the intimate child's word for father. Jesus used it in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). Now the same word rises from every believing heart, by the same Spirit.
The personal possessive of the whole inheritance: heir of God. Not merely heir of certain blessings God gives. Heir of God Himself.
Paul corrects himself mid-sentence — or rather are known of God. The deeper truth: that He knows us is more foundational than that we know Him.
Weak and beggarly elements — the religious rules to which the Galatians wanted to return. Paul reframes them not as advance but as regression.
A glimpse into Paul's early ministry in Galatia — perhaps the infirmity of the flesh (v.13) involved his eyes. The Galatians had loved him with extravagant tenderness. He asks where that blessedness has gone.
A pastoral lesson: when affection has drained out of a relationship, it is worth naming, gently.
The verse pastors will return to all their lives. Truth-telling can make even a loving correction feel like an attack. The verse does not bid truth's retreat; it bids us tell it with more love, not less, and accept that some will misread it.
Travail in birth again — the labor of pastoral love. Paul is not satisfied that the Galatians were born again once; he wants Christ formed in them — His character settled visibly into their lives.
The verse defines pastoral aim: not church size, not Christian busyness, but Christ-formed people.
The allegory: Hagar = the old covenant, Mt. Sinai, the earthly Jerusalem, slavery. Sarah = the new covenant, the heavenly Jerusalem, freedom.
Jerusalem above — the New Testament's vocabulary for the believer's true homeland (Heb 12:22; Rev 21:2). It is not a place we go to one day; it is already our mother.
Pray verses 6-7 today. Abba, Father — I am no more a servant, but a son. Let the word Abba be on your lips when you turn to Him; let the phrase no more a servant free you when guilt presses to be paid off again. The relationship is filial, not contractual; act like it.
Christ is the Son who became under the law so that we — under the law — could become sons. Every verse of the chapter's first half pivots on Him. Because ye are sons — He is the reason. Abba — He used the word in Gethsemane so we could use it forever.
Fulness of the time — the precise historical moment, prepared by God: Greek language for the gospel, Roman peace for the missionary roads, Jewish synagogues scattered for the preaching, messianic expectation at high water.
Made of a woman, made under the law — the Incarnation in seven words. He became fully human and fully Jew, born under the very law He came to fulfill.