Galatians 4:19 Commentary

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Galatians 4:19

Comments

Paul reminds them that by God’s grace it was he who was used to bring them to the new birth. Addressing them as, ‘My little children’, he uses a diminutive form of a word meaning child, the same affectionate word used by Christ of his disciples in John 13:33. Paul feels for them deeply and who can counsel effectively without letting his affections enter in? He is not afraid to show the concern he feels, for this will help convince them that his admonition is meant for their good.But the situation which presented itself to Paul was a perplexing one. Just as it is not normal for a mother to suffer birth pains and for a baby to be born a second time, so it is not normal for a believer to need to come to the truth a second time, and yet this was what seemed to be happening. Paul was like a mother forced to go through the birth experience a second time. He must do this if he is to be confident of the life of his child. This was a most humbling way of describing the condition of the Galatians. After all they had been through, were they really no further advanced than that? Sadly not. So serious was this error that it was as if they had made no progress at all or had even gone backwards.Their current thinking and behaviour put a question mark over the presence of Christ in their hearts. Christ lives within the hearts of his people; he is formed in us in the sense that he dwells permanently in us by his Spirit. At present Paul could not clearly see Christ in them, yet he had not abandoned his belief in the perseverance of the saints, and he later tells us that he was confident that God would bring them to a better mind (Galatians 5:10).

Application

As Calvin says, ‘this is a remarkable passage for illustrating the efficacy of the Christian ministry.’ The part that Paul describes himself as playing is not a small part. It is as if his pain, his exertion and contractions of spirit, will bring the baby into its new life. We know that elsewhere he was prepared to say of his own work in preaching the gospel, ‘Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?’ (1 Corinthians 3:5), for when ‘contrasted with God, he is nothing’ (Calvin), and yet he dare not shirk his part and fail in his responsibility. From his point of view, he must teach for all he is worth: he must agonize like a mother giving birth. But strangely, it was as if he was now required to go through this pain a second time with all the accompanying agitation concerning the outcome.

Questions

Does he or does he not see them as believers? They had indeed gone through an experience of birth and gave all the signs of new life, but he is not prepared to say on the basis of those signs that, given the present behaviour and disloyalty to the truth, there is nothing to worry about. It is only those who endure to the end who are saved and Paul sees himself as fighting for their salvation all over again. Although he believed in the security of the elect, he could not know with absolute certainty which of them were elect, and yet he pleaded with them in the hope that they would find eternal life.

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Galatians 4:19 Commentary and Bible Study