Galatians 4:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This question may be briefly resolved by the one who makes use of the well-known passage: "And He was numbered with those who were without the Law."

For although in the Latin codices, through the simplicity of the translators, this place is rendered incorrectly, namely, "and He was numbered with the lawless," one must know that among the Greeks the word used here, ἄνομος, has one meaning.

The word ἄδικος, which is found in the Latin codices, has another meaning. The word ἄνομος means a man living without law and not bound by any right.

The word ἄδικος means an unjust or unrighteous man.

Therefore the Apostle himself says elsewhere: "Though I was not without the Law of God, but was in the Law of Christ" (1 Cor 9:21).

It is beyond doubt that in this testimony ἄνομος is written in Greek. The one who here correctly translated it into Latin with sine lege could have translated the same word there in a similar way.

That is, in Is 53:12, Mk 15:28, and Lk 22:37, he could have done so, if only the ambiguity of the expression had not deceived him.

Another translator will examine more carefully the word "redeem" (Gal 4:5), and will say that the redeemed are people who first were on God's side and afterward ceased to be so.

But those who were not under the Law are not so much redeemed as bought.

Latin: et cum his qui sine lege errant, reputatis est. Compare Is 53:12 in the Septuagint: καί έν τοίς άνόμοις έλογίσθη, and the translation, "and He was numbered with the transgressors" (Is 53:12; Mk 15:28; Lk 22:37).

Latin: et cum iniquis reputatis est; compare Jerome's rendering in the Vulgate: et cum sceleratis reputatus est.

ἄνομος means lawless, impious, criminal.

Latin: iniquus.

Latin: cum sine lege Dei non essem sed in lege essem Christi. Greek: μή ών ἄνομος θεού ἄλλ΄ έννομος Χριστού.

The translation is: "not being outside the Law before God, but under the Law of Christ."

The Latin verb redimere means to buy back, to purchase.

See also the interpretation on Gal 4:4.

They cry to Him, "Our Father," and ask from Him every spiritual mercy as His promised gifts. These are poured out abundantly by the Holy Spirit on all who believe in Christ as the only-begotten Son of God.

According to St. John Chrysostom and others, "The Apostle, having said, 'that we might receive adoption,' showed that it is the portion of the inheritance appointed to us from of old.

"We had not yet received it until now because of the infancy of our understanding."

And Blessed Jerome writes: "That we are sons, the Apostle proves from the Spirit whom we have within ourselves.

"We would never have dared to cry, 'Our Father, who art in heaven,' if we had not recognized within ourselves the indwelling Spirit, who cries, 'Abba, Father!'

"Hence, just as the one who has the Spirit of God is a son to God, so the one who does not have the Spirit of God cannot be called a son to God."

To this Bishop Theophan adds: "As sonship to God is obtained by believers through the Lord Jesus Christ, so the inheritance also belongs to each believer through the same One.

"For this reason, in another place the Apostle calls believers heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17; cf. Eph 1:14).

According to St. Chrysostom's observation, here the Apostle speaks to the Galatians as though saying: "If grace has made us free from slaves, perfect from infants, sons and heirs from strangers, then would it not be senseless and extremely ungrateful to abandon His grace and return to the former condition?"

It is also worthy of mention that, according to Blessed Jerome's explanation, the word "woman" (γυνή), mentioned in verse 4, by the property of the Greek language, means rather a woman, a female person, and not a wife.

This points to Christ's birth without a man, from a woman alone, by the action of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35).

Ambrosiaster explains this keenly, raising his thought to the promise to Abraham: “It was fitting for the Savior to be under the law as Abraham’s son according to the flesh.

The One Who, according to the promise to Abraham, was to come for the justification of the nations by faith had to appear circumcised. He bore upon Himself the sign of the one to whom He had been promised.

After Him no one should be circumcised. For that sign passed from generation to generation only until the promised Restorer of faith came. By that faith Abraham was justified in uncircumcision, receiving circumcision only as a sign of faith.

This faith justified him and was to justify all, so that circumcision would no longer be needed by believers. Abraham was circumcised because he believed that he would have a Son in Whom all nations would be blessed.

Therefore this sign had meaning only until the Promised One came.”

Let us add that circumcision is the root of the law. Where circumcision is, there is the whole law.

“That we might receive adoption.” Here the Apostle discusses the blessings of the Incarnation of the Son of God only in relation to the comparison he has set forth. His thought is to impress upon them that the law has already ceased and has no obligatory force for believers, according to the very appointment of God the Father.

We are sons by God’s election. Yet until the term appointed by our Father, God, we were placed under the law and lived beneath its yoke as though slaves. The term ended. The Father Who placed us under this tutelage sent the Son to dismiss the tutor and bring us into the rights and freedom of sons.

“By saying, ‘that we might receive adoption,’ the Apostle showed that it is the portion of inheritance assigned to us from of old and due to us. We had not received it before because of the infancy of our mind” (Oecumenius; the same is found in Saint Chrysostom and Saint John of Damascus).

The Apostle seems to set forth only the external course of events in the divine economy of our salvation, feeding with milk and not with solid food. Yet the following words (Gal 4:6-7) show that he himself looked more deeply here, as everywhere. He also disposed his readers to enter the same depth after him.

The Son of God came and made us sons. He did not merely declare us sons, but made us so. He gave us authority to become children of God, because in Him we are born of God.

Here sonship is not nominal, but substantial. If we place this thought in relation to the law, we get this course of thought: the law, as a guardian, disciplined outwardly by restraining impulses toward sin.

But when the Son of God came, He bestowed the Holy Spirit. By regenerating believers into new life in Christ Jesus, the Spirit cut off the very impulses and destroyed sin within by grace.

After this, the external guardianship of the law falls away by itself. The law ceases, as the chrysalis breaks when the butterfly has formed and come alive within. The Apostle’s following words about the Holy Spirit show that, in the essence of the matter, this is his main thought, hidden beneath the external history of the event.