No going back
When we’re crying out for help and we feel that God is not answering us how and when we want Him to, we can become desperate and try get relief elsewhere. This is usually when we try to use good things in a bad way or think we can use bad things for a good purpose. This passage of Scripture highlights how we are lost without Christ, and how we push Him away when we try to add anything to the Gospel. We we place anything before Him we are not adding to Him but risk losing our relationship with Him.
Scripture
Galatians 4:8-11 ESV Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. [9] 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? [10] You observe days and months and seasons and years! [11] I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Bible Study Questions
You never knew Him
Thinking back at the past can be useful to learn from our mistakes or to be grateful for God’s gifts. But here it’s encouraged to remind us of what utter hopelessness prevails without a relationship with Jesus Christ. Is there any other way of knowing God, but through faith in Jesus Christ?
Galatians 4:8 ESV Formerly, when you did not know God,
1 John 2:23 ESV No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
1 Corinthians 1:21-23 ESV For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. [22] For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, [23] but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
You were enslaved to false gods
Instead of gaining so called wisdom from their pagan religion, they were learning from demons, who are liars and have no truth in them. Can we “learn” anything of the truth from the teaching of demons?
Galatians 4:8-11 ESV Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
1 Corinthians 10:20-22 ESV No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. [21] You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. [22] Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
John 8:44 ESV You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
You now know Him
Coming to know God and be known by Him is not an empty pursuit of so called wisdom. It’s entering into a living relationship. How do we come into this relationship? By special knowledge or by faith in the grace of God in Christ alone?
Galatians 4:9 ESV But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
John 17:3 ESV And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Don’t go back to weak and worthless
If we have come into a living relationship with God why would we revert to anything else which is powerless to do so? Trusting in the law to make us right with God is trusting in something which has no power to change our behaviour, and offers no inheritance. It’s weak and worthless, just like the enemy who Christ triumphed over, disarmed and shamed on the cross. Why would we go back to either?
Galatians 4:9 ESV …how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world,
Colossians 2:14-15 ESV by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. [15] He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Do you want to lose your freedom?
We must never forget the power that ruled over us and controlled us before we were set free by faith in Jesus Christ. Do we want to be separated from Christ and controlled by our own lusts and those of the world again? Do we want to be enslaved again?
Galatians 4:9 ESV …whose slaves you want to be once more?
Ephesians 2:11-12 ESV Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— [12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Romans 1:22-25 ESV Claiming to be wise, they became fools, [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. [24] Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, [25] because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
What are you trusting in?
Here evidence is given that the Galatians are backsliding, they are not just yearning for the past, they are returning to it. By observing a host of special Jewish days, they are placing their trusting in their own ability to please God and make themselves right with Him by rituals and effort. This is the same as trusting in their previous pagan religion. It may be a small step but its a deadly one.
Galatians 4:10 ESV You observe days and months and seasons and years!
Colossians 2:16-20 ESV Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. [17] These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. [18] Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, [19] and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. [20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
You will waste everything of any value
What’s at stake when we make small steps towards the world and the religions of the world? What is at stake when we believe we need Christ Jesus plus anything else in order to please God and do His work?
Galatians 4:11 ESV I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Galatians 5:1-4 ESV For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. [2] Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. [3] I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. [4] You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.