The Jew had been under the law until the fullness of time, when God sent forth His Son "to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Now, being sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts "crying, Abba, Father." No longer are we servants but sons, also heirs of God through Christ. Before the coming of Christ the Jew was like one who was not yet of age, as a servant who took orders from a father.
If sin had entered the creation by the woman, Christ came also by the woman. If man by the law was under condemnation, Christ also put Himself under law. He assumed the place in which man was by nature. This responsibility Christ alone has met. He came also to redeem us.
Paul wondered why the Galatians would turn to the law of Moses to further be in bondage after having known God. Their observing of days, months, and years caused Paul to be afraid of them. The observing of any day (except the Lord's day) which has a religious origin or character is contrary to Christianity.
Paul asked if he had labored in vain and begged them to be as he was, free from the law. He told them, "Ye received me as an angel of God.... Ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy?" "Where," he asks, "is the blessedness?"
These false teachers labored to have the saints come to their side, and to draw them away from the apostle. Paul labored again as though travailing in birth until Christ was formed in them anew.
To those who desired the law the apostle gave the example of Abraham's family where there were two sons, one by the bondwoman, the other by a free woman. The one by the bondwoman was by the flesh, the one by the free woman, by promise.
This allegory presents two covenants, one from Sinai, bondage, which is Agar, that compares with Jerusalem which was in bondage (to the law) with her children. The Jerusalem above is free, "which is our mother." The desolate woman, Abraham's seed, of faith, will have more children than the married-Judaism. We are the children of promise.
There was persecution on the part of the one born after the flesh, persecuting him who was born after the Spirit, and so it is now. The bondwoman was cast out, and we are of the free woman.
The assembly was not a promise but the result of the counsels of God of which the promises had never spoken. Really, the truth of the assembly, of which the apostle does not yet speak, is higher than the promises.