IN Genesis we have the Father. It is the Book of the Patriarchs; and the affections of the Father are displayed and exercised there very beautifully.
Abraham, as well as others in this book, desires a child; and though his house might have been established in a servant, a loved and trusted servant too, Eliezer of Damascus, this will not do for him. As long as he went childless his heart was unsatisfied.
He makes a feast when his son Isaac is weaned. This was his joy, to hear himself addressed as a father; and Sarah will then also have the house cleared of the bondwoman and her child.
Jacob adopts the sons of Joseph, giving them the place and inheritance of the firstborn, and welcoming them with full affection.
These are among the instances which we find, in these early patriarchal days, of the counsel and affections of our Heavenly Father shadowed or expressed in these His representatives in the Book of Genesis. And I may add, there is no law, no Moses, no schoolmaster in this Book. God has the elect immediately under His own hand and eye, dealing with them by home method, so to express it, and not as by the intervention of “tutors and governors.”
The Law came afterward, and then the elect were carried to school, and put under rules and ordinances foreign to the home of the family, treated rather as servants than as children. The head of a school is a schoolmaster.
But the dispensation of the Spirit has now come. The Son Himself has been manifested. He was made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. The elect are now put on the ground of His accomplished redemption, and in the acceptableness of His loved person.
Now, this condition of things is the Father’s delight. There was a need of the schoolmaster for a season; but that need has been answered, and the Father has His child home again. This is not the age of the νηπιος—or the infant, the child that cannot speak, but the age or dispensation of the υιος—son, the elect who have the Spirit, the Spirit of adoption that cries, Abba, Father, filling the house with that music. It is the time of the weaned Isaac, and all that appertains to the bondwoman must leave the house.
This, again I say, is the Father’s delight. The affection of the Father finds occasion to indulge itself to the full.
But the Galatians were disappointing His affection. They were returning to ordinances; and this is contrary to the spirit of adoption, taking the elect from the Father’s house again to put them under tutors and governors, as before, and destroying the free, gracious, confiding communion of children with their Father. They were bringing back Hagar to the house. And it is this which the Spirit so earnestly resents in this part of the Epistle to the Galatians. It is the grieved and wounded bosom of the Father that speaks in this fervent Epistle. Sarah had expressed this resentment in the Book of Genesis, when she said, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son.” That word is quoted here; for here in like manner the Spirit, in the behalf, so to speak, of the Father, expresses the like resentment. Paul would act the part of a parent in this Epistle (see verse 19).
By faith we are justified (Gal. 3:11); by faith we are made children (Gal. 3:26). A return to ordinances or works of law, therefore, reproaches Christ, as though He had not accomplished our justification; but it also silences in our hearts the cry of adoption, and thus disappoints the love of the Father. And it is this which this chapter, with some indignation, resents.
And I do feel that this gives this part of the Epistle a very affecting and beautiful character. It is the resentment, or uttered disappointment of Him who so long ago as the days of Abraham and Sarah, let His elect know this—that no conditions of things as between Him and them would satisfy His heart, but the relationship of a father to those who not only are, but also know themselves to be, children: who are weaned, like Isaac, from the milk of ordinances, and brought home, and to the good of the Father’s table. When our relationship to God becomes the subject with our souls, how commanding it is—at least, if it be a real thing with us. We may be anxious, or merely calmly inquiring, or having found, be joyful; but however such affections may vary, they are commanding.
Look at David, happy in God, when conveying the ark home—what an “object” in the thoughts of others this made him! Look at him again, when under conviction, in the day of Ornan’s threshing-floor, how full of humiliation and yet of self-sacrifice he was!
Look at the congregation of Israel, when happy in God, in the day of the coronation of David, how large-hearted they were—and to the princes of Israel, in the day of dedicating the house of God with David (1 Chron. 12:29).
Look at Peter, in the hour of his conviction, how careless he was whether the boat sank or swam.
And see Zaccheus, interested in inquiring after Jesus, how heedless of the crowd and of the tree he was; and then, when happy in Jesus, how heedless of the injurious speeches of the people!
And thus with the eunuch, when an inquirer, he was not moved by the strange and sudden appearance of a stranger; and then when he was satisfied, he was not moved by the still more strange and sudden disappearing of his companion.
When the Galatians apprehended Jesus at the first, see what manner of “blessedness” was among them (chap. 4.); and when the Hebrews were “illuminated,” what unstinted joy leading to self-sacrifice was in them! (chap. 10.)
Those instances illustrate what I have suggested: when the Lord really becomes the object, how commanding a relation to our hearts He fills and maintains! Others become secondary.