The institutions of the law were adapted to man in the flesh. A magnificent temple, beautiful vestments, a God present to the senses upon earth, though man was not permitted to draw near to Him, trumpets, visible sacrifices; all these things were ordained that man in the flesh might be in relationship with God, according to the elements of the world, which are suited to man in the flesh. Christians are a heavenly people, they see not the objects they adore, except by faith. God is worshipped in spirit and in truth, not with bulls and goats. The Spirit reveals to them that which they see not; they know that Christ is ascended into heaven, having finished the work which the Father gave Him to do; and the heart rises up into the heavenly temple, by the grace of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, there to adore God.
Thus before redemption and the gift of the Spirit the heirs themselves were as children, bound to accomplish an external worship, to offer beasts. The cleansing was an external purifying of the body by water, the sacrifices—types for the time then present—could not purify the conscience from sin; they were not offerings of praise, and thanksgiving, and adoration, founded upon the accomplished sacrifice of Christ. It was all “the elements of the” world,” which were adapted to man in this world.
Every religion accomplished in external ceremonies, and composed of such things, is but “the elements of the world,” and resembles heathen worship. The favor of God is sought by means which an unconverted man can use, quite as well as, or even better than, one that is converted; for his conscience does not make him feel that these things cannot cleanse the soul. Those who seek to obtain righteousness by works are greatly irritated against those who have peace with God through faith, for this declares all their labor to be in vain. There was but one city where the Gentiles persecuted Paul in which the Jews did not stir them up to do it. They boasted in what man could do, and maintained their own glory; they were not willing to see it trampled under foot. But faith gives the glory of salvation to God, and seeks in a new life, the spring of which is love, to glorify Him by obedience and the fulfillment of his will.
The law was, then, a schoolmaster until Christ, the promised Seed. In its forms and in its ceremonies it resembled the religion of the Gentiles. God, while ever maintaining the perfect rule for the conduct of man and the unity of the Godhead, yet condescended to adapt Himself, in the worship He ordained, to the ways of the spirit of man, coming near to him, in order to make manifest whether it were possible for man in the flesh to walk with God. Man has not kept God's rule, but he has clung to the ceremonies, in order to make out by them a righteousness of his own—a way that is morally easy, since he can pursue it without governing his passions, but which becomes, if conscience is aroused, an insupportable yoke. Alas! it is always thus, even in our own day.
But when the fullness of time was come—praise be to God!—after man had shown himself to be wholly corrupt and without restraint when he had no law, and, when he possessed it with all its accompanying privileges, had broken it, not being able to keep it, even while desiring to do it—then, in the sovereign love of God, the promised Seed came: God sent His only-begotten Son, the second Man, the last Adam, the Word who was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Marvelous grace! God Himself was manifest in flesh, that He might give Himself, and might, after having been raised from the dead, become Head and source of a new spiritual race, instead of the evil and perverse race. He becomes the life of all believers; they are redeemed to enjoy the glory with Him. Old Testament believers will, without doubt, enjoy the glory, partaking in the result of the redemption wrought by Christ, although they formed no part of His body upon earth, for the thing itself was not come. The promise had been given, as we have seen; now it was accomplished, not fully, but nevertheless accomplished as to the resurrection of Christ, when life and incorruptibility were, brought to light, and were preached through the gospel. For the gospel announced, not the promise, but the fulfillment of the promise, in the advent of Christ, come down to accomplish the work of redemption.
God sent His Son, who came and took the form of a man down here. Born of a woman, under the law, He took His place in the world in two relationships: with man, through the woman; with the Jews, as born under the law; and every one, when converted, puts himself under it, unless, indeed, he be already there in spirit. This is very useful to the soul, as it thus learns its weakness. Redemption places all, that is, all who believe in Christ and in His work, under the benefit of that work. Whether they be Jews or Gentiles, they are redeemed before God, who has accepted the work of His Son, according to His own righteousness, even as He gave Him in His love, in order that those who were under the law might be delivered from it, and might receive the adoption.
Christ has obtained for the one and the other His own place before God. When He rose from the dead, He said to Mary Magdalene, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” Precious and marvelous words, which had never been uttered before His resurrection. But now all was accomplished: their sins had been borne and put away; God, in all that He is, had been glorified; their persons were redeemed; and, according to the sure purpose of God, Christ had acquired glory for His own through His sufferings. He could announce it to them, though the time was not yet, come for glorifying those whom He had already introduced into the position in which He Himself stood, as Man and as Son of God, before His Father. What a word Brethren of the Son of God! If God was His Father, He was their Father; if He was His God, He was their God. They were not only pardoned and justified—already an immense blessing—but introduced into the relationship with God in which He Himself stood.
Was He any longer under the law? No surely. Under the law He had died, had borne its curse, had fully glorified God upon the dreadful cross; but that was all passed, and now He was risen, to bring His own redeemed ones, who were made partakers of the life in which He stood in the presence of God, into the glory in which He soon would be, but for which they must wait till He should return to take them there, where they would be forever with Him? made perfectly like Himself. All that gave them the right to enjoy these privileges was now finished; and though the time had not yet come for entering there, the Spirit could be given so that they could enjoy the privileges in their hearts, and understand the position to which they belonged. The privileges could be announced, and this is what the apostle does. He could not, it is true, unfold them all, for their subjection to the law had dimmed their eyes to the understanding of divine things; but he could at least make their position clear, that they might be able to understand them.
Faith, then, places the believers in the position of sons with God, according to the value and efficacy of the redemption wrought by Christ Jesus; and because they were sons, God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Thus the believer is no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Under the law believers, although born of God, were but as servants in position; now Jews and Gentiles together are sons, according to the position of Him who has redeemed them. The elements of the world were adapted to man in the flesh: the Spirit puts us in communion with the Father in heaven as His sons, united to Him who is risen from the dead. As Jews they were dead to the law by the death of Christ. The Gentiles, redeemed by His death, took up that yoke only when it had been broken for the Jews, and that by the death of Christ.
But the apostle takes up a still stronger ground. The Galatians were Gentiles, and had been as heathen under these same elements of the world. Not knowing God, they did service to them who by nature were no gods. Their worship was necessarily according to the, elements of the world—what man in the flesh could offer: they could not conceive of anything else but a ceremonial worship, the observance of days and the offering of beasts. The true God condescended to place Himself upon this ground in His relations with man, as has been said. He drew near to man where man was. Nevertheless upon this footing He did not reveal Himself. He hid Himself behind the veil, though He made a covenant with man; He gave a law which was to be observed, while He remained behind the veil; and He ordained sacrifices, most beautiful and instructive types of the true sacrifice of Christ, which is of eternal value.
Everything was made according to the pattern shown to Moses in the mount, and was thus a type of the heavenly things; but the things themselves were only earthly things, worldly elements, suited to mortal man, and which mortal man, converted or unconverted, could accomplish—principles of the world according to the need of the human heart, and that which man could offer in the hope of propitiating his God. God suited Himself to man, while hiding Himself, and proposing to man that he should accomplish human righteousness; but He put an end to the whole of this system when He sent His Son, and more especially by His death.
The law came in to prove whether man in the flesh was able to please God: but the law was broken, never observed. Moreover, the promise was despised, and the promised One rejected. The cross ended the system which put God in relation with man in the flesh, or rather which showed such a relationship to be impossible; and, the work of redemption being accomplished, God began with the Second Adam, risen from among the dead, spiritual relationships by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. In His sovereign grace He places those who believe in the same position as His own Son. Marvelous, and for us how blessed a testimony to the value of the redemption He has accomplished!
Yet these poor Christians now desire to return to the weak and beggarly elements from which, when heathens, they had been delivered, through the knowledge of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus! Mark well that all their ceremonies are but the same thing as paganism, the elements of the world, and their practices are heathen practices. We learn this here as doctrine; but the history of the church shows it to us as a fact. Holy days and holy places were taken from the heathen, who had holy places and holy days on which they held festivals in honor of deified men, such as Theseus, Hercules, and others. The names of saints were afterward attached to these places and days, and the saints were celebrated instead of the demi-gods.
Saint Augustine has told us what was done, and how it began. He sought to put an end to these evil habits, not to the days, but to what was practiced upon them, for they got drunk in the churches. This occurred in Africa, and the same thing was done elsewhere. The feast of the Nativity was the worst of all the pagan festivals, and it is still celebrated among the heathen in the East. Not being able to prevent those who, emerging from paganism, called themselves Christians, from continuing the disorder practiced at this festival, the leaders of the church decided to put in its place the Nativity of Christ.
Augustine also says, respecting the memory of the saints who took the place of Theseus, &c., that the church thought it better for people to get drunk in honor of a saint than in honor of a demon. It is certain that Christ was not born in December. The time at which Mary went to visit Elizabeth proves this, if compared with the order of the twenty-four courses of the priests. Zacharias' was the eighth course.
In taking up again from the Jews these elements of the world, the Galatians were returning to their former heathen practices. Until the coming of Christ these things had an important meaning; they were figures of that of which Christ has been, or is now, the reality: moreover they tested man, and showed that he cannot walk with God as man in the flesh. But when once Christ was come, the substance was there, and the figures had no more ground of existence, the test had been already applied. What is done in fulfillment of the law is but the denial of the fulfillment of all in Christ, heathen elements of the world, in which the Galatians walked when they lived as heathen in the world.