"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Galatians 4:7

Galatians 4

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, 

Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; 

break forth and cry, 

thou that travailest not: 

for the desolate hath many more children 

than she which hath an husband.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

_______ 

"Legalism is an insidious thing, because it looks fair. When this is the case, men fancy that they become practically more holy; but the contrary is the fact. What produces true holiness is, that it is not merely the name of a day, or of an hour, or of a season, or place, but God working in the soul, both to will and to do of His good pleasure; and this, because

"sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ."

God brings the believer into His own presence, and puts him there as a child . . .

In man the law and the flesh always go together. The cross of Christ was the end of both in the sight of God. The flesh was judged and condemned there; it was treated as a dead thing before God - dead and buried: and the law which deals with the flesh we are dead to. We have passed out of both, we are not in the flesh, and are no longer under law. The flesh being that in us with which the law grapples, and the flesh being now by faith accounted a dead thing, there is no more for the law to lay hold of. We pass out of its province into another country and atmosphere . . .

"Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are."

You were only Gentiles and had nothing to say to the law; and now I am brought outside it as much as you - not, of course, by becoming a Gentile, but by being delivered from law in and through Christ. There is the blessedness of the Christian position. It is not merely absence of law, but the being brought into union with Christ, which raises us above the law, while it secures obedience and draws out love to God and man as the law never could. Thus, what the law aimed at is accomplished, (Romans 8:3-4,) and far more fully than it ever could otherwise have been, through the love of Christ constraining the soul. And this is done, not through the mere negative process of telling a man that he has not the law as his rule; but by putting him under Christ; (i.e., under grace.) This is what faith does for the soul."

William Kelly 

From Galatians 4

"Study carefully the contrast between Romans 6:14 and I Corinthians 9:21. Paul declares in the former passage, “We are not under law.” The Greek here is, hupo nomon. This expression evidently indicates placing one under external enactments—under that principle. Now in I Corinthians 9:21, Paul, in describing his ministry to souls, says,

“To those without law (anomois), I became as without law (anomos), not at all being without law Godward, but, on the contrary, en-lawed (ennomos) to Christ,”

—as the members of a body to the head, controlled naturally by the one spirit and will. There is every possible difference between the two,—between being “under law,” and “en-lawed.” Israel under law, placed under the Law at Sinai, with a veil between them and God, had to think of their behavior, in all its details, as affecting their relationship to God. The Law was “written on tables,” by the hand of Divine authority. It was external to them: there was no union between them and Jehovah; nor was the Holy Spirit within them (although He was upon certain of them, for certain service, at certain times). 

But, with us, all is different. We are in Christ, members of Christ. The Spirit of God’s Son, also, has been sent forth into our hearts, crying,

“Abba, Father!”

We are

“no longer bondservants, but adult sons” (Gal. 4:4-7).

Our relationship is settled.

“Walking by the Spirit,”

who indwells us, takes for us today the place that observing the things written in the Law had with Israel.

“Being dead to the Law, and discharged therefrom,”

says Paul,

“we bring forth fruit unto God”;

“We serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter” (7:4, 6).

When Paul says (as above) in I Corinthians that he was “en-lawed to Christ,” the Greek word ennomos signifies that blessed control by the Holy Spirit proceeding from Christ as the Head, which corresponds to the control of our natural bodies by our physical heads. This, of course, is the very opposite of being “under law” in the sense of verse 14. To speak of a believer’s being “under the Law to Christ,” would be no more true, than to say that your hand has a set of external rules by which it obeys your head and seeks to render itself pleasing to you! No, your hand is en-lawed to your head, in that it is one with your head; your spirit dwells in every member of your body, and the head intelligently directs every member." William R. Newell