Galatians 4 Bible study: An heir of God

The chapter begins with a picture. "But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a bondservant, though he is lord of all," (4:1) (tap heir) "but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed by the father." (4:2) (tap guardians, appointed). He is "lord of all" (4:1), and yet, so long as he is a child, he is "no different from a bondservant" (4:1), until the day his father appointed (4:2). Then the letter says, "So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental principles of the world." (4:3). The letter says no more of the guardians, the stewards or the appointed day than these words, and these notes add nothing to them from outside it.

Psalms 111:9→leads toGalatians 4:4-5

Psalm 111 says of the LORD, "He has sent redemption to his people" (Psalm 111:9). Galatians says, "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4:4), "that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as children" (Galatians 4:5). Galatians doesn't cite Psalm 111, and it was written in Greek, so no link between its words and the psalm's Hebrew is claimed; setting them side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject: God sending redemption to his people. Some hear in Galatians what the psalm praises God for, done in the Son he sent. Others read Psalm 111:9 as praise for what the LORD had already done for Israel, the people he gave "the heritage of the nations" (Psalm 111:6), and Galatians 4 on its own terms, without looking from one to the other. These notes don't choose between them.

κληρονόμοςkleronomossay klay-ron-OM-os

Strong's: "a sharer by lot, i.e. inheritor (literally or figuratively); by implication, a possessor". The chapter opens with it, "so long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a bondservant, though he is lord of all" (4:1), and has it again in "and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ" (4:7). The letter first has it in "heirs according to promise" (3:29), and Favor's Galatians 3 counts it in the letter. Romans has it in "and if children, then heirs—heirs of God" (Romans 8:17). The verb behind inherit in 4:30 is kleronomeo, which Strong's gives as "from G2818", this word; Favor's Matthew 19 studies it.