23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,^* heirs according to the promise.

4My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; ²but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. ³So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits^* of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. ⁶And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our^* hearts, crying, ‘Abba!^* Father!’ ⁷So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.^* <!– 8 –>

Paul Reproves the Galatians

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. ⁹Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits?^* How can you want to be enslaved to them again? ¹⁰You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. ¹¹I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.

The Bible -witness of faith or magic book

Paul searches for a metaphor which will explain the role of the Jewish Torah in the history of faith. He finds it in the figure of the household slave, the paidagogos, who is given responsibility for disciplining and assisting the children of a household until they gain adulthood, at which time the paidagogos has no aurthority any more. The law is classified by Paul as one of the “elemmental spirits of the world”-as a powerful spiritual force, along with others, which can be mistakenly given divine status.

Jesus Messiah, born as a human being and suffering under the law, has been revealed as Son of God and as the means by which all human beings can become chikldren of the one father. Readers will note that Paul mixes his metaphors here: from the picture of children who become fully adult he slides into a picture of people who are not children but are adopted as children by God. Still, his basic idea is clear enough: Jesus has revealed  a way by which human beings can be freed from the Torah to become fully adult children of God. He expresses his sad amazement that people who had experienced this glorious freedom should want to lapse into mere religion once more.

The perennial appeal of religions with their special days and rules is that they are safe: we can be obedient to them because they protect us from the terrible responsibility of being God’s adult children, who must make their own decisions in the light of what they know of the father’s love. Those who want magic meditation, or perfect liturgies or a authoritarian  guru/pope/ evangelist or an inerrant holy book are longing to return to what Paul calls the beggarly elemental spirits. The scandalous humanism of Paul’s faith becomes clear as we read this letter.

Luke 10:17-20

The Return of the Seventy

17 The seventy^* returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ ¹⁸He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ 

St. Columba. When he was dying the monastery workhorse was his chosen companion