In verse 3 of Galatians 4, Paul applies the legal analogy of heir and an estate mentioned in Galatians 4:1-2 to the situation at hand—Jewish legalism in Galatia. No doubt, Israel’s history is in Paul’s mind when making this analogy. He’s thinking of Israel’s liberation from their bondage in Egypt under cruel task masters.[1] “In the same way we also, when we were children, [we] were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” The Greek term translated “elementary principles” is stoicheia (στοιχεια), which refers to the “rudimentary principles of morality and religion, more specifically the requirements of legalism by which people lived before Christ.”[2] When we were children [in Paul’s illustration], we were enslaved to the basic “principles of the world.”
A number of commentators contend the term refers to “angelic powers” or cosmic forces–spiritual and occult forces.[3] But as one writer points out, the connection of the stoicheia with immaturity, as well as the fact that the law is an instrument of bondage, supports the argument that the reference is more likely referring to, “elementary imperfect teaching . . . . To accept the Jewish law or some equivalent system is to come under slavery to some imperfect doctrine. But if stoicheia denotes elemental spirits, then it has to be explained how submitting to the regulations of the Jewish law is tantamount to being enslaved by these spirits.”[4]
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