Paul next reminded his readers of their former way of life, the transformation that their adoption into God's family had wrought, and his concern that they were in danger of trading their future for a mess of pottage.
4:8-9 Before conversion Paul's readers (mainly Gentiles but some Jews) were slaves to religious traditions that, in the case of Gentiles, included counterfeit gods. Now at liberty they were in danger of turning back to the same slavery. They might return to a system that was weak (with no power to justify or sanctify), worthless (providing no inheritance), and elementary.
"For all the basic differences between Judaism and paganism, both involved subjection to the same elemental forces. This is an astonishing statement for a former Pharisee to make; yet Paul makes it--not as an exaggeration in the heat of argument but as the deliberate expression of a carefully thought out position.
"The stoicheiato which the Galatians had been in bondage were the counterfeit gods of v. 8; the bondage to which they were now disposed to turn back was that of the law."144
"The demonic forces of legalism, then, both Jewish and Gentile, can be called principalities and powers' or elemental spirits of the world.'"145
However these elemental things probably refer to all things in which people place their trust apart from the living God.146Both Jewish and Gentile converts had lived bound to worldly elemental forces until Christ released them. These forces include everything in which people place their trust apart from God: their gods to which they become slaves.
4:10-11 The Judaizers had urged Paul's readers to observe the Mosaic rituals. Here the annual feasts are in view. Paul despaired that they were going backward and that much of his labor for them was futile. They were not acting like heirs of God.
". . . Paul was always against any idea of soteriological legalism--i.e., that false understanding of the law by which people think they can turn God's revelatory standard to their own advantage, thereby gaining divine favor and acceptance. This, too, the prophets of Israel denounced, for legalism so defined was never a legitimate part of Israel's religion. The Judaizers of Galatia, in fact, would probably have disowned legalism' as well, though Paul saw that their insistence on a life of Jewish nomism' for his Gentile converts actually took matters right back to the crucial issue as to whether acceptance before God was based on the works of the law' or faith in what Christ had effected. . . .
"Yet while not legalistic, the religion of Israel, as contained in the OT and all forms of ancient and modern Judaism, is avowedly nomistic'--i.e., it views the Torah, both Scripture and tradition, as supervising the lives of God's own, so that all questions of conduct are ultimately measured against the touchstone of Torah and all of life is directed by Torah. . . .
". . . Judaism speaks of itself as being Torah-centered and Christianity declares itself to be Christ-centered, for in Christ the Christian finds not only God's law as the revelatory standard preeminently expressed but also the law as a system of conduct set aside in favor of guidance by reference to Christ's teachings and example and through the direct action of the Spirit."147
Paul himself observed the Jewish feasts after his conversion (cf. 1 Cor. 16:8; Acts 20:16). However he did so voluntarily, not to satisfy divine requirements. He did not observe them because God expected him to do so but because they were a part of his cultural heritage. He also did so because he did not want to cast a stumbling block in the path of Jews coming to faith in Christ (1 Cor. 9:19-23; cf. Rom. 14:5-6). In other words, he did so to evangelize effectively, not to gain acceptance from God.
