Galatians 4:9

But now. The Gentile Galatian believers were no longer in ignorance (cf. Acts 17:30), and were really without excuse.

Known God. The Greek implies more than mental perception. They had entered into a personal, experimental knowledge of God. They had enjoyed a working knowledge of salvation.

Rather. Paul hastens to avoid any possibility that the Galatians should pride themselves on knowing the true God. They had no reason to take credit to themselves. After all, salvation consists in God’s search for man, not in man’s search for God (John 3:16; see on Luke 15:2, 4).

Known of God. They had become objects of His favorable attention. It is true that Jesus came to seek and to save all who are lost (Luke 19:10), but on the other hand, God is found only by those who seek for Him diligently (Jer. 29:13).

How turn ye? Earnestly hoping to pierce the foggy thinking of the Galatians, bewitched as they are, Paul addresses them directly, in a sense interrupting the logical flow of his argument. The present tense implies that the process of turning is still going on. They have not yet completely turned. The Gr. epistrepho, “to turn,” is commonly translated “to convert” or “to be converted” (see Mark 4:12; Luke 22:32; John 12:40; Acts 3:19).

Weak and beggarly elements. See on v. 3. They had been liberated from bond service to the crude, rudimentary concepts and practices of heathenism. Now they were rushing back into a form of bondage hardly better than that from which they had been set free by the gospel. Each of these systems was a futile attempt to attain righteousness by works. Had the Galatians abandoned the rites and ceremonies of heathenism only that they might adopt those of Judaism? For practical purposes Judaism had degenerated into a system of external observances, in some respects hardly distinguishable from those of the heathen religious (see Vol. IV, pp. 32, 33). “The law” (see on ch. 2:16) was “weak” in that it had no power to save even its most ardent devotees, and it was “beggarly,” or poor, in that it lacked the vital spark of life. Furthermore, the Jews had added so many traditions to “the law” that its original purpose had been obscured, and it had become a burden to those who sought to meet its requirements as a means of earning salvation (see on Mark 7:3). The Galatians were giving up all the benefits of the gospel and receiving nothing in return.

Ye desire. Their conversion to Judaism was voluntary. They seemed to be eager to exchange their priceless freedom for the penury of bondage!

Bondage. See on v. 3.