+I. The presence of the Spirit in the heart.+--1. The beginning of
our new birth is in the heart, when a new light is put into the mind,
a new and heavenly disposition into the will and affection. 2. The
principal part of our renovation is in the heart were the Spirit
abides. 3. The beginning and principal part of God's worship is in
the heart. 4. Keep watch and ward about thy heart, that it may be a
fit place of entertainment for the Spirit, who is an Ambassador sent
from God to thee.
+II. The work of the Spirit.+--1. Bestowing conviction that the
Scriptures are the Word of God. 2. Submission to God and a desire to
obey Him. 3. The testimony of the Spirit--a Divine manner of
reasoning framed in the mind--that we are God's children. 4. Peace of
conscience, joy, and affiance in God.
+III. The desires of the heart directed towards God.+--1. Our cries
are to be directed to God with reverence. 2. With submission to His
will. 3. With importunity and constancy.--_Perkins._
_The Character and Privileges of the Children of God._
+I. The distinguishing characteristic of the children of
God.+--1. _It is a spirit of filial confidence as opposed to servile
fear._ No unpardoned sinner has a sufficient ground of confidence in
God. Till assured that God loves him, he knows not how God may treat
him at any particular time. But we cannot believe that God loves us
and at the same time doubt His mercy. He that heartily reposes on
God's favour cannot dread His vengeance.
2. _This filial spirit is one of holy love as opposed to the bondage
of sin._--The love of God is a powerful element well calculated to
change the whole of our inner man. It gives a new bias to our wayward
affections and a healthful vigour to every good desire.
3. _The filial spirit is one of ready obedience as opposed to the
gloomy spirit of servitude._--The service of a slave is unwilling,
extorted, unsatisfactory; the obedience of a child is ready, loving,
energetic. Love is self-denying, soul-absorbing, devoted.
+II. Some of the distinguishing privileges of the children of
God.+--1. _The child of God has a part in the Father's love and
care._ 2. _Has a filial resemblance to the heavenly Father._
3. _Children of God have the privileges of family communion and
fellowship._ 4. _Have a share in the family provisions._ 5. _Have a
title to the future inheritance.--Robert M. Macbrair._
Ver. 7. _God's Offspring._--1. This is the state of all poor heathen,
whether in England or foreign countries: they are children, ignorant
and unable to take care of themselves, because they do not know what
they are. Paul tells them they are God's offspring, though they know
it not. He does not mean that we are not God's children till we find
out that we are God's children. You were God's heirs all along,
although you differed nothing from slaves; for as long as you were in
heathen ignorance and foolishness God had to treat you as His slaves,
not as His children. They thought that God did not love them, that
they must buy His favours. They thought religion meant a plan for
making God love them. 2. Then appeared the love of God in Jesus
Christ, who told men of their heavenly Father. He preached to them
the good news of the kingdom of God, that God had not forgotten them,
did not hate them, would freely forgive them all that was past; and
why? Because He was their Father and loved them so that He spared not
His only begotten Son. And now God looks at us in the light of Jesus
Christ. He does not wish us to remain merely His child, under tutors
and governors, forced to do what is right outwardly and whether it
likes or not. God wishes each of us to become His son, His grown-up
and reasonable son. 3. It is a fearful thing to despise the mercies
of the living God, and when you are called to be His sons to fall
back under the terrors of His law in slavish fear and a guilty
conscience and remorse which cannot repent. He has told you to call
Him your Father; and if you speak to Him in any other way, you insult
Him and trample underfoot the riches of His grace. You are not God's
slaves, but His sons, heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ. What an
inheritance of glory and bliss that must be which the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself is to inherit with us--an inheritance of all that is
wise, loving, noble, holy, peaceful, all that can make us happy and
like God Himself.--_C. Kingsley._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 8-11.
_Legalism a Relapse._
+I. Legalism is no advance on heathenism.+--"When ye knew not God, ye
did service unto them which by nature are no gods" (ver. 8). Paganism
was an elaborate system of formalism. The instinct of worship led men
to sacrifice to imaginary deities--gods which were no gods. Ignorant
of the true God, they multiplied deities of their own. The Galatian
pagans created a strange Pantheon. There were the old weird Celtic
deities before whom our British forefathers trembled. On this
ancestral faith had been superimposed the frantic rites of the
Phrygian mother Cebele, with her mutilated priests, and the more
genial and humanistic cultus of the Greek Olympian gods. The
oppressive rites of legalism were little better than the heathen
ritual. Religion degenerated into a meaningless formality. Dickens
describes how in Genoa he once witnessed a great feast on the hill
behind the house, when the people alternately danced under tents in
the open air and rushed to say a prayer or two in an adjoining church
bright with red and gold and blue and silver--so many minutes of
dancing and of praying in regular turns of each.
+II. Legalism to converted heathen, is a disastrous relapse.+--"After
ye have known God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly
elements? . . . Ye observe days and months and times and years"
(vers. 9, 10). The heathen in their blindness and ignorance might be
excused, and ritualism, even to the Jews before the coming of the
Messiah, might be well enough; but for Christians, who had received
ampler knowledge and been illumined by the Holy Spirit, to return to
the weak and beggarly elements, was irrational, monstrous! Having
tasted the sweets of liberty, what folly to submit again to slavery!
having reached spiritual manhood, how childish to degenerate!
Legalism destroys the life of religion and leaves only a mass of
petrified forms. In his _Stones of Venice,_ Ruskin says: "There is no
religion in any work of Titian's; there is not even the smallest
evidence of religious temper or sympathies either in himself or those
for whom he painted. His larger sacred themes are merely for the
exhibition of pictorial rhetoric--composition and colour. His minor
works are generally made subordinate to the purposes of portraiture.
The Madonna in the Frari church is a mere lay figure, introduced to
form a link of connection between the portraits of various members of
the Pesaro family who surround her. Bellini was brought up in faith;
Titian in formalism. Between the years of their births the vital
religion of Venice had expired."
+III. A relapse to legalism is an occasion of alarm to the earnest
Christian teacher.+--"I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon
you labour in vain" (ver. 11). The apostle knew something of the
fickleness of the Galatians and of the weakness of human nature but
was hardly prepared for such a collapse of the work which he had
built up with so much anxiety and care. He saw, more clearly than
they, the peril of his converts, and the prospect of their further
defection filled him with alarm and grief. It meant the loss of
advantages gained, of precious blessing enjoyed, of peace, of
character, of influence for good. It is a painful moment when the
anxious Christian worker has to mourn over failure in any degree.
+Lessons.+--1. _Legalism suppresses all religious growth._ 2. _Is a
constant danger to the holiest._ 3. _Shows the necessity for earnest
vigilance and prayer._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._