Question:
Please explain Galatians 4:7-11. To what days does the apostle refer?
Answer:
The passage is easy to understand if we will study the context. It will be seen from the eighth verse that the Galatians were at one time heathen; they were in bondage to them that “by nature are no gods.” In Leviticus 19:26, we learn that the Lord forbade indulging in the customs of the heathen. “Neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.” (See also Deuteronomy 18:10).
The heathen had their days dedicated to their gods. Sunday was the day dedicated to the sun, Monday to the moon, and so with all the days of the week. In some cases, the months also were named after the gods, as January for Janus, the two-faced god. Those idolatrous feasts were often scenes of the greatest license, essentially bestial and low. They were carried on throughout all heathen lands. Therefore, when the Galatians turned from the Lord Jesus Christ to self-justification, they naturally returned to the observance of the heathen days and times. The apostle declares, “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” What were those weak and beggarly elements? It was bondage to “them that by nature are no gods,” and it constituted evidence that they observed days and months and seasons and years; that is, the heathen days and times and months and seasons, hoping for salvation in them.
These verses also apply to converts who turned to the bondage of the law. (See Galatians 4:21-31; 5:1-15). The “days, and months, and times, and years” also apply to the days of the Jewish festivals, festivals of the new moon, and appointed times kept by the Jews. They turned from one yoke of bondage to another. (See Colossians 2:14-23).
Are we to understand from this that God would have us observe no time?—No, because He has Himself given us one time that should be kept, His great worship day, the Sabbath, the seventh day.
