Galatians 4:10

Galatians 4:10. Do ye (scrupulously) observe days, and months, and seasons, and years? The interrogative form gives more vicacity to the passage and more weight to Galatians 4:11. If it is not a question, it must be taken as an exclamation of painful surprise: ‘Is it possible that you should observe!' The Apostle means a Judaistic, slavish, and superstitious observance which ascribes an intrinsic holiness to particular days and seasons (as if the other days and seasons were in themselves profane), and which makes such observance a necessary condition of justification (as if faith in Christ were not sufficient for justification). Such observance virtually derives salvation in some sense from the elements of nature, like the sun and the moon, which regulate the festival seasons. The polemic of Paul is equally applicable to a Judaizing, that is, slavish, superstitious, and self-righteous observance of Sunday or any other Christian festival. But there is also a free, evangelical, and spiritual observance of holy days and seasons, which is essential to proper order in social worship, and which the Apostle was far from condemning, since he himself distinguished in some way ‘the first day' of the week in commemoration of the resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2), and also the Passover and Pentecostal seasons (Acts 18:21; Acts 20:6; Acts 20:16; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8). ‘Days,' the weekly sabbaths, and other single holy days and fast days. Some English commentators would exclude the weekly Sabbath, since it is enjoined in the Decalogue; but this is arbitrary and contrary to the parallel passage, Colossians 2:16 (‘sabbath days'). Paul denounces the Pharisaic Sabbatarianism, as Christ Himself had done by word and example. It was a pedantic, mechanical, slavish observance which worshipped the letter and killed the spirit. Even Rabbi Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, and one of the most liberal of the Pharisees, was unwilling to unload his ass laden with honey on a sabbath day, and let the poor animal die. This was considered a proof of great piety. But it is a serious error to inter from this passage (and Colossians 2:16; Romans 14:5) that the Sabbath is abolished in the Christian dispensation. The law of the Sabbath, i.e., of one weekly day of holy rest in God (the seventh in the Jewish, the first in the Christian Church) is as old as the creation, it is founded in the moral and physical constitution of man, it was instituted in Paradise, incorporated in the Decalogue on Mount Sinai, put on a new foundation by the resurrection of Christ, and is an absolute necessity for public worship and the welfare of man. ‘The Sabbath is made for man,' that is, instituted by God for man's spiritual and temporal benefit. So marriage is made for man, government is made for man. But the Judaizers reversed the order and made the Sabbath an end instead of a means, and a burden instead of a blessing. ‘Months,' the new moons (comp. Colossians 2:16), which were kept as joyful festivals by the Jews (Numbers 28:11-15, especially those of the seventh month, which had the same sacredness among the months of the year as the sabbath among the days of the week. ‘Seasons,' the festival seasons, which lasted several days, as the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast or Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:4). ‘Years,' sabbatical (i.e., every seventh) and jubilee (every fiftieth) years (Leviticus 25:2-17). This does not necessarily imply that the Galatians were then actually celebrating a sabbatical year according to the Mosaic ritual; the plural speaks against such a supposition. But this point belonged to their theory, which consistently must have led them to a corresponding practice as soon as the occasion presented itself.