Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Galatians 4:19,20

Galatians 4:19-20. Affectionate appeal to the feelings of the Galatians. Galatians 4:19 may be connected with Galatians 4:18, and a comma put after ‘you,' or with Galatians 4:20 (in which case it is difficult to explain the particle δέ in Galatians 4:20), or may be taken as an independent sentence, an exclamation. The sense is the same.

My little children, of whom I am again in travail, as a mother in child-birth. The diminutive ‘ little' (frequently used by John, but only here by Paul) expresses more forcibly the tenderness of Paul and the feebleness of the Galatians. Usually he represents his relation to his converts as that of a spiritual father, 1Co 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 2:11; Philippians 2:22; Philem. Galatians 4:10. ‘Again' is used with reference to the apostasy of the Galatians so that they need a second regeneration, or conversion rather from the Judaizing pseudo-gospel to the genuine Pauline gospel, as distinct from their first conversion from heathenism to Christianity. The language is figurative and must not be pressed for dogmatic purposes. Strictly speaking, there can be but one regeneration or spiritual birth, which is the act of God, as there can be but one natural birth. But conversion, which is the act of man in turning from sin to God, may be repeated; hence the frequent exhortations in the Bible.

Until Christ be formed in you, as the embryo is developed into the full-grown child. We expect for ‘Christ,' the ‘new man;' but Christ in us is the new man, who lives and moves in us as an indwelling and all-controlling power and principle; comp. Galatians 2:20 (and note there); Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 4:13. Regeneration is a transplanting of Christ's life in us, a repetition, as it were, of the incarnation.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Galatians 4:19,20

Old Testament

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