‘But at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature were no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known of God, how do you turn back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments to which you to be in bondage over again? You observe days, and months, and seasons and years.'
Paul now looks back to their state before they were converted. They had not known God. They had not heeded the voices that spoke through nature. They had not perceived His eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20). They had therefore put themselves in bondage to false gods, who were not really of the nature of God, gods made in the image of earthly things. They had allowed themselves to be subject to weak and beggarly ideas, bound up in corrupt religious requirements, in vain ceremonies and in false philosophies and ideas which had to be fulfilled to ‘attain salvation'. But then they had come to know God. They had been set free from such things! And yet now, without realising it, they were turning back to similar ideas as those they had held before, and from which they had been released. For the requirements of the Judaisers can be seen as no more sophisticated and genuine in their effect than their old ideas. Previously they had been in bondage to the elements of the world, now they were thinking of entering under the bondage of the Law. They were simply exchanging one bondage from another, while all the time God was offering them full freedom in Christ.
‘Now you have come to know God, or rather to be known of God.' They had ‘come to know God', but Paul does not want them to be proud of their new ‘knowledge of God'. Indeed they have shown that they know God very little because of what they have done. But he is confident that what is certainly true is that God has ‘known' them (compare Genesis 18:19). He has chosen them in His eternal purposes (Ephesians 1:4), and has, as it were, reached down and drawn them to Himself (John 6:44). How then can they return to something less personal and less powerful? Being ‘known by God' they do not have to involve themselves in activities which involve a search for Him, or try to appease Him. They can walk into His inner sanctum and say ‘abba, Father'. They can know Him and walk with Him in the way and be His sons, and He will be their Father. Lesser things have therefore been done away.
‘How do you turn back to weak and beggarly rudiments.' Here Paul equates their old ideas and their old religions with the Judaising tendencies. They were all but one and the same thing. Yet they even now they are foolishly attempting to reach God by ceremonial activity, by rites, by observances, all of which have previously proved in vain. How foolish men are. They simply behave like little children.