Paul gives us a portrait of a young boy in a wealthy home. This boy is the legal heir and future master of the entire estate. But as long as he is a child, his life is just like that of a slave. He is subject to guardians and trustees. They supervise him, discipline him and control him. Their orders regulate and restrain his behavior. He is under their authority until the time set by his father, when he will be free from their control and enjoy his full rights as heir and master of the family estate.

It is clear that Paul constructed this illustration to dramatize what life was like under the supervision of the law. But since he has already used the images of a jailer (3:23) and a disciplinarian (3:24-25) to dramatize the supervisory function of the law, why does he add yet another illustration of life under the law? To appreciate the reason for Paul's use of this additional illustration, we need to understand that Jewish Christians must have been astonished that their history under the Mosaic law had been compared to being imprisoned by a jailer and controlled by a disciplinarian. Paul himself would not have accepted such a description of Jewish history before his conversion. After all, the Jews had been redeemed from slavery in the exodus. In fact, when God set the Jewish people free, he had called them his "son" (Ex 4:23). The giving of the law began with the announcement of freedom for God's people: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery" (Ex 20:2). If God had redeemed his people from slavery, how could their whole existence under the Mosaic law until Christ be depicted in terms of slavery? It would certainly be appropriate to view the Gentile condition in terms of slavery, but surely not the Jewish condition. Such thoughts would have been in the minds of Jewish Christians and had probably been expressed to the Gentile Christians as well. No doubt the Gentile Christians had been told that only those who united with the Jewish people under the law could truly participate in the freedom God gave to his offspring, the people of Israel.

In this illustration Paul clarifies the condition of the Jewish people under the law. This is a much more positive image of slavery than the images of a jailer and a disciplinarian. Even in the best of homes, sons who are loved by their father and destined to be heirs of his estate go through a period of supervision. It is entirely appropriate for immature heirs to be subject to the care of guardians. Obedience to their guardians is evidence of their love for their father. But it would be inappropriate for sons to be kept under the supervision of guardians once they had reached the age of maturity. It is not a mark of disloyalty for sons to eagerly anticipate the day set by their father when they will no longer be subject to guardians but will enjoy their full rights as sons. Once that day comes, their love for their father will not be expressed through subjection to guardians but by a free expression of love from the heart of mature sons.

This illustration makes the point that even the Jewish people, the rightful heirs of God's promises to Abraham, experienced a certain kind of slavery for a period of time. In verse 3 Paul applies his illustration to the real historical experience of God's people: So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. This picture of slavery under basic principles of the world continues the series of images representing slavery under the law: "held prisoners by the law" (3:23), "under the supervision of the law" (3:25), subject to guardians and trustees (4:2). So in some sense Paul understood the basic principles of the world as equivalent to the Mosaic law. Although the Mosaic law was given by God, it was not God's last and ultimate revelation. It was necessary, but only elementary teaching: it was the ABCs of God's revelation. To be subjected to the discipline of learning the ABCs is good and proper for an elementary student, but to be kept forever at that level of education would be a tragic kind of slavery.

Now Paul has established his thesis that all of God's people, the Jews as well as the Gentiles, came to the inheritance of salvation in Christ out of a similar situation of slavery. As we will see in our study of verses 8-10, Paul views the Gentile Christians' attempt to observe the Mosaic law as a return to slavery under "weak and miserable principles." By their subjection to Mosaic law they are returning to their preconversion slavelike condition. The slavery of Gentiles under "weak and miserable principles" (v. 9) before their conversion and the slavery of Jews under the Mosaic law (the basic principles of the world [v. 3]) before Christ were certainly not similar in all respects. The pagan Gentiles were not enslaved to the Mosaic law; Jews were not enslaved to pagan idolatry. But these two situations of slavery were the same in one respect: Jews and Gentiles were enslaved to something less than the immediate knowledge of God enjoyed by Christians (see vv. 6, 9).

So when Paul says in 4:3 that when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world, he is emphasizing how even Jews were caught in the universal condition of slavery. In this common condition of helplessness, all alike are completely dependent on the liberating grace of God.