Question
Was God ever treating Israel like slaves, or only like children?
Response
Since there are different contexts and situations in which the Bible speaks of Israel being in “bondage,” (and therefore this means that there different kinds of bondage, or servitude, that Israel either has experienced, or will yet experience), the best way to answer your question is to first take note of the particular kind of “bondage” that Paul speaks about when he teaches us the issue of God treating Israel like “children” and then take note of some of the other kinds of “bondage” that are described in other places in the Scripture.
In the opening verses to Galatians 4 where Paul amplifies upon the wonderful issue of “the adoption of sons” that we now possess in this present dispensation, and in contrast to this refers to the people of Israel’s situation in time past when God treated them as “children” under the law and not as “sons”, he does not include all of Israel’s time past history when he describes them being treated as “children” and in “bondage under the elements of the world” nor does he take into account other kinds of bondage or servitude that they have experienced nationally in their history at the hands of other nations and/or at the hands of the Adversary. Instead, Paul is strictly focusing upon ‘the bondage of childhood’ and the fact that one of the purposes of the law was to have it function just as “tutors and governors” would function in connection with a “child” during its childhood years. In other words, just as a natural father employs “tutors and governors” in the education and rearing of his children during their childhood years (and in so doing the father actually treats his children no different “from a servant” in this respect) so also was this the case with Israel under the law. For one of the law’s many functions was for it to function like the “tutors and governors” belonging to childhood, and to thereby have God treat Israel like “children” including having them “in bondage under the elements of the world”. Therefore, from the time that Israel entered into the law covenant with God at Mount Sinai, until the time that God through Christ’s redemptive work made provision for “the adoption of sons” God personally treated the individual people of Israel like “children” in their personal relationship with Him. And as such they were subject to, and experienced, the very same kind of simple and limited and restrictive relationship that a father has with his children during their childhood years. And so in this sense an individual Israelite under the law “differeth nothing from a servant” having a very simplistic, limited, and restrictive relationship with God that was based upon the law’s ability to function as “tutors and governors” and which also had them being “in bondage under the elements of the world” that the law employed.
This, as I said, is the particular issue that Paul has in view, for example, in Galatians 4. And once again since this is all that Paul has in view in Galatians 4 he does not include all of Israel’s time past history in what he says, nor does he have in mind any of the other kinds of bondage or servitude that Israel has experienced nationally in their history at the hands of other nations, etc. He specifically refers to the childhood type treatment that the individual people of Israel experienced from God as He individually dealt with them as “children” and not as “sons” by having them under the childhood “tutors and governors” and “bondage” system contained in the law.
Now though this is what Paul is particularly dealing with in places like Galatians 4, there clearly are other places in the Bible where God speaks of Israel being in “bondage”, or having a servant’s/ slave’s “yoke” upon them, or being another’s “servant”, or He uses some other similar expression that denotes some kind of servitude. And these places usually are not speaking about the issue of the individual people of Israel being treated as a “child” under the “tutors and governors” principle in the law. Instead they usually are speaking about the nation as a whole being in some other kind of bondage that Israel either has experienced in time past or will experience again when God resumes His program and dealings with them after He concludes this present dispensation of His grace.
For example, before God brought Israel out of Egypt by Moses the nation of Israel is described as being in physical bondage and ‘serving’ the Egyptians. As God foretold Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14, his seed would be “a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them”; and as Exodus 1 describes this is exactly what happened. Israel ‘served’ the Egyptians and were in “bondage” to them. Therefore, at that time they were definitely experiencing bondage and were being treated as servants or slaves. However, at that time they were not experiencing the exact same kind of bondage that Paul talks about in Galatians 4, nor were they being treated as servants for the exact same reason that Paul speaks about in Galatians 4. Instead at that time Israel was experiencing a national bondage to another nation (a different kind of bondage) and they were servants to this other nation for a different reason. (In fact, they were not even “under the law” yet at the time that they experienced bondage and servitude in Egypt.)
Likewise, later on in Jeremiah when the beginning of the Babylonian captivity was getting underway Israel is spoken about as being in servitude to the king of Babylon when they were taken into captivity, as well as being in servitude to the other nations and kings that would follow Babylon. Moreover, Israel will find themselves in a national bondage again during the final installment in God’s program with them that is yet to come after God concludes this present dispensation. For example, in Daniel, Joel, and Zechariah it is described how that in that time “the man of sin” will break the covenant that he and his confederacy make with Israel, and upon breaking it and in seeking to destroy Israel he will take the nation captive. Then among other things he will divide its land and sell its people into servitude.
In addition to the issue of national bondage and servitude, God also speaks of Israel experiencing other kinds of bondage. For example, the corrupt and apostate religious system that Israel experienced under the scribes and the Pharisees is referred to in the Gospel accounts as a ‘bondage system’ from which the believing members of the remnant of Israel needed to be ‘set free’ by means of all of the Lord’s corrective doctrines that He was teaching to them during His earthly ministry to Israel.
So then the answer to your question needs to take into account all of the different kinds of bondage or servitude that Israel either has experienced, and will yet experience, in its history.
And when we do this it is clear that the individual people of Israel have not only been treated by God as “children” who ‘differed nothing from a servant’ by being under the “tutors and governors” and “bondage” system of the law; but also in its history Israel has experienced other kinds of “bondage” or servitude, including nationally having been in physical bondage to other nations and having served them, and yet being in such a situation again in the final installment to its program.
Now when it comes to the issue of us “rightly dividing the word of truth” in accordance with God’s two programs (and thereby seeing a great dispensational change or distinction between something in God’s “time past” program and dealings with Israel compared to His program and dealings with us in this present dispensation of His grace) the contrast that exists between the “bondage” of Israel’s childhood under the law and the “liberty” of our sonship under grace (which Paul teaches us about for example in Romans 8 and Galatians 4) is the particular kind of “bondage” Israel was in that God wants us to recognize and understand the most. And of course, this is because God is not treating us today like He treated the people of Israel in time past. He is not treating us like “children” by putting us “under the law” and thereby putting us in the “bondage” belonging to childhood. Instead, through Christ’s redemptive work on the cross we have received “the adoption of sons”. And in understanding this we “cry, Abba, Father” out of joy and appreciation for being “sons” and what this means; especially for the fact that this means that we have not received “the spirit of bondage again to fear” with all of its limitations and restrictions, and with its “weak and beggarly elements”.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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