[112] Surely _the world of men_, not the cosmical elements; comp. Col. ii. 8, 20 (where _rudiments of the world_ is parallel to _tradition of men_); also Gal. vi. 14; Heb. ix. 1. 1 Cor. iii. 1-3 supplies an interesting parallel: those who are _babes in Christ_, are so far carnal and walk _according to man_, animated by _the spirit of this world_ (1 Cor. ii. 12). 3. _The will of the Father_ determined the period of this guardianship. However it may be in human law, this right of fore-ordination resides in the Divine Fatherhood. In His unerring foresight He fixed the hour when His sons should step into their filial place. All such "times and seasons," Christ declared, "the Father hath appointed on His own authority" (Acts i. 7). He imposed the law of Moses, and annulled it, when He would. He kept the Jewish people, for their own and the world's benefit, tied to the legal "rudiments," held in the leading-strings of Judaism. It was His to say when this subjection should cease, when the Church might receive the Spirit of His Son. If this decree appeared to be arbitrary, if it was strange that the Jewish fathers--men so noble in faith and character--were kept in bondage and fear, we must remind ourselves that "so it seemed good in the Father's sight." Hebrew pride found this hard to brook. To think that God had denied this privilege in time past to His chosen people, to bestow it all at once and by mere grace on Gentile sinners, making them at "the eleventh hour" equal to those who had borne for so long the burden and heat of the day! that the children of Abraham had been, as Paul maintains, for centuries treated as _slaves_, and now these heathen aliens are made _sons_ just as much as they! But this was God's plan; and it must be right. "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" II. However, the nonage of the Church has passed. God's sons are now to be owned for such. _It is Christ's mission to constitute men sons of God_ (vv. 4, 5).