Ver. 29. _The Promise of Grace._--The specific form of the whole Gospel is promise, which God gives in the Word and causes to be preached. The last period of the world is the reign of grace. Grace reigns in the world only as promise. Grace has nothing to do with law and requisition of law; therefore, the word of that grace can be no other than a word of promise. The promise of life in Christ Jesus is the word of the new covenant. The difference between the Gospel of the old covenant and that of the new rests alone on the transcendently greater glory of its promise.--_Harless._ _Heirs according to the Promise._ +I. The basest person, if he believes in Christ, is in the place of Abraham,+ and succeeds him in the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. +II. Believers must be content in this world with any estate God may lay upon them,+ for they are heirs with Abraham of heaven and earth. +III. They that believe in Christ must moderate their worldly cares+ and not live as drudges of the world, for they are heirs of God, and are entitled to all good things promised in the covenant. +IV. Our special care must be for heaven.+--The city of God is thy portion, or child's part.--_Perkins._ * * * * * * * * +CHAPTER IV.+ _CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES._ Ver. 1 +The heir, as long as he is a child.+--An infant, one under age. +Differeth nothing from a servant.+--A slave. He is not at his own disposal. He could not perform any act but through his legal representative. Ver. 2. +Under tutors and governors.+--Controllers of his person and property. Ver. 3. +Under the elements of the world.+--The rudimentary religious teaching of a nonreligious character. The elementary lessons of outward things. Ver. 4. +God sent forth His Son.+--Sent forth out of heaven from Himself. Implies the pre-existence of the Son. +Made of a woman.+--Made to be born of a woman. Indicating a special interposition of God in His birth as man. +Made under the law.+--By His Father's appointment and His own free will, subject to the law, to keep it all, ceremonial and moral, for us, as the Representative Man, and to suffer and exhaust the full penalty of our violation of it. Ver. 5. +The adoption of sons.+--Receive as something destined or due. Herein God makes of sons of men sons of God, inasmuch as God made of the Son of God the Son of man (_Augustine_). Ver. 6. +Abba, Father.+--_Abba_ is the Chaldee for father. The early use of it illustrates what Paul has been saying (ch. iii. 28) of the unity resulting from the Gospel; for Abba, Father, unites Hebrew and Greek on one lip, making the petitioner at once a Jew and a Gentile.