Paul goes on in Galatians 4 to argue that the position of Christians in the world is that of children coming into their own, rather than slaves who will never inherit the promise.
He uses the analogy of a minor without rights in the household as he awaits the dates and conditions set by his parents. Functionally, that child has no more claim on the wealth than does a household employee. But, when the time is right, the minor comes into his inheritance and everything changes. That, Paul argues, is what happened with the coming of Christ. Now we are now longer like slaves, but as children - and heirs!
Paul returns to this type of argument later in the chapter by considering the Old Testament stories of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory. (I'm sure the Jews were shocked to find that Hagar is the stand-in for the nation of Israel instead of their mother Sarah!) Just as Hagar's child Ishmael was the naturally-born child of a slave woman without any rights, so, too, is this true of those under the bondage of the law. It is Sarah's miraculous child Isaac, heir to the promise, that represents the Church in this analogy. Paul goes on to say that, just like with Ishmael and Isaac, the Jews are now persecuting the Christians, and it is time for that to stop!
P.S. Paul also discusses an infirmity he suffered in vs. 13-15. It appears Paul is talking about a problem related to his eyes. In vs. 15, he specifically mentions that the Galatians would have given him their eyes if they could have. Interestingly, Paul wrote with large letters, which is something that people with poor eyesight tend to do (Galatians 6:11). Also, we should remember that Paul suffered temporary blindness on the road to Damascus in the Book of Acts. Are these possible clues to the type of affliction he mentions as his "thorn in the flesh" in II Corinthians 12:7?
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