In an affecting way, the passionate love
surging in the apostle as he struggles for the preservation of the church breaks
through. This is evident from the vocative my little children as well as
from the expression that he is again in travail (διδινω: to be in the paints
of travail) for them. In this Paul’s passionate
endeavor for the Galatians teaches out for the language of the tenderest mother’s
concern. . . . The longing to be again fully desired and trusted by the
Galatians brings him to this new turn of the argument in which as the climax of
this whole passage all that moves Paul in his concern for the erring churches
converges on one point. The expression to be in travail tells of the new
pain and exertion which it is costing him to give birth to the Galatians (in 1
Cor. 4:15 he speaks of his spiritual fatherhood [γενναν]) as his spiritual children. The words until
Christ be formed in you sustain that basic figure of speech. The spiritual
struggle will not cease until the end has been reached. But it is a struggle aggravated
by strong misgivings as to whether the end can be attained. The pain is not
having arrived at this deeply desired purpose is the dominant one. This
purpose, further, is not to be interpreted as a mysterious birth of Christ in
the believers, but rather, in the manifestation of their lives. It is in their
lives that the form of Christ must appear in the sense that the life of the believers
must be ruled by Christ, quite as much in their absolute dependence upon His
righteousness as in the life according to His commands. (Herman N. Ridderbos, The
Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia: The English Text with Introduction,
Exposition and Notes [trans. Henry Zylstra; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
1953], 170)
