John Calvin Commentary Galatians 4:10

"Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years." — Galatians 4:10 (ASV)

You observe days. He cites as an instance one description of “elements”: the observance of days. No condemnation is given here to the observance of dates in the arrangements of civil society. The order of nature from which this arises is fixed and constant. How are months and years computed, but by the revolution of the sun and moon?

What distinguishes summer from winter, or spring from harvest, but the appointment of God—an appointment which was promised to continue to the end of the world? (Genesis 8:22). The civil observation of days contributes not only to agriculture and to matters of politics, and ordinary life, but is even extended to the government of the church. What kind of observation, then, did Paul reprove? It was the kind that would bind the conscience with religious considerations, as if it were necessary for the worship of God, and which, as he expresses it in the Epistle to the Romans, would make a distinction between one day and another (Romans 14:5).

When certain days are represented as holy in themselves, when one day is distinguished from another on religious grounds, when holy days are considered a part of divine worship, then days are improperly observed. The Jewish Sabbath, new moons, and other festivals were earnestly pressed by the false apostles because they had been appointed by the law. When we, in the present age, make a distinction of days, we do not represent them as necessary, and thus lay a snare for the conscience; we do not consider one day to be more holy than another; we do not make days to be the same thing as religion and the worship of God; but merely attend to the preservation of order and harmony. The observance of days among us is a free service and free from all superstition.