Word Biblical Commentary on Galatians, vol. 41.

For Dunn, then, “we cannot safely assume that Paul intended [in 4:4-5] an allusion to Christ as pre-existent Son or Wisdom of God” (ibid., 40). And even if we assume that Wisdom-Logos speculation does somehow impinge on Gal 4:4- 5—a possibility that Dunn must allow, since the synoptic Gospels portray Jesus as not only a messenger of Wisdom (Q; Luke 11:49) but also as Wisdom itself (Matt 23:34)—this lends no weight to the view that the sending of the Son implies his preexistence. For Wisdom was never understood in Judaism as a literally preexistent being beside Yahweh. Rather, the “Wisdom of God” was simply a way of describing God-being-wise from all eternity, and language that seems to hypostasize Wisdom independently of God is really only a Hebraic way of personifying the wise action of God himself (ibid., 173-76).

The sending formula of Gal 4:4-5, therefore, as Dunn views it, says nothing as to Jesus’ preexistence beside God. Instead, given the early Christian tradition that Jesus both spoke of himself as sent by God and as being God’s Son—a tradition epitomized in the parable of the wicked tenants—“Paul and his readers in writing and reading [Gal 4:4-7] may well have thought only of the man Jesus whose ministry in Palestine was of divine commissioning and whose uniquely intimate relation with God was proved (and enhanced) by his resurrection, despite his rejection by the stewards of Israel’s heritage” (ibid., 40). Jesus in his earthly life was God’s Son not because of his preexistence but by virtue of his commissioning by God, which is what Paul learned from the early church and what he formulated in what we now have as Gal 4:4-5.