Perhaps it’s easy for us to underestimate the pressure of the false teaching the Galatians were receiving. Maybe we’re picturing the scene as if these teachers are dopes who are obviously wrong, but that is clearly not how they were coming across. These men were no doubt from Jerusalem, knew the Old Testament Scripture well, and were convincing. And what match were the Galatians for their teaching? After all, the Galatians had been converted out of a background in which they were worshiping Zeus and Hermes. How were they expected to be able to sit down with these false teachers and debate what they were being taught, especially if the false teachers were teaching these things and pointing to the Old Testament itself to try to support their claims?
You could imagine the false teachers saying something like this: “In the first book of the law we read that Abraham had two sons, but that only one – Isaac, his offspring through Sarah – received the inheritance. In fact, Sarah clearly declared to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac’ (Gen. 21:10). And God told Abraham to do what Sarah said, for she was right. Therefore, what we’re telling you Galatians is that you can be in the line of Isaac and not Ishmael. You can be those who receive the inheritance promised by God. All is not lost even though you’re not physically Jews, not physically Isaac’s descendants, because you can identify yourself as such by taking on the markers that clearly showed who the Jews were – i.e., those who were circumcised, observed a certain calendar, and were given the law of Moses and obeyed it. Therefore, please come under the law so that you may get the inheritance. Start living now like we live in Jerusalem, God’s holy city. We want good for you, not bad.”
You could imagine a conversation like that which would sound very powerful, would be based on pointing to a few texts from the Bible, and would seem quite convincing. You could also imagine the anxious burden Paul felt knowing that the Galatians were exposed to such false teaching that would seem so convincing and yet was an attack on the gospel. And you can see why Paul spent so much time providing such detailed argument in showing that man is not justified by obeying the law but by faith in Christ and that those who are Abraham’s true offspring are not those who physically descend from him or who identify themselves as physical descendants of Abraham though obedience to the law but those (whether Jews or Gentiles) who are united to Christ by faith. Therefore, if we think that Paul seems to be going overboard in making his argument in so many ways, from so many angles, then perhaps we’ve underestimated the weight of the situation and the manner in which the arguments of the false teachers would have sounded convincing – especially as they were making reference to the Scriptures themselves to support their arguments.
Therefore, in the text we’re looking at this morning (Galatians 4:21-5:1), Paul notes that the false teachers, in their appeal to Scripture, are not really looking at the whole picture. That’s why he begins, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law.” That is, “Do you really know what you’re getting into? If you about to put yourself under the law, do you know what the Scripture itself says?” The implication Paul makes is that they better know the fuller picture. Simply being shown a verse or two in the Bible not in the context of the whole can be quite misleading. And Paul knew that there were many false teachers arguing that in order to receive the inheritance you had to obey the law – and justified it by pointing to the Scriptures.
Therefore, in Galatians 4:21-5:1, Paul takes on these false teachers on their own terms. It’s as if he says, “Great. Let’s look at Isaac and Ishmael. Let’s look at Abraham’s two sons. Let’s see who it is who is supposed to get the inheritance.” And he hopes that the Galatians will see that the presentation of the text provided by these false teachers is nothing less than a distortion of the truth.
But the way Paul lays this out in this text is quite difficult to follow. Paul talks about slave and free, flesh and promises, two covenants, two women, two sons, two Jerusalems, and says near the beginning of our text about an Old Testament story, “This may be interpreted allegorically” (4:24). So, it’s complicated and confusing. But Paul didn’t write this to confuse the Galatians. Nor was Paul just showing off in making a very difficult argument. This isn’t fun and games for Paul. He loved the Galatians and desperately wanted them to know the freedom of the gospel and not to put themselves under the law. So, we can say with certainty that Paul makes the argument in these verses because he knows that there is a precious and powerful truth that the Galatians needed to see and understand.
Therefore, I want to challenge you this morning to engage your mind diligently in order that we might understand this text together because it is a difficult and challenging text. It’s the kind of text that hurts your head to work through, and yet we know that there is a precious and powerful truth taught here, or Paul wouldn’t give it. However, acknowledging that it’s hard and difficult, I want to give you something some commentators agree on. They agree that the text should be outlined simply as: 1) The story (4:21-23), 2) The meaning of the story (4:24-27), and 3) The application of the story and its meaning (4:28-5:1).1 Therefore, this is how we will look at this text. So, first, let’s see the story Paul is explaining.
After asking the Galatians if they have actually listened to the law itself, and if they know what they’re getting into in seeking to be justified on the basis of the law in verse 21, Paul tells them of the story of Abraham’s two sons. He writes in verses 22-23, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave women and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.”
Here, Paul is simply reminding them of a story that is familiar to us who have read Genesis 15-21. In Genesis 15, God promised Abraham that he would have a son. It seems like a simple and easily believable promise until you factor in the fact that Abraham and Sarah were both quite old – well beyond child-bearing years. Therefore, their initial desire was to laugh. It would take a miracle. And, yet, we read in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham believed God.
But then the wheels in their minds got to churning and Sarah came up with what seemed like a good idea. She came to Abraham one day and noted that she was obviously beyond child-bearing years and that they obviously were not going to have a child by means of her. Therefore, she suggested that Abraham take her slave Hagar as a wife and attempt to conceive a child with her. And at first glance, it seemed like a successful plan. Hagar conceived and bore a son to Abraham named Ishmael. However, soon, the Lord made clear that Ishmael is not the child God promised to Abraham. Abraham asked the Lord to bring the blessing through Ishmael, and the Lord responded, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac” (Gen. 17:19). And sure enough, though Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah ninety, she conceived and bore the child God promised, and they named his Isaac. That is the story that Paul is addressing in verses 22-23.
When he talks about Abraham’s two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman, he is talking about Ishmael, who was born to the salve woman, Hagar, and Isaac, who was born to Sarah. Furthermore, when he talks about the son of the slave born according to the flesh, he speaks of Ishmael, the product of what Abraham could produce by his own ability, and when he speaks of the son born through promise, he is speaking of Isaac, whose birth can be credited as only the work of God who fulfilled his promise. That’s the story that Paul draws from in this text. Then, in verses 24-27, he gives us a meaning of the story.
So, with that as the story in our minds, Paul begins verse 24, saying, “Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.” What does Paul mean here? Well, an allegory is a story in which details in the story can stand for something else. Specifically, a Christian allegory like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is about a story of a man making a journey that points us to, or stands for, our journey on our way to be with the Lord in eternity. Details in the story stand for certain truths, and in that specific story, it’s pretty obvious. With the story of Isaac and Ishmael and Sarah and Hagar in Genesis 15-21, Paul says that this story also stands for greater realities, beyond the details involved in the story itself. Different from Bunyan’s allegory, Paul wants us to see that Genesis 15-21 tells us a true story that really happened in history. However, those individuals who lived out these details were intended by the Lord to symbolize greater realities and greater truths.
Paul tells us, “These women [Sarah and Hagar] are two covenants” (v. 24). That is, the women symbolize two covenants. Then, he continues, “One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar” (v. 24). So, Hagar represents the covenant that was given at Mount Sinai – that is the law covenant. And we see how Paul sees this connection in this sense. Just as the law covenant was given at Mount Sinai, saying, “Do this and live; fail to do this perfectly and be cursed” so that it was only powerful to enslave those under it in their sin and condemnation, so Hagar has offspring as a slave, and her children are therefore enslaved. Just as those under the law are destined only to be slaves, so those who come from Hagar are destined only to be slaves.
Now, Paul does not say this specifically, but we can therefore see what he would say of Sarah, namely, that she is of the covenant of promise. We saw this earlier in Galatians 3:15-25, as Paul compared the promise made to Abraham verses the law that came through Moses. One covenant, the law covenant, said “Do this and live,” while the covenant of promise was simply God’s declaration of promise, saying, “I will do … for you.” Therefore, the law covenant is dependent on our ability to do perfectly, and thus enslaves us as we are unable, while the covenant of promise is simply dependent on God fulfilling his promise. Hagar represents the law covenant that enslaved man under sin and condemnation, while Sarah represents the covenant of promise.
Yet, there’s more. Paul writes in verses 25, “Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.” Now, again, we can imagine the reaction if the Galatians were hearing the teaching of the false teachers and were starting to think that they were not sons of God, outside of the covenant, with no connection to God’s people or Jerusalem where God had allowed his presence to dwell among his people. They no doubt were being told that they were outsiders, needing to conform to the practices in Jerusalem (i.e., obeying the law of Moses), while the false teachers were insiders, the blessed sons of God, who have come from the holy Jerusalem. They are children from Sarah. Then, Paul says that Hagar corresponds not to the Gentiles but to the present Jerusalem, so all of the sudden, the false teachers are not those in line with Sarah but those in line with Hagar.
You see, at this point in Israel’s history, Jerusalem was not free. The Jews were enslaved to Roman rule. Therefore, Paul says that Hagar and her children correspond to a people who are enslaved, even as the present Jerusalem is a sign of slavery.
However, Paul says, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (v. 26). You see, Paul is showing us again the function of the law. It is true, that the Old Testament is filled with promises that he will bring his people to Jerusalem, that Jerusalem will be the site of blessing. However, what Paul is showing is that even as the sacrifices in the law were just types and shadows of the ultimate sacrifice in Christ, so that they are powerless to forgive sin, so the earthly Jerusalem was never the ultimate home of God’s people but was simply a type or shadow of a heavenly Jerusalem that will one day serve as the home of all of God’s people.
That heavenly Jerusalem isn’t enslaved under Roman rule. It is free. And more than that, it is our mother. So, just as Hagar and her slavery is pictured in the law-covenant and in the earthly Jerusalem, a covenant that says, “Do this and live” and thus enslaves everyone under it to sin and condemnation, so Sarah and her freedom is pictured in the covenant of promise and the heavenly Jerusalem which pictures the freedom from condemnation that all those in Christ Jesus have.
But, Paul says that she is “our” mother, that is, Pau is saying to the Galatians, “You, not the false teachers who try to keep the law and claim Jerusalem as their home, are the children who have Sarah and the heavenly Jerusalem as their home. You, not the false teachers, are in the line of Isaac. You, not the false teachers, are free.” So, don’t feel that you are the ones on the outside looking in. You are in line with Isaac; it is they who are connected with Hagar, Ishmael, and slavery.
But is Paul getting this right? Is this really the way it was supposed to be, that Abraham’s offspring who would be blessed would be those who really have no chance of claiming a physical connection to Isaac or Sarah or Abraham? Yes. And to support this claim, Paul quotes Isaiah 54:1, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.”
This text seems odd, doesn’t it? So, in order to make sense of it, let’s first see the historical context. In Isaiah 54, Israel has been led into exile. It looked like any future for God’s people was hopeless. And Jerusalem is pictured as a mother who is weeping because she no longer has any children. They’ve been taken away, and it is as if she is barren, without hope of having children. Then, in Isaiah 54, the Lord comes to her declaring, “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!”
That exhortation is odd. Could you imagine a couple who have tried to have children for years finally coming back from a doctor’s appointment in which they are told that the wife will never be able to bear children, that she is infertile, that she is barren? There are a number of things you might say, but I’m pretty sure that one of them wouldn’t be, “Yes! Rejoice! Let’s sing together and celebrate!” It’s wouldn’t be, “Have great joy, you who are not in labor!” Yet, that’s what the Lord says. But why? Why does God say that? It’s because he is making a promise. And the promise is that the barren one will indeed have children. In fact, she will have much more children than the one who has a husband.
That is, Isaiah 54:1 is a promise that God is going to bring about children, offspring of Abraham, out of impossibility. Just as it was impossible for Sarah to have a son, and yet she did because God promised and did it, so God is promising to bring about children again, offspring of Abraham, when it seems there is no hope. He is promising to do it. So, then, who are these children of Abraham God promised to bring about? It is us. That’s what Paul says in verse 28, “You, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.”
That is, we cannot claim to be children of Abraham and heirs of the promise made to him because of anything we can point to of ourselves. We have no connection through physical means. We are simply his children because God made a promise to Abraham. Specifically God made a promise to Abraham that he would justify people by faith from every part of the world so that they might be made his offspring. And as anyone – whether Jew or Gentile, man or woman, slave or free – believes in Christ, he or she becomes Abraham’s offspring. We are children in line with the promise. This is how God always intended it.
So, the false teachers have read the law all wrong. The Scriptures never intended to make individuals true children of Abraham as they obeyed the law and identified with the Jews. That way of thinking lines up with Hagar – a view that says we can bring about God’s blessings by our own ability. And if you go that route, you will only end up enslaved to sin and condemnation. Rather, God’s intention was always to bless a people who saw they had no hope, who were as hopeless as a barren woman having children. For if we confess our inability and place our faith in Christ, who accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves, then we, like Isaac, are Abraham’s offspring, and reminders that we have nothing of ourselves to brag about but are simply God’s children because of God’s promise and faithfulness to that promise.
So, Paul wants the Galatians to see that they are not the outsiders, looking in. They are not the strangers God, in need of getting in line with what’s going on in Jerusalem. They’ve actually understood God’s purposes and plans better than these false teachers who had lived right there in Jerusalem. And they have been blessed because they have turned from their works as their hope of justification and have believed in Christ. That is the meaning of the story that Paul wants us to see. But then Paul applies it.
We’ve already mentioned the application of the story from verse 28, namely, that we need to understand that if we believe in Christ and trust in him alone for our justification, that we, like Isaac, are children of promise.
But there are other applications of this story as well. One of those is that we need to realize that we will always be persecuted by those who are enslaved to the elementary principles of the world and are relying on their works as the basis of justification. Paul writes, “But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now” (v. 29).
When Isaac was born, Ishmael laughed and mocked him. Paul says that this is how it will always be. Those in slavery will persecuted those who are free. The children of the slave will always persecuted the children of the free woman. This is why these false teachers had come into Galatia, and it’s why you and I, if we hold to faith alone as the basis of our justification, will always be persecuted by those who are enslaved to the a principle that tells them that they must do to be justified. It will happen. Perhaps those persecuting you will point to sections of the Bible like the false teachers in Galatia or will tell you that what you’re thinking and believing is dishonoring to God. I do not know how the persecution will come every time, but know that it will come. We will be persecuted. And the reason we will be is because everyone else in the world is enslaved to the elementary principles of the world that say, “Do this and live,” and they are struggling with the reality that they cannot be justified. And they will hate us for the freedom that we have in Christ. They will fight against our message and hate us, even as we labor so that they might know that same freedom.
A second application is that we must rid ourselves of the notion that we can be justified by obeying the law. Paul writes in verse 30, “But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’”
As Isaac was born and Ishmael mocked him by laughing at him, it upset Sarah and she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman and her son” (Gen. 21:10). And it was very displeasing to Abraham because Ishmael was his son. And the Lord said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of the slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named” (Gen. 21:12). So, God said to Abraham, “Stop being displeased by this, for it is right.”
So, seeing Paul’s meaning of the story, if the two women are covenants, Paul says to us in verse 30, “Cast out the law covenant that says ‘Do this and live.’” That is, get rid of the notion that you need to obey God’s law in order to be justified. And for some of you, this is displeasing, and you want to fight against it. It is what you have known. It feels comfortable. The way we relate to God is along the lines of feeling like we’ve obeyed enough and are in good standing or feeling like we’ve not obeyed enough and suffer under guilt and condemnation. And I’m saying to you, “Get rid of that kind of thinking. Cast it out like Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael.” But if you say, “But I am displeased with that. It doesn’t feel right.,” the Lord says, “Be not displeased. And the reason why is because God’s plan was never for you to base your standing before him on your obedience to his law but rather to base your standing on whether or not you believe in his Son who lived a perfect life for us and who died to pay for our sins. You are no longer children of the slave woman, who has to walk in slavery before God but children of the free woman (v. 31).
So, let me end with an exhortation. It is 5:1 – “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Part of us is comfortable with slavery so that pondering our freedom from condemnation before God and living in light of that feels irresponsible to us. Additionally, people will tell us that we need the law’s condemnation to keep us in check. So, it is in light of that reality that I say to you, “Christ wants you to know freedom from condemnation.” He wants you not merely to acknowledge it but to delight in it, rejoice in it, sing about it. Therefore, you stand firm against the temptation to think you must do in order to merit God’s justification of you and his acceptance of you as his Son, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery, for you are free. You are free from having to live in guilt, and despair, and condemnation. You are free. Rejoice in that. Live in that. And fight against every challenge that comes against that blessed truth. Now, let’s celebrate that freedom as we come to the table. Amen.