“The Scottish preacher John McNeill liked to tell about an eagle that had been captured when it was quite young.
“The farmer who snared the bird put a restraint on it so it couldn’t fly, and then he turned it loose to roam in the barnyard.
“It wasn’t long till the eagle began to act like the chickens, scratching and pecking at the ground. This bird that once soared high in the heavens seemed satisfied to live the barnyard life of the lowly hen.
“One day the farmer was visited by a shepherd, who lived in the mountains where the eagles
lived.
“Seeing the eagle, the shepherd said to the farmer, ‘What a shame to keep that bird hobbled here in your barnyard! Why don’t you let it go?’
“The farmer agreed, so they cut off the restraint. But the eagle continued to wander around, scratching and pecking as before.
“The shepherd picked it up and set it on a high stone wall. For the first time in months, the eagle saw the grand expanse of blue sky and the glowing sun. Then it spread its wings and with a leap soared off into a tremendous spiral flight, up and up and up.
“At last it was acting like an eagle again.”1
The Galatians had been taught to put themselves under the law. They had been captured, snared, and restrained by bad teaching and, as a result, figuratively speaking, they were pecking around the barnyard like chickens. The Book of Galatians is like Paul setting the Galatian believers on a high stone wall and showing them the great expanse of sky, wanting them to know that they are free, encouraging them to spread their wings in their liberty in Christ, and fly, and soar like eagles, and live for His glory in that freedom.
Abraham’s Two Sons
“Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
“For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.“
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise” (Gal. 4:21-23).
Paul asked those who desired to be under the law and to be under its bondage, “do ye not hear the law?” Paul countered the desire to be under the law with an argument based on and from the law, that is, from Genesis, one of the five books of the law written by Moses in the Old Testament. Paul challenged the Galatians to consider what this book of the law taught.
Essentially, Paul was saying, “Let’s have a Bible study. Open your Bibles to Genesis Chapter 16.” Referring to Genesis 16-21, Paul wrote in Galatians 4:22, “For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.”
Paul uses the “two sons” of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, as examples. These sons were born to different mothers. Ishmael was born to Hagar, an Egyptian slave of Abraham’s wife, Sarah (Gen. 16:1). Isaac was born to Sarah, a free woman.
Years after God first promised a son to Abraham, Sarah had not yet borne a child; she was still barren. Impatient, anxious, and losing hope that the promise would ever be fulfilled, Sarah convinced Abraham to take Hagar as his wife and to conceive a child by her so that he would have an heir.
When Abraham was 86 years old (Gen. 16:16), Ishmael was born naturally from this union with Hagar. Fourteen years later, when Abraham was 100 years old (21:5), Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah, despite their old age, according to God’s promise to them.
In Galatians 4:23, Paul wrote “But…”, to call attention to the difference between these two births. The birth of Ishmael was “after the flesh,” or according to the will and plan of the flesh and not of faith. It was God’s will for Abraham to wait for a son from Sarah, but it was Abraham’s and Sarah’s will to enact their own plan and not wait for God. It revealed Abraham’s and Sarah’s lack of faith in God’s promise, and so failure to believe God was the basis for Ishmael’s birth.
Isaac, however, was the son of God’s promise, resulting from God’s intervention and action, and was God’s miracle for Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was 90 years old when she conceived. It was a miracle of God for Abraham and Sarah to have a child when he was 100 and she was 90, far beyond normal childbearing age, and especially when Sarah had been barren all her life (Heb. 11:11).
The birth of Ishmael represented man’s way, the natural result and way of the flesh, whereas Isaac’s birth represented God’s way, the way of His miraculous promise. Ishmael signified reliance on self and the flesh, but Isaac signified reliance on God and faith in His promise.
Abraham’s Two Wives
“Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
“For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the other of us all.
“For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband” (Gal. 4:24-27).
A man once said, “I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom until they are flashing behind you.”2
Paul gives an illustration in this passage of things that stand for and picture freedom. Paul plainly states that the births of Abraham’s two sons in Genesis “are an allegory.” An allegory is a record of an obviously apparent, literal event that has a deeper, symbolic, spiritual meaning.
Paul took the literal, historical events surrounding Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael and used them to illustrate truths that applied to the situation with the Galatians. Abraham’s two wives and the two sons from these wives are used to portray the difference between law and grace and to demonstrate the superiority of grace over law.
Paul wrote, “for these are the two covenants.” Paul makes it clear that Agar (Hagar) represents the covenant of the law that God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai. And although Paul does not specifically say so in this passage, it becomes obvious that Sarah represents the Abrahamic covenant and its promise.
In verse 24, Paul describes the Mosaic covenant as “the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.” “Gendereth” means brings forth, conceives, begets, gives birth to. Paul wrote that Hagar gives birth to bondage. The status of a mother directly affected the status of her son. Hagar was a slave, and so a son born to a slave woman was also a slave. Hagar, a slave in bondage, gave birth to Ishmael, a son in bondage.
Hagar represents the law, which brings forth children in bondage who, as slaves, are told, “thou shalt” and, “thou shalt not.” Paul’s point is that, by putting themselves under the law, the Galatians were making themselves slaves.
Continuing the allegory, Paul wrote, “For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia.” Mount Sinai, of course, is where Moses received the law, and it is in Arabia. One commentator wrote, “The descendants of Hagar through Ishmael eventually moved into the desert areas to the east and south of the Promised Land. They came to be known broadly as Arabs and their territory as Arabia.”3 Thus, it is significant that Mount Sinai is in Arabia, and that Hagar and Ishmael picture the law that was given there.
Hagar, being a slave and representing the law, and Mount Sinai being the place where the law was given, then, metaphorically, “Agar is mount Sinai.” And Paul wrote that Mount Sinai, with its bondage, in turn, represents another place: Jerusalem. Paul wrote in verse 25, “For this Agar…answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.” The words “answereth to” mean corresponds to. Thus, Agar also corresponded to “Jerusalem which now is,” or the Jerusalem of Paul’s day when he wrote this letter to the Galatians around AD 49 or 50.
Hagar represented the first-century city of Jerusalem, a city physically enslaved to Rome at that time but also in spiritual slavery to the law of Moses, trying to carry out the law in the weakness of their flesh. They were enslaved by the law and Judaism. Jerusalem was then and still is in bondage to the works of the law, as Paul wrote in Romans 9:31-32:
“But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone.”
Paul then introduces another, parallel metaphor, that Sarah is the heavenly Jerusalem, and he contrasts the two Jerusalems: the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem. In contrast to Hagar, Paul wrote of Sarah in Galatians 4:26, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” Jerusalem below in Paul’s day was in bondage to the law, and it corresponded to the bondwoman: Hagar. However, Jerusalem, which is above, is free, and corresponded to the freewoman: Sarah. Sarah represented the Jerusalem in heaven, and God’s own heavenly Jerusalem, “the city of the living God” (Heb. 12:22), is free from any bondage.
It might seem confusing at first, making one think that Paul is explaining that our future residence will be in the new Jerusalem. However, that is not the case. The new Jerusalem is scheduled to depart heaven one day, when it will descend to the new earth (Rev. 21:2,10), but we will remain in heaven forever (Eph. 2:6-7).
Paul is simply using the Jerusalem above in his allegory and comparison to speak of the present condition of all believers in the dispensation of grace. Just as the Jerusalem, which is above is free, so we are free. It is not about our place to live eternally, but our way of living presently, by grace and freedom like Jerusalem above, not by the law and bondage, like Jerusalem below.
The spiritual freedom in Jerusalem above is noted by Paul to contrast it with the spiritual bondage of the earthly Jerusalem, and the law that can never make one free. The Jerusalem above is free from any spiritual bondage. It is utterly free, like we are free in Christ under grace.
In the allegory, Hagar, a bondmaid, represented the law, the flesh, Mount Sinai and Jerusalem below, and bondage. Sarah, a freewoman, corresponds to grace, faith, Jerusalem above, and freedom.
Sarah, representing the Jerusalem which is above, “is the mother of us all” (Gal. 4:26). Earlier in Galatians, Paul wrote, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” (3:7). And in Romans 4:16, Paul referred to “Abraham, who is the father of us all.” Abraham represents faith in Scripture, and Abraham’s wife, Sarah, represents grace. In that we are justified by faith, Abraham is the father of us all, and in that we are saved by grace, Sarah is the mother of us all.
Hagar represents the law and bondage in the allegory while Sarah represents grace and freedom. And because we are saved by the grace of God, Sarah is the mother of “us all,” or all of us in the Church, the Body of Christ. Grace “gendereth” or gives birth to all of us in the Church. By grace, we are set free from all our sins, and we are free from the law and its bondage. Grace and faith are what this entire dispensation is all about.
Oil and Water
“But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
“Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman” (Gal. 4:29-30).
“He that was born after the flesh” refers to Ishmael (v. 23), and “him that was born after the Spirit” is Isaac. Ishmael’s persecution of Isaac refers to Genesis 21:8-9: “And the child [Isaac] grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian [Ishmael], which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.”
When Abraham held a feast to celebrate Isaac’s weaning, Ishmael mocked the occasion, probably ridiculing the aged mother and her newly weaned child. Ishmael felt animosity toward Isaac just as his mother, Hagar, felt animosity toward Sarah. And Paul remarked in his own time, “even so it is now.”
Under grace, those who are born after the Spirit and saved by grace through faith are often mocked and persecuted by those who are after the flesh and who follow and trust in the law and its works.
The persecution that believers face will not always come from the world, which does hate believers (Jn. 15:18-19), but often from religious, works-based people who fiercely disagree with our beliefs of grace and faith alone in Christ for salvation. Paul faced this opposition throughout his ministry. There is a battle going on between law and grace, and legalists often lash out, persecute, and mock those who rejoice in the grace of God.
This is because grace and law are polar opposites. Putting yourself under the law is about what you do for God; being under grace is all about what God has done for us. Under the law, the focus is on self; under grace, the focus is on Christ. Under law, the focus is on one’s works; under grace, the focus is on faith in Christ’s finished work. Under law, one tries to earn righteousness; under grace, one receives God’s righteousness as a gift.
Grace seems too simple to many and too good to be true, and most feel like they must do something to earn God’s favor. Those who cling to religion and trust in their own performance and their own righteousness often stand opposed to the teaching of God’s Word, that justification is by grace through faith apart from any works. And just as Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, persecuted Isaac, the son of the freewoman, so our freedom in Christ also comes under attack from those who are under bondage.
Paul then added in verse 30, “Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” This refers to Sarah’s words and her plea to Abraham after Ishmael mocked Isaac. Sarah would not tolerate Hagar and Ishmael remaining to live in their midst. She had Hagar and Ishmael cast out of Abraham’s household. The bondwoman’s son, Ishmael, representing the law, shall not have been heir with the freewoman’s son, Isaac, representing grace.
This means it must be one or the other, grace or law. Paul uses this conclusion to make the important point that law and grace don’t mix and cannot coexist. It’s like trying to mix oil and water (Rom. 4:4-5; 11:6). They are incompatible. One negates the other, and one of them must go. Paul told the Galatians that they needed to “cast out the bondwoman and her son,” meaning that legalism, the teaching of putting people in bondage to the law, needed to be cast out of their midst. Many churches need to do the same today.
The reason for Ishmael’s expulsion was, as Sarah said, that the slave woman’s son, Ishmael, would not be heir with the freewoman’s son, Isaac. ONLY Isaac would receive the inheritance and blessings of God through Abraham. In the allegory, this shows that, under the dispensation of grace, those who seek acceptance with God through following the law will never be sons and heirs; they will never be righteous. Righteousness, salvation, sonship, and being an heir of God only come by grace.
Thus, in light of all these things about law and grace, and bondage and freedom, Paul exhorts us in the first verse of the next chapter:
“STAND FAST therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entagled again with the toke of bondage.” (Gal. 5:1)
1. Thomas Clawser, contributor Sermon Central, February 9, 2002, https://sermoncentral.com/sermon-illustrations/5961/the-scottish-preacher-john-mcneill-liked-to-tell-by-thomas-clawser.
2. Author unknown, Quote Catalog, accessed August 1, 2025, https://quotecatalog.com/quote/unknown-i-find-it-ironi-O1Mb6k7.
3. John MacArthur, Galatians (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1987), p. 125.
