Transcript

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 came down from 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 that it was time, so they cut off the restraint. But the eagle continued to wander around, scratching and pecking as before.

The shepherd then 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.

The Galatians had been captured and snared by bad teaching in being told to put themselves under the law. And then they were pecking around the barnyard.

The Book of Galatians is like Paul setting the Galatian believers on that stone wall and showing them the great expanse of sky, wanting them to know that they are free, and encouraging them to spread their wings in their liberty in Christ and fly and soar and live for His glory in that freedom.

Galatians 4:21-23: “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.”

Paul challenged the Galatians here concerning their “desire to be under the law.” They were demonstrating that desire by their actions. As Paul wrote in verse 10, they were observing “days, and months, and times, and years” of the law of Moses.

Why do people even today desire “to be under the law”? One commentator had this insightful thought about this question.

“[One] reason for desiring to be under the law is that it removes the responsibility of decision making.

“If you are under the law, all of the rules are laid out for you in black and white. You don’t have to make any decisions. You don’t have to reach that position that Paul speaks of so often in Galatians of sonship, of being an adult son who is grown up and able to use the principles of Scripture and make right decisions.

“[Another] reason for desiring to be under the law is that it provides an external rule whereby you can compare yourself to others—something we all like to do. Why do we like to do that? It is because we can always find someone who is not quite living up to the standard as well as we are. This makes us feel good about ourselves and inflates our ego.

“Living under grace removes all of our excuses for boasting and puts all of the glory squarely on Christ where it belongs!”

Paul asked those who desire to be under the law and to be under its bondage, “do ye not hear the law?”

Paul countered this desire to be under the law with an argument based on and from the law, that is, from Genesis, a book in the law section of the Old Testament. Paul challenged the Galatians to consider what this book in the law taught.

And essentially, Paul was saying, “Let’s have a Bible study. Open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 16.” Referring to Genesis 16-21 here in verse 22 of Galatians 4, Paul wrote, “For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.”

Paul uses “two sons” of Abraham as examples: Ishmael and Isaac. These sons were born from different mothers. Ishmael was born to Hagar, an Egyptian slave of Abraham’s wife, Sarah. Isaac was born to Sarah, a free woman.

Years after God first promised a son to Abraham, Sarah had not yet had a child and she was still barren. Impatient, anxious, and losing hope that the promise would be fulfilled, Sarah convinced Abraham to take Hagar as his wife and to have a child by her female slave, so 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), in fulfillment of God’s promise, Isaac was born miraculously to Abraham and Sarah.

In verse 23, Paul wrote “But,” which is written to call attention to the difference between these two births. The birth of Ishmael was “after the flesh,” according to the will of the flesh and not of faith. It was God’s will for Abraham to wait for a son from Sarah, but it was the will of Abraham and Sarah by their flesh to go before God and not wait.

It revealed a lack of faith in God’s promise on the part of Abraham and Sarah. Failure to believe God was the basis for Ishmael’s birth.

Isaac, however, was the son of God’s promise, based in faith, and was due to God’s intervention, God’s 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 and far beyond normal childbearing age and having been barren all her life (Heb. 11:11).

The birth of Ishmael was due to and represented man’s way, the way of the flesh.

Whereas, Isaac’s birth was due to and represented God’s way, the way of promise.

Ishmael represents reliance on self and the works of the flesh, and Isaac represents reliance on God and faith in His promise.

Galatians 4:24-27:

“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 mother 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.”

A man once said, “I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for freedom until they are flashing behind you.” Speaking of things that stand for and picture freedom, Paul gives an illustration here.

Paul wrote in verse 24, “Which things are an allegory.” Paul specifically states that these events in Genesis are an allegory. This is the only time this term is used in Scripture.

An allegory is a record of a literal event that has a symbolic spiritual meaning. It has the idea of one thing being represented under the image of another.

Paul took the literal, historical events surrounding Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael and used it to illustrate truths that applied to the situation with the Galatians.

And Abraham’s two wives and two sons from these wives are used to portray the difference between law and grace and to illustrate the superiority of grace over law.

Paul said “for these are the two covenants.” And he makes it clear that Hagar represents the covenant of the law that God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai. While Sarah likely represents the Abrahamic covenant with its promise.

In verse 24, Paul wrote of one of the covenants, “the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.” “Which gendereth” literally means to beget, to be born, conceive. Paul wrote that Hagar gives birth to bondage.

The status of a mother affected the status of her son. Hagar was a slave, and a son born to a slave woman became a slave too.

Hagar, a slave in bondage, gave birth to Ishmael, a son in bondage. She represents the law which gives birth and brings forth children in bondage who, as slaves, are told “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not.” And Paul’s point is that by putting themselves under the law, the Galatians were making themselves slaves.

Continuing the allegory, Paul said “For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia.” Mount Sinai, of course, is the location where Moses received the Law which is located in Arabia.

One author wrote this, “The descendants of Hagar through Ishmael eventually moved into the desert areas to the east and south of the Promised Land. They came to know broadly as Arabs and their territory as Arabia.”

Thus, it’s not without significance that Mount Sinai is located in Arabia, and Hagar and Ishmael picturing the law given there.

Hagar being a slave representing the law, and Mount Sinai being the place where the law was given, Hagar is symbolically Mount Sinai which corresponds to the law and its bondage. And Paul wrote that Mount Sinai with its bondage in turn represents another place: Jerusalem.

Paul then introduces another metaphor and contrasts two Jerusalems: the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem.

He wrote in verse 25, “For this Agar…answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.” The words, “answereth to,” means corresponds to.

So 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 also stood for the first-century city of Jerusalem, a city enslaved to Rome and in slavery to the law. Jerusalem was in political bondage to Rome and she was in spiritual bondage to the law, trying to carry out the law in the weakness of their flesh. They were enslaved by the law and Judaism.

Jerusalem at that time was like Paul wrote in Romans 9: “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” (9:31-32).

In contrast to Hagar, Paul wrote of Sarah in verse 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, which is free, 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), that Jerusalem which is above, is absolutely free from any bondage.

It might seem confusing at first and make one think that Paul is explaining that our future residence will be in the New Jerusalem, but that is not the case.

That New Jerusalem is scheduled to depart heaven one day, and it will one day descend to the new earth. But we will remain to reign in heaven forever.

Paul is using Jerusalem above in his allegory and illustration to speak of the present condition of all believers in the dispensation of grace. Like Jerusalem which is above is free, we are free.

It is not about our place to live eternally, but our new way to live, 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 truly free.

The Jerusalem above is free from any spiritual bondage, and it is utterly and entirely free, like we are free and have true freedom in Christ.

In the allegory, Hagar, a bondmaid, represented the law, flesh, Mount Sinai, Jerusalem below, and bondage. Sarah, a freewoman, corresponds to grace, faith, Jerusalem above, and freedom.

And Paul says that Sarah “is the mother of us all.” 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 wrote that “Abraham, who is the father of us all.”

Abraham represents faith in Scripture, and Abraham’s wife, Sarah, represents grace.

Because we are righteous by faith alone, Abraham is the father of us all. And because of we are regenerated, justified, and redeemed by grace, Sarah is the mother of us all.

In contrast to Hagar who represents the law and bondage in the allegory, 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 is how we are saved and how we are set free from all our sins, and under grace, we are free from the law and its bondage. Faith in Christ and grace in Christ, is what the gospel for this age and this entire dispensation is all about.

In verse 27, Paul wrote of Sarah, “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.”

This is a quotation from Isaiah 54:1. It was written to encourage the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and it concerns the future earthly kingdom.

In her exile and dispersion, Israel had been destitute and dejected as a woman who was barren. But Isaiah called on Israel to rejoice, because of the Lord’s promise of future fruitfulness for the nation in the kingdom.

Paul applied it to Sarah. In Galatians, Sarah is pictured as childless, barren, desolate, and that she travails not in childbirth. But she is told to “Rejoice,” because “the desolate” would in the end have “many more children than she which hath an husband.”

“She which hath an husband” refers to Hagar, the one two whom Abraham had turned and married and had Ishmael with.

In the allegory, Hagar represents the law. Sarah represents grace, and grace is “the mother of us all” who are born again in this age.

After all was said and done, Paul was showing that grace would be shown to be superior to law and that grace triumphs over the law. Because in the end, it would be found that the progeny of grace and those saved through gospel of the grace of God among the nations, would far exceed those who had followed the law.

So Sarah (or grace) is told to break forth and cry, or shout, and rejoice, because the grace of God will have more far-reaching results in bringing forth children than Hagar (or the law).

And again, Paul’s point in all this is so that the Galatians would see the folly in putting themselves under the law and its bondage. And that instead, they would live by the superiority of grace through faith, by the Spirit, and in the freedom we have in Christ.

Galatians 4:28-31:

“Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. 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. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.”

Sarah gave birth to a child of promise, who is Isaac. Sarah represents grace, which is the mother of us all, as grace gives birth to all us in the Church. And because Sarah was a freewoman, when she gave birth to a son, Isaac, he was born free.

Like Isaac, when we are born by grace into God’s family, we are born free, and we are free from the law. Thus, we are “as Isaac was,” free.

And in being “the children of promise,” all believers today are children of the promise given to Abraham, meaning that “Abraham, believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Gal. 3:6).

And it’s the same for us, we just believe God and His gospel of grace, that Christ died for our sins and rose again, and Christ’s righteousness is immediately imputed to our account, and like Abraham we are saved by faith alone.

We spiritually identify with the freewoman, Sarah, not the bondwoman, Hagar. And being “children of the promise,” like Isaac, we are “heirs according to the promise,” as Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29.

Ishmael was not the son and true heir that God had promised Abraham. He was not born of the right mother, being born of Hagar, the slave, and he was not born on the right basis, being born after the flesh (vv. 23,29).

Isaac, however, was the true heir and received the promise and blessings of Abraham because he was born of the right mother, or Sarah, on the right basis, or faith.

Likewise, to receive the promise of righteousness and the Holy Spirit, we must be born the right way: of the right mother, Sarah, meaning grace, and the right father, Abraham, meaning faith. We are saved by grace through faith.

Those who put themselves under the law, spiritually identify with Hagar, and attempt to earn righteousness in their flesh and by works, and they will never be the children of promise or receive the promise of righteousness or the Spirit.

Paul said that “as Isaac was,” we are the children of promise. And like Isaac, we inherit a problem he had: “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”

“He that was born after the flesh” refers to Ishmael, and “him that was born after the Spirit” is Isaac.

Genesis 21:8-9 reads, “And the child grew [or Isaac], 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 [or Ishmael], which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.”

When Abraham held a feast to celebrate Isaac’s weaning, Ishmael mocked the occasion, ridiculing the aged mother and her newly weaned child. Ishmael hated Isaac just as his mother hated Sarah. And Paul said, “even so it is now.”

Under grace, those who are the children of promise, who are spiritually 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 the law and its works and are in bondage to it.

The persecution believers face will not always be by the world which does hate the Church, but often by religious people who disagree with our beliefs and position on grace and faith alone in Christ for salvation. Paul faced this too throughout his ministry.

There is a battle going on between law and grace, and legalists often lash out and persecute and mock those who trust, rejoice in, stand for, and live by the grace of God. This is due to the fact that grace and law are polar opposites.

To be under the law, it is about what you do for God. Under grace, it is 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 my works. Under grace, the focus is on faith in Christ’s finished work. Under law, one tries to earn righteousness. Under grace, you receive righteousness as a free 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.

And those who cling to religion and trust in their own performance of the law often oppose those who proclaim justification by grace apart from any works.

And just as Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, persecuted Isaac, the son of the freewoman, our freedom in Christ also comes under attack.

Legalists often persecute and oppose those who live in their liberty, seeking to impose their beliefs on them, and seeking to make them abandon grace for law. This is what had taken place in the Galatian churches.

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 to remain in her midst. And she had Hagar and Ishmael cast out of Abraham’s household.

The son of the bondwoman, Ishmael, representing the law, shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman, Isaac, representing grace. This means it’s one or the other, grace or law.

Paul uses this conclusion to make the important point that legalism and grace don’t mix and cannot coexist together. It’s like trying to mix oil and water. They are incompatible. One negates the other, and one of them must go.

And Paul told the Galatians that they needed to “cast out the bondwoman and her son,” or that legalism needed to be cast out of their midst. Many churches need to do the same today.

And the reason for Ishmael’s expulsion was, as Sarah said, that he would not be heir with Isaac. The son of the slave woman, Ishmael, would not share the inheritance with the son of the free woman, Isaac. ONLY Isaac would receive the inheritance and blessings.

In the allegory, this shows that those who seek acceptance with God and to earn righteousness through the law and obedience to it under grace, “shall not be heir,” meaning, they will never be sons of God and thus, they will never receive any inheritance.
Salvation, sonship, being an heir, and having a rich spiritual inheritance only comes by grace.

And Paul concluded this section by telling the Galatians, “So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.”

Having established the contrasts and difference between law and grace, Paul makes a final application of what is the bottom line to be drawn from the allegory.

He reminded them that he and the Galatians were not “children of the bondwoman,” or Hagar. Hagar was a slave and the children of the bondwoman were slaves also. And Hagar symbolized the law and its bondage.

Thus, not being children of the bondwoman, they were not under the law and they were not to be slaves to the law and in bondage to it.

Rather, he and the Galatians were children “of the free” or the freewoman, or Sarah.

Sarah was free and the children of the freewoman are free also. Sarah symbolized grace and spiritual freedom. Being children of the free means we have been saved by grace, and we have freedom in Christ.

Thus, as Paul put it in the first verse of the next chapter in light of all these things about law and grace, and bondage and freedom:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”