Contrasting the Law with the Promise

Transcript

11/05/2017
GR 2102
Contrasting the Law with the Promise
Galatians 4:21-31
Gil Rugh

We are going to Galatians, chapter 4 in your Bibles and we can always have a feeling that we are making progress. We are going to finish chapter 4. I happened to be visiting with someone who attended Indian Hills quite a few years ago and they asked how the service went. They said, “Well, did you cover two verses again?” I said, “Well, I think we did three this morning, two last week.” We are moving along. We will cover a few more verses in Galatians in our study together tonight.

Paul is dealing with a very important issue. It is the issue of “What is the Gospel?” What must we believe to be saved? What must we do to be saved? And connected to that is how to we live the Christian life after we are saved? Remember Paul raised the issue in chapter 3, verse 3. “Do you begin by the Spirit and then continue on by your own works of the flesh?” This is a crucial issue that is still confusing to people today. How the Mosaic Law is to be viewed as connected to salvation and connected to our growth and development.

Verses 12-20 (we noted) broke in with a little different flavor or emphasis. Paul became a little more personal, a little more emotional in his feelings and concern for the Galatians, not that he didn’t have that before, but his emphasis focused more on the doctrinal issues. But here in verse 12 he had spoken to them as “brethren and I want you to become like me as I have become like you,” this commonality. He talked about how gracious they had been when he came to them, the first time bringing them the Gospel, overlooking things that might have been discouraging or causing them to want to turn away from him with some of the bodily physical things that he was dealing with. He wishes he could be with them so they could deal with these matters, face to face, and something of the personal relationship could come through a little more strongly but he had to end verse 20 saying, “I am perplexed about you.”

The Galatians haven’t totally abandoned Paul and the message of the Gospel that he preached but they are taking steps down the road that will lead them to that end. You know when we begin to drift, we usually just don’t jump off the edge. It is usually gradually unsettling, things that begin to impact us. We begin to think differently. This is what’s happened to the Galatians. The Judaizers came in, the contact there perhaps was with some of the Jews who had professed salvation there in the Galatian regions but not truly been saved. And this teaching is beginning to warp their thinking. You know at first they are clear. Paul says “you were clear when I was there” but now this teaching has begun to affect them. They were beginning to pick up portions of the Law and began to practice them.

Note what he said in verse 10 of chapter 4: “You observe days and months and seasons and years.” So they had begun to take steps down that road of commitment and involvement with the Law. Where is that going to lead them? Paul’s concern – if you continue down that road I will become your enemy because that is part of what the false teachers are trying to do, turn them away from allegiance to Paul. Not because they are jealous that Paul and the Galatians are friends so to speak but if they can turn them away from Paul they will turn them away from the message that Paul preaches.

So in verse 16 of chapter 4 he said “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth.” You can see there is a move in their conduct and in their thinking and in their practice. Verse 10 they are starting to pick up the Law and think it is important that they include that. Well, that will turn them against Paul who stands strongly for God’s work of grace in accomplishing salvation in all of its aspects.

So where will this end up? Verse 19, that warmth, “My children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” So the warmth, he calls them “brethren” he calls them “his children” yet we are going backwards here. It is like when I first came I have to start over. I thought the birthing process was done, that you had been born to new life in Christ. Now I am laboring over you again going through the basics here of what is involved in salvation.

So with verse 21 he is going to pick up again with that more focused doctrinal emphasis. Verse 21: “Tell me you who want to be under the Law. Do you not listen to the Law.” What he is going to do is draw an illustration from the Old Testament to further make clear the total impossibility of mixing Law and grace. Remember he started out with that strong statement: “Anybody including an angel from heaven who tried to mix anything in to the Gospel of grace is condemned to hell.” The Law had been given by God to Israel at Mt. Sinai for a certain purpose but it was not for the salvation of the nation Israel and now to corrupt the use of the Law and make it a way of salvation, you don’t even understand what the Law is about. So he has to pick up. “Tell me, you who want to be under the Law.” So here you see – dealing with the Galatians not saying they are now living as though under the Law but this desire has gotten hold of them and started them down that road of observing days and months and seasons and years and seeing observing parts of the Law at least as necessary to complete their salvation. “Tell me you who want to be under the Law do you not listen to the Law?”

Back up to chapter 1, verse 6 to see a statement here. Remind ourselves, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him.” So you see the process under way. “Who called you by the grace of Christ for a different Gospel” but it’s not really a variation of my Gospel at all. So as soon as you mix works into grace you no longer have a Gospel of grace at all. The corruption is complete. But you’re deserting Christ so that process that is under way. You are moving in a wrong direction.

“Do you not listen to the Law?” “Do you understand what the Law is about?” “Do you understand the importance of the Law?” He has unfolded that. You’d think he has pretty well driven that home but now he is going back through and the seriousness of this Paul is not willing to let it go. It can’t just be a chapter or two or three. We are going to hammer on this. “Do you not listen to the Law?” They didn’t correctly understand what the Law is about. Now keep in mind these are Gentile churches. We have talked about repeatedly God has given us His Word. These are relatively new believers, the overall picture. Paul referred in chapter 1, verse 6 which we just read, “So quickly deserting him.” So he sees it as not much space has gone between your profession of faith in Christ and now you are turning away down a different route but they are expected to know and understand about the Mosaic Law and be able to sort it out and really there is no excuse for not.

Think of how accountable we are. I pulled a commentary off my shelf that I hadn’t been using on Galatians earlier before the service this evening and just looked at what this man said. He started out on the section that begins with verse 21 and said, “We have trouble with this and it is one of the most difficult sections in Galatians and the first reason for that is we know so little about the Old Testament.” That is why we spend as much time as we do in the Word trying to take it in. And we all know what it is like. Sometimes we get confused on things that we thought we really knew and understood well.

“So you Galatians,” Gentiles without the background in the Law that Paul would have had as a Jew – “don’t you understand what the Law is about? Don’t you understand its purpose, its function and how it is to be?” “For it is written” and now he is going to draw on an illustration from the Old Testament. We want to be sure we understand what he is doing and how he is using the Old Testament here. He is going to talk about Abraham and Abraham’s two children, Ishmael and Isaac and it is from an account in Genesis, chapter 16 and 17 because in chapter 16 Abraham fathers Ishmael through a slave girl of his wife, Sarah, and Ishmael is the result. Then in chapter 17 we will have Isaac born to Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and slavery and freedom. Remember he stressed this in chapter 3 and into chapter 4, the issue of being under the Law is being in a condition of slavery and that was God’s intention. It was to control Israel and all aspects of their life to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. It did govern their life but it wasn’t a way of salvation. It was the constitution of Israel, if you will, but it was the time of being under a custodian, under one who had authority over them, spoken of as being a slave.

So in the illustration now that he is going to use he is going to talk about verse 22 of chapter 4: “It is written that Abraham had two sons; one by the bond woman,” the slave. That is what Hagar was in the household. She was a personal slave for particularly Abraham’s wife, Sarah and “one by the free woman” who was Sarah. She was not a slave. She was the wife who had authority over the bond woman. That is the picture.

Now we are talking about Abraham’s two sons here. Abraham had other sons. We talked about these two sons born in Genesis 16 and 17. In Genesis 25 remember after Sarah’s death Abraham remarries. His second wife’s name is Keturah. He has six sons by that wife who will become fathers of the Arab tribes but they are not in view here. So it is not every son of Abraham. He just picks these two and they obviously are the best known. So most of us if we said name two of Abraham’s sons we would say Ishmael and Isaac. Alright, name the other six. Uhhhh well at least we know they are in Genesis 25, right? We could go and get the names. So we are only focusing on these two and the comparison and the contrasts here because he is going to give an illustration. So he pulls out of the portion of the account of Abraham’s life that which could illustrate the doctrine that he is teaching.

So he has one child by the bond woman, the slave and the woman, her children will take their status from their mother. So, since their mother is a slave, Ishmael will be born as a slave even though he gets special treatment from Abraham. He really is dealt with as a slave. He will be sent away from Abraham’s house as you are aware, as we will see.

So now we have the free woman and that is Isaac and of course her son is born in freedom. So Ishmael was born in the house. In a normal condition he would be a slave because his mother was a slave and he would be dealt with as such even though there is care provided for him. Basically Hagar never rises above being a slave and Ishmael will receive certain blessings out of the grace of God but there is only one son here that inherits everything and that is Isaac and he is the one who is born free.

Verse 23: “But the son of the bond woman was born according to the flesh. The son of the free woman was born through promise.” Now we see the contrast being developed. We have one father but we have two sons, two women who will bear sons. One is a slave, one is free; now two ways of being born. Ishmael was born by a nature, human plan. Sarah said “I can’t have a child Abraham, I want you to take my slave, Hagar and father a child with her.” And then Sarah can claim him however she wants because she has authority with her slave. She wants to have some kind of heir. So that was just a natural human plan, if you will. Go father a child with this slave girl.

Contrast that the end of verse 23. “The son was born by the free woman through the promise.” There is something special here, the promise. Remember the contrast we have seen in Galatians between the Law and the promise, the promise given to Abraham, the Law given to Moses. Now here we have a son of promise. There is something special and unique about his birth. We have the son of the slave woman and that was just a natural human plan. So two different woman with two different status, having two sons, each having a son but even the manner of their birth is different.

Come back to Genesis, chapter 15, 16 is where we will be and we have referred to. Chapter 16, verse 2 Sarai, her named will be changed to Sarah but Sarai and Abram whose name will be changed to Abraham so if I refer to them by their names that will come you will understand and you are familiar with that. “Now behold (Sarah said to Abraham) the Lord has prevented me from bearing.” She is barren. “Please go into my maid that perhaps I will obtain children through her.” Because again, since she is the master in this sense she rules over the slave woman. She could claim the child that the slave woman bears. She just bore that child for me. So here is a human plan. That is why I said, “Born according to the flesh.” It is just human planning all along the way. So “Abram listened to the voice of Sarah. He went into Hagar.” Hagar is an Egyptian we are told here and he takes Hagar. It says “He takes Hagar as his wife, treats her” but she is still just a slave and Sarah is still we might call her the “chief wife” because when she decides she doesn’t want Hagar in the house any longer Hagar has to go with her child. We want to keep the picture here. So that’s where we have the birth of Ishmael. God promises to bless Ishmael because Abraham is the father but he won’t be blessed with the promises given to Abraham.

So then we come to chapter 17. Years have gone by about 14 years. We are going to have another son born and this will be the son of promise. God appears to Abram when he was about 99 years old. He was 85 in the previous chapter so time has gone by. Now we have Ishmael being about 14 years old and God appears to Abram and said to him, “I am God almighty. I will establish my covenant between me and you. I will multiply you exceedingly. As for Me, (verse 4) behold my covenant is with you and your name will no longer be called Abram but your name will be Abraham. I will make you a father of a multitude of nations.” And that will come. Ishmael,12 princes will come from him and when we get to chapter 25 the Arab nations will come from Abraham through his second wife. But the key here will be the nation that comes from him. “I will make you exceedingly fruitful. Make nations of you. Kings will come forth. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you through their generations, an everlasting covenant. I will give to you and your seed after you the land of your sojournings, the land of Canaan. I will be their God.” Verse 10: “This is my covenant which you keep” and it comes down. Verse 15 for time, “As for Sarai, your wife. We will change her name to Sarah. I will bless her. I will give you a son by her. I will bless her.” Now you see this is the promises given. The prior son Ishmael was born just by a human plan that Sarah developed. Here is my plan, Abraham. I am barren but I have a slave girl. You go in and conceive a child with the slave girl and then I can claim the child as my own and at least there will be an heir that belongs to us in our family. But now here is God’s plan. The barren wife is going to bear a son and she will be a mother of nations and kings of peoples will come from her. “Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, ‘will a child be born to a man 100 years old and Sarah who is 90 years old?” If you haven’t been able to bear a child all your life through your child bearing years what is the chance when you get to be of this advanced age that you are going to be able to?

And so Abram is satisfied with the human plan. He said in verse 18: “Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live before you.’” He is willing to help God out. You know we have a problem here. Sarah and I haven’t been able to have children at all. So at this advanced age Lord, I will be happy if You just bless Ishmael. I will accept that as fulfillment of what You promised.”

Isn’t it interesting how we decide sometimes we have to help God out of a dilemma? That is what Abraham is doing here. “Oh that Ishmael might live before you.” God said “no.” I don’t need you to come up with a plan for me. I told you what the plan is. “Sarah your wife will bear a son. Furthermore you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael I heard your prayer. I will bless him. I will make him fruitful, multiply him. He will become the father of 12 princes. I will make him a nation.” And he will be the people that live east of the land of Canaan, the land of Israel. “But my covenant I establish with Isaac.”

So you see the difference now. There is a son conceived and born through human plan as children are but there is a son of promise who is unique. The son of promise is because God promised him to Abraham and he is fulfilling His promise so that makes this son unique. This is the contrast that Paul is unfolding and the covenant of God follows Isaac. That will go on then from Isaac to Jacob then from Jacob to Jacob’s 12 sons. Interesting he will make 12 princes of Ishmael but they aren’t the 12 princes that will head the tribes that inherit the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. It will be 12 leaders, sons of Israel as well. So God gives Abraham his request verse 18 that Ishmael might live. Well I will give promises of things to Ishmael but the promise of the covenant is with the child of promise and then the sign of circumcision given. So that is the covenant.

Come back to chapter 4 of Galatians. That’s the contrast, slave woman, free woman, child that is a result of human planning, child as a result of the promise of God being fulfilled. That is the contrast he is drawing.

Down to verse 24 as Paul develops. This is allegorically speaking. Now be careful about that word ‘allegoric’ that we don’t read too much back into it from later. I looked in the dictionary just to see what it said in the dictionary. The English dictionary said it was first used in the fourteenth century. It was used before that but in our language it develops a meaning and it can become somewhat fanciful and so on. Here its use is more as an illustration. When using them as an illustration you might say “symbolically” in one sense. I am using it to clarify a picture here, bring a picture to us.

You know Paul doesn’t deny anything about the historical events. He is not saying that what happened in Genesis was not genuine. We don’t want to go back and change what is there. Those historical events now can be used to illustrate what I have been talking about. These two women are two covenants in verse 24 so you see that’s what he said is the allegory, the illustration I want to draw. They can represent the two covenants because they already talked about the Mosaic Covenant as being a covenant of slavery but with Abraham we have promises and the contrast so we can use these two women representing the two covenants. The later covenant, the Mosaic Law, the Mosaic Covenant is represented by the slave because remember the Mosaic Law put people under its authority, enslaved them for the time. That was God’s plan for Israel to live under the control and domination of the Mosaic Covenant. Not for their salvation but to guide them and keep them on the track till the Messiah would come.

In contrast we have Sarah who represents promises. Remember the Abrahamic Covenant has its promises and the promises given back in chapter 3 part of that was the Gospel was preached in the Abrahamic Covenant. In chapter 3, verse 8: “All nations will be blessed in you.” As he talked there about how Abraham was saved and what God did there in declaring him righteous ties to what God promised for the nations being blessed in Abraham in the provision of the Abrahamic Covenant, a covenant of promise. God promising to Abraham and his descendants certain things that He would do like give them the physical land of Canaan; that has not all been realized but it will finally be but we recognize that to this day. There are battles over it. Some deny it; some recognize it and we as believers realize that land belongs to them. It was promised to them. Abraham wouldn’t get it but his descendants would 400 years later when God had brought them out, took them into the land of Canaan so it is a covenant of promise contrast to the Mosaic Law and that is the contrast we had in chapter 3. So you see the doctrinal foundation was laid. Now Paul says “you don’t seem to understand.”

Come back to chapter 4, verse 21: “Tell me you who want to be under the Law. Do you not listen to the Law?” So like we sometimes do, “Let me give you an illustration of the doctrine that I have taught you so far. Let’s go back and look at these two women and the sons they conceived and how they can illustrate what I have been telling you.” Okay. So verse 24 this is allegorically speaking for these women are two covenants, “One proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar.” So you see the connection. Hagar was a slave, her children are slaves. We know that in some of the history ee have had with slave women bearing children even though the master of the house may have fathered them they are born into slavery. That is the picture here. So that is Mount Sinai.

So now we have the two women, the two sons and we are connecting them to the two covenants, Hagar and her descendants connect to Mount Sinai. Those connected with Sinai are under slavery. That is Hagar. Verse 25: “Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai.” That doesn’t mean now we change the historical setting. No. It is an illustration drawing from the history. If you are telling someone something and you say “Let me illustrate it from something that happened in our history.”

That doesn’t mean now you rewrite history. You can see how it might clarify what you are saying. “This Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds (now note this) to present Jerusalem.” Now you see Paul brings it right up to today. Why? Because present Jerusalem under its Jewish leadership is what? Still preaching the Law. That is the point. It’s enslaved to the Law. They crucified their Messiah. They have rejected His provisions.

The purpose of the Law was to prepare them for the coming of this descendant of Abraham, the one in whom all the promises of the covenant could be fulfilled but they chose to reject Him and hold onto their Law as the way they would be saved. So you have a Jewish leader who could pray, “I thank You Lord that I am not a sinner like other men.” That is the way they saw themselves. “Not a sinner like dirty Gentiles.” You see that even with Peter’s problem in making the adjustment when he is told to go have dinner with Gentiles. “Lord, I can’t do that. You know I never defile myself doing something like that” and here Peter even with the life of the years he spent with the Lord in ministry and having truly been saved still confused over all this. Jerusalem is living under the Law. So he brings it right down to today.

Now you can see what this is doing to the Jewish teaching here. Boy, you are saying Jerusalem and what they are teaching about the Law because Jerusalem is the center of Judaism. They are following in the line of Ishmael and Hagar. That’s what is illustrates. That is the line there. They would like to say they are connecting back through the 12 tribes, through Jacob, Isaac to Abraham. Paul says “You know what?” “They are going back to Hagar. They are not in the line of promise.” Well, the Law was given to Israel but in their rejecting of God’s plan they have made it a way of salvation. They have assumed because they have the Law, remember Romans chapter 2? Paul had to remind Jews, “It’s not those who have the Law that are saved. It is those who keep the Law.” And since no one keeps the Law that’s why all the sacrifices are provided in the Law for disobedience and then you have the great Day of Atonement that has to atone for the sins of the nation every year. Nobody keeps it. So Paul has to say, “You realize the Law is not a way of salvation.” The Jews thought, “We have the Law.” Now that is a blessing but it is not a way of salvation. So that is the connection. She is in slavery with her children. That is the point. That’s what he has said about what the Law does.

“But Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother.” Now Paul joins here. You either can be connected to the earthly and Sinai or you can be connected to the heavenly Jerusalem and the promises given to Abraham. That is the illustration here of what he has said in the doctrinal statements up to this point. Well I don’t know, does that illustration clarify? It does particularly if you have been drawn into Jewish thinking and you are being taught now that the Law is God’s plan for completing our salvation, enabling us to live for Him. Paul is saying, “well you understand. Do you want to be connected to Hagar and her son Ishmael or do you want to be connected to Sarah and all the promises given to Abraham?” That’s trying to clarify by illustration here. He is not establishing the doctrine with this illustration. He is illustrating the doctrine he has already established. You can’t, you know, establish your doctrine with an illustration. You can illustrate your doctrine that you have established on clear exegetical principles.

So “the Jerusalem above is free.” That is an interesting thing to bring in here. The Jerusalem above would be the heavenly Jerusalem and talks about that is in existence. It is going to come down out of heaven in Revelation 21 and be developed into 22 but it is in existence.

Come over to Hebrews chapter 12, this issue of the Law and Jewish influence. The Jews were constantly trying to buy even those who professed faith in Christ but were not genuine, tried to bring a mixture. This is the work of the devil, of the Law. I mean it is still a battle today whether you use the Mosaic Law including our works so that Roman Catholics and Protestants alike. They will say, “Oh yes, Christ died for our sins. He was raised the third day.” But that is mixed in with the necessity of works to truly be saved. People think the Ten Commandments, I try to keep the Ten Commandments. It is all the same principle so they are having to be dealt with.

Hebrews chapter 12, let’s see pick up with verse 18 and he is dealing with this showing that the Law has fulfilled its purpose. We have a new High Priest, different order than the Aaronic Priesthood, all of that. His sacrifice is the only sacrifice that could bring salvation and so on. Look at verse 18 of chapter 12. “For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them. They could not bear the command, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it was be stoned.’ So terrible was the sight, that Moses said, ‘I am full or fear and trembling.’” Now you note what he says in verse 18. You ought to have it underlined. “You have not come to that mountain” you who have placed your faith in Christ, you Hebrews who have believed. That salvation doesn’t come from the Mosaic Law. It didn’t come from Mount Sinai. You didn’t come to Mount Sinai for that in other words to the Mosaic Law which was given at Mount Sinai but verse 22: “You have come to Mount Zion.” So you note the contrast, verse 18: “You have not come” to what is Mount Sinai and the law “but you have come” verse 22 “to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” and then those who will inhabit the heavenly Jerusalem and with that then the saved, verse 23, then verse 24 “to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant” which brings about the salvation provisions and all the fulfillments of what is promised in the Abrahamic Covenant; “The sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” There is the uniqueness of the blood of Christ and he has already talked about it in Hebrews earlier that “the blood of bulls and goals could never take away sin.” So we come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. This is the same kind of contrast we have in Galatians, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Back up to chapter 11 of Hebrews. They were talking about the individuals of faith through Israel’s history and it was beginning verse 8: “by faith Abraham.” We are not going to read all this. Verse 9: “By faith he lived an alien in the land of promise, in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.” You see with Abraham it is a constant emphasis on what God promised to Abraham. That is contrast to the Law given to Moses. Why did Abraham function by faith like this? “He was looking for the city which has foundations whose architect and builder is God.” These Jews, you know you are focusing on the earthly, Jerusalem and the Law that came from Sinai. Abraham was focused on something greater. Abraham lived 500 years before the Law was given. But his focus was on that city and what God had promised, the New Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. That’s what he is anticipating by faith. So that contrast that is drawn between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, the earthly Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, the Law and promise.

So you can see what he calls the illustration there is drawn out without making the illustration with Hagar and Ishmael but Hebrews chapter 12 makes the same contrast. What was Mount Zion like? It was a terrible place, thunderings, lightnings, a warning. Anyone who as so much touches the mountain has to be stoned, even Moses who talked to God face to face says, “I am full of fear and trembling. I don’t want to come to Mount Zion. We don’t want to come to the awesome unfulfillable requirements of the Law.” Not because there was a flaw in the Law but because I am flawed. I am sinful. So that Law that could require perfection also had to provide for cleansing. Otherwise all it would do would condemn me, destroy me. But it never could provide the cleansing. It was just to guide Israel, any Jew in Israel like Moses was saved by his faith. That was the whole point of Hebrews chapter 11. Those who were saved in the Old Testament were saved by faith. That’s why we go back to Abraham for that first clear statement. Not the first person saved in the Old Testament but the first person about which it is clearly stated. “Abraham believed God. God credited it to him as righteousness.”

So we believers, we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem which is connected to the promises given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why would you want to go back to the earthly Jerusalem and the slavery required by the Law which could never save anyone? It never was intended to save everyone.

Come back to Galatians. Now he is going to quote, verse 26. The Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother in contrast to those who want Hagar and the earthly Jerusalem with its Law with the Mosaic Law to rule, be your mother, be the one that you identify as you belong to them. So he quotes now from Isaiah chapter 54: “Rejoice barren woman who does not bear. Break forth and shout you who are not in labor for more numerous are the children of the desolate than the one who has a husband. And you brethren like Isaac are children of promise.” Quoting from Isaiah 51 speaks about God’s blessing on the one who is barren and even though Sarah was barren, Hagar could bear a son, the normal human plan, the blessings would ultimately be on Sarah. How could that happen? God will intervene so that His Word can be fulfilled. So the promises are on those connected with Sarah, not Hagar.

Go back but in Isaiah 51, verse 2 it talks about Sarah. I believe that is the only other time out of Genesis that we have Sarah in the Old Testament and then we will come to Isaiah 53 with the great provision of the Messiah, Savior and then in chapter 54 the promise that the nation that laid waste by captivity will be brought to blessing. So all that tying together.

What God is promising is His salvation will bring many Jews and Gentiles alike so that is a reminder here. The way of salvation that Paul has made clear for Jews as well as Gentiles is the same and that’s why he said earlier that “I have become like you and I want you to become like me; I as a Jew who had to abandon my trust in the Law as a way of salvation and trust the grace of God and the provision of Christ. Now you Gentiles you have to become like me. I became like you. Being a Jew wouldn’t save me. Now you Gentiles are thinking becoming a Jew by submitting yourself to the Law and so on you say, ‘we are going different directions here. Let’s become alike.’ I as a Jew had to abandon all hope in the Law and you as a Gentile should not place any hope in the Law.” So here, the provision Isaiah prophesied about it and the freedom that God would bring in fulfillment of all the promises.

“So you brethren like Isaac are children of promise.” So you see the illustration coming down. Just like Isaac was a result of fulfilling the promise God had given, you brethren, having quoted the promise in Isaiah of the children of the one who was barren. You are a fulfillment of the promise which goes back to in Abraham the covenant, “all the nations of the earth will be blessed” and he quoted that in chapter 3 as a preview of the Gospel and here now what God promised is being fulfilled. Why would you abandon that? You can’t. You brethren like Isaac so that was the illustration are children of promise but he is not done with the comparison.

In other words we were not born by natural human means either. It was a conception between a man and a woman but without the promise of God and His intervention and supernatural work there would have been no Isaac. That was God’s work that brings about our salvation.

So we are abandoning the Law and by our works we are children of promise. “But” verse 29 “at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit.” So it is now. So continues the illustration and comparison. We won’t take time to go back but in Genesis 21:9 when Isaac was weaned remember this would mean when Ishmael was about 17. Genesis 21:9 says that he was mocking Isaac. Evidently what was going on it was just not teasing but was more serious. That is the comparison he is drawing, his mocking. So “as at that time he was born according to the flesh, persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit.” Ishmael persecuted Isaac. So it is now also the children of the Law, the flesh that are just working in their own energy and works to be pleasing are persecuting those who have experienced God’s salvation by promise. So we were born according to the Spirit and Paul says that is what’s going on at Galatia. Those who want to bring you into slavery because they are enslaved to the law and they are just natural people. They have not experienced supernatural salvation. They are children of the flesh just like Ishmael was. “They persecute those.” It continues down to today. The battle comes between works and the Law and salvation by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone. So that persecution goes on.

So that is why Paul up in verse 16 “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” This is what they are doing. They are persecuting those and putting the pressure on them because they want to destroy true believers and lure them into the Law. “What does the Scripture say? Cast out the bond woman and her son. For the son of the bond woman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.” Sarah brought that up to Abraham and God told Abraham, “You listen to Sarah.” And to this day we listen to our wives. No, that is not a valid application. But that is what God intended. He did not intend Ishmael and Isaac to be raised in the same house because then there would be competition. There would be issues. There has to be clarity. There is no room in the same household for the child of the flesh and the child of promise. That is the application here that he draws from this, strong statement. There is no room for mixture.

Remember Ishmael in the illustration stands for the Law with his mother Hagar, and Isaac with his mother stands for the promise and bringing it down to Paul’s day, one represented by present day earthly Jerusalem. The other connected to the heavenly Jerusalem. So no connection between the Law and grace. They can’t be mixed. They can’t live together, strong statement. What he is really saying is these Judaizers have to be put down. The danger of the church is well, we will get along. We will work it out. Compromise is always the destructive thing. It is always what works its way inside that undermines, weakens and ultimately is used to destroy the church. You have to cast her out. It has to go. This idea maybe that there can be a mixture in the churches at Galatia and get along because who wants to divide over this?

“So then brethren we are not children of the bond woman but of the free.” Paul identifies himself here. He calls them brethren and see how he brings together. “Then brethren we are not children of a bond woman but of the free.” So when we get into chapter 5 it will start out “It was for freedom that Christ set us free.” “Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” So that’s the point and he’s still convinced in his heart that by and large these are true believers but he will go on down in chapter 5 and say, “if you proceed on this road it just will be an indication that you were not true believers, you were not truly saved.”

“So we are children, not of a bond woman but of the free woman.” Now why would Isaac want to go back and be considered and live as a child of Hagar? Of course not. He is the child of promise but the child of Hagar would like to persecute and undermine and ultimately destroy the child of promise. He said that is what’s going on here. “Brethren we are not children of the bond woman.”

We have run up on the time but I have some points to give you and since I made them up you have to listen to them. Put them up here. Start with number 1. This is just for review quickly what we have here.

First – it is crucial to have a correct understanding of the Mosaic Law. That is where we started in verse 21. You understand what the Law is saying. There are a lot of people that had the Law mixed in. Today they don’t understand about the Law. You can’t mix them. So we have to have a correct understanding of the Mosaic Law.

Secondly – the New Testament presupposes a knowledge of the Old Testament. Paul goes on writing here to Gentile churches and people who didn’t have their own copy of the Bible to carry around that they will know this. They had to go sit under where they could be taught it and get copies of it and so on.

Third – Old Testament events can illustrate and support Biblical doctrine. Follow the steps as we go here. Old Testament events can illustrate and support Biblical doctrine as Paul did there. That is a valid use.

Number four – the use of the Old Testament in analogy or illustration does not change or alter the historical event. In other words Paul changes nothing in the history. In fact he draws on the validity of those historical events to use it as an illustration. So some people take what Paul does here and think we can go back and ignore the historical and redo it.

You cannot and that goes to point 5, the use of the Old Testament in analogy or illustration does not establish Biblical doctrine. You don’t establish your doctrine on the basis of an illustration. You illustrate the doctrine that has been established by exegetical principles and are literal, historical and grammatical hermeneutics but you can draw an illustration and an application but you don’t establish your doctrine with illustrations. So Paul is not establishing his doctrine. He has established the doctrine by walking them through a clear explanation and he will proceed with that but he gives an illustration that might help them see what he has been teaching.

Six – those who promote the Mosaic Law oppose and persecute the children of promise. There is no mixture here. That’s why there was a war between the protestant reformers and the Roman Catholic Church. You mix works with grace you are the enemy of grace. It doesn’t matter how much grace you claim to hold on to. When you mix works into that you are anathema and that is something you have to battle and die for. And it will be persecuted. We shouldn’t be surprised. Protestants and Catholics alike will view us as narrow as limited and all this.

Seven – those who promote the law have no part in the promise of God, getting pretty strong. Paul is going to get very strong in chapter 5 getting back to almost like he was in chapter 1 where he pronounces anathema, cursed to hell anybody who mixes law into grace. He is coming back again. You are cut off. You have no part in the provision of God’s salvation by grace when you mix it with the law. So clear, those who promote the law have no part in the promise of God.

Point eight – those who promote the law must be removed from the fellowship. That is the point. It must be cast out. This idea that the church always looking for a way to get along. Well now I think we can at least agree to disagree and that doesn’t mean we have to divide. We don’t have to divide over every little thing. This is not every little thing. We can have different understandings on certain things. We have talked about that. Whether the trumpets are in the first half of the tribulation or the second half. We have talked about that with the two witnesses whether it is Moses and Enoch or Elijah and Enoch. There is no room for the law.

We have had people who adhere to the Law in our city come and visit some of our classes. They are welcome to come but as soon as they started to promote their view they had to be asked not to come back. There is no allowance for false teaching and false doctrine and the church has to hold this. We get intimidated by them saying “You’re not loving, you’re too narrow, you think you are only right.” We think this is only right. Paul is the narrow guy writing the letter to the Galatians, telling the Galatians you are too broad. Telling the Corinthians you are tolerating what you shouldn’t tolerate.

And true believers should appreciate their freedom in Christ. That is the last verse. So summarizes those. Now Paul will move on from his illustration back to focusing specifically on the doctrine hoping that this has clarified their thinking and made them realize you don’t want to give up your freedom to go back to slavery. You don’t want to cut yourself off from the promises of God given in Abraham and Sarah through Isaac to put yourself under the Law and cut yourself off from heavenly Jerusalem to be identified with earthly Jerusalem. So that illustration now. You will be ready to move back into the doctrine.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word. We are mindful of the responsibility that is ours as Your children to study seriously Your Word to apply ourselves with diligence so we not only have a general knowledge of it but that we understand it. The details are important that we are careful in the handling of it. This is Your truth. We have no liberty to be fast and loose with the truth. No excuse for being careless. So may we individually and as a church be faithful in our handling of the truth and faithful in our living out that our lives are a testimony that we truly believe Your truth. Bless the week before us we pray in Christ’s name amen.