Galatians chapter four and reading
from verse 21. Tell me, the Apostle Paul is
speaking to the churches in Galatia in writing this letter and he
says, 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 free woman. But
he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he
of the free woman was by promise. 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. 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 free woman. So then, brethren, we are not
children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Just once again, we remind ourselves
that the Apostle Paul is battling, he's contending against these
Judaizers who are trying to foist a hybrid form of Christianity
on the Galatian churches. Theirs was an attempt to merge
the gospel of grace that Paul had taught to the Galatians with
a form of works righteousness drawn from Jewish ritualism. They were combining the teachings
of the Lord Jesus with a continuing obligation to the Jewish law
as it was taught by the scribes and the Pharisees of Paul's day. And these men, these Judaizers,
they wished, they were trying to blend law and grace, gospel
and works. which is simply an ever-evolving
form of man-made religion. Now we call it, we call it, to
use a theological word, we call it Neo-Nomianism. It's just a
way of saying that there are things that God wants us to do
whether it's the Ten Commandments or something else, whether it's
the way we dress, the way we speak, the things we eat, what
we do, how we act, how our moral views and ethical views are in
the world, people will get any number of laws and they will
say that this is what God is looking for from us. All this does is keeps its followers
bound up in religious exercises and duties and subjects them
to endless obligation. Now, that has a consequence for
true believers. If true believers are in an environment
where these neonomians or these legalists or these Judaizers,
to use the phrase that we've been using in the context of
Galatians, if true spiritual believers, such as the Galatians,
are subjected to this legalism. What it results in is constant
self-examination and self-recrimination because we gradually realise
that we can't actually do what we're told we have to do or honestly
do what we feel that we should do. And this brings us into this
sense of bondage and judgment. And this is what the apostle
is talking about is going to happen with the Galatians if
they tolerate these Judaizers. Or else, if the people that are
under that teaching are not truly spiritual people, it will also
have the effect of making them proud. It'll generate pride,
it'll generate self-righteousness, and it will generate hypocrisy
so that they are happy to think that they are making the standard
and they lay that standard on everyone else and they become
proud in their own self-righteousness. So let us understand When we
take our eye off of the sufficiency of Christ's righteousness for
our acceptance with God, and if we seek to introduce any form
of God-pleasing works or God-pleasing righteousnesses of our own, We
shall at once be subject to bondage and condemnation. And that is
the nature of the law and works religion. And Paul was eager
that these people didn't get snared in this deception. So he asks the Galatians, if
the Galatians wish to weave a form of works and legal duty into
their faith. Paul asks them, have you actually
heard what the law says? Have you heard its condemning
roar as Moses and the children of Israel heard it and trembled
at Sinai when the law was first given? Have they considered what
the scriptures actually say, what they actually teach about
the law? And here, the Apostle Paul, very
interestingly, because it's not a common aspect of his teaching,
his letters, but here he employs what he calls an allegory. It
is a picture with a spiritual interpretation and he draws this
allegory from the Old Testament history of Hagar and Sarah. as it is reported in the book
of Genesis. So here is that he's used Abraham
already in the previous chapter and now he's going on to the
wife of Abraham and this bondwoman Hagar and I think it's Genesis
16 that we read about this history. So that having drawn upon Abraham's
testimony in the previous chapter, he's now going to apply the experience
of Sarah and Isaac to show how that the true people of God are
people of promise, people of grace and truth, whose standing
before God is based not on the things that they do, but on the
promises made by the Father to the Son in the everlasting covenant
of grace and peace. These promises, these covenant
promises are also made to the people of God in Christ. So that when God made these promises
to Christ in the everlasting covenant, he was making them
to the elect as well because in Christ all of the promises
of God are yea and amen. So here these promises are once
again to the forefront of Paul's attention, promises by which
acceptance with God and holiness is attributed to and bestowed
upon and created in God's elect apart from the works of the law. And this is the same everlasting
covenant that we're speaking about here, that we were thinking
about on Last Lord's Day from Isaiah 55, the sure mercies of
David, as Isaiah called it there. And it shows, I think, the continuity
of the gospel message in the two testaments, in each of the
dispensations of the church. Isaiah and Paul had the same
gospel, built on the same foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that
Isaiah could tell the people of his age, he could speak of
Christ who says, my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed. And Paul equally
could tell the Galatians, man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, the promises
of Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. And this allegory that Paul employs
here, it points to the different condition and position of two
women who both carried a child fathered by Abraham. And yet how one son, Ishmael,
could have no part in the inheritance of Abraham's blessing because
as we read in Genesis 16, he had been conceived by natural
means. It seemed a good idea, it seemed
a good idea to Sarah because she was old, because she was
barren, because she felt now in her body that she could no
longer give a child, a son, to Abraham. It seemed like a good
idea to get Hagar involved, her bond servant, and allow Abraham
to procreate a child with Hagar, which then Sarah would then adopt
as it were, or at least say that this was her giving this child
to Abraham. So it was a fleshly procreation. It was done by natural means,
by people thinking, how are we going to sort this problem out
that we've got? And what it showed was that Abraham
had a lack of faith in God. The other child was Isaac and
Isaac was the child of promise, who though born according to
natural process, Unlike the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born by
the Holy Spirit, Isaac wasn't born like that. He was born by
the natural process of a father in Abraham and a mother in Sarah. Nevertheless, it was by divine
intervention intervention by promise and the conception was
by divine intervention because they were so old, both Abraham
and Sarah were old and beyond the age of natural childbirth. So here was one child Ishmael
born as a result of works, fleshy works, trying to fix what they
perceive to be a problem. And the other child, Isaac, the
child of promise according to God's will. And Paul speaks about
these two women as two covenants. This is the allegory. He speaks
of the two covenants, not, I don't think that these are references
to the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, but rather
two dispensations or times, time periods during which the Lord
dealt particularly with the Old Testament Jews and with the New
Testament church. So that's the picture that the
apostle is painting here for us. He's saying that there was
the covenant or there was the testimony, the testament of God's
dealings with the Old Testament Jews and there's the dealings
of the Lord with his church in the New Testament. And he speaks
about Hagar, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth or brings
to bondage. And this is the legal dispensation
of the Ten Commandments and the sacrifices and the ceremonial
law and the judicial law. And the Apostle Paul says, now
that answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, that is, the present
Jewish religious order at the time of Paul, the very people
who had put the Lord Jesus Christ to death. and he says that that
covenant, that dispensation is in bondage with her children. The other covenant or testament
which he speaks about here in verse 26, is Jerusalem which
is above. That is the church of the New
Testament, the spiritual people of God, those who are converted
under the preaching of Christ and under the preaching of the
apostles. And that extends right up to
the present time, our own day today. And that, people, are
the people of promise and it is free. It is free from the
Old Testament trappings, free from their patterns, their shadows,
their ceremonies and their types and it's the heavenly Jerusalem
in the sense of It's where the Gospel first was preached. They began in Jerusalem, Judea,
unto the ends of the earth. So in that sense, it's the mother
church of us all. It's the source from which the
spiritual peace was preached and where all believers find
a rest and security as men and women of faith in Jesus Christ. So this is the allegory, this
is the picture that the Apostle Paul paints for us here. And
he summarises that, he brings it to a conclusion in verse 28
with a very emphatic and powerful statement. He says, we then are
of Sarah. We are of Isaac. We are, we who believe, we who
have faith in the efficacy of Christ's blood and the sufficiency
of his righteousness and to enjoy the liberty that his sacrifice
brings, we are the children of promise and we are heirs of Abraham's
blessings by faith and heirs with Jesus Christ. And then the Apostle brings another
aspect of this allegory to bear as well. He applies it, the allegory
of Hagar and Sarah and Ishmael and Isaac, to the very pertinent
way in which false religion continues to persecute the true faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says, he's referring
to the way in which the Galatians were being troubled by the Judaizers,
and he compares that to the way in which Ishmael mocked Isaac. Now, when we read about Ishmael
mocking Isaac, that might simply have been childish teasing. Although, Ishmael was considerably
older than Isaac, even when he was born. But it might just have
been childish teasing. But the implication is that it
was more serious than that. So here we're back to this allegory
thinking about the fact that Ishmael persecuted Isaac. More serious to the extent that
it's even threatening and even life-threatening. That in some
way Ishmael tried to trouble and deny Isaac the blessings
of inheritance that God had all along designed for the child
of promise. That Ishmael realised that this
child Isaac was a threat to him and he would try to be rid of
Isaac so that he would be the one who would obtain the blessings
that had been given by God to Abraham. So says Paul, as then
in Isaac's day, so now, so he's applying this to the day of the
Galatians. He that was born after the flesh,
that is the Judaizers, persecuted him that was born after the spirit,
the Galatians. What Ishmael did to Isaac, the
Judaizers are doing to you. those who have no portion of
inheritance or blessing by grace oppose those who understand their
salvation to be all of grace. Now let me just see if I can
make a little bit of an application here because I think we are justified
in taking Paul's approach to this matter and bringing it right
up to date. Here's what I'm going to say.
It's my belief that the true gospel, the true gospel of Jesus
Christ is the gospel of free grace. It's the gospel of imputed
righteousness and it's the gospel of Christian liberty. However,
What we discover is that not merely do people of no faith
and people of other faiths, you know, you talk about, I don't
know, Islam or Hinduism or any of the worldwide religions, It's
not that simply they are opposed to Christianity, like Muslims
attacking Christians in Pakistan, or Hindus attacking Christians
in India. That's not what we're talking
about here. But what we're saying is that
not only is there opposition to the true gospel from the world
religions, but Even within the broad definition of Christianity,
Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, and even Reformed Confessionalism,
that's right up close, there are plenty who deny God's sovereignty
and salvation, or insist on legal obedience to promote works righteousness. Or both. And these are true enemies
of the gospel as well. They are Ishmael. Like these
Judaizers in Asia Minor amongst the churches of the Galatians. They claim the inheritance of
faith, that's what the Judaizers did, but they deny the very gospel
that they profess. They spread a mongrel gospel,
a mixed up hodgepodge of religious ideas and a jumble of do and
don't practices that really is no gospel at all. and they do
it because they have no real faith in the power of Christ's
blood to cleanse us from all our sin, no trust in the sufficiency
of Christ's righteousness to supply all our righteousness,
and no confidence in the indwelling Holy Spirit power to save and
to keep and to deliver Christ's bride safe to heaven in spotless
holy garments fit for her wedding day. Their lack of faith forces
them to introduce their own efforts and bring creature duty into
the frame, into the mix where it has no place to be. Paul's remedy for this is to
remind the Galatians what the scripture remedy was in Ishmael's
day. When Ishmael persecuted Isaac,
He says, verse 30, cast out the bondwoman and her son. For the son of the bondwoman
shall not have air with the son of the free woman. Shall not
be air, I'm sorry, with the son of the free woman. This is the instruction. Separate
from this teaching. Distance yourself from any so-called
gospel that isn't a gospel at all. And as we shall see next
time, when we come back to the next verses, the next chapter,
as we'll see next time, God willing, Rather, stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. May the Lord make
us wise to learn these lessons. Amen.