Hagar and Sarah
21Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.
24These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27For it is written:
"Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children;
break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband."
28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." 31Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Dig Deeper
In the days leading up to the Civil War and the early days of the War, many people who had previously just been Americans now had to think about where their loyalties were going to lie. Were they going to side with the North or the South. This was a decision that many in both the North and South had to make and it was really a decision that went beyond mere geography. There were some Northerners who threw their lot in with the South and some Southerners who sided with the North, even though the perception is that it was usually an issue of geography. The Civil War is also seen as an issue over slavery, yet that didn’t quite explain people’s loyalties as there were many Southerners (Robert E. Lee for instance) who found slavery distasteful and many Northerners who didn’t mind it. When all was said and done, the determining factor of whether people sided with the North or South, though, came down to whether their loyalties laid with their state or with the country as a whole. Those who chose the rights of and loyalties to states, sided with the South regardless of the other factors. Southerners like Andrew Johnson preferred national loyalty and so stayed loyal to the North. If we understand that underlying issue everything else falls into place.
For Paul, the issue at hand is whether the Gentiles are going to be loyal to Christ or to the law. In making this distinction, he will appeal once again to Abraham, but will use many different angles to separate the two sides. Among those, he will talk about Isaac and Ishmael, slave and free, earthly Jerusalem and heavenly Jerusalem, but at the root of all of those things is faith and unbelief. If we keep this as our central understanding of this passage, all of his arguments and distinctions will fall into place.
Paul assumes, in verse 21, that they want to be under the law, so he asks if they are really aware of what the law says. No doubt, the initial response from the Galatians would have been an indignant, "yes we do want to be under the law, and of course we know what it says." Paul is setting them up to engage in an extremely rabbinic style of argument, one that would probably hold more sway with the agitating Judaizers, as it was a style they would have been used to. They have claimed that they have the Jewish law on their side, and have clearly appealed to it, probably claiming that Paul didn’t know the law very well. Paul is not about to let them get away with that, and in fact, will use the law to make his point and destroy theirs.
He briefly describes the account of Abraham and Sarah, who had received the great promise from God in Genesis 15 to bless their descendants. Rather than trusting in God to provide, they hatched a plan to provide a child themselves by using Sarah’s slave woman to have a baby, Ishmael. The plan backfired and Hagar and Ishmael became a source of great irritation for Sarah and Abraham, who would later have Isaac, a child born from God’s provision according to the promise. Ishmael was born by their own provision, or in the ordinary (or natural) way, while Isaac was born by God’s provision as a result of a promise.
Paul certainly would not deny that this account was real history, but he also sees it as a foreshadowing of what was to come. These two women and their children represent two covenants. Paul’s thinking here can become a bit confusing unless we remember that the root of his argument is the difference between faith and unbelief. Hagar and Ishmael represent the covenant of the law that came from Mt. Sinai, and Paul has already discussed how the law kept Israel in protective custody or slavery of sorts. While, Sarah and Isaac represent the promise and freedom. Paul’s opponents have claimed to be presenting the true Israel, the true Jerusalem (a common term used in the Old Testament to describe all of Israel) but that Jerusalem is still tied to the law. If they looked to the law as their means to being God’s people, then they were enslaved to it, thus they were, in fact, Ishmael people. This argument was virtually unanswerable, as Paul has completely turned the tables on his opponents.
On the other hand, Paul describes the Isaac people. These are the people who are free and who belong to the Jerusalem that is above. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:6, all those who in Christ are already seated in the heavenly realms, we have already entered into the age to come and are people of the age to come. The Jerusalem from above is the true Israel, the true people of God. Paul’s opponents have claimed authority from Jerusalem, but as Paul makes clear, it is the present earthly Jerusalem, not the Jerusalem from above which is the real home and place of authority for those in Christ. To illustrate this he quotes from Isaiah 54, a passage addressed to Jerusalem during the old covenant, promising that, although she was now spiritually barren, there would be a time when she would bear many children. For Paul, this passage applies to the Jerusalem from above. Thus, the Jerusalem from above was once bereft of children but now is fruitful in abundance, while the present Jerusalem is still in slavery with her children. Belonging to the present Jerusalem should be nothing to desire or to brag about, yet it was the very thing that had enticed the Galatians.
Those who are believers in God’s promise rather than trusting in their flesh, belong to the family of Isaac, they are the children of promise. Those who continue to cling to the present age, including the present Jerusalem, belong to the family of Ishmael, a charge that would have been particularly devastating to those who considered themselves as Jews and the children of Abraham. And, says Paul, they are behaving just as Ishmael did with Isaac, persecuting the children of the promise and faith. The Ishmael-people will persecute the Isaac-people but they will eventually be cast out of the family because the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son. Paul wants the Galatians as well as the Judaizers to know that they can continue to cling to the slavery of the law but the law will not bring them into God’s inheritance. Those who cling to faith in the life of Christ will. There is no way that anyone can claim that those who believe in the life of the Messiah can be called outsiders or second-class members of the family of God. They are just like Isaac, children of the promise and part of the true family of God, and if we cling to faith in Christ then so are we.
Devotional Thought
Paul says that those who believe in the gospel are like Isaac, part of the free family of God. What does it mean to you to be a part of the free family of God? What responsibilities come along with that distinction?
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