Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,

            “Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
                        break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
            For the children of the desolate one will be more
                        than those of the one who has a husband.”

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 4:21-5:1 ESV

During the week leading to His crucifixion, Jesus would go to the temple each day. There each group of religious leaders launched their final theological assaults upon Him. The chief priest, scribes, and elders questioned His authority. The Pharisees and the Herodians turned to politics and asked Him about taxation. The Sadducees asked Him a question about the resurrection, of which they themselves did not believe. Jesus’ answer to them is threefold. First, He simply rebukes their twisted and mangled theology by saying that they do not know the Scripture nor the power of God. Second, He answers their actual question, which gives us a brief glimpse into the resurrected life to come. Third, He refutes their disbelief in the resurrection of the dead through Scripture. Now our Lord could have easily cited Psalm 16, where David blatantly confesses that God would not abandon his soul to Sheol but would instead bring him into the joy and pleasure of His presence forevermore. Jesus also could have quoted Daniel 12:2, which says: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth [that is, who are dead] shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

The Sadducees, however, did not accept the Writings or the Prophets as Scripture, but only believed in the five books of Moses, called the Torah or Law. Thus, in a masterful move, Jesus refutes them using their own game, making His case from God’s statement in Exodus 3 that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His argument is as simple as it is profound. God would have presently identified Himself as the God of the patriarchs if the patriarchs were not still alive beyond their earthly deaths.

In our present passage, the Apostle Paul does something similar the Galatians. After having logically refuted the legalistic false teaching that they were embracing and then making a passionate and personal appeal, he now gives them an argument from the law itself.

THE ALLEGORY // VERSES 21-27

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? After his emotional outpouring in the previous verses, Paul now goes back on the calculated offense. In this verse, he uses the law in two senses. First, he refers to them as you who desire to be under the law. This obviously carries the sense that Paul has intended throughout his letter: the legal commandments of God for His people. But then Paul uses the word law in the sense of referring to Holy Scripture, particularly to the books of Moses, asking: do you not listen to the law? Through this rhetorical question, Paul is leveraging their legalism against them. He is essentially saying: “You want to be under the law, do you? Well, let’s hear what the law has to say about itself.” Just as Jesus did with the Sadducees, Paul is defeating them at their own game.

Normally, whenever Paul says the phrase for it is written, he provides a particular quotation afterward, but here Paul simply points us back to the account of Abraham’s two sons as recounted in Genesis 16 and 21.

In order to properly follow Paul’s argument, a recap of the story is in order. Abraham, of course, had been promised by Yahweh that he would become the father of a great nation, and even though Abraham was already old and did not have a son, he believed the LORD. At some point, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, concocted a plan for giving Abraham a son. She gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham, and she soon bore him a son called Ishmael. God later came down and clarified that Abraham’s heir would still come through Sarah, though her age such a thing impossible. Even though for Abraham’s sake, the LORD would make Ishmael great; He would make His covenant with Sarah’s son, Isaac.

Commenting on this well-known account, Paul writes in verse 23: But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. The phrase according to the flesh can have a dual meaning. First, Ishmael was conceived in ordinary fashion. That is, there was nothing miraculous about the whole affair. But also, it was according to the flesh in the sense that it was an attempt to take matters into their own hands. God had promised Abraham a son, and he and Sarah grew understandably impatient. Rather than trusting in the miraculous, they looked for a worldly loophole. Isaac, on the other hand, was truly born through promise. He was promised, and God fulfilled His promise even though the physical circumstances made his birth utterly impossible. Thus, as Ryken notes:

From the very beginning there was a fundamental spiritual difference between the two sons. One son was born by proxy, the other by promise. One came by works; the other by faith. One was a slave; the other was free. Thus Isaac and Ishmael represent two entirely different approaches to religion: law against grace, flesh against Spirit, self-reliance against divine dependence. (184)

The Jews obviously drew tremendous significance from this. Even though the Arab peoples could claim descent from Abraham through Ishmael, they were not people of the promise. After all, Yahweh Himself had said to Abraham that “through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” Paul, however, notes that something deeper could be gleaned from this story.

Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

With the plain understanding of the story of Sarah and Hagar before us, Paul now engages in what he calls an allegorical interpretation. Today, an allegory is when something represents an abstract concept or reality. Strictly speaking, Narnia is not an allegory because Aslan is a fictional representation of Jesus, whereas Pilgrim’s Progress is allegory because characters like Hopeful, Prudence, or Hypocrisy are fictional pictures of those concepts. But Thielman notes that “In Paul’s time, interpreting a text allegorically (Gk. allegoroumena) meant giving its words more than one meaning. Read one way, a term or expression of a text in question might refer simply to a god, a person, or an object, but as a part of a larger pattern of words, it could refer to something else that was less obvious” (630). Thus, by engaging in an allegorical interpretation, Paul is saying that the whole story and its parts represent greater spiritual realities than simply the historical events themselves. Of course, Paul is not denying the historicity of Isaac and Ishmael; rather, John Eadie provides some helpful clarification:

An allegory is not, as it has been sometimes defined, a continued metaphor; for a metaphor asserts one thing to be another, whereas an allegory only implies it. To be allegorized, then, is to be interpreted in another than the literal sense. The simple historical facts are not explained away as if they had been portions of a mere allegory, like the persons and events in Bunyan’s Pilgrim; but these facts are invested with a new meaning as portraying great spiritual truths, and such truths they were intended and moulded to symbolize. But to say that a portion of early history is allegorized is very different from affirming that it is an allegory, or without any true historical basis.

Indeed, Paul’s allegorizing of this story is not, as many historians have assumed, an invitation for us to begin allegorizing the stories of the Bible ourselves. In so doing, many have wondered into many vain speculations.

But what is the allegorical interpretation that Paul is presenting? He says that Sarah and Hagar represent two covenants. David DeSilva makes the following comment:

The verb συστοιχέω [corresponds] was originally used to speak of soldiers lining up in columns or rows. Here, Paul is creating, in effect, two conceptual columns (in one column, “Hagar,” the “Sinaitic covenant,” Paul’s contemporary “Jerusalem” and all who look to Jerusalem as their “mother,” and “slavery” and being born into slavery; in the second column, “Sarah,” the “promise/Spirit,” the “Jerusalem above” and all who look to that city as their “mother,” and “freedom” and being born into freedom) and asking the Galatians to find themselves lined up with the second column rather than the first. (97)

Hagar is like the Mosaic covenant that was delivered to Israel from Mount Sinai, while Sarah is like the new covenant in Christ. Hagar could also be seen as the earthly Jerusalem, which in Paul’s day still had the temple and the sacrificial system in place. Sarah, however, could be taken to represent the heavenly Jerusalem whose citizens are all whom Christ has redeemed. Hagar, therefore, is Judaism and all legalistic attempts to achieve righteousness through the law, while Sarah is Christianity and receiving righteousness by faith in Christ. Crucially, Hagar is bound to slavery, and Sarah is free. Spurgeon rightly says:

Hagar never was a free woman, and Sarah never was a slave. So, beloved, the covenant of works never was free, and none of her children ever were. All those who trust in works never are free, and never can be, even could they be perfect in good works. Even if they have no sin, still they are bond-slaves; for when we have done all that we ought to have done, God is not our debtor; we are debtors to him, and still remain as bond-slaves. If I could keep all god’s law, I should have no right to favor; for I should have done no more than was my duty, and be a bond-slave still. This law is the most rigorous master in the world; no wise man would love its service; for after all you have done, the law never gives you a “thank you” for it, but says, “Go on, sir, go so!” The poor sinner trying to be saved by the law is like a blind horse going round and round a mill, and never getting a step further, but only being whipped continually; yea, the faster he goes, the more work he does; the more he is tired, so much the worse for him. The better legalist a man is, the more sure he is of being damned; the more holy a man is, if he trust to his works, the more he may rest assured of his own final rejection and eternal portion with Pharisees. Hagar was a slave; Ishmael, moral and good as he was, was nothing but a slave, and never could be more. Not all the works he ever rendered to his father could make him a free-born son.

But if we are in Christ, then the Jerusalem above is our mother. Indeed, Paul ties Jerusalem and Sarah together by citing Isaiah 54:1, which speaks of Jerusalem as a barren woman who is promised children. By faith and according to the promise of God, we are those children. John Brown writes:

Jerusalem is the true spiritual church consisting of genuine believers from the beginning down to the present time. That church is free. Its principles are free and generous. They lead men to obey from love. Its first principle is, ‘believe and live; and love, and do, and enjoy.’ (237-238)

THE APPLICATION // VERSES 4:28-5:1

With Paul’s allegorizing of Sarah and Hagar made in verses 22-27, the apostle now applies his scriptural interpretation to his readers. First, he emphasizes their identity in verse 28: Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. God’s promise to Abraham was that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his offspring, who is Christ. Thus, all who believe in Christ and trust in Him alone for salvation from our sins is a child of the promise. Here Paul is again stressing the truth that he presented in 3:29: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” Since Paul will come back to this in verse 31, so will we.

Next, Paul warns that we should expect the children of the promise to be persecuted. In verse 29, we read: But just as that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. Clearly, the one who was born according to the flesh was Ishmael, and the one who was born according to the Spirit was Isaac. A scan through Genesis 21 reveals no mention of such persecution. The closest we find is in verse 9, which says that Sarah saw Hagar’s son laughing and the Septuagint says he was playing with Isaac. One rabbinic tradition says that Ishmael was shooting arrows toward Isaac but pretending to only be playing. We can only say for certain that Ishmael did persecute Isaac in some manner since the Holy Spirit saw fit for Paul to write these words.

As Ishmael persecuted Isaac, so the Jews of Paul’s day persecuted followers of Christ. Paul personally experienced this over and over again, and in fact, he was one of the most severe persecutors for a time. Like Paul, the Jews saw Christians as a heretical sect who worshiped a crucified blasphemer as God. Thus, much of the earliest persecution came from or was instigated by Jews. Following the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem in AD 70, that certainly lessened, but persecution of the children of the Spirit by the children of the flesh has continued to this very day. There is a long history of legalists lashing out against those who are free in Christ. During and after the Reformation, Catholics made many martyrs out of those who refused to conform to its teachings.

Indeed, Christians have throughout church history endured persecution from those who have embraced false teaching. Although it is not a definitive test, the impulse to mock or scorn others (not mention physical assault!) is certainly evidence that one’s heart is being led astray, and if the Galatians continued to listen to the Judaizers, they would no doubt find themselves persecuting true Christians. But Jesus Himself gave us this command:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” Paul is quoting Genesis 21:10. Although Sarah is the one who spoke these words, Paul simply says that Scripture speaks them to us. The LORD affirmed to Abraham that Sarah was correct to desire the expulsion of Ishmael, and Paul now applies that to the Galatians, commanding them toss aside the false teachers that have been courting and wooing them. Indeed, churches should not tolerate blatant and unrepentant false teaching. Since they can lead others into spiritual damnation, they should be excommunicated.

But we can also apply this personally, casting out any form of legalism that we find within our own souls. Of course, legalism today does not strictly mean attempting to fulfill the Old Testament laws (although the Hebrew Roots Movement has led many to do so); instead, we can become legalistic about virtually anything. Frank Theilman gives this reflection:

When well-meaning fellow Christians recommend to us various systems of “godly” child-rearing, financial management, Scripture memory, prayer, mission involvement, or coping with health problems, for example, we should evaluate them to see whether they conform to Scripture and common sense, and use them if they are beneficial. They should not, however, become activities that in our imagination cause God to love us more. If we find ourselves taking pride in such activities and internally condemning those who do not participate with us in them, we are on a dangerous path not unlike the one the Galatians were traveling and that caused Paul such distress. (632)

We can certainly hold such things as important and dear to us, but they become legalistic whenever we attempt to be justified through them or impose them upon other Christians as necessary for following Christ.

So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. Jew and Gentile, slave or free, male or female, all who are in Christ are children of the promise. We are descendants of Abraham through Sarah and Isaac. We are the children of the free woman, not of the slave. Therefore, Paul gives us one final punch of exhortation: For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. We have all been made free through the work of Christ. We are adopted as children of the promise and as children of God. And Christ has redeemed us (that is, purchased our freedom) so that we can truly be free from the slavery of the law.

When Paul says to stand firm, which DeSilva notes “conveys a durative or habitual sense (“maintain a firm stance”),” he is using the same word that he would use again in Ephesians 6:12-14:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

This matter of legalism that had invaded the Galatian churches was very much a spiritual assault. Placing themselves under the law would mean a return to the yoke and debt of the law. But in Christ, they were no longer under that slavery but were made free in Christ. Through His undeserved death, Christ became accursed under the law, which He obeyed without exception, in order to rescue us from the curse incurred through our disobedience. Our breaking of God’s law warranted our eternal death, yet Jesus offered His own life in our place. He has atoned, redeemed, rescued, and ransomed us from the consequences of our own sin.

We now enter into the eternal life purchased for us by Christ through faith in His work. Although justification through obedience to the law was impossible, we are able to be “justified by faith” so that we become “sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:24-25). This faith means resting in the completed work of Christ on our behalf. It means believing that salvation “is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). In Christ, therefore, we have been set free from the yoke of slavery, from our fruitless toil of attempting to earn our justification through obedience to the law. Instead, we rest in the finished work of Christ, who has loved us and gave Himself up for us. Jesus has removed the curse and burden of the law from us. We rest in His obedience rather than our own.

Furthermore, as we shall see in the coming weeks, He has given to us the Spirit of life that produces His fruit within us, fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which are characteristics that naturally fulfill the law. Thus, as Jesus said, the law has not been abolished; it has been fulfilled. Christ has met its demands on our behalf and has given us the Spirit who causes us to long for a life of imaging God, which entails walking according to His commands. He has given us the freedom to obey God, not from legalistic obligation but out of love and delight in our Father.

Therefore, as we come the Table before us this morning, let it draw our minds to meditate upon our Lord Jesus Christ, the true and better Isaac, who has brought “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). As we remember His crucifixion, let us in solemn joy marvel that each of our sins (past, present, and future) have already been judged, that the debt has been fully paid, and that we are no longer under the slavery of our sinfulness nor the yoke of the law.