Study of Galatians Part 12 - Galatians 4:21-5:1

Last week, we heard of Paul’s very personal concern for the Galatian Christians. The Lord had opened their hearts to believe in the Good News of Jesus as Savior and to being so kind and helpful to Paul, even with the bodily ailment he had. Paul was very concerned, though, that people had quickly turned to “a different Gospel” (Galatians 1:6-7) which was enslaving them in trying to follow laws and regulations from which Christ Jesus had freed them and making them think they must follow these rules in order to have salvation (Galatians 4:8-20).

Paul went on to challenge the Galatians by asking them if they had really ever “listened to the law,” and if they really wanted to be slaves under that law (Galatians 4:21). Paul took the Galatians to what had been written in Genesis 16, 17:15-21, 18:9-15, and 21:1-21. (Remember that for the Jews, Moses was the great lawgiver and that his five books at the beginning of the Old Testament were the most important parts and the summary and essence of all the rest of the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament. So, Paul was taking an important part of what Moses had written, as inspired by God, and asking the Galatians to look at that.)

Turn to Genesis 16. We find out that Abraham and his wife, Sarah, as good and faithful to God as they were, were at times not so good and so faithful. God had clearly promised Abraham a son of his own in Genesis 12 and 15, but Abraham and Sarah became tired of waiting upon God. Sarah told Abraham to go to her Egyptian servant, Hagar, and have a child by her. Abraham did so, and a child, Ishmael, was born.

This was clearly against God’s plan of one man and one woman in a lifelong commitment of marriage. It was clearly also Abraham and Sarah taking things into their own hands instead of trusting God and His plans. Trouble then began right away when they sinned, as Hagar had contempt for Sarah for being barren, and Sarah treated her very harshly in return, and she tried to run away. There was trouble between Abraham and Sarah over all this too (Genesis 16:1-6).

The angel of the Lord sent Hagar back to Sarah and said that her son, Ishmael, would have many of his own descendants; but he would be “a wild donkey of a man,” and many conflicts would follow. Ishmael laughed in contempt of Isaac when he was born, too (Genesis 16:9-15, 21:9). (This trouble did happen, as the Arab nations trace themselves back to Ishmael; and Mohammed said in the Koran that Ishmael was the true child God had spoken of, and that Mohammed was his descendant and the true prophet of God. What conflict there has been, since, between Jews and Arabs, and between Islam and Christianity and others.)

This passage and others (see Genesis 12:10-20, for example) indicate that Abraham was not acceptable to God because he followed the will of God well enough. He failed miserably, at times. He could only be “counted righteous” by faith in God’s mercy and forgiveness and the ultimate Child of Promise, Jesus, and what He would come and do for him and for the world.

Remember how Paul had earlier quoted also from the Book of the Law, Deuteronomy 27:26, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” That would include Abraham (and you and me, too, as being under a curse, for we are all imperfect sinners). So Paul said, “now it is evident that no one is justified before God by keeping the law” (Galatians 3:10-11). Help could only come through Christ and what He did for us all.

Yet as we read on in Genesis 17:15-21, and Genesis 18:10-15, both Abraham and Sarah laughed when some years later God came again and promised that they would have a son, Isaac, born of the two of them, who would be the child promised, the child of the covenant. Abraham still wanted to bring up the birth of Ishmael: “Abraham said to God, ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before you!’” But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him” (Genesis 17:18-19). Then, in Genesis 21:8-20, Hagar and Ishmael were sent away. God protected them and Ishmael married an Egyptian, but he was not the child of promise.

Go back now to Galatians 4:22-23. Paul summarizes these events in this way: “It is written (in the law of God) 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” (by the human will and choice of Sarah and Abraham and Hagar) “while the son of the free woman was born through promise” ( by Abraham and Sarah, but through the promise and miracle of God).

Then we have a word that is used only here in the whole Bible: “Now this may be interpreted“ ‘allegorically’” (Galatians 4:24). This is a literal rendering of the actual Greek word. It is a combination of two Greek words: “allos,” which means “other,” and the word “agoreuo,” which means “to speak in a place of public assembly,” an “agora,” a marketplace. What Paul was saying is something “other” than what the literal words say, but with an application that “corresponds with,” is in line with them (Galatians 4:25) and does not change the literal meaning. 

The two women represent or typify two covenants. The slave woman, Hagar, represented the old covenant of Mount Sinai, which imposed the Law upon people and kept them enslaved to that law, “imprisoned” and “under a guardian,” as Paul had said earlier (Galatians 3:22-24, 4:24-25).

The city of Jerusalem at the time of Paul was wrapped up in that slavery to the many laws and rules of Judaism. The city was focused on human effort and activity, like the human effort that produced Ishmael. Paul knew and lived in that slavery himself, until he was set free by Christ.

In contrast, the child of Sarah, Isaac, came through the promises and working of God. This represents the “Jerusalem above,” the freedom of those who are children of God, not by their own efforts, but by the working of God Himself, who are “born according to the Spirit of God” (Galatians 4:23,26,28.29). It is the children of the free woman who will inherit the promises of God - those who live in the freedom and love of Christ the Savior. The children of the slave woman will lose out, because they are still living in slavery to themselves and their own attempts to earn God’s favor by their works (Galatians 4:30, 31, and 5:1).

Paul added two more thoughts. He quoted an Old Testament passage, Isaiah 54:1, which predicted the fall of Jerusalem in future days. God’s people would look like barren Sarah at that time, waiting for deliverance. As Sarah was finally blessed with a child, so God’s people would be blessed through the promises of God and be free people again, by God’s work and mercy. There would be times of persecution where the Jews of old Jerusalem and the law would persecute the free children of God, in Christ, “as it is now,” Paul added (Galatians 4:27-29). But Christ has set us free, and we will be free and hopeful people, in Him, as He helps us avoid the “yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

This is a long, hard presentation in just a few verses. We’ll have a few more comments next week and then move on to Galatians 5, where Paul emphasizes again how important what he is saying really is for us all.