BIG IDEA:
THE OT ANALOGY OF ISHMAEL AND ISAAC PICTURES OUR FREEDOM — ACCOMPLISHED BY THE SPIRIT ACCORDING TO GOD’S PROMISE
INTRODUCTION:
William Hendriksen: The chapter closes with a reminder–in the form of an allegory–that those who hear the law should take it to heart. When the Judaizers pride themselves in the fact that they are “sons of Abraham,” and the Galatians are influenced by this boast, let it be remembered that Abraham had two sons: one by the slave-woman, the other by the free-woman. Slavish law-observance, as if this were the pathway to salvation, makes one similar to Ishmael, slave-son of a slave-woman (Hagar). On the contrary, the exercise of one’s freedom in Christ, basing one’s trust in him alone, makes one a true son of Abraham, similar to the free-born son Isaac, born to the free-woman, Sarah.
Douglas Moo: Perhaps a majority of contemporary interpreters would categorize Paul’s interpretation neither as “typology” nor as “allegory,” but as a mixture of the two (Betz 1979: 239; Lincoln 1981: 13–14; Goppelt 1982: 139; Mussner 1988: 320; Martyn 1997: 436; Drane 1975: 41–43; Schreiner 2010: 293). . ..
Paul grounds his reading of the Sarah and Hagar narrative in an important pattern of OT salvation-historical movement, a reading, to be sure, enhanced by his hermeneutical axioms. He gives to the narrative before him in Genesis, without denying its intended historical sense, an additional or added meaning in light of these hermeneutical axioms.
Scot McKnight: [Paul] argues in this last argument, if one reads Scripture “allegorically,” one will see that the stories of Abraham-Sarah-Isaac along with the stories of Abraham-Hagar-Ishmael teach the point he has been making. God’s way is through promise, not through the “flesh.” This final argument from the law (i.e., the Pentateuch) complements his previous three arguments: from Scripture texts (3:6–14), from covenants (vv. 15–25), and from sonship (3:26 – 4:20). As well, Paul anchors his argument in the patriarch Paul thinks is paramount: Abraham, not Moses. . .
I see no reason why we cannot make allusions like these, allusions that restate the message of the gospel in terms of Old Testament figures and events. There is no reason, so far as I am concerned, why Christians cannot express the gospel by using the characters and events of the Old Testament. This is, in effect, a retelling of an Old Testament narrative in terms of the Christian gospel. Thus, I see no reason why we cannot find analogies to the gospel in Old Testament stories as long as we are aware that what we are doing is not historical exegesis but application and rereading.
Chuck Swindoll: Paul’s doctrinal case against the legalistic Judaizers is brought to a climax and a close in Galatians 4:21-31. Here he uses the Judaizers’ method of argument and exegesis to disprove their position. He opens with a question (v. 21), provides some historical background from the life of Abraham (vv. 22-23), allegorizes the history given (vv. 24-27), and, finally, applies the allegory to the Galatians’ situation (vv. 28-31).
Timothy George: [Paul] developed the analogy of Hagar and Sarah, doubtless an example familiar to the Galatians from the use already made of it by the false teachers. He had set forth two parallel lists of complementary items derived from this famous passage in Genesis. Sarah-Isaac-the new covenant-Mount Zion-Jerusalem above stand together over against Hagar-Ishmael-the old covenant-Mount Sinai-Jerusalem that now is. Paul’s inversion of the traditional interpretation of the analogy shows that the true descendants of Isaac are those who are justified by grace through faith on the basis of God’s unfailing promise, while the offspring of Ishmael are those, like the Judaizers, who seek to justify themselves “according to the flesh” (vv. 23, 29 RSV).
John MacArthur: The Old Covenant of law was given through Moses at Mount Sinai and required God’s chosen people, the Jews, to keep all the commands He gave in conjunction with that covenant. Because the terms of the covenant were humanly impossible to keep, it produced a type of religious slaves, as it were, bound to a master from whom they could never escape. Anyone, including a Jew, who attempted to satisfy God and gain freedom from condemnation by trying to live up to that covenant in his own self-righteousness was spiritually like a child of Hagar, the bondwoman. He was a slave, struggling for a freedom he could not obtain by his own efforts…
In one sweep Paul sets forth the common factor of divine power in behalf of Sarah, the captive Jews, and the church. The common element of all three is divine power granting freedom and fruitfulness. Everything in this trilogy is the result of regenerating grace, not human effort.
Howard Vos: From personal appeal Paul now turns to an illustration from Scripture in an effort to separate the Galatians from legalism. Those who boast of their submission to the law and claim to be sons of Abraham forget that Abraham had two sons, the one of a freewoman and the other of a bondwoman. Blessing and inheritance belong to the former. Paul declares the legalistic Galatians to be descended from the latter.
Philip Ryken: As a result of Paul’s evangelistic efforts, new churches were planted throughout the region. Yet shortly thereafter, a group of Jewish-Christian missionaries arrived in Galatia to “correct” Paul’s gospel. These men, who came from Jerusalem, are sometimes known as “the Judaizers.” They preached a legalistic form of Christianity. They wanted Gentiles to become Jews in order to be good Christians. Thus they were trying to add the law of Moses on top of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Under the influence of this teaching, the Galatians began to squander their newfound freedom in Christ. They were keeping Jewish traditions that were unnecessary for Christians. Some of them thought they had to get circumcised. Others were saying that it was mandatory to celebrate Passover and other Jewish festivals. In their effort to prove that they were good Christians, they were becoming enslaved to all kinds of Old Testament rituals.
We often do the same thing. We forget that Christianity is a form of liberty, and not slavery. We reduce faith in Christ to a list of rules or traditions. We evaluate our spiritual standing by what we do for God, rather than by what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. In truth, we are all recovering Pharisees, in constant danger of forgetting to live only by faith and choosing instead to go right back under the law.
In order to persuade the Galatians that they were free from the law, the apostle Paul used a legal argument. In fine rabbinic style, he used the Torah, or Old Testament law, to make his point. “Tell me,” he wrote, somewhat sarcastically, “you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?” (Gal. 4:21). His meaning could be paraphrased like this: “So you want to be under the law, do you? Well, do you have any idea what the law really says? Because if you did, you would realize that the law itself tells you not to be under the law!”
Thomas Schreiner: Stand in Freedom: Argument from Allegory (4:21–5:1)
- Listen to the Scripture (4:21)
- Contrast between two sons of Abraham (4:22–23)
- The allegory: the wives represent two covenants (4:24a-b)
- Hagar: Mount Sinai, the present Jerusalem, and slavery (4:24c–25)
- Jerusalem above: free and fertile (4:26–27)
- Galatians as children of promise persecuted by children of flesh (4:28–29)
- Inheritance only for sons of the free woman (4:30)
- Galatians as children of free woman (4:31)
- Exhorted to stand in freedom (5:1)
(:21) ATTENTION GRABBER – KEY QUESTION
“Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?”
Pay attention to the OT allegory in order to see the absurdity of your inconsistency.
Chuck Swindoll: The legalists, and the Christians who joined them, were not forced to live according to the Law. They made that choice freely; therefore, they were responsible for it. Focusing on their decision, Paul wants to know if they have really thought it through. Have they come to grips with the whole Law—Genesis through Deuteronomy—or have they just narrowed their sights to particular aspects of the Law?
Ben Witherington: Verse 21 begins in dialogical fashion, with direct address to those contemplating submitting to the Law. As Betz says, this is reminiscent of the Hellenistic diatribe style. Like the approach in the first major argument in 3:1–5, Paul seeks to engage his audience directly, only here he does not rely on rhetorical questions. Lest we assume that Paul had actually moved on to another subject, this verse reminds us that the Galatians’ relationship to the Mosaic Law, and Paul’s desire that they not submit to it, is the main subject of all the arguments in this letter. The present participle θέλοντες supports our contention that Paul believes he is addressing those on the verge of submitting to the Law, but not having done so yet.
I. (:22-27) THE KEY DISTINCTIONS IN THE OT ANALOGY
REGARDING ABRAHAM’S TWO SONS = ISHMAEL AND ISAAC
(:22a) Setting the Stage – Historical Account:
“For it is written that Abraham had two sons
This is allegorically speaking“
John MacArthur: The translators of both the King James Version and the New American Standard Bible have chosen simply to transliterate rather than translate the term egored (allegorically, v. 24). This has led to difficulty in handling the passage, because usually an allegory is either a fanciful or fictional story carrying a hidden meaning or a true story in which the apparent meaning is meaningless.
But obviously the record of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar is both historical and meaningful. Recognizing this, the New International Version translators have attempted to aid the understanding of what Paul intended by avoiding the term allegorical and rendering “These things may be taken figuratively.” But that also can have the implication of something that is not literal. It is best to identify this literal, historical account as simply analogous to and illustrative of the spiritual truth that Paul elucidates with it. The dictionary defines analogy as “a partial similarity between like features of two things on which a comparison may be made.” Paul is simply comparing the similarities between the story of Abraham and the spiritual truth he is teaching.
Nijay Gupta: We can guess with some confidence that Paul was offering a counternarrative of the Abrahamic story to the one told by Paul’s rivals in Galatia. If we get a bit imaginative, we might propose that (prior to Paul’s writing this letter to the Galatians) the rivals made this kind of case to the predominantly gentile Galatian church:
“Through our holy Jewish Scriptures, we see an elect line formed, and another line rejected. So, ‘yet have I loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated.’ And so also earlier with the two sons of our great father Abraham. One son was born of the slave and cut off from God’s holy people. The other son was embraced in the family, a special child foretold by God to fulfill the divine promise to Abraham. The rejected son was not a true Israelite. He had no name and no inheritance. The accepted son was circumcised and became heir to the divine promise. You Galatians do not want to be rejected, do you? Cut off and vulnerable in the wilderness, no family and no name, like the rejected son? If you want to be a fellow heir of the kingdom of God, you must fully join the blessed son of Abraham in circumcision.”
Paul’s own interpretation of the story of Abraham’s two sons would agree that one son was rejected and the other blessed. But the meaning and importance of these two for Paul is much different.
A. (:22b) The Distinction in the Social Position of the Mother
- Slave
“one by the bondwoman“
- Free
“one by the free woman“
Philip Ryken: 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 came by faith. One was a slave; the other was free. Thus Ishmael and Isaac represent two entirely different approaches to religion: law against grace, flesh against Spirit, self-reliance against divine dependence.
B. (:23) The Distinction in the Divine Initiative –
(Resulting in a Difference in the Faith Approach on the part of the parents)
- Human Plotting
“But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh“
Thomas Schreiner: Abraham and Sarah’s attempt to have a child via Hagar signaled a lack of faith on their part—a human attempt to fulfill the promise (Gen 16).
- Divine Promise
“and the son by the free woman through the promise“
John Piper: Isaac was not born according to the flesh because his birth was the result of God’s supernatural intervention in fulfillment of his own promise. Abraham had learned his lesson: the only acceptable response to God’s merciful promise is trust in that promise, not works of the flesh that try, to bring down God’s blessing with our efforts…
Abraham and Hagar tried to get God’s promised blessing by their own strength without relying on God’s supernatural enablement. That is just what happened when the law was given at Mt. Sinai. Instead of humbling themselves and trusting God for help to obey his commands Israel says confidently, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do” (Ex. 24:3; Deut. 5:27). But they did not have hearts inclined to trust in God (Heb. 4:2) or truly depend on him (Deut. 5:29). And so like Hagar and Abraham they depended on their own resources.
Our real life is not, like Ishmael’s, simply owing to the work of man. Our real life is owing to the work of God in us fulfilling his promise to make for himself a people (Gen. 12:1-3) and to put his Spirit within them (Ezek. 36:27) and write his law on their hearts (Jer. 31:33).
Ben Witherington: This argument builds on what Paul has already said in Gal. 3 about Abraham being reckoned as righteous by grace through faith, and now Paul is going to establish that the chosen line in the case of the second generation was also on the basis of grace, not on the basis of heredity or ‘flesh’. Ishmael was after all a first-born, and one born of the flesh in a natural way. But this is not what determined who would inherit. In this fashion Paul will undermine any appeals to heredity or ‘natural’ connections with Abraham. Paul’s point will be that even Isaac came to Abraham and into his inheritance by way of promise, just as the Galatians had.
Timothy George: Not only did the two sons have different mothers, but they also were born in different ways. The son of the slave woman was born “as a result of the flesh,” that is, by the normal means of human procreation; conversely, the son of the free woman was born “through promise,” that is, in direct fulfillment of God’s word to Abraham. Luther correctly observed that the principal difference here was the absence of the word of God in the birth of Ishmael: “When Hagar conceived and gave birth to Ishmael, there was no voice or word of God that predicted this; but with Sarah’s permission Abraham went into Hagar the slave, whom Sarah, because she was barren, gave him as his wife as Genesis testifies. . . . Therefore Ishmael was born without the word, solely at the request of Sarah herself. Here there was no word of God that commanded or promised Abraham a son; but everything happened by chance, as Sarah’s words indicate: ‘It may be,’ she says, ‘that I shall obtain children by her.’”
The birth of Ishmael was the result of the outworking of the philosophy that God helps those who help themselves. Both Abraham and Sarah were childless in their old age, and it appeared that they would die that way. So they decided to “help God” fulfill his promise. The result was the birth of Ishmael, who was a source of contention and suffering for the rest of his life. Then fourteen years later God’s promise was at last fulfilled in the birth of Isaac, so called because of the laughter, first of unbelief and then of joy, which greeted his birth. Ishmael was Abraham’s son by proxy, according to the flesh; Isaac was his son by promise, a living witness to divine grace.
C. (24-27) The Distinction in the Two Covenants –
Divine Interpretation of the Analogy
“these women are two covenants”
- The Old Covenant — fleshly Jerusalem representing bondage to the Law
The Covenant of Law and Works
a. Fleshly Jerusalem = the Source
“one proceeding from Mount Sinai“
b. Issuing in Slavery
“bearing children who are to be slaves”
c. Identified as Hagar
“she is Hagar”
“this present Jerusalem”
- The New Covenant — spiritual Jerusalem representing freedom
The Covenant of Grace and Faith
a. Spiritual Jerusalem = the Source
“But the Jerusalem above“
b. Issuing in Freedom
“is free“
c. Identified as “the Jerusalem above“
Timothy George: Paul’s meaning is clear: those who sought liberation through the Mosaic legislation were doomed to disappointment. The children of Hagar could never become the children of Sarah by observing the stipulations of that covenant, which was ratified at Sinai. And this applied to Jewish “Christians” (such as the legalists) and their Gentile followers no less than to unbelieving Jews who rejected Jesus as the Messiah altogether.
- Summary
a. (:25) The Old Covenant — Don’t regress back to this
“Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to
the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.”
Ben Witherington: Paul’s view is that for Christians to submit to the Law is tantamount to submitting to slavery and giving up the freedom one has in Christ. It is tantamount to going back to Sinai, not on to the promised land.
Howard Vos: For centuries Jerusalem had been glorified in Hebrew history and hymnody as the capital of the Jewish commonwealth and a place where God especially chose to dwell. But the city had had her share of sin, sorrow, and bondage and had never come to enjoy the exalted place anticipated for her. Old Testament prophets looked forward to a golden age when the city would be free, when Messiah would rule in righteousness and holiness from Zion. When Paul wrote Galatians those prophecies had not yet been fulfilled. The city was still in political and spiritual bondage. In fact, it appeared that the old city would never realize the expectations so many had had for her.
Ronald Fung: Representing Mount Sinai in Arabia, then, Hagar corresponds to the earthly Jerusalem of Paul’s day, which was in spiritual bondage together with her children just as Hagar was in physical bondage with her child Ishmael. Thus the fact of bondage (albeit in two different senses) holds together Hagar and Ishmael, the Sinaitic covenant of law, the present earthly Jerusalem (which stands by metonymy for Judaism, with its trust in physical descent from Abraham and reliance on legal observance as the way of salvation), and her children, that is, all who adhere to the law as the means of justification and the principle of life.
George Brunk: Paul uses Hagar and Sarah, and their respective sons, to illustrate two covenants, or ways of living before God. These two ways correspond to the by-now familiar contrast in Galatians between the way of slavery and the way of freedom. Hagar, the slave woman, stands for slavery. Sarah, Abraham’s wife and the one through whom God’s promise was to be fulfilled, stands for freedom. The shocking irony is that in holding on to Law observance, the teachers are actually identifying with Hagar, the Gentile, rather than with Sarah, the Jew! Just as shocking is the implication that the present Jerusalem, center of the Jewish people and seat of the pillars in the church (2:9), is the symbol of slavery!
b. (:26) The New Covenant — Embrace this
“But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.”
F. F. Bruce: Paul now inverts the exegesis which would have commended itself to him in earlier days. Now it is the people of the law who are the offspring of the slave woman; the children of the free woman are those who embrace the gospel of justification by faith, comprising a minority of Jews and a rapidly increasing preponderance of Gentiles. To Jews this exegesis must have seemed preposterous. It was crystal clear that they were Sarah’s offspring, while Hagar’s descendants were Gentiles.
c. (:27) The Surpassing Blessing of the New Covenant
“For it is written, ‘Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear;
Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; For more are
the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband.”
John MacArthur: In one sweep Paul sets forth the common factor of divine power in behalf of Sarah, the captive Jews, and the church. The common element of all three is divine power granting freedom and fruitfulness. Everything in this trilogy is the result of regenerating grace, not human effort.
Bruce Barton: Paul quoted from Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 54:1). Isaiah’s words had comforted the Jewish exiles years later in Babylon, proclaiming that they would not only be restored, but that their future blessings would be greater than any in the past. To be barren (childless) in ancient days meant great shame and disgrace for a woman. Families depended on children for survival, especially when the parents became elderly. Israel had been unfruitful, like a childless woman, but God would give great blessings and would change their mourning into rejoicing.
Paul applied the comparison of former-versus-later blessings, prophesied by Isaiah, to his Hagar/Sarah analogy. Sarah, who had been barren, was blessed with Isaac. Her child was a gracious gift, not the result of work. Because God had promised to bless Abraham and his descendants, she ultimately would have many more children (the Christian church grew rapidly and is still growing). While the Jews knew (or should have known) from their own Scriptures that Gentiles would turn to God, two changes astounded them:
(1) The Gentiles did not have to become Jews first (as the Judaizers preached); and
(2) so many Gentiles became believers that they soon outnumbered Jewish believers.
Instead of fulfilling their privileged role to bring God’s plan into reality, these Jews were insisting on remaining in control. Their inability to recognize God’s acceptance of the Gentiles made them equally unable to rejoice!
II. (:28-31) THE KEY APPLICATIONS OF THE OT ANALOGY REGARDING ABRAHAM’S TWO SONS = ISHMAEL AND ISAAC
A. (:28) Privilege of Promise
“And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.”
B. (:29) Pattern of Persecution
“But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him
who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.”
C. (:30) Priority of Purification (Putting Away the Old Vestiges of Legalism)
“But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son, For
the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.’”
Paul was calling for church discipline to be exercised against the false teaching Judaizers and their heretical adherents.
Ben Witherington: To sum up, in a tour de force argument Paul has identified the agitators in Galatia with Hagar, and himself with Sarah. Each is on the way to producing children, the former for slavery, the latter for freedom. Paul takes the high ground of identifying himself and his Gentile converts as the true heirs of the promises to Abraham, and suggests that the agitators, even in spite of their Jewishness, are the real Ishmaelites giving birth to slaves. Paul believes that the story of Isaac is being revisited in the experience of the Galatians, “his children”, just as the story of Sarah has been revisited in the experience of Paul (cf. 4.18–20). His exhortation to them in essence is to become what they already are, and this is precisely what he will go on to say as he draws the argument to a close in vs. 31.
(:31) CONCLUSION – KEY PRINCIPLE: WE HAVE BEEN BORN TO FREEDOM, NOT BONDAGE
“So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman,
but of the free woman.”
Philip Ryken: [Paul] divided the whole world into two groups: the slaves and the free. The slaves are under the law and outside of Christ, while the free are in Christ and no longer under the law because they live by faith. This contrast between law and faith—between religious bondage and spiritual freedom—runs throughout Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This epistle was written to help the slaves of religion find true freedom in Christ.
Kathryn Greene-McCreight: Paul now returns to the first-person plural, including himself among the Galatians as children of Sarah, the free mother in whom they are liberated from their former slavery. And even though they were born in an ordinary way, in Christ they are born according to the promise, like Isaac. Paul sets the allegory as the capstone of the whole letter to show the Galatians that, by their faith in Christ, they are members of the particular covenant; through Christ they are children of Sarah apart from the law. They are like Isaac, but they do not subsume or replace Isaac. Remaining uncircumcised, they are to remain steadfast in the freedom of the Jerusalem above, their free mother, the church.
Richard Longenecker: The question that comes directly to the fore in Paul’s use of Abraham in 3:6–9, and that underlies all of his argumentation thereafter in 3:10 – 4:11, is: Who are Abraham’s true children and heirs? Likewise in his hortatory use of the Hagar-Sarah story in 4:21–31 it is this question that permeates all the discussion. So in concluding his allegorical reinterpretation of the Hagar-Sarah story Paul makes an affirmation that serves as the conclusion of 4:21–31 (so Lightfoot, Galatians [1890], 184–85; Burton, Galatians, 267–69; Schlier, Galater, 228; Mussner, Galaterbrief, 334; et al.; contra Zahn, Lagrange, Bousset, et al., who consider v 31 to be the beginning of a new hortatory section), but also sets up the exhortations of 5:1–12 by reiterating the key features of “slavery” and “freedom.”