Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Okay, you guys can now turn to Galatians.
[00:00:05] We're still in Galatians 4.
[00:00:07] I feel like we've been in Galatians 4 for a long time, but we're not done.
[00:00:13] Hopefully we'll get through. My plan, as you can see from the handout, is to finish Galatians 4, but it is a big chunk, so we'll try to move with good speed.
[00:00:23] So, just as a couple of reminders, we know these things, but we're studying this inductively. So we want to study, starting with speed, speed, the immediate context. I mean, even down to the details of what word is used and what string of words are used. And is that calling us to remember anything from the Bible? And how exactly should we understand that? And we, you know, understand it in light of the context of the book of Galatians. Why is Paul writing. Does anyone remember what's he writing about and to whom?
[00:00:55] Yeah, yeah, they are. They're being legalistic because they're being dragged away by false teachers called the Judaizers, telling them that they need to be circumcised to really be followers of Jesus. They need to obey the Old Testament laws and the traditions in order to be considered in the family of God. And Paul is saying, none of these works will justify you. This isn't what gets you into God's family or into the Church.
[00:01:27] No one is justified by works of the law.
[00:01:30] Justification is only through faith.
[00:01:33] And he's given us some examples about Abraham and the promise coming to Abraham before the law and how that makes it superior, and Christ fulfilling the law and being the promised seed from Genesis 3 and the promised Son from Abraham.
[00:01:49] And so he accomplished all this on the behalf of sinners. And so they can be justified only by grace, through faith in Christ alone.
[00:02:00] Now, he's not throwing away the law. He knows it is valuable, but this is not what brings us in. And many of these Old Covenant traditions, like circumcision, have been replaced in the New Covenant by something else, namely circumcision of the heart, regeneration by the Holy Spirit. The word we usually use is conversion.
[00:02:21] So now he gets into an example. This is a notoriously confusing passage. So if you get a little lost, that's not embarrassing, please just tell me so I can kind of help us understand, make sure everyone understands and is tracking with this. I think it's. It's helpful. We just have to understand what exactly Paul means with the language he's using, not necessarily how we understand some of these words today as language changes and evolves so let me just read through. Starting in verse 21, we'll read through 5:1, and then we'll kind of dig into it. He writes, 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.
[00:03:15] But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.
[00:03:22] Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.
[00:03:25] These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.
[00:03:35] She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
[00:03:40] But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
[00:03:45] 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.
[00:03:56] Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
[00:04:00] 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 the son of the free woman, or 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.
[00:04:30] Now, I include that first verse from chapter five, because I think the chapter division maybe kind of missed the mark a little bit. Those are not inspired. And so I think that kind of fits better with this section. So let's start in the first couple of verses 21 and 22. He says, 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.
[00:04:53] So in verse 21, Paul is simply addressing the Galatians that have been proponents of the legalism, and he asks if they even listen to the law. So you love the law so much you're binding people by it. But do you actually love the law? Do you know what it says? Do you listen to it? And he introduces this verse about Abraham and his two sons. And what does this have to do with the law, this story about Abraham? Why is he saying, this is the law?
[00:05:23] Does anybody know?
[00:05:37] Let me help a little bit. Does anybody know how at least the Jews traditionally sectioned out what we call the Old Testament.
[00:05:48] They had different categories, and we have different categories, but the categories are a little different. Huh?
[00:05:56] Well, the Mosaic Covenant, but I don't think that's necessarily like a section name that we or they would use.
[00:06:04] Is he talking about, like, the first five books, the Torah?
[00:06:07] Yeah, that's right. He's talking about the first five books. Some say the Pentateuch, because that is the word, you know, five. But it's also called the Torah. You hear Torah. Jews are not talking about the whole Old Testament when they say Torah. They call that the Tanakh. And the T in Tanakh, it comes from the word Torah.
[00:06:25] That refers to the. The law, the prophets and the writings. It's an acronym, Tanakh.
[00:06:30] And so the law refers to Genesis through Deuteronomy. And so he's not just being confusing. He's. When he's talking about Abraham, this is the law. The Jews understand this as the law. And he's saying, you're not listening to the law, namely Genesis. In this case, thankfully, he's using all these examples from the Old Testament that we've been hearing preached in our services. So I think that's a little helpful for us.
[00:06:58] Now, who were the sons of Abraham?
[00:07:01] At least the two sons we know of Ishmael and Isaac, who Ishmael was born to. Whom?
[00:07:13] Mother. Who's his mother?
[00:07:16] I'm sorry? Hagar. And so Isaac was born to.
[00:07:22] That's right, Sarah. So Hagar the slave, Sarah the free. That's. So he kind of goes back and forth. I don't think he says Sarah, but he mentions Hagar by name.
[00:07:32] But he's talking about those two women, the mothers of Ishmael and Isaac. And now verse 23, he says, but the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.
[00:07:47] So how was Ishmael born according to the flesh? Can someone say what exactly that's supposed to mean to us?
[00:08:01] Conceived by earthly means, like without the help of God.
[00:08:05] Yeah, well, I think you're right. Yeah.
[00:08:08] Yes. You know, nobody is born without God allowing it. I think I know what you mean. But yeah, conceived by earthly means.
[00:08:16] So it's not just talking about physical flesh because Isaac was a human.
[00:08:21] He was born physically in the flesh.
[00:08:24] But it's just referring to sinful and worldly measures. Right. Abraham and Sarah, not trusting at that point, God's promise, at least fully, they began to doubt. And so Abraham took Hagar to have a child With. And that's how Ishmael was born.
[00:08:43] But how was Isaac's birth then considered to be? Through promise.
[00:08:54] Yeah, because the Scriptures had previously spoken about his birth. Yeah, right. God had promised it.
[00:09:04] He had promised Abraham a son through whom many nations, all the nations, would be blessed.
[00:09:14] So the promises that Paul had been talking about to the Galatians that were given to Abraham were to come through his son. But not just any son, a specific son, the son of the promise.
[00:09:28] So Abraham not believing the promise, at least at that point in time, he took it into his own hands and had Ishmael, not according to the promise, because he didn't believe the promise at that point.
[00:09:44] Now, here's where it gets a little more confusing for many people. He says in verse 24, this may be interpreted allegorically.
[00:09:55] Can anyone tell us what is an allegory?
[00:10:02] It's like an illustration.
[00:10:06] I think that there's a little overlap there, but.
[00:10:10] So that's close.
[00:10:13] It's like a story is symbolic of something else.
[00:10:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:19] To get it as close as I could, I looked up a definition.
[00:10:25] So according to Oxford, a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically moral or political.
[00:10:37] And now words develop over time, and allegory certainly has.
[00:10:44] And so it really kind of comes to mean something that the interpreter is doing. The interpreter is reading a story or looking at a picture of some sort and is interpreting a hidden meaning that could be useful morally or politically. So it's something that the interpreter is primarily doing. There might be some intent by the. The author or the artist, but it became quickly common to use it this way. There's this meaning that I got to uncover. There's something there, and that kind of developed pretty quickly after the first century.
[00:11:21] However, the way Paul would have understood this word, the Greek word being used, that's now translated as allegory, is more equivalent, from my research, to be what we call a metaphor.
[00:11:37] What is a metaphor?
[00:11:39] Oh, you know, this metaphor is comparing two things without like or as.
[00:11:47] Is that right?
[00:11:49] Yeah, yeah, I thought so. I hadn't heard it put that way. That's good. That's good. I thankfully have Jeremy here this morning.
[00:11:57] Yeah, good job. That was nice.
[00:12:01] Yeah. And so it can kind of include some things, but, you know, there's this comparison happening.
[00:12:10] I think one of the key differences between what we might think of as allegory now and what Paul is doing is this meaning isn't coming from the interpreter. He's not making up this meaning. He's not just uncovering something that was previously unknown.
[00:12:28] He's picking up this meaning from the text.
[00:12:32] He is saying that this text intended to signify this.
[00:12:38] And he's not saying what actually happened didn't happen. He's saying what actually happened, happened with Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac. But also the passage is intending to show us this lesson that I'm going to give you.
[00:12:54] And so I think we can, you know, this helps clarify a lot just by understanding what he means by interpreted allegorically. There's just been so much kind of baggage with that word over time, especially when it comes to interpreting the Bible, because we don't want to be trying to create our own, you know, hidden meaning of things. And just I'm really creative. So I think this story is talking about this. You know, that's. We have to have rules. We can't just make up meanings for the Bible. So that's why it's been controversial.
[00:13:27] And so I think it's pretty easy to see why people are perplexed by this passage. Luckily, Katie and I happened to know a guy who wrote a PhD dissertation on this passage, and so I used his dissertation in helping me understand this.
[00:13:45] So thank you, Jarrett, wherever you are.
[00:13:50] So in this text, Paul is concerned with identifying who the people of God are.
[00:13:56] That's the concern. Who are the people of God? It fits the context, right?
[00:14:01] Is it the people who just obey the law and are circumcised?
[00:14:05] Or is it people who, by faith, are following God? They're having faith in the promise.
[00:14:13] So to spoil the conclusion and also help us follow along, Paul is trying to point out that circumcision is not ultimately what marks out the people of God.
[00:14:25] Even at the time.
[00:14:27] What marks out the people of God is faith.
[00:14:31] If it was just bare physical circumcision that marked out the people of God alone, then why isn't Ishmael part of Israel?
[00:14:41] He was circumcised. He was Abraham's son.
[00:14:45] But we know he's not Israel because where does Israel come from?
[00:14:49] Whose name was changed to Israel?
[00:14:55] Anyone? Oh, you know, Jacob.
[00:14:58] And he was changed to Israel. And he had 12 sons, the 12 tribes. Who's Jacob's father?
[00:15:06] Isaac.
[00:15:08] So Israel. It's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons, and then all of his son's children.
[00:15:14] That was, you know, the nation of Israel. Ishmael was not included in that.
[00:15:20] So he's saying, look, there's something there. People kind of overlook it. But if you think circumcision makes the people of God, it never did.
[00:15:29] Technically, Ishmael was not included.
[00:15:33] And so that. That's what he's pointing out.
[00:15:35] So continuing after he introduces the allegory or metaphor. He says these women are two covenants.
[00:15:43] One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar.
[00:15:49] So based on this verse, what covenant is Hagar metaphorically representing?
[00:15:56] What covenant?
[00:16:11] No, not quite.
[00:16:13] It's confusing because the covenant that she's supposed to be representing comes after her life.
[00:16:23] It's the Mosaic Covenant.
[00:16:26] She lived before. This was not actually a part of it, but she is kind of a shadow of what would come. She's foreshadowing this in a certain way, is what Paul is saying.
[00:16:38] She represents the slavery to the law that was produced among the people.
[00:16:44] So she was, you know, literally a sort of slave to Abraham.
[00:16:50] And Paul is saying in another way, she's representing the slavery to the law that you guys are perpetuating now in the church, being born to the Mosaic Covenant compared to the superior New Covenant was like being born into slavery, is what Paul is saying now. He's not saying the Mosaic Covenant is bad. He's just trying to say the New Covenant is better. If you want evidence for that, read Hebrews. The New Covenant is better. And he's saying the freedom you have in Christ is amazing.
[00:17:26] And if you compare the Mosaic covenant to now, you'll be like, that is like slavery.
[00:17:33] I don't want to go back there. I want to stay in the New Covenant where we know Christ and can see him face to face.
[00:17:42] Now, continuing in verse 25, he says, Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia.
[00:17:47] She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. So here Paul is drawing the connection beyond Exodus to the first century. So he's trying.
[00:18:02] He's saying she represents the Mosaic Covenant, but now he's trying to draw it to the present Jerusalem. So he's talking first century Jerusalem.
[00:18:11] The present Jerusalem she represented beforehand, like as a foreshadow, the Jerusalem of this day that he's writing in. She was a slave. Just as the Jews in the first century after Christ were still enslaved to the Mosaic covenant, so Christ came.
[00:18:30] Many, you know, the Jews persecuted and killed him. And many can even continue to this day to.
[00:18:36] To follow the law but reject Christ. The present Jerusalem is still enslaved to the law. When Christ has provided a way to be free and to be truly justified.
[00:18:49] She was a slave in the same way.
[00:18:53] That's what she's. He's saying she's representing.
[00:18:56] You can look around today and see people that have still shackled themselves to the law.
[00:19:00] That's what she's. She was representing what you still see today and representing what these Galatians were doing to themselves, shackling themselves to the law yet again after being freed from it through faith.
[00:19:15] Now, he contrasts that present Jerusalem enslaved to the law in verse 26.
[00:19:21] But the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother.
[00:19:27] So clearly he's making a distinction because he just said that the present Jerusalem is in slavery.
[00:19:35] Does anybody have an idea what he means by the Jerusalem above is free?
[00:19:41] What's he talking about, Caden?
[00:20:04] Huh?
[00:20:06] Yeah, I think so.
[00:20:08] And more specifically, the heavenly people of God in the New Covenant.
[00:20:14] So Jerusalem, he's using it in one way to talk about the actual city, but really the Jews that are still following the law, that have rejected Christ even after his death and resurrection.
[00:20:26] And he's saying this Jerusalem, that above is also sort of a representation, a shadow Jerusalem. We see it used in many ways, Israel used in many ways. He's speaking of a heavenly people. Not the physical city of Jerusalem, but a heavenly people. People that are onward to heaven, that have been justified through faith alone. Free from the law, free through faith in Christ.
[00:20:54] Thus the she, when he says she is our mother, he's talking about Sarah, the mother of Isaac and the mother of the promise of the New Covenant.
[00:21:04] She's our mother in that she birthed Isaac and Isaac, Jacob and Jacob, Israel and Israel, Christ.
[00:21:13] So in that way, she is symbolically the mother of the people of God.
[00:21:19] The. That's really just part of his. His metaphor. You don't need to take that super far.
[00:21:26] But that's what he's saying. This Jerusalem above is free through faith. You can be free from the law. You don't need to be shackled to the present Jerusalem like so many people are.
[00:21:39] Then in verse 27, he quotes the Old Testament, Isaiah 54:1, he says, 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.
[00:22:00] Paul is quoting this because he sees this or Isaiah 54:1 as being fulfilled in Christ.
[00:22:08] Who is the barren one? Who do you think the barren one is? Foretelling?
[00:22:16] Yeah.
[00:22:20] Yes.
[00:22:21] Partly that is partly. I can't find my coffee.
[00:22:27] I say partly because that it's this. This. The Old Testament does this a lot. You'll notice the authors of the Old Testament are pointing back to things that happened Especially in the law, the first five books, kind of like the foundation of the Bible, but also pointing forward to something future.
[00:22:48] So it is pointing back to Sarah. That is true. She is the barren one. But it also points forward to the exiled Israelites. At this point, Israel is a tumultuous place, as Isaiah is prophesying. It's pointing forward to the exiled Israelites who our art, the barren woman does not bear.
[00:23:13] Now, who is the husband?
[00:23:15] Who is. What is this telling us?
[00:23:25] Who's like the husband?
[00:23:32] Caleb? Do you know it? Oh, he was just tapping on you.
[00:23:36] It's God.
[00:23:38] Yeah.
[00:23:42] And we see this repeatedly when we read in the New Testament about marriage as Christ or God is the husband, his people, the church, his wife.
[00:23:53] That's what marriage is meant to reveal to us, the glory of the gospel between Christ and his church, God and his people. Now, in the exile, God left his people, right? They were exiled from their land.
[00:24:08] They felt left and forsaken.
[00:24:12] To them, it would have been like a wife being abandoned by her husband.
[00:24:17] She was alone and barren, her husband nowhere to be seen in a foreign land, taken into slavery. This is what happened to God's people during the exile, because. But through Isaiah, God promises Israel that they will be blessed and will multiply, even though it seems incredibly unlikely. How can this happen? We're exiled. God is nowhere to be seen. We have been completely defeated by foreign nations.
[00:24:43] That is so unlikely. How is God going to bless and multiply us?
[00:24:48] You can almost hear them laughing at the thought of it. Like Sarah laughed at the thought of having a child.
[00:24:55] It was unlikely for Sarah in her old age to have a children when she had no children.
[00:25:00] But God gave her a son.
[00:25:03] Israel, exiled, unlikely to be returned.
[00:25:08] But God orchestrated it anyway and brought them back to the land.
[00:25:15] So Paul says in verse 28. Now you, brothers like Isaac are children of promise.
[00:25:21] How does this fit into Paul's argument? Well, Galatians, Gentiles are children of promise by faith because God intended it this way.
[00:25:30] This was his plan. There's nothing magical about circumcision.
[00:25:34] Or else Ishmael and Hagar would also be Israel, instead they are free from the law because of the promise of Christ, who has come, who has died, who has rose. Again, verse 29. But just as at that time he was born according to the flesh, persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now the Galatians were experiencing persecution by the Judaizers or false teachers, just like Isaac did with Ishmael. Again, there are so many parallels Here for these people in Galatia, and indeed even us today, to take home home. So Old Testament narratives, they happened. They did happen. But that doesn't mean there aren't lessons for the people in the first century, lessons for us today that we can't take. That's what Paul is showing them.
[00:26:24] And in fact, Ishmael still persecutes Isaac today. It is relevant today. How does Ishmael still persecute Isaac today?
[00:26:33] Islam. Islam traces itself back to Ishmael. They consider themselves to be the true nation of Abraham because Ishmael was the first son of Abraham.
[00:26:44] So it shouldn't surprise us that hating and persecuting Christians is in its purest forms, the blood of Islam.
[00:26:53] It's true. This has continued to be true forever, this sort of persecution. And this happens even more so by we can extend religions of the world hating Christianity.
[00:27:11] So what are we going to do in the face of persecution? Remember that you are children of the promise, if you belong to Christ through faith and you can be secure in that.
[00:27:21] Paul says, 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.
[00:27:30] So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman.
[00:27:35] So we can obey this by casting out legalists.
[00:27:40] We can obey this by trusting in Christ alone who fulfilled the law. We can obey this by looking into our own hearts and seeing, do I have legalistic tendencies?
[00:27:51] As this so often can creep in unnoticed.
[00:27:56] And Paul closes by saying, for freedom, Christ has set us free.
[00:28:00] You're free from the law. So stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
[00:28:08] This is what we must do. This is what the Galatians must do. Legalism was not a first century problem. It continues to be a problem. And even in people who hate legalism, it so often works itself up in our hearts, it so often does it. It can be as easy as kind of slipping in your mind from loving Christ and obeying him because you love him and thinking, oh man, I don't know if I'm doing very good. I need to fix this in my life and this in my life so that I can have a good relationship with God again. That's something we kind of do subconsciously a lot. That's legalism.
[00:28:46] Love Christ, none of your works will merit his love.
[00:28:51] And so we must keep a close watch on our hearts for legalism, just as Paul is telling them to do. Let us stand firm in the freedom of Christ, not shackle ourselves to present Jerusalem and slavery to the law.
[00:29:06] Okay, let's pray.
[00:29:09] Father, thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, who came, lived, died, rose again, ascended into heaven, who fulfilled the law on our behalf.
[00:29:20] God, we pray that you would guard us from legalism creeping into our hearts unnoticed and in ways that it has. Lord, bring it to our attention.
[00:29:30] God, may this message that we can be free and justified by faith alone in Christ pierce the heart of today of those who have not trusted in your son, who have withheld faith in the promise.
[00:29:46] God, may they be amazed at your steadfast love and faithfulness to your people.
[00:29:51] And we pray all of this in Christ's name. Amen.
