Paul has reached in this passage the final part of his argument for the Galatians to turn away from the legalistic teaching of the Judaisers. Paul has appealed to them on so many levels, using various scriptures and illustrations to show that our salvation is by grace through faith, not faith plus the law. Paul had even appealed on the basis of his relationship with the Galatians as the founding father of their churches in order to encourage them to abandon the Judaizers teaching.

But the final argument has the authority of scripture as Paul goes to the very law that they wanted to go to. He uses the account of Abraham’s sons as an illustration of the gospel of grace versus the law. The apostle concludes his argument by calling the Galatians, who had begun to think that justification must include adherence to the Mosaic law, to look to the Law itself in order to evaluate the wisdom of flirting with legalism.

He says in vs 21, “Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?” Do you understand what the law teaches? He uses the term nomos, the Greek word translated “law,” to refer not only to the actual commandments of Moses but which also referred to the first five books of the OT traditionally called the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy). When the Jews referred to the law, they considered the entire Torah as the law. So Paul is calling those desiring to be justified by the commandments of God to listen to the whole testimony of the five books in which these regulations are found. 

Paul says if you are living under the law then you are living in bondage. They were acting like the people of Israel, who had cried to God to be set free from bondage to the Egyptians, and God heard them and by a miraculous deliverance set them free. And yet they had not been many days in the wilderness before they were longing to go back to Egypt for the leeks and the garlic and the cucumbers.

So Paul gives them an illustration from the law about Abraham and his son Ishmael, and his son Isaac. He says in vs 22, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.”

Paul expects his readers to know the law, the whole story of the law of God, which includes the story of Abraham. And I would hope that you are very familiar with the story of how Abraham was given the promise of a son. God came to Abraham in his old age, and God told him that he would have a son. That Abraham would be the father of a great nation, and his descendants would be more than the stars of the sky and that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. When Abraham told that vision to his wife Sarah, she laughed. The Hebrew word for laugh is Isaac.

But Abraham believed that God would keep His promise. The scripture says that Abraham believed God and He credited to him as righteousness. God justified Abraham because of his faith in the promise of God. We are saved by the same faith as Abraham. The scripture tells us that the just shall live by faith. The Old Testament saints were saved by faith, just as we are saved by faith. I would remind you, as I have said repeatedly, that faith is believing in the promises of God. We believe in the word of God and that faith is counted to us as righteousness.

But I would also caution you that faith does not give you license to apply every thing that is written in scripture to you, and then call that faith, and expect that God will fulfill that promise to you. By that I mean that you should not claim the promise that God gave Abraham, that he would have a son in his old age, and claim that promise for yourself. God did not give you that particular promise that you will be able to father or bear children in your old age. I think most of you recognize that would be silly, or at least I hope you would.

But I say that because those of the word of faith movement, the name it and claim it crowd, are constantly taking promises that God made to someone specifically in the Old Testament, and applying it to themselves, and then going about claiming this “promise” that they say God has given them in His word. 

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day after a surf session and we were bemoaning the fact that we were getting older. And in surfing that means slower, and having less endurance, and a lot of other things that keep us from surfing as well as we would like. And my friend said he didn’t expect to live much past 70, as most of his family had died young. I tried to encourage him by quoting Moses who said the years of a man’s life are 70, but if due to strength, 80. I said he needed to keep working out and maybe he would get to 80.

But then I said for my part, I’m claiming the promises to Abraham. Abraham got a new lease on life at 99 years old. He went from his body being as good as dead to not only fathering a child at 100 years old, but when Sarah died, he married another woman and had even more children. And Abraham lived until 175 years old. That illustrates that when God gives you a gift, as Romans 11:29 tells us, that the gifts of God are irrevocable.

It would be nice if I could claim that promise God gave Abraham for myself. But I cannot. It was made specifically to Abraham. But I am making such a big point of this because I hear Christians making similar claims all the time. And then they expect that God has to give it to them because they believe it. But the problem will be when God doesn’t give it to you and you die at 65 years old then the testimony of your life calls into question God’s faithfulness. So don’t claim promises that are not intended for you.

But God did give the promise to Abraham that he would have a son in his old age. But the years went by and Sarah and Abraham were getting older and older and that which had seemed impossible now seemed completely unrealistic. And so Sarah and Abraham hatched a plan to help God out. Sarah gave her handmaid Hagar to Abraham to see if Abraham could have a son through her as a surrogate mother for Sarah. And Hagar conceived, and bore a son they called Ishmael.

But Ishmael was not the son of promise. He was the son of slavery. Vs23, “But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.” God had not forgotten the promise that He made to Abraham all those years ago. And so it came to pass when Abraham was 99 years old that Sarah became pregnant, and she had a son, whom they called Isaac.

So Paul speaks of this story from Jewish history and he infers a special meaning to it which he refers to as an allegory. Many commentators and Bible teachers in dealing with this passage spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the fact that this is not really an allegory, and that we should not look for allegories in the Bible because that is a dangerous way of interpreting the scripture. The point they make is that an allegory is a fictional story designed to teach something. But the difference in the story of Abraham is that it is a true story. And so they say that it would be better to look at this story as typology, and not an allegory.

I don’t think that it really makes a big difference what you call it. I suppose that it’s possible for an allegory to be a true story as well as a fictional one. But I would urge you not to lose sight of the point Paul by an undue focus on the semantics of his statement. Paul says in vs 24, “This is allegorically speaking, for these [women] are two covenants: one [proceeding] from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.”

Mt. Sinai of course was in the wilderness of Egypt where Moses received the law from God. Hagar is associated with slavery, and thus Mt. Sinai, which in turn Paul says corresponded with the present day Jerusalem, because the Jews were still living under the law. And those under the law Paul says are under their mother Hagar, who is in slavery with her children. The Jews were in bondage to the law. .

But Paul says the Jerusalem from above is free, and she is our mother. Paul speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem. Those born of the promise are miraculously born of the Spirit, not of the flesh and so they are free.

The scriptures have much to say about slavery and freedom, or bondage and freedom. Some have taken such scriptures out of context and espoused what is called liberation theology. I’m not going to take the time to go into that, other than to say that it is an erroneous interpretation of scripture that doesn’t seek individual redemption from the gospel, but a gospel of divine racial liberation.

Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Freedom as the gospel speaks of it is freedom from the captivity to sin. We were born naturally in bondage to sin. The seed of the original sin is in each of us from birth so that we do that which is contrary to God.

We used to sing a song in grade school in chorus class, called “Born Free.” Lions may be born free, but humans are not born free. We are born in captivity to sin as the product of original sin which was passed on from father to father all the way back to Adam. That gives rise to another false assumption concerning free will. That man is able, with equal inclination, to decide whether to do good or evil. He can choose to be sinful or choose to be obedient to God.

But there is a difference between natural ability, what I am equipped by nature to do, and spiritual ability, what I am inclined by God to do. I don’t have the natural ability to fly, or the natural ability to live under water. But we do have the natural ability to make choices. We have a will whereby we choose to do somethings and choose not to do somethings. What we don’t have is the spiritual ability to do the things of God. That’s why it is imperative that we are born again of the Spirit. Only the power of God in us can set us free from the bondage to sin. You can choose God if you want to. The problem is before conversion our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and is at enmity with God. God has to change our heart in conversion so that we can choose the things of God. We choose to do what we want to do, and only God can change our desires.

So here were these Galatians who had known the joy of their salvation, of being set free from the captivity to sin, of having the freedom of the Spirit working in them. But then these Judaisers had came with their message that said in order to be right with God you had to live like a Jew, you had to go back under the ceremonial laws like circumcision and dietary restrictions and observing certain days and months and years. And they had resignedly said, “ok, we’ll obey the law.” But Paul is asking them, “are you crazy? Why would you want to become a child of slavery again when you have been made a child of promise?”

And then he quotes from scripture again, saying in vs 27 For it is written, “REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR; FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.” What he basically is saying through this quote is that we can rejoice in the freedom of being children of the promise because of the supernatural divine intervention in our regeneration. Those born of the Spirit are the children of promise, who are free from slavery to the law. But the ones born of the woman of bondage are more numerous. Most people in our culture choose to live under bondage to sin, than to be set free from it. Just like the Israelites that said that they were happier when they lived in Egypt, and wanted to return there. They preferred bondage to freedom.

You know, this is true not only spiritually but politically. I hesitate to get political from the pulpit, but you have to recognize that our society in America seems to prefer bondage to freedom. The laws that are being passed by the lawmakers that we have elected are designed to take away our freedoms and enslave us to a government that tells us what we can and cannot do, and is attempting to control even the way we think. It’s pretty amazing. And yet millions of people are going along with it, and even advocating for slavery over freedom.

Paul says in vs28 “And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. 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.”

Paul calls Galatian Gentiles and all believers “brothers,” saying they are “like Isaac,” and, as such, are “children of promise.” We that believe by faith are all spiritual children of Abraham and Sarah. We have become “children of promise,” descendants of Abraham “like Isaac,” not through natural birth, but spiritual rebirth; not by keeping the law, but by promise; not by works, but by faith. “If you are Christ’s,” Paul wrote back in chapter 3, “then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).

That’s a great promise, but there is a catch. As wonderful as it is to be “like Isaac,” a “child of promise,” there is a downside. If we are “like Isaac,” then we can expect to be treated like Isaac by the unbelieving. Vs29 “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.“

The apostle Paul doesn’t take the believers’ identification with Isaac where we might have expected him to go. We might have expected him to speak of the blessings of the covenant, or elaborate upon the gifts and privileges of salvation. Instead, he says being “like Isaac” means persecution. The one born “according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit.” The apostle is referring to the “mocking” of Isaac by Ishmael recorded in Genesis 21:9. Ishmael was “born of the flesh,” that is, through human devising, whereas Isaac was “born according to the Spirit.” This mocking by Ishmael of Isaac corresponds to the persecution of believers by those who profess to know God but are ensnared in legalism. Remember, Ishmael was circumcised, a member (by analogy) of the visible church. “So also it is now,” Paul says. This explains why in the early years of the church Judaism persecuted Christianity and why so often the persecution of the church arises from within the church. Christians are often persecuted by their half-brothers — the unbelieving but religious people in the nominal church.

Consequently, being “like Isaac” means separation. The truth of the gospel must not have fellowship with the false gospel of the legalists. What should we do about this conflict between law and grace? The apostle Paul cites the precedent of Genesis 21:10 in which Hagar and Ishmael are “cast out” and not given an inheritance with Isaac. His meaning is clear: both legalism and the legalists are to be excluded from the fellowship of the church. 

Vs30 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.” So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman.

The law keeps you in bondage. We are not of bondage, but children of the free woman. And our inheritance as children of the promise is in the heavenly Jerusalem. Our citizenship is there. Our eternal home is there. Paul draws a contrast between Christianity and legalism, between inheriting all and inheriting nothing. While the “Isaacs” of this world may be persecuted, they are promised a glorious inheritance that the “Ishmaels” of this world will never attain by their works. We are made heirs of God through the principle of grace, not by works, because we are the children of God by faith and not by keeping the law.