Ishmael and Isaac; Gal.4:21-23
Legalism is the enemy of
grace and all legalists are antagonistic to grace. There are basically two
options in the Christian life. Option # 1 is legalism; option # 2 is grace. There
is no middle ground, no grey area; you are either operating on the basis of
grace or you are operating on the basis of legalism. That is Paul’s message to
the Galatians and Paul’s message to us. We have to make a choice: grace or
legalism. Legalism is inherently destructive to Christianity and to capacity
for life, for joy and for happiness. Legalism erects a system of rules and
regulations that if effect enslave the follower of legalism. It is the
handmaiden of religion, which is the greatest weapon in Satan’s arsenal.
Remember, religion is man by man’s efforts seeking God’s approval. Its emphasis
is on ritual, religious activity, church attendance, prayer, discipleship
groups, any kind of list of rules and regulations that must be followed that
are not mandates specified in the Word of God. In contrast to that, grace is
salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. Biblical Christianity means that God
did all the work, we simply accept it on the basis of faith alone in Christ
alone. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone and the spiritual life is
the same thing, and where people completely fall apart is in their
misunderstanding of the nature of the spiritual life. This is why Galatians is
so important and why it is called the Magna Carta of Christian liberty, even by
those who had no clue as to what that really meant. So Paul says in Galatians
3:3 NASB “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you
now being perfected by the flesh?” That, again, brings into focus that it is
one of two options: grace or legalism; the sin nature or the Holy Spirit.
The Judaisers
had come along to the Galatians right behind the apostle Paul and said Paul
only gave them half of the story and they were going to give them the rest of
the story. And the rest of the story was that they had to add something to
faith; that faith in Christ was great but they had to add the Mosaic
Law—specifically circumcision. These Judaisers were
emphasising their natural relationship to Abraham. The same kind of thing was
evident in the Pharisees: that as long as you were a physical descendant of
Abraham who was the father of the Jewish race then you were in. They did not
understand that the issues with Abraham had nothing to do with the physical
descent but with spiritual descent. For example, Abraham had two sons. Ishmael
was the older and Isaac was the younger. Ishmael was the son of the Egyptian
slave girl Hagar and Isaac was the child of promise. The promise descended
through Isaac because Isaac not only had a miraculous physical birth but he had
a supernatural spiritual birth. He was born again. Ishmael was not regenerate.
The line went from Isaac to his son Jacob. Jacob had an older brother Esau.
Esau was not a believer; Jacob was a believer, so he has spiritual birth. Then
the line went down through Jacob’s twelve sons and the emphasis all the way is
on spiritual birth; that is the line of
So Paul is going to say,
“Okay, you are impressed with Abraham and with the circumcision of Abraham, and
you want to make that the issue in the spiritual life. Well, legalism is just
one great distraction to spirituality so what I am going to do is show you what
the issues are, and we are just going to go back to Abraham and look at what
happened in Abraham’s life. From Abraham’s life we are going to draw some
principles to show what the real issues are and then you can make an informed
choice.” Remember, the choice is grace or legalism, there is no middle
ground.
Galatians
Galatians
If we were to retranslate verse 21: “You all tell me, those of you who have taken the responsibility to place yourselves under bondage to the law, have you truly listened and understood the implications of legalism?” So he goes back to the historical incident of Abraham and his two sons. The Judaisers have talked about Abraham and emphasised Abraham and the physical relationship to Abraham, and that is why they have to be circumcised and come under the law, even though they weren’t born physically by becoming a proselyte in some way, they are going to be related to Abraham.
Galatians
In the early church the
dominant worldview of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries
was neo-Platonism. Plato had the idea that what is actual
in this world is not as real and not as significant as what exists in the ideal
world. He posited two levels of reality, a physical level and a spiritual
level. The church at any given time in history always imitates the world—tragic,
sad but true. The worldview of our culture is what we are infected with when we
become saved and unless we renovate our thinking to a very deep level we are
still going to think like the pagan down the street. We may change the content
of our thinking somewhat but unfortunately most people throughout church
history never change how they think. A great scholar by the name of Origen came along and he completely transformed the
practice of interpretation up to that point. Up to that point hermeneutics was
literal, grammatical principle, based on historical principles that the Bible
must be interpreted in the time in which it was written and that the literal
grammar must be understood, and that there was just the literal meaning of the
text. But Origen said no, there is a physical meaning
and that really didn’t take place; what was really important was this upper
story level, so what we have to do is get behind the text to that spiritual
level. The physical may or may not have happened, it doesn’t really matter, the
historical veracity is irrelevant, what is important is the spiritual meaning. This
was Origen’s view. But as soon as you do that you are
into a realm of real relativism as far as interpretation is concerned because
anybody can go into the text and say they think it means this, and I think it
means that. That is what allegory really is: historical realities are irrelevant,
we will just see what we think it means, and the emphasis is on that upper
level spiritual meaning.
That is not how the Greeks
understood allegory; that is how moderns understand allegory. According to the
ancient Greeks allegory was an extended metaphor where the comparison is either
implied and stated or simply implied. But for them an allegory was often based
on true historical events, not something that was just made up. So to
understand how Paul is using the word allegory in v. 24 he is using historical
events which actually took place to illustrate a further doctrinal truth
without diminishing or detracting from the original historical events. This is
how he is going to use the incident in Abraham’s life. This is called
theological deduction.
Galatians
In the same context we
have the name change for Sarai. In the ancient world
whenever somebody’s name was changed that indicated a change in that person’s
status or circumstances, especially when God is bestowing a new name. In
Abraham’s case it was a reminder that God is still in control of Abraham’s life
and destiny, that Jesus Christ still controls history; and that God will fulfil
His promise to Abraham. Sarai is an interesting name.
When it was translated into the Greek [LXX] the letter “r” was doubled. That is a big
difference. The root for Sarai is probably just an
antiquated form of the word “princess,” which would indicate her nobility. Remember,
she is Abraham’s half sister, so they are both aristocrats. The root meaning of
Sarai in the Greek with a double “r” would mean
argumentative or contentious. Many think that this would indicate her character
at the beginning. But it is doubtful that anybody is going to look at their
wonderful new child and name them “a contentious woman.”
“…that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman
and one by the free woman.
The Bible only speaks of
six women who were barren and in each case God is making a theological point
not only about His own grace provision but about the nature of salvation. The
first three women are Sarai, Rebecca and Rachel. Who
are they married to? The three patriarchs. God is
making a point in each one that the child of promise is going to be the result
of His work and not man’s work. God is making the point that when there is a
dead womb he is the one who brings life where there is death. The spiritual
point of that is that God is the one who gives spiritual life where there is
spiritual death. The next two women come up during the period of the judges. They
are the mother of Samson and Hanna who is the mother of Samuel. Both of them speak
of God’s unique grace provision of life where there is death. The next person
is a New Testament woman—
Genesis
Genesis 16:7 NASB
“Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by
the spring on the way to Shur.” Notice motif of water
and the woman at the well. It is interesting how these motifs display
themselves again and again in Scripture. Notice the detail. This shows that this was
written by someone who is paying attention to the geography, knows the
situation and is writing to people and saying: You know where this is located. This
is not just some allegory, some generally fictitious story; it has historical
validity and it takes place in specific locations. The Lord tells Hagar to
return and submit to the authority of Sarai and
promises here a gift of comfort. Genesis
Ishmael means “God Hears” or
“God hears man.” This was a common name in the ancient world. His name
emphasises the doctrinal point that God hears our problems. This name is going
to be a continual reminder that God is not ignoring the situation, that he is
listening. This comes up in verse 16 and Abraham learns the spiritual lesson
when he names the child Ishmael. This is a reminder that God is listening even
though all these years are going by between promise and fulfilment, and God is
saying wait and be patient.
Genesis 17:1 NASB
“Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said
to him, ‘I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be
blameless’.” He is now 99 years of age and there is still no fulfilment. Abram
has learned his lesson and God promises the pledge anew, gives them the sign of
circumcision, and gives them new names indicating that God will eventually
fulfil the promise. In chapter 18 He announces tat the fulfilment of the
promise is imminent; in chapter 19 there is the judgment on Sodom, and God is
going to protect the seed from the immoral attacks that would be there if Sodom
and Gomorrah had continued. In chapter 20 God protects His promise from human
irresponsibility when Abram goes to Abimelech and
tries to pass Sarah off as his sister. In chapter 21 God provides the child in
the first seven verses and this brings joy.
Genesis 21:9 NASB
“Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham,
mocking.” This word “mocking” is the piel participle
of the root of the word for laughter. So he is having that sort of smart-alec laughter towards Sarah. It is a word that means to toy
with, to trifle with someone in a deceptive way with intent to harm them. This
becomes the antagonism in the household and now finally Hagar and Ishmael are
dismissed from the household as the slave and the child of the slave. That sets
up the analogy that Paul is going to use in Galatians chapter four. The child
of the free woman stays in the house; grace stays at home as a son; but the
child of the slave always has the status of the mother. The issue for the
Galatians is: Are you going to submit to the slavery of legalism or are you
going to follow grace?