The book of Galatians has no shortage of complex passages to interpret and according to one author, the one in front of us today “happens to be one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament.”2
That same author reminded me that Galatians “was written to help the slaves of religion find true freedom in Christ” Jesus; we can either live in religious slavery or spiritual freedom.3 What is the difference between religious slavery and spiritual freedom? Religious slavery focuses on what you need to do to earn God’s acceptance. Spiritual freedom focuses on what God has done to make you acceptable to him.
This really has been the entire point of everything Paul has said in chapter four. Paul wants us to live like heirs to the promise of Christ instead of living like slaves to the law (4:1 – 7). Only children of God, who know God and are known by God, will be formed into the image of Christ (4:8 – 20). Again, Christianity is not about what you and I can do to earn God’s love; it’s about what God has done to lavish his love upon us in the finished work of Christ at the cross and the empty tomb.
And after all that Paul has said so far, after all of his theological arguments and all of his pastoral pleading, he now starts to remove the boxing gloves as this becomes what I would call a bare-knuckle fight for the spiritual freedom of his beloved Galatians. As he takes of the first glove he begins with a really big question. Look at the text with me…
21Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27For 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.”
28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29But 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. 30But 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.” 31So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
#1: THE BIG QUESTION (V. 21)
When Paul asks in verse 21, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law” he is essentially asking “do you really understand the danger of reducing the law down to a list of religious do’s and don’t’s”?4 Why would you and I ever want to short circuit the power of the freedom that is provided in the gospel with our own works? Why would any of us every want to be ruled by duty and obligation instead of being free to live in the love and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Sadly, we all fall short in this area, don’t we? Aren’t we all guilty of reducing the freedom we have in Christ down to a list of religious behaviors? All too often, my relationship with Jesus gets reduced down to a series of right and wrong behaviors with wrong motivations. The promise of the law – if I would listen to it carefully – is that if I behave rightly then I will gain a right relationship with God; that promise is meant to leave me in despair because it is a promise that cannot be fulfilled by my behavior – no matter how good I do, because I am infected with sin.
I will never do this perfectly because I am still broken with sin until the day God takes me home to be in eternity with him. I will never gain, through my good works, what has been promised to me by the law. If I actually listen to the law with ears that are willing to hear, then I would be left wondering, “who can release me from this body of death” (Rom. 7). The answer to that question in Paul’s mind, leads him to remember a giant contrast from Israel’s history.
#2: THE BIG CONTRAST (VV. 22 – 27)5
In this second portion of our text, verses 22 – 27, Paul remembers a massive contrast from Israel’s history (Gen. 15 – 18, 21). This massive contrast helps to illustrate the importance of rejecting a works-based religion and accepting the liberating message of the gospel. This contrast is where things can get a little confusing, so I am going to try to summarize what Paul is getting after here in these verses. But again, we have to remember that Paul is using an actual historical story from Israel’s past to illustrate the powerlessness of legalism and the power of gospel freedom.
First of all, in verses 22 – 23, we see one man, Abraham, who had two sons from two different mothers, who represent two different ways of life – slavery and freedom. We have to remember that Paul is fighting against a group of false teachers known as the Judaizers, whose main hero was Abraham. Paul had won the Galatians over to Christianity with the message of the gospel and now these Judaizers were telling the Galatians that they were not true children of God unless they became Israelites by obeying the Mosaic Law so that they could become children of Abraham; so when Paul points to Abraham, he is essentially using the Judaizers’ hero to win the fight, to prove that they were wrong and that he is right.
If the Judaizers paid attention to their history, they would see that being a child of God has nothing to do with our fleshly works, nothing to do with becoming a child of Abraham through the law, and everything to do with God’s promise and provision. It is not our works that save us, it is God’s work that saves us. Simply stated, Paul reminds us that one of Abraham’s sons (Ishmael) came by Abraham’s works of the flesh (as Abraham slept with and impregnated his wife’s servant).
Therefore, Ishmael was disqualified from being an heir to the promise of salvation because, although he was a child of Abraham, he was the product of Abraham trying to fulfil God’s promise through his own works of the flesh rather than depending upon and waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled. The point is this: Those who want to obey the law for right standing with God are just like Ishmael, and just like the Judaizers, disqualified from salvation.
Secondly, in verses 24 – 27, Paul drives a little deeper when he contrasts the two mothers of the two sons and then uses them as an illustration for two different covenants and two different kinds of Jerusalem. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, the servant or slave of Sarah, represents the old law-based covenant, that, when interpreted wrongly, resulted in the spiritual slavery that current day Jerusalem was living in; the Judaizers, from Jerusalem, were effectively religious slaves who were trying to enslave the Galatians to their religious list of do’s and don’ts.
Sarah, the mother of Isaac, the mother who was free according to the promise of God, represents the new covenant in Christ and our heavenly Jerusalem, or the eternal heavenly family that we are all being made into by faith in Christ. This realization, this truth, is what causes Paul to proclaim in verse 27, “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.” Why does Paul say these things? What is up with his reference to a “barren one” and “you who are not in labor” and “children of the desolate one”?
These words are the words of the prophet Isaiah (54:1) as he laments over the spiritual condition of Israel in his day. Israel was in shambles because of her sin and rebellion. But these words from Isaiah also correlate well with Sarah, Isaac’s mom, because she was well past the age of being able to conceive and give birth when the promise of Isaac was given to her; and yet, the Lord miraculously brought Isaac out of her just as he would eventually restore Israel in Isaiah’s day, and just as God was doing in Paul’s day through Christ Jesus! The reality is that we serve a God who takes the most dismal of circumstances – even the ones we have brought upon ourselves in our own rebellion, as well as the ones that are beyond our control – and he restores everything into right order.
So, what’s the point of this big, gigantic contrast? The point here is this: God works the miracle of salvation, he is building his own family, and our eternal inheritance can only be gained by trusting in God’s own promise and provision, not in our fleshly works. All the church attendance, tithing, praying, Bible reading, etc. will not save you. If you are not doing those things out of love for God and a desire to be with him, then you are a religious slave. There are only two ways to live: religious slavery or spiritual freedom.
The question is, are you living in slavery to religion (do you do religious things out of duty and obligation) or are you living in the freedom of relationship with Jesus (do you do religious things because of your love for God and your desire to be with him)? The reality is that we need to not only reject legalism, but we also need to eradicate it from our hearts and lives. This is the big point of the final portion of our text today.
#3: THE BIG POINT (VV. 28 – 31)
What is the big point of everything Paul has been saying here? One author summarizes it this way when he says, “There are two mothers (Hagar and Sarah), two sons (Ishmael and Isaac), two covenants (old and new), and two cities (the “now” and “new” Jerusalems). The question [for us] is, ‘To which of these two do you belong?’”6 Do you belong to slavery or do you belong to freedom?
Paul assumes that the Galatians are still with him, they are his “brothers” in Christ, and are therefore “children of promise” according to verse 28. He knows, according to verse 29, that the Judaizers are trying to persecute him and his followers – just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac (Gen. 21). The only natural (and spiritually healthy) thing to do when you realize that you are in danger of becoming a religious slave under the persecution of other religious slaves, is to cut the religious slavery out of your life, according to verse 30. We are called to live as children of freedom not children of slavery, according to verse 31. This is the big point, we either live in religious slavery or we live in spiritual freedom. Which one are you living in? Slavery or freedom?
CONCLUSION…
In conclusion, we must choose to live as children of freedom, and we do this by actively cutting out anything or anyone who tries to enslave us. If you and I have trusted in the promise of God to save us and to put us in right relationship with him through the work of Jesus at the cross and the empty tomb, then we will make no room for religious slavery.
We will not be defined by our lists of dos and don’ts, and we will not reduce our relationship with God to a checklist of religious activities like praying daily, reading our Bibles, and attending church 1.5 times per week. We will not be identified as a legalistic group of stuffy, duty-bound, slaves who follow through on our obligations because we want God to love us.
I say we will not reduce our relationship to those things because a relationship with Jesus is so much more than the things we do. Walking with God in relationship daily, definitely includes spiritual disciplines, but the disciplines are not performed because we have a duty to do them; they are performed because the God who saved us in Christ Jesus has set us free to do those things with joy!
If you find yourself in a place today where you have been relating to God out of duty and white-knuckle performance, I pray that the Spirit would set you free with a fresh realization of the message of the gospel. You could not clean yourself up good enough to come to him for salvation and you cannot clean yourself up good enough to continue in relationship with him either. The only thing that you and I can depend upon is the finished work of Christ at the cross and the empty tomb. That and that alone is what opens the doorway of relationship with God wide open.
If your motivation to spend time with God is the desire to be a better person, or to be a better Christian, or to make God happy, then you are a legalist; you are a religious slave. But, if you have been set free by the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and returning, then you already are a better person, you already are a better Christian, God is already happy with you because Christ’s shed blood and broken body has covered and removed your sin as far as the east is from the west and as high as the heavens are above the earth (Ps. 103). Will you live in religious slavery or will you live in gospel-centered freedom? – Amen!
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 180.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., 181.
5 Ibid., 181 – 188.
6 Ibid., 188.