An Old Testament Allegory
Galatians 4:21-31
Growing up in public school, I took history or social studies classes every year. The emphasis we covered changed with each grade. Elementary school social studies classes focused on state and local history, middle and high school on American and world history. In these classes, I was given a certain view or understanding of historical events and figures that stuck with me for a long time.
Perhaps like me, you can remember when you learned new information that changed your long-held view of history. You may have learned that Thomas Edison invented the first lightbulb. While it is true, he invented the first practical working lightbulb, many inventors preceded his success, though their inventions were not as practical and did not catch on.
Furthermore, his direct-current method for electricity fell out of favor when rival inventor and former employee Nikola Tesla invented a lightbulb that generated electricity with alternating-currents. Though Edison is perhaps more famous for his work, Tesla's invention gained wider public acceptance and is still used today. I can't remember when I first learned the complex history of the lightbulb, but when I did, it changed my perception of history.
In our passage today, the Apostle Paul will teach the Galatians and the Judaizers a history lesson that will change their perception of the OT. The Jewish legalists in Galatia taught that for Gentiles to receive God's favor and be righteous in his sight, they must rely on the traditions of the Mosaic Law. They based their teaching on the perpetuity of God's covenant with Israel; therefore, the customs and practices of the law apply to believers today.
Root out all forms and influences of legalism in your life.
Main Thought
They also used a rabbinic teaching technique of allegorizing OT stories. Rabbis used significant figures in Israel's history to symbolize theological concepts, and the story those characters were involved in would prove an important truth or principle of Judaism. One example was the story of Isaac and Ishmael's birth, the two most notable sons of Abraham. As we will see, the way that the Judaizers and Paul taught and applied this story was vastly different.
It's important to ask why Paul references this story at this point in his letter. He has argued so far that since the law brings a curse and is not of faith, why would the Galatians have any interest in basing their salvation on it? He has argued that the social conflicts and division within the church caused by the legalists are good reasons not to trust them as reliable sources of spiritual truth.
So, why does he introduce this OT story about Abraham's two sons? It makes sense for a few reasons. He has already used Abraham in his defense against legalism. He is the model of faith for righteousness, even before the law came from God. Paul also speaks of Christians as children of Abraham, which connects nicely to the children in the story from Genesis 21. As we will see, the story also presents appropriate theological connections to Paul's arguments against legalism.
The final reason for introducing this story here is because of its familiarity with both the Galatians and Judaizers. Following the rabbis, the Judaizers allegorized the account of Isaac and Ishmael's birth to defend the idea that Israel is the chosen people of God. The allegory went like this:
As the promised son of Abraham, Isaac symbolized the Jewish people. Ishmael, since he was conceived by the Egyptian slave Hagar, symbolized the Gentiles and their estrangement from the people of God. Though both men were sons of Abraham, Jews can be confident that they are the true children of God because God sanctioned the removal of Hagar and Ishmael from the family.
The Judaizers leveraged this teaching of the story to draw the Galatians to their legalistic version of Christianity. They taught these new believers that if they wanted to be included in the privileged group of God's promised people, they had to be under the law. But Paul turns the traditional interpretation of this story on its head to teach the opposite truth. It is not the Judaizers who are the promised children of God, but the Gentiles who have placed their faith in Christ.
In this complex passage, Paul shows us how the OT gives insight into the difference between legalism and the gospel. His method might seem unusual to us, but it was familiar to the Galatians and the Judaizers. In this passage, we see Paul's blunt answer to the problem of the legalists and their false gospel: get rid of them. The key takeaway for Christians is that we must root out all forms and influences of legalism in our lives. Though we do not immediately see this lesson in the story, Paul gives us divine insight that leads us to this important conclusion.
To understand this symbolic passage, we will break it down by first retelling the Genesis account of the births of Abraham's two sons. Then, we will discover how each son stands for a different covenant. What they represent will not be so surprising to us, but it would have been earth-shattering to any Jewish listeners. Finally, we will identify Paul's key applications and what that means for Christians today as we confront legalism in the church.
The Story of Ishmael and Isaac
Many Christians are familiar with this story from Genesis, but let's have a quick refresher. Abraham lived as a wealthy landowner in the city of Ur with his wife Sarah. When he was 75 years old, God made a covenant with him that he would make a great nation from his family line (Gen 12:1-3). To do that, God called Abraham out of his homeland and promised to give him a son. For many years Abraham had no children, but he waited patiently for God to make good on his promise.
After ten years, Sarah became impatient with God and her husband. She suggested that Abraham have a surrogate son through her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar. Submitting to his wife's suggestion, Abraham and Hagar conceived a child, Ishmael, when Abraham was 86 years old (Gen 16:15-16). Sarah soon regretted her decision, blamed her husband, and forced Hagar and Ishmael to leave.
This decision cost Abraham and Sarah a great deal. Their unbelief and impatience with God caused them to orchestrate the conception of a child outside of his plan. Despite their unbelief, God kept his word to them. Fourteen years later, when Abraham was 100 years old, Sarah conceived and bore Isaac. His birth was not just miraculous because of his parent's ages, but because God kept his promise to give a child to this specific couple.
Unfortunately, Isaac's birth caused friction within the family. Hagar and Ishmael had returned, and he was raised under his father's tent, creating an awkward situation for Isaac. The Bible says when Isaac was weaned, Ishmael gave him a hard time as the older brother. This was the final straw for Sarah. She made her demands to Abraham that Hagar and Ishmael leave the family permanently. Though God knew this was difficult for Abraham to do, he promised to bless Ishmael's seed and make a great nation from him as well. He made good on that promise, just as he did for Isaac.
It's these kinds of stories that remind us that the Bible is relevant to our modern culture. We do not have a problem with slavery as an institution in our country, but we have an abundance of family conflicts like what Abraham went through. We know stories of friends and loved ones who deal with family drama, children from different parents, and family members who leave for different reasons. Perhaps we have experienced those things ourselves.
In this story, we see similarities to modern family situations. But the Judaizers saw similarities to their legalistic doctrines. In this difficult family drama in Genesis, they found the perfect OT account to justify their teaching: God chose Israel as his people and the law as their guide. If the Gentiles wanted to be right before God, they had to fall in line with the law.
Paul had strong disagreements with that view. Similar to what he did in chapter 3, his question in verse 21 brings the Galatians back to the law. If they still want to be under the law so they can be part of the same "club" as the Judaizers, then they need to reckon with what the law itself says. Only this time, he does not reference a legal stipulation from Moses. Instead, he alludes to a story from Genesis, the foundational book of Scripture, to make his case.
Paul's Symbolic Interpretation
Paul now contrasts these two sons of Abraham familiarly. The son of the bondwoman (slave) was Ishmael. The son of the freewoman was Isaac. Ishmael's birth was "according to the flesh," which means he was born of natural descent. It occurred under normal human circumstances without any divine intervention. Isaac, on the other hand, was the child of the divine promise. His birth was a direct result of God fulfilling his word to Abraham by opening the womb of Sarah.
Starting in verse 24, Paul takes a different approach to the story. He offers a symbolic interpretation. Some Bible translations word this phrase as, "Which things are an allegory" (KJV), or "this may be interpreted allegorically" (ESV). The Greek word used is where we get our English word "allegory." There is some debate about whether Paul's treatment of this story may rightly be called an allegory.
In the world of literature, allegory has a specific meaning. It is a story that represents abstract or spiritual ideas through concrete, material forms. The classic example of allegory is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. In that story, the different characters (Christian, Faithful, Pliable) and settings (Doubting Castle, Celestial City) convey truths about the Christian life, from salvation to glorification. Every element of the novel is a symbol of a spiritual idea or truth.
That does seem to be what Paul is doing here. Drawing from the accounts of Genesis 16 and 21, he uses the characters in these stories to show the distinction between the offspring of legalism and the offspring of the gospel. At the same time, his comparisons between the story and spiritual truth only go so far. Paul does not stretch every detail about Ishmael and Isaac's birth to make his case.
Some scholars argue that this passage is an example of typology in the Bible. A type is a concrete image in the OT - a person, place, or thing - that has fulfillment in or corresponds to NT truth. An example would be the sacrificial system. The blood sacrifices of different animals had to be a certain gender and the best of the flock. That system in the law points us to Jesus as the perfect sacrifice who died for our sins. Similarly, the historical accounts of Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis point us to spiritual truth about legalism and the gospel.
So, is this passage an allegory or typology? I think it fits into both categories. It satisfies the symbolic elements of allegory as well as the OT/NT connections in typology. However, we should be cautious to interpret other OT passages the same way Paul does. As an apostle, he received special revelation from the Lord. His teaching on Isaac and Ishmael was divinely sanctioned. Moreover, we should not think that he is arbitrarily picking a story that fits his teaching. He intentionally chose this story because its meaning offers an important correction for the Galatians.
The Covenant of Bondage
In his interpretation of this story, Paul correlates the two sons of Abraham with two covenants in Scripture. This sets off a chain of other important biblical and theological connections that will seem foreign to us. But for the Galatians, these connections bolstered Paul's case against the Judaizers. He connects the two covenants with two mothers, two mountains, and two cities. Let's look at how these two covenants compare.
The first covenant he describes is the covenant that leads to bondage. As he writes in verse 24, it "gives birth to bondage." This description fits because the covenant he refers to is the Mosaic Covenant. This description captures his whole argument against the legalists in this letter; they are trying to steer the Galatian believers who are in Christ toward the outdated system of the law. To go back to that system and live under its dictates would be slavery.
In this sense, living under the Mosaic Covenant is like being born to a slave. Not so coincidentally, that fits with the relationship of Hagar and Ishmael. Though Ishmael was a child of Abraham, he was considered a child of slavery because of his mother. He was the son of natural birth, not of God's promise. If the Galatians wanted to stake their claim with the law, they were unknowingly accepting the slavery that came with it.
Every Jewish person naturally affiliated the Mosaic Covenant with a location: Mount Sinai. Jews considered this mountain a sacred space, a place where God revealed himself to Moses by revealing the law. Though Sinai served a good and beneficial purpose for Israel in the OT, it also serves as a symbol for the law in Paul's allegory. It was a well-known geographic location in Israel's history that portrayed the bondage of living by the law.
Paul elaborates more on Sinai by reminding the Galatians (and the Judaizers) where the mountain is located. As important as Sinai is to Israel's history, has it ever occurred to you that the mountain is not in Israel? It is in Arabia, a land that is distinctly outside the borders of God's promised land to the nation. Scholars debate the exact location of Sinai. But wherever the mountain is on a map, you will not find it in Israel.
Arabia is typically defined as the region south of the Dead Sea and north of the Arabian peninsula. There are Jewish traditions that place Mount Sinai in this region rather than in the Sinai Peninsula. What makes this detail significant is the connection to Hagar and Ishmael. According to Genesis 21, when Abraham removed them from the family, they dwelt in "the wilderness of Paran" (Gen 21:21). Ishmael eventually married, had many children, and settled the family in the region of Arabia (Gen 25:18).
The reference to Mount Sinai's location is not just a random geographic detail. For Paul to mention this was a deliberate attempt on his part to connect the heritage of both Hagar and Mount Sinai. Though these events are separated by over a thousand years, they produce the same kind of children: children of bondage.
It's like how New Yorkers perceive residents of Staten Island. We know it's technically part of the city, but we treat the borough like another country and its citizens as foreigners to New York. In the same way, Paul plays off how Jewish people perceive Arabia. They might know that's where Sinai is located, but it's also where Ishmael and his descendants lived for centuries. The negative association of Mount Sinai to Arabia should tip off the Galatians to the stark reality that the law does not come from a background of freedom, but of slavery.
The second sacred space associated with the Mosaic Covenant is the city of Jerusalem. In verse 25, Paul makes a direct connection between Mount Sinai and the "Jerusalem which now is." Interestingly, he spells Jerusalem a little differently in Greek, which lets us know he's not just talking about the city as a political entity. He is using it as a stand-in for the organized system of Judaism which the city represents. In Jerusalem lies the temple, and with it, the heart of the Jewish religion.
By referencing the holy city of Israel this way, Paul is subtlety critiquing the Judaizers and their credentials. They assumed since they came from Jerusalem, the Galatian believers should respect their teaching. That's not only where the church started, but where Judaism finds its most important roots. Paul rips up those credentials by reminding the Galatians that where the Judaizers came from does not mean a thing. What matters is their doctrine, and he shows through this allegory that they teach the bondage of legalism.
In Paul's mind, all these figures and places have one thing in common: they represent the spiritual bondage of the law. When a Christian places his life under the burden of the law's demands, he does not realize that the law carries with it the heritage of slavery - from Hagar and Ishmael, Mount Sinai, and Jerusalem. It is the bondage of an outdated covenant. It served its purpose as a harsh babysitter, but now it has been set aside so we can embrace our destiny as mature, adult sons through faith in Christ. That is what the second covenant reveals to us.
The Covenant of Freedom
We have looked at the covenant of bondage represented by different OT characters and settings. Now let's unpack the opposite side of the table, the covenant of freedom. Contrary to the legalists who have placed themselves under the law, the Galatian believers are not children of slavery. If they have trusted in Christ to redeem them from the law's curse and have received his gift of eternal life, then they are included in Christ's spiritual heritage of freedom.
This heritage finds its roots in God's covenant with Abraham. You remember that Paul said the story of Ishmael and Isaac is symbolic of two covenants. He mentions the first one, but he never expressly states the second one. Ishmael represents the Mosaic Covenant. Isaac, by implication, represents God's covenant with his father. This covenant is not one of bondage but of freedom.
Just as Ishmael carried his mother's status at his birth, so Isaac carried his mother's status. Sarah was a freewoman, the mother to whom God promised a son. Isaac's birth guaranteed that God would keep his covenant to Abraham and continue the heritage of freedom. So, anyone who depends on God for righteousness as Abraham did becomes his child; we are like him in our object of faith. By doing so, we receive the free status of his sons and daughters.
Unlike the Mosaic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant is not represented by Mount Sinai. Instead, it is represented by Mount Zion. Paul does not state this explicitly in the text, but it is the implied foil to Sinai. Mount Zion was where the city of Jerusalem lay, considered the holy city because it is God's capital city for his people. It also seems like no accident that in the same mountain range, Abraham would later prepare to sacrifice his son Isaac before God provided a ram in his place (Gen 22:2; cf. 2 Chron 3:1).
Like the Mosaic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant is also represented by a second sacred space. In this case, it is not the political city of Jerusalem, but the heavenly Jerusalem. Jewish people resonated with this concept because the OT prophets talked about it. When the Babylonian empire ransacked the city of Jerusalem and took its citizens captive in 586 BC, the Jews thought their nation was lost. But prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah gave them hope. They foretold a future with a rejuvenated Jerusalem and a restored temple that was bigger and better than Solomon's temple.
This theme of a rejuvenated, heavenly Jerusalem was picked up by NT authors like Paul and the writer of Hebrews (12:18-24). In this passage, the writer connects the same two sacred spaces that Paul does - Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem. Under the New Covenant in Christ, believers do not approach God like the Israelites approached Mount Sinai, terrified by the black smoke and the loud thunderous noises. We approach Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God, his angels, his church, and his Son the Mediator of the Covenant.
Those who are in Christ belong to this Jerusalem that is above described in verse 26. That is their future, eternal destination. That is their spiritual homeland. In this city, we find our spiritual birth. In that sense, the city is like a mother to us, birthing us into the kingdom of God and his promise to Abraham. Paul is probably referencing Jewish literature outside of the Bible (4 Ezra) that presents the Jewish concept of heavenly Jerusalem as the "mother" of God's believing people. This is not a reference to a "mother god" as some Christian denominations teach. It is a picture of the spiritual birth we receive by believing on Christ.
Those who are in Christ receive a heritage of spiritual freedom. We are children of promise like Isaac. We belong to the redeemed host of Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem. That means we are not enslaved to the law. Those who place themselves under the law are part of the present Jerusalem and its system of Jewish legalism. They have dismissed and rejected faith in Christ alone, so they are not children of promise, nor are they part of the Jerusalem which is above. Those who belong to this Jerusalem are free.
The Christian Response to Our Heritage
Since we have been given the heritage of freedom through Christ and his sacrifice, how should we respond? Paul provides two important applications for the Galatians that we can take to heart as well. The first application deals with how we should feel about our freedom in Christ, and the second deals with how to respond to the legalists.
In verse 27, Paul quotes Isaiah 54:1, which seems like an odd OT quotation. On the surface, the context does not seem to fit this prophecy. In this passage, Isaiah prophesied that because of Israel's rebellion and apostasy, the city of Jerusalem would be laid waste and its inhabitants taken captive. The prophet imagines a woman of the city robbed of her husband and unable to give birth. God's word to such a woman is "Rejoice! Sing! Shout!" We might think this is an inconsiderate message. But when God tells you to rejoice, you can rejoice. He promises a future in which the barren widow will bear more children than the woman who has a husband.
Paul uses this verse to play off the comparison to Sarah and Hagar. Sarah was like the barren woman in Isaiah's prophecy - unable to give birth and feeling inadequate compared to the fruitful womb of Hagar. But God gave Sarah reason for joy and excitement because he would give her a child. When her son was born, she called him Isaac, which means "laughter." Much laughter accompanied his conception. His mother laughed at the thought of giving birth at 90 years old and she laughed when God kept his promise to give her a son.
Like Sarah, we can rejoice because of our freedom in Christ. The legalists tried to rob the Galatian Christians of their joy and contentment in Christ by fitting them into the same category as Hagar. So, they urged Christians to follow their legalistic gospel. But Paul reminds the churches of Galatia that Sarah was the one who found joy in conception when God gave her a son. Believers are part of Sarah and Isaac's heritage. We can rejoice because the Lord's death and resurrection secure our place in his spiritual heritage of believing people.
Paul now transitions to a much more serious application of his message. If the legalists have made their influence widely known among the Galatian churches, how can they be stopped? Paul answers that false teachers like the Judaizers should be removed from the church.
He comes to this conclusion by returning to the original story. After Isaac is born in Genesis 21, you remember that Ishmael treats him poorly. The Bible says that Sarah saw him laughing (Gen 21:9). Most English translations use words like "mocking" or "ridiculing." We are not told what Ishmael laughed about or if he was mocking Isaac. We do know that as a result, Sarah demanded that Abraham cast them out and leave them to fend for themselves (21:10).
In this story, Paul finds an appropriate connection to the Galatians and their situation. Notice in verse 29 that he says just as one child persecuted the other, "even so it is now." Instead of contrasting Ishmael and Isaac as natural birth versus birth by promise, he distinguishes them by flesh and spirit. He's no longer differentiating them by physical characteristics, but by spiritual ones.
Paul has already said that those born of Hagar are born according to "the flesh." He uses the same word "flesh" in verse 29, but in this case, it's emphasizing the internal, invisible part of every person bent toward sin. The legalists who have based their salvation on the law are children of their sinful flesh because their spiritual identity is no different from natural birth.
This contrasts with children of the Spirit, those who follow Abraham's example of faith and thus receive genuine spiritual birth by the Holy Spirit. This describes the Galatian believers. Like Ishmael mistreated Isaac, Paul saw the Judaizers doing the same kind of bullying to the Galatians. They came in stealthily and taught a different gospel based on the law, then made the believers feel like outsiders for following the gospel of grace that Paul preached. As we saw last week, they excluded the believers from their group to raise their enthusiasm and interest in their teaching.
In Genesis 21:10, Sarah orders her husband to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael. With our Western sensitivities, her demand seems cruel, especially to her stepson. Many of us understand the awkwardness of interacting with stepfamily regularly, though this was a different situation with a surrogate wife. Sarah was right to want her son to receive exclusive rights to Abraham's inheritance, but her response to the uncomfortable family situation feels exaggerated. Even so, God encourages Abraham to take this difficult step. He promised to bless Ishmael because he was Abraham's son.
Paul adopts Sarah's words to her husband for the Galatian conflict with the Judaizers - "Cast them out!" He had no shame calling for these drastic measures. He saw the Judaizers and their legalism as a threat to the gospel and a detriment to the people of God. The church had only one option left: throw the Judaizers out. They do not belong to the same heritage of freedom because they have tied the ark of their salvation to the anchor of law. But the law is a sinking ship. If we have tied our salvation to Christ alone, then he anchors us to the freedom of the gospel.
Lessons for Christians
This passage delves into so many rich theological images and stories. If you did not catch every connection Paul makes in this chapter, let me encourage you to meditate on it, as well as other passages that cover similar topics. Though this text is complex, we can boil down its message for believers into a few simple takeaways.
Legalism carries on the heritage of spiritual bondage.
The Judaizers assumed their doctrine was in line with Abraham and the law. But Paul has shown that legalism brings believers under the law's curse. Legalism misunderstands the law's purpose as a temporary caretaker, leading us into full maturity in Christ. Legalism creates artificial, exclusive groups within the church body that do not reflect the unity and love of the Spirit.
Finally, legalism clings to the heritage of slavery in the lives of Hagar and Ishmael. This same heritage we find in the covenant of Mount Sinai and represented by the city of Jerusalem. Anyone who still holds to legalism in any of its forms is a child of bondage.
The gospel carries on the heritage of spiritual freedom.
The gospel message releases the chains of bondage to the law and gives the believer freedom to live by faith in Christ. He receives the free heritage of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. He is included in the covenant of Abraham because he receives a righteous standing with God by faith. He will, in the future, be ushered into the heavenly Jerusalem where God will dwell with his people forever.
If you have not believed the gospel, I hope you have seen today that the legalistic religions of the world only lead to bondage. Religions like Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, and others provide a way of life that seems spiritual. But like Judaism, they reflect the tendency of the human heart toward legalism. They reflect the heritage of spiritual slavery to rules and guidelines that have nothing to do with God and give him no true worship. Believe on Christ alone and the sufficiency of his death and resurrection so you can know the freedom he gives from sin and the law.
Root out all forms and influences of legalism in your life.
This has been Paul's driving motivation on the passage. We should have a mind like Sarah to get rid of the vestiges of legalism in our hearts. It is not welcome in our new relationship with Jesus. Since the law has accomplished its purpose and the Messiah has fulfilled it, we have no more obligation to it. We should not bind ourselves or others to legalistic expectations that have no grounding in Scripture.
There are situations with legalism that call for more drastic confrontation. When church members, even pastors, promote teachings and standards that are not in the Bible, the church has a responsibility to act. We must call out these wrong ideas and confront our brothers and sisters in love. When so-called "Christians" cause division in the body of Christ so they can propagate false doctrine, the NT gives the church the right to remove such members out of the body. As a last measure, we may exercise church discipline if necessary, against people who refuse to repent of their false ideas.
Remember which heritage you belong to. Like Isaac, we are children of promise because God supernaturally ordained our spiritual birth by faith. If you have believed on Christ alone for salvation, then you are included in the spiritual heritage of Sarah and Isaac, Mount Zion, and the heavenly Jerusalem. Let this message give you hope and cause to rejoice. Let it also sober you to what God thinks about legalism. It does not belong in the hearts of his people, nor does it belong in his church. Serve God and worship him in the freedom you have because of Jesus Christ.
