Galatians #9 - The Great Illustration - Galatians 4:21-5:1

 

Another great photo from Wikipedia to help make a point.  When we think of fast, we think of the cheetah and sometimes we describe how they run is "as the wind." It is an illustration of using one thing, the wind, to describe the other, how the cheetah runs.  We have that same principle in the Scripture passage today.  Paul uses one thing, a historical event found in the book of Genesis, to describe the difference between those who are still slaves to the law and those freed by the promise.

Paul has now used 6 arguments to make his point that salvation in is Christ alone.

• The personal - "Did you receive the Spirit by...."
• The Scriptural - 6 Old Testament quotations - "The just shall live by faith..."
• The logical - "If you belong to Christ, then you are..."
• The historical - "The heir...until the time set by his father..."
• The sentimental - "I plead with you, brothers,...My dear children,..."
• The final illustration - "These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants..."

Paul re-introduces his readers (1st century Gentile and Jewish Galatian Christians) and his distractors (the Judaizers - 1st century Jewish Christians who believed you needed to be circumcised and follow other Jewish practices also to become a Christian) to the historical event of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac.

He lays out the historical elements that Abraham had a son by the slave woman Hagar in the ordinary way and his name is Ishmael.  Abraham later had a son by the free women (his wife) Sarah according to the promise of God and his name is Isaac.  

Now Paul shifts gears and goes from the historical to using it as an illustration between the two covenants, the old and the new.  The old covenant is represented by Hagar, the slave woman who produces a slave son.  Paul connects this with the present Jerusalem that is still holding onto the law rather than what the law points to, the promise.  The law has become prominent and Judaism is still looking to it for justification in which it will never come.  

Paul says the new covenant is represented by Sarah, the free woman who produces a free son based on the promise of God.  Paul connects this with the heavenly Jerusalem that is to come.  The promise is prominent and Christianity focus in not what is but what is to come.  Christ has overly sufficiently fulfilled the law with His very life and now a relationship with Him provides the righteousness (His righteousness put upon us) that allows us full assurance of our salvation in Christ alone.

These two women describe two types of people.  There are those who are relying on their own efforts for salvation and those who are relying on the promise given by God.  One is still in slavery but the other has found freedom.  Pauls says in verse 31, "Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman."

This freedom has come through Christ and Him alone and therefore we are to stand firm against the attacks from a different gospel which is really not gospel at all and also against our own wandering back to the yoke of slavery.  Paul finishes his arguments and now prepares to move into "how then shall we live" as those who are free?  Stay tuned.

Adam