So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. - Galatians 4v31
Recently a very dear friend shared with me that she had discovered this marvellous nugget of scripture while working on a paper. I am not real big on grasping allegories, pictures, and types out of the Old Testament and applying them to New Testament truths. But here, the Holy Spirit makes it clear. Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, are an allegory of law vs. liberty. My friend’s thoughts got me thinking, and now the passage comes up in my reading!
Rather than go into all the theological implications here I am going to simplify it so even I can get it. Ishmael is a picture of the Law, Mt Sinai, today’s
Here, I think at least, is the meaning. Abraham was the product of Abraham’s work in trying to help God along. God had promised a son years before, but now Sarah was old and barren. There was no hope. So Abraham fathered a son by Hagar. This was not the son of promise, but a son of the flesh. He was a son, if you will, by works.
But this was not the promised son. This was not the son Abraham and Sarah were waiting for. Old barren Sarah was yet to bear a son. One day the blessing came – barren Sarah bore a son, the promised son. Isaac was a son; not of works, not of the flesh, but a son of God’s miraculous work.
At the very end of this section of Galatians Paul drives the point home. “We are not sons of the flesh; we are not the children of Hagar. We are the sons of Sarah, the freewoman. We are the children of promise, not works!
What is the promise? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Barren Sarah did bear a son; a son of promise. One day God provided another Son – another Son of Promise. Now we are children of promise. Why then is the bondage so appealing to so many?
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