Bond and Free
Galatians: Be FREE! • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Several years ago, when Annette and I were in Williamsburg for a long weekend, we stopped at the Barnes and Noble bookstore. I had a gift card to spend, and there just HAPPENED to be a cigar shop next door.
I wandered around Barnes and Noble for a while until I found what I wanted. And then, I decided to check out their theology section.
I was scanning the books there when I was approached by a young lady who invited us to her church, where, she said, they worshiped the Mother-God.
As a new seminary student at the time, I eagerly turned to her and asked her where she got the idea that God is a woman, since the Bible tells us He is spirit and since every anthropomorphic reference to Him that I was aware of was masculine, and not feminine.
She quoted one verse for me, from a passage that we’ll study today in the book of Galatians: “The Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.”
Now, I’d never studied that verse in depth before, and I couldn’t recall its context.
So, I said I’d need to look at the context of the whole passage and possibly even the Greek that’s behind our English translations to be able to understand the true meaning of this verse.
But I was very confident the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, and I told her so.
As we talked, I noticed a man approach us and begin listening from just a couple of feet away.
He was a little older than the young lady I was talking to, and in just a few moments — when he’d heard me talk about context and mention that I was a pastor — he looked at me and said they were sorry to have bothered me. He said the young lady needed to be somewhere else. At which point, she turned and left, and he followed soon after.
I was a little bewildered by the interaction. I’d never heard of the church she said she was representing. It had a great name — World Mission Society Church of God — and I was impressed by the commitment to street evangelism.
But I couldn’t get past the strange references to God the Mother. So, when we got back to our room for the night, I pulled out my laptop and did a little research.
And I learned that the “God the Mother” thing wasn’t even the most heretical of their teachings. They also believe that Jesus returned in the person of a man named Christ Ahnsahnghong, who supposedly “restored the New Covenant that had been lost after the Apostolic Age.”
And it’s ironic that the young lady who introduced me to this false teaching had based her beliefs on a misreading of a verse from Galatians, because that church also believes Christians are obligated to keep the Jewish feasts and holy days in order to be saved.
They’d missed the whole point of the Book of Galatians. Why should I have been surprised that they’d missed the point of that particular verse she’d quoted to me?
Indeed, the very verse they misread to come to the false conclusion that God is a woman refers to an event from the Old Testament that the Judaizers in Galatia ALSO misinterpreted to preach their own false gospel.
And there’s an important lesson for us from my interaction with this misguided young lady: Not all who preach in the name of Jesus are preaching the true gospel. And we must be discerning about ANY message purporting to present the truth about God.
Not everyone who preaches the name of Jesus is a true follower. And it’s important for us to be able to recognize the false ones.
And, significantly, that’s the same thing Paul wanted the people of Galatia to do.
Remember that he’d planted churches in this part of what’s now eastern Turkey during his first missionary journey with Barnabas.
But after they’d left, men from Jerusalem came and began preaching that the mostly Gentile believers in Galatia could not be saved by grace alone, through faith alone.
Their faith in Jesus was good, the Judaizers said, but it wasn’t enough to save the Galatians or anybody else. Salvation, they said, required adherence to significant parts of the Mosaic Law — especially circumcision for men and the Jewish feasts and holy days for all.
But this false gospel — centered as it was on the works of those who needed saving — actually nullified the grace of God.
This was no gospel — it wasn’t good news at all — because it couldn’t justify man before God. It couldn’t make us acceptable to God.
It offered no hope for salvation, because it couldn’t even free its followers from slavery to the Law or to the false beliefs and broken world systems that could only bring condemnation and death.
And so, Paul committed himself to a long doctrinal presentation in which he laid out the supremacy of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
And in the passage we’ll study today at the end of chapter 4, Paul offers his final, crowning doctrinal argument in favor of justification through faith.
He goes back to the familiar story of Abraham to make his point. And he likely does so here because the Judaizers had used the very same Old Testament events to make their own argument for the false gospel of works.
Much as that young lady at Barnes and Noble had done, the Judaizers had taken one passage out of context, allegorized it, and then came to a conclusion that was opposed to the rest of Scripture.
Let’s read the passage together now, and then we’ll dig into some details.
21 Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman.
23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.
24 This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.
25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.
27 For it is written, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; For more numerous are the children of the desolate Than of the one who has a husband.”
28 And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
29 But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.
30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, For the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.”
31 So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman.
“Tell me,” Paul says, “You who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?”
In other words, what does the Old Testament really tell us about living under the Law of Moses?
And then, he launches into a brief synopsis of the story of Abraham’s two sons, one by his wife’s servant and the other by his wife.
Paul “saw in this story an illustration of the conflict between Judaism and Christianity, between non-Christians and Christians, and between law and grace.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ga 4:24.]
In this passage we see him contrast Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac, Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion, the old covenant and the new covenant, and the Jerusalem of the present and the coming Jerusalem above.
In his comparison, Hagar, an Egyptian slave woman attached to the house of Abraham, is connected to Ishmael, Mt. Sinai, the old covenant, and the present Jerusalem.
Sarah, Abraham’s wife, is connected to Isaac, Mt. Zion, the New Covenant, and the Jerusalem above. If you remember these connections, the passage will be much easier to follow.
Abraham had two sons, Paul says. Actually, he had eight sons, six of whom were born to Keturah, whom Abraham married after Sarah died.
But Paul confines himself here only to Ishmael and Isaac, because those are the two sons who are important to the analogy he’s making.
Perhaps you’ll recall the story. God had promised Abraham and his wife, Sarah, a son. But they were both old, and she was barren. And after years had passed without God’s promise being realized, they took matters into their own hands.
Sarah told Abraham to make a child with her Egyptian servant, Hagar. So, he did, and Ishmael was born.
But God told Abraham and Sarah that Ishmael was NOT the son He’d promised. THAT son, he said, would be born from Sarah. And 14 years later, she gave birth to Isaac, fulfilling God’s promise to them.
Perhaps you can imagine the family drama that ensued when Isaac came along. Indeed, what finally happened was that Hagar and Ishmael were expelled from Abraham’s community
Isaac would be the son through whom the nation of Israel would be born. Ishmael would be among the Gentiles.
So, Abraham had two sons. One by the bondwoman, Hagar, the slave who bore Ishmael; and one by his wife, Sarah, who bore Isaac.
Now, Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, Paul reminds us, was “born according to the flesh.” In other words, he was born through the efforts — the works — of Abraham.
He and Sarah were trying to help God along in keeping His promise. Maybe they’d just been told that “God helps those who help themselves.”
And because his mother was a slave, Ishmael, too, was born into slavery.
But Isaac, the son of the barren wife of Abraham, was born free, because his mother and father were both free. Even more importantly, he was born “through the promise.” He was born through GOD’S work and by GOD’S grace.
And now, having set the scene, Paul shows that there are lessons about the Law and about grace that can be learned from these two women and their two sons.
Though he certainly considered the Genesis account of Abraham to be historically accurate, he treats it here as an allegory — a story that uses figurative language to point us to a greater truth.
The meaning of this word, “allegory,” has changed somewhat over the years. We might better think of it as an analogy.
And so, in Paul’s analogy, Hagar, who’d fled with Ishmael to the east, probably into the northern part of Arabia, is connected to Mt. Sinai, the place in Arabia where God gave the Mosaic Law to the people of Israel.
Furthermore, in verse 25, he connects her to “the present Jerusalem,” which in Paul’s day was enslaved under Rome and the Mosaic Law.
And his point with all these connections was that everything about Hagar pointed to and reconfirmed her enslavement.
She was herself a slave. Her son was born a slave. They fled toward Sinai, where the Law was given that binds up all mankind under condemnation and the sentence of death for our sins.
And those in Jerusalem who sought to be justified by their own works — by their ability to follow the Mosaic Law — were now slaves to the law, spiritual sons and daughters of the slave Hagar, even though they traced their physical lineage back to Sarah.
“But the Jerusalem above is free,” Paul says in verse 26. “She is our mother.”
Now, before we talk about this verse, I want you to look back at verse 24. How does Paul say he’s speaking here? Literally or allegorically?
Right, allegorically. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the language of verse 26 is figurative and not literal, which is a fact the World Mission Society Church of God seems to have missed.
Throughout Scripture, God presents Himself as a loving Father, not a mother. And Paul certainly knew this. But he was using figurative language to say that all who follow Jesus in FAITH are spiritual children of Abraham and Sarah.
She is our spiritual mother. She is connected here to Isaac, the freeborn son, to the promise of salvation blessings being available for all mankind, to Mt. Zion, to the New Covenant of grace, and to the Jerusalem above.
Sarah represents the Jerusalem above — i.e., heaven. She was free, just as heaven will be free. There’ll be no Law in heaven.
It’s also appropriate to think of Sarah as the mother of all true believers, just as Abraham can be considered the father of all who turn to God through faith in Jesus.
It’s as if Paul is saying here, “Hey, look UP. That’s where Sarah found salvation, and that’s where you’ll find it, too.”
“Paul reminded the Galatians that their true spiritual identity was to be found above, not below, [not] forward, not behind.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 343.]
And then, quoting from the prophet Isaiah, he shows that the blessings to be had through faith far outweigh those to be had through the Law — through our works.
“Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear,” he says. That, of course, is just what Sarah did when she had Isaac. She laughed so hard and with such joy that they named the boy Isaac, which means “to laugh.”
“From barrenness to fruitfulness, from despair to joy, from desolation to blessing.” [Timothy George, Galatians, vol. 30, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994), 345.] Only God could have caused such a seismic shift in Sarah’s circumstances.
Indeed, considering Sarah’s role as the spiritual mother of all who’ve been saved by grace, through faith, she has been blessed with a greater posterity than than even the Jewish people themselves.
And every one of us who’ve become her spiritual children through saving faith in Jesus have had an experience similar to Isaac’s.
Just as his birth was supernaturally enabled, we believers experience a supernatural REbirth when we turn to Jesus in faith. We’re made into new creatures. The old is gone, and the new has come.
We, like him, are children of promise. We are the nations whom God promised would be blessed by the seed of Abraham, by Jesus.
And, like Isaac, we followers of Jesus can expect to be persecuted.
In the Genesis account, Sarah caught Ishmael mocking Isaac, an event that ultimately led to his banishment, along with his mother, from the family of Abraham.
The Galatians were now experiencing a similar sort of persecution from the Judaizers. They couldn’t stand to see these new believers living in the freedom of Christ Jesus. So, they were trying to bind them back into slavery.
This persecution continues today, and this particular form of it is depressingly widespread within the church itself.
Remember the saying, “God helps those who help themselves”? I actually remember hearing that taught in Sunday school one time — thankfully not at this church.
This belief is widespread and pernicious. And it’s absolutely UN-biblical. You won’t find that saying anywhere in the Bible. Nor anything that SOUNDS like that saying.
In fact, what the Bible teaches us over and over again is that God helps those who realize they CAN’T help themselves. God made us for a relationship of complete trust in Him, not trust in ourselves.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, blessed are those who recognize that they have nothing to give to God that would put Him in their debt, that there’s nothing they can do for God to earn His favor.
Those who inherit the kingdom of heaven are those who throw themselves on the mercy of heaven’s court, those who accept that salvation is entirely by God’s grace, working through faith, those who realize that there’s nothing they can do to earn God’s favor.
And whenever someone comes with a message different from that, Paul says, the church’s duty is clear: Cast them out.
This is probably what the Judaizers had said the Galatians should do to Paul: Cast him out. But now that he’s given a true account of the lessons from the life of Abraham, he says this is just what the Galatians need to do with the Judaizers.
Just as Abraham drove Ishmael from the family, Christians need to be careful not to allow legalists to hold power over them.
Legalism has no place in the teaching of the church. It needs to be driven out of the church, because it’s a denial of the gospel itself.
It’s false teaching, and it sends people to hell. That’s why it’s so important for the Church to root it out and cast it out wherever and whenever it’s found. That’s why it’s so important for us to recognize false teaching when we hear it.
Grace and law — in other words, grace and self-righteousness, are incompatible. You can’t be children of both.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, you can — and should — be doing good works. In fact, as James the half-brother of Jesus, said in his own letter, a believer’s good works provide EVIDENCE of his or her faith.
But they can’t save you. The only work that can save you was done by Jesus. He alone lived a life of perfect obedience.
And because of His sinlessness, He alone could represent sinful mankind on Calvary’s cross. He alone could bear the just punishment WE deserve for our sins against God.
And as the Apostle Peter put it in Acts, chapter 4: “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Jesus said, “Come unto me you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
I read that verse and think about all those people who are working so hard to prove themselves worthy of heaven, all the while unable to find any assurance of their salvation.
Maybe that describes you. Maybe that’s why you’re here today. Maybe you think, like a lot of people, that God will somehow be indebted to you because of your presence in church, or your tithes and offerings, or your Bible-reading, or any of the good things you do.
But that’s not what Jesus said, and He should know. HE said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No [one] comes unto the Father but by Me.”
Listen, if the God of all holiness, all righteousness, and all truth had made our own righteousness the requirement for entry into His kingdom, none of us could ever hope to be a part of it.
Our sins have ruined everything, and all of our meager good deeds can’t make up for even ONE of our sins.
But God loves you, and He made you to be in a relationship of complete trust in Him. And so, He sent Jesus to provide the way for us to be reconciled to Him. And He decreed that we could inherit eternal life only through faith in Jesus.
That can happen for you today if you’ll confess that you’re a sinner unable to save yourself and place your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Will you make that commitment today? Your Savior is waiting.
Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This observance is important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us of the love He has for us and the love we’re called to have for one another.
Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us what He did for us.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.
And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love. That there’s no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, Republican or Democrat, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.
Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we are to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith. We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord.
If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.
The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.
Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.
Let us pray.
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.
“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
Let us pray.
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Take and drink.
“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Maranatha! Lord, come!
Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.
Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”
