Isaac and Ishmael (No Other Gospel #17)
When reading this passage, though, you have to remember the context we've just talked about. In the verses leading up to this, Paul has been pleading with the Galatians out of his personal concern and fear for them, because it seemed that they were on the point of turning away or perhaps had already turned away. They were choosing the law over the gospel; the old testament over the new. It is out of this concern and this issue that this passage begins.
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. (Galatians 4:21-31)
Paul references the story of Abraham and Hagar which he calls an “allegory” which means literally “to speak of another thing”--in other words, an allegory is when a word or story can be given a second meaning beyond its literal or obvious one. Paul uses this familiar Old Testament story as a parable or illustration to make a point to the Galatians. In order to understand the comparison Paul is making, we need to look back very briefly at the story of Hagar.
Remember that Abraham had traveled out of his homeland into the land of Canaan because God had promised that he would be the father of a great nation. But rather than being a father of a great nation, he wasn't a father of anybody. Sarah his wife had no children. And so, after some time had passed, Sarah concocted a plan to remedy this situation. “And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.” (Genesis 16:2-3) So Abraham married Hagar. And this is where things get complicated and really hard for us to understand since we live in a very different culture from Abraham. Hagar was actually Abraham's wife and her children would be his legitimate children. It isn't that he had an affair with her. But she was also not on the same level as Sarah, Abraham's first wife. She was Sarah's slave and she remained that after marrying Abraham. Hagar was on the outside of the family and yet she was part of it; a real wife but a secondary one.
And she married Abraham and gave birth to a son named Ishmael who was Abraham firstborn and, at that point, only child—and, from all appearances, he was going to be the only child, since Sarah was still incapable of bearing children and both she and Abraham were getting older. But God had made a promise that Abraham would have a son and that promise wasn't fulfilled in Ishmael. “And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” (Genesis 17:19) Note this: God made a promise to Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child even though that was humanly impossible. And it would be that child, Isaac—and not Ishmael—would be the recipient of the great promise which God had given to Abraham.
After this promise, Isaac was born. Two or three years after his birth, something happened between Isaac and Ishmael who would have been sixteen or seventeen at this point. “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” (Genesis 21:9-10) Abraham was displeased with the situation, but following God's prompting he cooperated with Sarah's request and Hagar and Ishmael were expelled from the household and they traveled into the Arabian Peninsula.
This story is a story of contrasts. I think this may be why Paul's mind seized on it so readily to express the concepts of Galatians because in this story we have the same strong sense of contrast which is at the heart of Galatians. Isaac and Ishmael were different in almost every respect. But the point we do have to remember is they were both sons of Abraham. They did have that point of commonality, but in everything else they were different.
They had different mothers and, more importantly, mothers in different positions. Ishmael was the son of a slave woman, someone in bondage. Isaac was the son of a freewoman. But not only were their mothers in different positions, but their births were very different. Ishmael was born after the flesh, while Isaac was born by promise. To say that Ishmael was born after the flesh means that his birth was perfectly natural. There wasn't anything special or unique about Ishmael any more than any other child. Even Abraham's decision to marry Hagar in order to give birth to an heir since he had no children was a perfectly natural, run-of-the-mill decision, even though it seems bizarre to us. Ishmael's conception and birth were simply ordinary, commonplace, mundane things. And there's nothing wrong with that in principle. But it's still very different from the manner of birth of Isaac, which was by promise. There was nothing ordinary or natural about Isaac's birth. Sarah was incapable of having children and by the time Isaac was born she was too old to have children anyway. And yet God had promised that she would have a child and, miraculously and against all natural law, she did. Ishmael was a result of the course of nature; Isaac was a miracle.
And because these two boys had different backgrounds, they had different statuses. At least that is implied here and in the Old Testament. And I think I am correctly understanding how this worked in Patriarchal society, but I'm not an expert on that. Because Ishmael was born to a slave, he was a slave. He was Abraham's son but he would never have quite the same status as a freeborn son would have had. (See Clarke on Galatians 4:23) I think, even if Isaac had never been born; even if Ishmael had become Abraham's heir, he still would have always had a secondary status because he was born to a slave woman. But because Isaac was born to a freewoman, to Sarah, he was born into freedom, in liberty. He had the full rights and privileges of a son of Abraham because he was freeborn.
And because they had different statuses, they had an asymmetrical relationship to one another. The name Isaac means laughter because Sarah laughed at the idea that she would have a child because it was so impossible and yet she laughed in joy when it happened. And the same root is found in Genesis 21:9 where it describes Ishmael mocking Isaac. We don't know what was involved here, but seemingly something more than just ordinary sibling rivalry. (Remember what happened among Jacob's sons.) Several commentators suggest there is something more sinister suggested here, especially since Paul uses the word 'persecute' to refer to the incident. But in any case, the point is this. Isaac and Ishmael, with the differences between them, could not peacefully live together. Isaac was a threat to Ishmael and Ishmael was a threat to Isaac. The relationship between them would almost certainly never be amicable and therefore one would always be a persecutor and the other persecutee. (Though which was which might have changed as they grew older.)
And because of all these differences between them, they had different endings. Ishmael was cast out. He could not remain in the house of his father. He could not be the heir, as Isaac was. “For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” A household in which Isaac and Ishmael stood as joint-heirs could never have been other than toxic and filled with strife (which is why you don't become a polygamist in the first place). These two boys could not have lived together in peace, and the true inheritance of Abraham could not have been split between them anyway. Abraham could have given Ishmael part of his money (and honestly I don't understand why he didn't), but he never could have made him his Seed, the Seed to which God had made His promises, for Ishmael was not and never would be the son of promise. One of the two had to go. They could not peaceably coexist.
That is the story of Ishmael and Isaac, but Paul is using this as an example or illustration. Look at verse 24: Isaac and Ishmael represent the two covenants, the Old and the New Testament. And this is where things get a little complicated because Paul says that the Old Testament is Agar (i.e., Hagar), that Agar is Mt. Sinai, and that Mt. Sinai is Jerusalem-that-now-is. That's a little roundabout, but the basic idea is clear. Paul connects Hagar and Ishmael to Mt. Sinai because when they left Abraham, they went into the Arabian peninsula—where Mt. Sinai was. And Paul connects Mt. Sinai to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was the spiritual center of Judaism which was still rooted in the Mosaic law, in the revelation which was given at Mt. Sinai and therefore given in the territory of Hagar and Ishmael. All of which is draw a picture in people's minds.
For just as Ishmael was born to a slave and therefore was born to bondage, so Jerusalem and all those who followed the Old Testament were in bondage. As Paul showed at the beginning of this chapter, even at its best, the old covenant could only give bondage. That was the highest and best state it had. Those in such bondage might be the true sons of God--just as Ishmael was the true son of Abraham--but their condition was still one of bondage.
Remember that Ishmael was born after the flesh, according to natural processes. And nature can never produce anything but nature. A man and woman do not give birth to an angel. A chicken does not hatch a fish. A kangaroo does not bear a snake. That simply isn't the way nature works. What properties offspring has--from their species to specific attributes like hair color--is determined by their genetic code, given them by their parents. That is what nature does. That is what the flesh does.
The Old Testament economy was founded on a law, a law given by God, a law that was as perfect as a law can be. That law was very important; very precious. But it could not bring about liberty, forgiveness, justification, or new life, because that isn't what law does. It isn't the nature of the animal. That isn't in a law's genetic code. You might as well expect a chicken to hatch out an eagle as expect a law to produce freedom and forgiveness--at least, to the sense that we are talking about here.
A law brings bondage because a law can only condemn disobedience; it cannot give people the power to obey it still less can it give them the desire to obey it. If anything, laws tend to do the opposite. In an old Halls of Ivy program, Dr. Hall states this general principle: “Authoritative prohibition only encourages student circumvention” which he then restates in simpler language: “Tell 'em they can't, and they're gonna.” That is what laws often do. Paul pictures this problem in Romans 7, in which he describes the struggle to obey the law of God by human efforts, ending with the conclusion that it is impossible. “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” (Romans 7:23) The law cannot produce freedom because it cannot destroy the human aversion to following God's law, the tendency of sin--which is why Paul's word choice is interesting here when he refers to Ishmael as being born after the flesh. Because the word 'flesh' in Greek is used to refer to human nature, to the frailty of human nature, and, specifically, to the bent to sinning which exists in unregenerate human nature.
If we think of flesh in its literal sense, as the biological composition of the human body, we can see that it is a very limited thing. The human body can only survive in very specific circumstances. Because of the limitations of our flesh, we cannot (at least without outside help) live in extreme cold or extreme heat. We cannot walk in fire or walk on water. We cannot fly; we can't even walk for very long. There are just some things the flesh cannot do.
If we think of flesh in its metaphorical sense, as sinful human nature, we can see that it is a very limited thing. Romans 7:15 gives us a good picture of the limitations of human nature. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Man, by his own devices, can do much good, but he cannot fully follow even his own limited knowledge of right and wrong. The Roman poet Seneca said this: “Human affairs grow worse and worse and men leave no wickedness or sin unsought after... We are all evil and (unwillingly I speak it) we always shall be.”
And just as the human body and human nature are weak and limited, so the “flesh” or body of the law was limited. It could not conquer or alter this limitation of human nature and so brought only bondage instead of freedom.
All of which brings us to Romans 8:3: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” The law, the Old Testament, the covenant of bondage and slavery was not bad but it was weak; it could not bring salvation except by pointing forward to the New Testament, to the Child who would be born miraculously and by promise to establish a new covenant which would condemn, do away with, and destroy sin in the flesh by creating a new man, renewed in the image of God. This is the contrast between Isaac and Ishmael, between the old covenant and the new. One was weak through the flesh, but the other is strong because it is founded on the power and grace of God which can alter the nature of flesh. It is humanly impossible to live the life of a Christian just like it is humanly impossible for a barren woman to give birth to a son. But not only can God's grace do things that are humanly impossible, but go far beyond the limits of human possibility. That's why verse 27 is so important, in which Paul quotes Isaiah 54:1: “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.” This is the “ever-so-much-more-so” of God's grace, doing the impossible and then some, the “where-sin-did-abound-grace-did-much-more-abound.” The Gospel, the New Testament, can do things the Law, the Old Testament could never do.
We need to stop here and summarize where we are. Paul uses this contrast between Hagar and Sarah, between Ishmael and Isaac as a symbol or allegory of the contrast between the Law and the Gospel. The Law is a system of bondage because it is weak through the flesh--both through the limitations of its own nature and the limitations of human nature. The Gospel is a system of freedom because it is founded on the promise and miraculous grace of God--just as Ishmael, who was born naturally, was born into slavery and Isaac, who was born supernaturally, was born into freedom. But we have to be careful not to take allegories and parables too far. Abraham never should have married Hagar and therefore, at least in one sense, Ishmael never should have existed. But the law was given by God. It needed to exist for a purpose.
Bur that purpose had been fulfilled. That's why Paul's contrast in verse 25-26 is interesting. He speaks of two Jerusalems, one which now is and the Jerusalem which is above. Jerusalem was an important part of God's plan. The Old Testament is filled with verses referring to the importance of Jerusalem to God. It was the center of Judaism and the physical embodiment of the entire Old Testament system. There's nothing wrong with that. But now it had fulfilled its purpose. Now there was another Jerusalem, a spiritual Jerusalem, the New Testament. The writer to the Hebrews describes it in Hebrews 12:22-23 (significantly, after contrasting it to Mt. Sinai a few verses earlier): “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.”
Jerusalem was the center of God's secret plan. But how can God's plan have two centers? How can there be two cities of God when God is one? How can there be two Jerusalems?
And in thinking about that question, I thought of something within my own experience. During my time in college and the first year I was back living in Salem, I attended Perry St. Chapel in Alliance, Ohio. But several years ago, that church bought new property on South Union, just outside Alliance and the church moved. That church is called South Union Chapel, but it is the real Perry St. Chapel. If you want to have the experience of going to Perry St. Chapel, you have to get it by going to South Union. The church at Perry St. is still there, but it is no longer the same thing it once was--it is no longer a church. You will most likely not get any spiritual help by going to some random guy's house, which is what that church now is. The church has moved on and where it once was is only an empty shell of what was once a church, an empty shell that has now been taken over by a new host. That is what happened with Jerusalem; that is what happened with the law. The entire Old Testament economy with all its rites and restriction, centered in the temple at Jerusalem, had its place in God's plan. But now that part had been fulfilled and God's plan had moved to a new Jerusalem, a spiritual Jerusalem. We, as Christians, as the church, are the true Jerusalem, and the shell of orthodox Judaism was no longer the center of God's plan but had instead taken on a new life of its own which was actually opposed to God's plan.
Or, we can think of it this way. In building a building, it is sometimes the practice to create a small scale model of the building, showing what it will look like once it's completed. That's a very useful thing since it allows people to visualize what it will look like once completed, to see something which otherwise they wouldn't be able to see at all. But once the building is built there is no more need for the model. It won't necessarily cease to exist, but it will not have the same meaning and purpose that it had before. And if people refused to look at the new building because they were obsessed with the old model, it would become a distraction. That is what the Old Testament and the New Testament is like; the Jerusalem that now is and the Jerusalem that is above. The law had a very important function in paving the way for the gospel but once the gospel came it ceased to have the same meaning and purpose. It didn't cease to exist. Much of the Law was incorporated into the gospel; much of the Old Testament became part of the New Testament, but there has been a change. The old Jerusalem has been replaced by a New Jerusalem. The law is the foundation but who looks at the foundation after there's a house on top of it?
Or, another example: The law was like a popsicle stick. You can do all kinds of interesting and unique crafts with a popsicle stick. But its fulfillment and consummation are when it ceases to be merely a stick and becomes part of a popsicle. It doesn't cease to exist, but it does become something else by becoming part of something else. But the Judaizers were like people who couldn't understand what a popsicle is and so were trying to melt it off so they could get the stick back. And Paul is saying, in short, that it doesn't work like that.
And that's why we come back to the story of Isaac and Ishmael. What happened to the two boys? One was cast out, and the other became an heir. That which is founded on the old covenant of bondage and never moves beyond it cannot survive. That is why the Jews persecuted the church. Because the two systems could not coexist. Isaac and Ishmael could not both be the heir of Abraham. The Law and the Gospel could not both be the plan of Salvation. The Old Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem could not both be the true city of God. The Jewish leaders had realized that and so they had Jesus killed in the first place and why they continued to persecute His followers. The Judaizers realized that and so they tried to lure the Galatians away from Paul and the Gospel. And Paul realized it which is why we have the stringent warnings of Galatians.
The law leads to bondage and bondage leads to being cast out. If you never get beyond the law, that is all you will ever find. But the Gospel, built on the foundation of the law and yet going beyond it, gives us the promise of freedom and from freedom to being an heir of Christ. That is why the Judaizers were so wrong because they were going back into the very slavery which the Gospel had come to set men free from. Not that Christ came to destroy the law, for he came not to destroy but to fulfill it. But the Judaizers didn't want the fulfillment of the law, just the law itself and so they were going back into slavery. We don't know much about the personal character of Isaac or Ishmael. But we do know their general stations. One was a slave, the son of a slave, born in bondage and ultimately cast out. The other was a freeman, son of a freewoman, born into liberty and the heir of his father. Which of these two would you rather be? Whose footsteps would you rather follow in? Which Jerusalem would you prefer to be a citizen in? The Judaizers might desire bondage and voluntarily chose a path which led to destruction, but that is not the course of the gospel, for the gospel is of liberty and not of bondage.
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