Galatians 4:24 – WHICH THINGS ARE AN ALLEGORY
Thursday, May 21st, 2009Galatians 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
In this passage, Paul is analogizing the covenant that God made with Abraham dealing with Ishmael and the covenant that God made with Abraham dealing with Isaac. Ishmael was the son born of the slave Hagar, while Isaac was the son of Promise born of Sarah.
Paul is using the picture of Hagar being in bondage when she had Ishmael to represent the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was given by God at Mount Sinai. However this law was not a law of freedom but was a law that contained a lot of “thou shalt not”. For the Jews, they had to abide by this very strict code in order to please God. It was a law that could not be completely satisfied. Hagar was the slave of Sarah and there eventually came a time where she was let go because she could not please her mistress.
Isaac was the promise child; he was a gift from God. While Ishmael was part son and part slave, Isaac was completely free. Paul analogizes the birth of Isaac with the Christian walk. In the same way that Isaac did not have to worry about losing his place as a son of Abraham so also, as Christians, we do not have to worry about following a complex set of sacrificial rituals in order to maintain our position as sons of God.
Because Ishmael was the son of Abraham, God promised that Ishmael would be a great nation. In the same way, the nation of Israel has a special blessing just because they are God’s chosen people. As Christians, our relationship with God is not one based upon our heritage; our relationship with God is based upon our freedom to choose to abstain from the things of this world and to pursue the things of God.
Two sons, one is blessed because he was the son of Abraham and one was blessed because he was the promised son of Abraham. Two sons, one was a son of bondage and one was the son of freedom. The Jews serve the Living God through their bondage of sacrifices and the rituals required of the Law of Moses. The Christians serve the Living God through their freedom knowing that Jesus Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Freedom is not free. The freedom we experience in Christianity is a result of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made upon the cross. Just as Adam and Eve had the choice to sin or not to sin, so also, we have the choice whether to follow the perfect will of God or to sin and do that which is right in our own eyes. Abraham tried to make the promises of God occur in his timing rather than the perfect timing of God and all Abraham did was make a mess.
As Christians we do not have to worry about making sacrifices to atone for our sins as we know that Christ made the ultimate sacrifice. The freedom that God has given us is not to be used on ourselves and our own selfish desires. The freedom from sacrifice does not permit us to break the law whenever we want. Just because the Jews had a long list of sacrifices to atone for their sins, it did not give them liberty to break the law.
We do not want to follow the example of Abraham who was so caught up in the promise that he tried to make it happen in his own way and his own timing. We must add temperance to our life and understand that we are living in the freedom of God and that we must wait for HIS timing to fulfill the promises that HE has made unto us.