Here's another one to drive home my point and that I already posted in a three part series earlier in this thread a few pages back.
- Galatians 4:22-23 – "For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by the bondmaid, the other by the free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman, by the promise."
Ishmael was born after the flesh. Isaac was born by the promise.
Oh the irony.
If you keep reading you'll get to this:
"These things serve as illustrations..."
Okay, so Paul is using the women (Sarah, the free woman and Hagar, the bondmaid) and the children (Isaac and Ishmael) to illustrate something.
Now, you just concluded that Ishmael was born after the flesh and that Isaac was born by promise. That is factually correct. So you quote Genesis 17:19 is support of your assertion.
Genesis 17:19 - 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.
But remember:
Paul is creating an illustration here. Let's see how he uses the women and the children to make his point:
Galatians 4:24b "..for the women represent two covenants."
Okay, that's pretty clear. He's talking about two covenants. Let's go on to the end of the verse.
"..One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar."
Hold the phone!
Hagar's children were not present at Mt. Sinai. Sarah's children were. Yet, Paul says that
the Mt. Sinai covenant is akin (because he's illustrating something here) to Hagar. Furthermore, Paul wrote that
Mt. Sinai bore children who were slaves! This is a serious accusation.
We better keep reading! Paul should make it clear.
Galatians 4:25 "Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia..."
Okay, I just said that. Let's go on...
"..and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children."
[record scratch] As an aside, do you know ho offensive this would have been to the Jews?!
Paul just dropped the hammer on the natural children of Sarah, the inhabitants of "
present-day Jerusalem". So, it mattered not that they came through Isaac in the flesh. In fact, Isaac's natural offspring are as slaves. Just as Paul wrote:
"One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery..."
But there is another Jerusalem from which the children of promise come. Verse 26:
But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.
Then Paul quotes Isaiah 54 to connect the present reality with the prophetic words of Isaiah:
“Rejoice, O barren woman,
who bears no children;
break forth and cry aloud,
you who have never travailed;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.”
So Paul flips the illustration on its head: in the Genesis account, who was the barren woman? Sarah. But who was the woman with a husband. Also Sarah. So we know this is not a one-to-one retelling of the account. Remember: we are dealing with "children of promise" here.
Paul just wrote that
the natural children of Sarah were born into slavery because of Sinai. Sarah has the husband (Abraham) but her
children receive no inheritance secured by the promises given to Abraham by the flesh. By the flesh, no children of Sarah can inherit the promises of Christ.
Who receives the promises? The barren and desolate woman, Hagar. In the natural telling, Hagar is the slave. But by the Spirit, her offspring (the Gentiles)
receive the promises of Abraham in abundance "in Christ". This is what Paul meant when he next wrote:
"Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise."
Paul is writing to the believers in Galatia (modern day Turkey). Most of them were probably Gentiles. By birth, they had no right to claim any natural inheritance from Abraham. They were not Abraham's natural offspring. But Paul frames the verses I just walked through with this passage:
"My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you..."
This is a connection in the spirit, not in the flesh.
The promises of God, secured in Christ, come through the Spirit not the flesh.
The promise was always Christ. Just like the Seed was always singular: Christ.
