Persecution Consequent on the Promise

At a glance

Relevant Scripture

“But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”

Galatians 4:29 KJV

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Chapter 5 of the LibriVox recording of According to Promise, streamed directly from the Internet Archive (public domain, CC0).

UECF.NET summary

Genesis records only a single incident — Ishmael “mocking” at the feast for Isaac's weaning — yet Paul treats it in Galatians as a permanent pattern: “he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit.” Spurgeon uses this to prepare readers for a fact many find unwelcome — that a genuine work of grace in a life will, in one way or another, draw opposition from those who only have religion after the flesh.

The chapter is careful to locate the source of this hostility. It is not, ordinarily, that believers behave badly toward others; it is that the very existence of grace-given assurance and joy exposes, by contrast, the emptiness of a merely formal religion, and exposure of that kind is rarely welcomed calmly. Spurgeon compares it to the discomfort a counterfeit coin causes when set beside a genuine one — the true one need do nothing except be authentic to provoke resentment.

Rather than leaving readers discouraged, Spurgeon turns the persecution itself into a form of confirmation: it happened to Isaac, it happened supremely to Christ, and it will happen, in smaller ways, wherever the two kinds of religion meet in the same family, church, or society. Present opposition, however unpleasant, is therefore no argument against a person's standing in the promise — if anything, it is one more mark that grace, not merely form, has taken root.

Main theological themes

• Genesis 21's single incident of mockery becomes, in Paul's hands, a permanent principle for every generation
• The true source of opposition to grace: exposure, by contrast, rather than any wrongdoing by the believer
• Present opposition as an unwelcome but genuine confirmation of belonging to the promise

Key ideas

• Ishmael's mockery was aimed at a child too young to have given any real offense, showing the hostility was not really about behavior.
• A merely formal religion is often most uncomfortable in the presence of the real thing.
• Christ Himself, the supreme heir of promise, faced exactly this pattern from religious contemporaries.
• Opposition rightly borne can strengthen rather than shake genuine faith.

Important concepts

• Mocking / persecuting — Paul's term for the hostility, ranging from ridicule to active opposition, that formal religion directs at grace-given faith.
• Born after the flesh / after the Spirit — Paul's shorthand, drawn from Ishmael and Isaac, for the two kinds of religious life this whole book contrasts.

Related Bible references

• Genesis 21:9
• John 15:19
• 1 Peter 4:14
• 2 Timothy 3:12

Practical Christian application

• If you face quiet mockery or misunderstanding for your faith, ask whether it might be Ishmael's old pattern rather than a sign something is wrong with you.
• Respond to opposition the way Isaac's story suggests — without retaliation, resting instead on the promise.
• Examine whether you have ever, knowingly or not, played Ishmael's part toward someone else's genuine faith.

Questions for study