The Example Of Hagar And Sarah
THE EXAMPLE OF HAGAR AND SARAH
GALATIANS 4:17-25
Paul continues to contrast being a slave to the law and being a free child of God.
The personal plea continues in 4:17-20 by including at least one explanatory circumstance. The reason for the Galatians’ reversal is found in the troublemakers who have infiltrated the churches, spread poisonous doctrine for ignoble ends (4:17), quenched the Galatians “conquering newborn joy” in Christ (4:15) and stopped their growth in Christlikeness (4:19). No wonder Paul is saddened (4:11) and bewildered (4:20)!
Every element in the Judaizers’ malicious work claimed a reply and a countermeasure. It is one thing to deplore false teaching in the church, but simply to express regret and sorrow that things have come to a sad condition is not enough. Action must be taken and that commits Christian teachers and leaders to preparing a case for the defense of the faith.
4:21-31 form (along with 5:1) a self-contained section in which Paul exposes the hollowness of much of the false doctrine and insinuations which the Judaizing preachers have brought with them, and most likely meets them on their own ground, that is, that of explaining the Scriptures (4:21).
4:22-25 invite us to consider Abraham’s household in which two women, Hagar (Genesis 16:15) and Sarah (Genesis 21:2), lived uneasily together.
Paul’s chief interest is with the two mothers and their children, Ishmael and Isaac (4:22-23). The plain sense is given in Genesis, but Paul finds a deeper meaning by treating the account allegorically (4:24). Where else does he use this method of interpreting Scripture (see 1 Corinthians 9:8-10; 10:1ff.)?
The general pattern of identification is clear, although some details are obscure. The passage in this study takes up the one line of the story, namely the one that runs from Abraham by way of Hagar, a slave woman, through Ishmael her son to Sinai, with its lawgiving and consequent condemnation of the sinner. From that point it is a short step to the Jerusalem of the (unbelieving) Jews and the Judaizers (4:24-25). The conclusion that Paul has established is exactly relevant to the situation: there is slavery at every level.
Notes 4:23: see Romans 9:7-9. 4:24-25: these women represent two covenants; one is made at Mount Sinai, and produces only slavery for the offending lawbreaker. Now Sinai is a mountain in Arabia—from where the Arabs, the enemies of the Jews, originated—and it stands for the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children, ie the slavery of legalism.