An Allegory to Express a Truth

“Which things are an allegory: for those 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 to her children.  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”  Galatians 4:24-26

The spiritual welfare of the Galatians was of the utmost importance to Paul.  He called them his “little children” (verse 4:19) because he was the one who led them to Christ.  He was concerned that the believers in Galatia were not maturing in the faith as they should have been, and thus, were vulnerable to false teaching and the detrimental influence of the Judaizers who were trying to lead these Gentiles to come under the law.  Paul wasn’t in Galatia at this time but had heard about their troubles and wrote this letter to them, a rather harsh letter, but straying from the faith is a serious matter.

Paul asked them if they were not really listening to the law.  Being Gentiles, they weren’t very familiar with the law and likely didn’t understand the ramifications of living under the law nor the reason that it was given by God many years ago.  If any of the Galatian believers had been raised as a Jew, he or she would understand the difficulties in trying to obey the law with all of its rules and regulations, some of them very onerous and cumbersome.  To illustrate, Paul wrote about the patriarch Abraham, who would have been somewhat familiar with his readers.  The account of Abraham’s life began in Genesis 12 when God called him to leave his home and set out for the land that God promised to him.  Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were past childbearing age and had never been able to have children, but God promised them a son.  Since that didn’t happen immediately, Sarah became impatient and allowed her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar (Agar), to have a son with Abraham.  That child was name Ishmael and was born “after the flesh”, that is, through the course of nature, by the will of man, and by a woman who was not free, but a slave.

A few years later, Sarah conceived in her old age as promised by God.  This son was named Isaac, born to a freewoman and was the son whom God intended to be instrumental in forming th nation of Israel.  Paul referred to these two mothers as an allegory, a true story in which people, things, and events have another meaning used in teaching and for explanation.  These were real people, and these events did happen, and Paul used this event to explain the difference between grace and the law.  Mount Sinai, from which God issued His law to Moses, was called Agar (Hagar), the mother of Ishmael.  Agar represented earthly Jerusalem the seat of the old covenant, the law, of which the Jews expected to be justified, in effect, coming under bondage to it.  Anyone, then and now, who tries to do the works of the law are under bondage to it.

In contrast, Sarah, Isaac’s mother, conceived purely by grace, illustrated the new covenant which was instituted by the death and resurrection of Christ.  Paul referred to this new covenant as the Jerusalem which is above.  As Sarah was the free woman, the wife of Abraham, not a slave, but given the son of promise to her by God, so is the heavenly Jerusalem in that it is not a slave of the law, but free by God’s grace.  Paul referred to the heavenly Jerusalem as the “mother of us all”, because being born again whether Jew of Gentile puts folks into God’s family by His grace and gives us freedom from living under the law.

Paul quoted Isaiah 54:1 wherein the prophet urged the “barren” to rejoice.  The “barren” refers to the earthly Jerusalem, but she was promised by God to once again flourish.  The Jewish church was basically an empty shell because of the law.  The Jews had become indifferent toward honoring God, and the Gentiles were even less inclined to mind the things of God.  However, all of this would change because of the gospel.  Many Jews would come to know Jesus as the Messiah, but many more Gentiles would be converted through the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ.  All who come to Christ are the children of promise.  All who are born again become the spiritual children of Abraham even though most of us did not descend naturally from him.  Paul then reminded his readers that Ishmael also became a father of a multitude who persecuted and would continue to persecute the descendants of Isaac for generations to this present day.  Nothing has changed.  If those who lived by rules and regulations and their own form of self-righteousness persecuted the true followers of God in times past, they would still attempt to persecute those who had trusted in Christ by trying to turn them away from grace and urging them to turn to the law or even worse to urge them to ignore God altogether.

Paul then made the point that Sarah desired for Abraham to remove Hagar and Ishmael from their home.  Abraham was grieved for he loved Ishmael, but God told him to follow Sarah’s desire.  It was a protection to Abraham and his descendants.  Ishmael was not the son of promise and thus was not the one through whose line would come the Messiah.  That was Isaac, the son of promise, from whom Christ would descend and so would all the spiritual children of Abraham.  Judaism and the law would give way to Christianity, and those who stayed true to the gospel of Jesus Christ would be the victors.