Isaac And Ishmael

By contrast, Christians are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26). Citizens, I say, not slaves. It is evident by the use of the mother analogy that Jerusalem is standing here in place of Sarah, the free woman. Why then should we wish to return into slavery to a law which has not redeemed us?

The quotation in Galatians 4:27 comes from Isaiah 54:1, which was primarily written with a prophetic view to the exiles in Babylon. Yet the prophecy immediately follows one of the most Christological passages in the whole Old Testament (Isaiah 53). There is a promise of a plenteous seed, but this is only fully fulfilled in the calling of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist had anticipated God raising up children for Abraham out of inanimate stones (Matthew 3:9). Thus Paul encouraged the believers in Galatia to think of themselves as the children of promise (Galatians 4:28), and to behave accordingly.

Jesus has forewarned us that the world will hate us because it has first hated Him, that we too will be persecuted (John 15:18-20). Likewise Paul in his allegory tells us, “as he that was born after the flesh (Ishmael) persecuted him that was born after the Spirit (Isaac), even so it is now” (Galatians 4:29).

So what are we to do? Are we to embrace the world's way, and the way of legalists who would replace our faith with a list of dos and don'ts? Indeed not, but with God's help we are to “cast out the bondwoman and her son” (Galatians 4:30). After all, this is what the Scripture says (Genesis 21:10; Genesis 21:12).

“So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free” (Galatians 4:31). Let us enter into the inheritance which God has laid up in store for us.