Standing in the Freedom of the Gospel:
Hagar and Sarah - Slavery and Freedom
Galatians 4:21-5:1
Spiritual deception is very powerful so Paul used a number of angles to show the Galatians church that if they embrace this path of ‘works of the law’ they will become enslaved once again to that which they have been freed from (4:8-9). Any attempt to earn God’s approval, to impress him leads us to slavery. Paul takes an unusual approach this time to convince them to embrace only way to the freedom Christ promises. So let’s look at 4:21-5:1. To understand this passage we need a history lesson so let’s go back to the first book of the bible, Genesis, to get some background.
1. The Historical Background (21-23)
To see how Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar fit in this picture we need to start with Gen 12:1-3 where God makes the original promise to Abraham:
“Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Here the original promise is made to Abraham when he was 75 years old. It has three parts– ‘God will make him into a great nation, God bless Abraham so that he will be a blessing to others, and through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. Well, some time later Abraham began to doubt this promise because God had not given him any children and humanly speaking it did not look like he would have any (Gen 15:1-5):
“After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir." And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: "This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir." And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
Then some time later, Sarah, frustrated at the lack of a child and in a moment of doubt takes matters into her own hands and tells Abraham to sleep with Hagar, her maidservant, to help God along. The child was born of a slave woman and so was a slave himself. God rejected the boy because he was not the child of promise.
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!" But Abram said to Sarai, "Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please." Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. 7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai." The angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress and submit to her." The angel of the LORD also said to her, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." And the angel of the LORD said to her, "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing," for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me." Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. (Gen 16:1-16)
Thirteen years later God comes to Abraham again to reiterate that Ishmael is not the child of promise. God will supernaturally and miraculous give Sarah the child of promise (17:1-6; 15-21).
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly." Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her." Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!" God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year."
Finally twenty five years after the initial promise Sarah miraculously and supernaturally conceives the child of promise.
The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." (Gen 21:1-9).
2. The interpretation of History (24-27)
Paul says that this story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar gives us a spiritual truth. It contrasts two covenants and tells us who are the people of God.
Hagar – slave woman Sarah – free woman
Ishmael – born according to flesh Isaac – born through promise
Old Covenant – ‘works’ New Covenant – ‘faith’
Children born into slavery Children born into freedom
Present Jerusalem (Jews) The Jerusalem above (church)
Children of present Jerusalem (Jews; Judaizers) Children of the Jerusalem above (Christ followers)
Work of man Work of God
You cannot understand the bible without understanding that there are two essential covenants, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was based upon law; the New is based upon promise. In the law God laid out the responsibility on men and said, ‘you shall and shall not.’ But in the promise God keeps the responsibility himself and says, “I will; I will.”
3. The Application (28-:5:1)
The application is that we are either those who are slaves or those who are free. I want to spend the rest of our time describing these two realities, spiritual slavery and spiritual freedom. Naturally, all of us have a spiritual and moral inability to love and trust God outside of the intervention/intrusion of grace. There is nothing within us that can correct this; all good is derived from God alone. The bible describes us as spiritually dead (i.e. dry bones; heart of stone). We are not in a hospital but in a morgue. Not all human nature is as corrupt as it can be but all human nature is totally infected by this corruption. But because we are spiritually dead our will is enslaved to sin. Our will is not free though we freely and willingly do what we want to do. This issue is the want, which are corrupted by sin. We sin because we are by nature sinners. That does not mean that people cannot or do not do good things. People all over the world do lots of good things but it is not done out of a heart of faith and Paul tells us that everything that does not flow from faith is sin (Rom 14:23; See Eph 2:1-5). So even though our wills are not free we freely and willingly do what we want or desire to do.
In contrast, spiritual freedom is both the ability and the desire to love and trust God. This is because God has supernaturally and miraculously made us alive, has taken out the heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh; destroyed the old nature and given us a new nature. We are made alive to God (John 3:5; Eph 2:5). With that new life comes new desires and appetites so we are no longer enslaved to sin. This is the great promise of the Old Testament (Ezek 36:24-28):
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
