Dr. Rodney Plunket

Galatians 4:21-5:12

This morning we come to the fifth lesson in our series on Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia.  And it is appropriate to begin by letting you know that the section we are looking at this morning contains some material that is not the easiest for contemporary readers.  We are looking this morning at Galatians (Gal) 4:21-5:12, and in the first major block of this material Paul gives an allegorical interpretation of an Old Testament (OT) story.  It is likely that most of us have not made a study of allegory, so this whole section can be one that we hurry through so that we can soon arrive at something we under­stand better.  I hope to show you that Paul’s allegory is very easy to understand and that the point that it makes is vital to his message here.

But since allegorical interpretation is foreign to so many of us, allow me to stop and give you an idea of what allegorical interpretation is.  To use the words of Richard B. Hays in his recently published commentary on Galatians, when Paul says in Gal 4:24 that he is going to “interpret allegorically” he “sim­ply suggests that the narrative is to be read as having a latent sense, a figurative meaning that is to be distinguished from its overt literal sense” (“The Letter to the Galatians:  Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” The New Inter­preter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck, et. al. [Nashville: Abingdon, 2000], 301).  Paul, in other words, is suggesting a meaning that is different from what might be referred to as its straightforward meaning.  In Paul’s allegorical interpreta­tion in Gal 4 he treats a straightforward narrative like a parable in which ele­ments of the narrative are viewed as symbols.

Paul’s allegory, in my judgment, is grounded upon key words seen pre­viously in Galatians.  Paul then builds the completed allegory by placing addi­tional key words on top of those foundational ones.  So let’s begin by noting what the foundational key words are.  In Gal 3:3 Paul writes, “Are you so foolish?  Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”  “Flesh” and “Spirit” are going to be key words in Paul’s allegory.  Now look at Gal 3:8.  There Paul quotes the promise made to Abraham that “All the nations shall be blessed in you.”  Then, in Gal 3:15-18, Paul clearly connects that promise to the coming of Christ, and he points out that the prom­ise was not annulled by the Law of Moses which came after the ratification of the promise.  Paul goes on to argue, in Gal 3:19-4:7, that the Law of Moses was only to rule over people prior to the coming of Christ.  Since Christ’s coming those who “belong to Christ” are the true offspring of Abraham; in fact, Paul says they are Abraham’s “heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29).  Paul also, in Gal 4:1ff, reveals that being under the Law was to be “enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world” while being under the promise results in a person being adopted as a child of God––not a slave, but a child and an heir.  He then makes clear, in Gal 3:8-11, that to return to a life of Law-keeping after being adopted as a child of God is to return to a live of being enslaved to “the weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal 3:9).

Hear the themes that Paul’s is going to use in his allegory.  Hear the contrasting pair “flesh” and “Spirit.”  Hear promise and its connection to the redemptive work of Christ.  Hear that a child of Abraham is the one who belongs “to Christ” and is connected to Abraham through the promise, not through the Law.  Hear slavery and its connection to the Law.

Now we are ready to see how Paul’s allegory builds upon these key words and themes.  The way it does that can be ascertained by placing the relevant key words in two parallel columns.  If you have something to write with and even a relatively small piece of paper to write upon you can easily create the two col­umns that Paul’s words convey.  I will give you a little time to get a pen and pencil and a piece of paper.  Feel free to use one of the regis­tration cards on the backs of the seats.

Look with me at the first two verses of Paul’s allegory, Gal 4:21-22.  Paul writes, “Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not lis­ten to the law?  For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman.”  Notice the two key words here.  They are “slave” and “free.”  So create two columns, either in your mind or an a piece of paper, and write at the top of one of those columns the word “slave” and at the top of the other the word “free.”  Before we add to either of those columns, I want to prepare you for the fact that Paul is building upon his pre­viously developed concept that persons who relate to God through Law-keep­ing are slaves.  And he is contrasting that slavery with the freedom of those who have been adopted as children of God as result of the faithful work of Christ.

Now please look at Gal 4:23 and follow along as I read:  “One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise.”  Notice that Paul continues using the words “slave” and “free”––the key words at the top of our parallel columns.  And he adds to those columns the key word “flesh” (which goes in the slave column) and the key word “promise” (which goes in the free column).

And what Paul is saying here is quite powerful.  Hagar the slave woman had a son solely because of a fleshly connection to Abraham.  Sarah, the free woman in the OT story that Paul is using here, had a son because of the power of the promise.  Sarah was an old woman and well past childbearing years.  She had never been able to get pregnant.  She considered herself barren.  But God caused her to conceive and bear a son.  So the son of the free woman is also the son who is connected to the promise, because it was the power of God’s promise that caused that son to be born.  The son born according to the flesh was also the son of slavery because his mother, Hagar, was indeed a slave.

Now please look with me at Gal 4:24-26.  Paul says,

Now this is an allegory:  these women are two covenants.  One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.  Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.  But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother.

It may be that Paul connects Hagar to both Arabia and Mount Sinai because Hagar’s son, Ishmael, was believed to be the father of the Arabs and Mount Sinai was in Arabia.  But that is not certain, and it is not essential to under­standing the point Paul is making.  What is certain and essential is that Paul can connect Mount Sinai to the slavery of Law-keeping because Mount Sinai is where the Law was given.  His comment about “bearing children for slavery” is almost certainly a not so subtle critique of the agitators who are confusing the Galatian Christians with a perverted gospel that is leading the Galatian Christians back into slavery (see Gal 1:7).  In other words, Paul is associating the agitators with Hagar; she bore a child for slavery, and they are bearing children for slavery to Law-keeping.

Notice what key words Paul places in our two parallel columns.  He places Mount Sinai and “the present Jerusalem” in the slave column.  He places “the Jerusalem above” in the free column and even calls “the Jerusalem above” “our mother.”  It is likely that those disturbing the Galatian Christians were claiming to represent the Jerusalem church.  Paul connects them to “the present Jerusalem” which goes in the slave column.

Paul then quotes from an OT passage, Isaiah 54:1.  Look at that quota­tion with me in Gal 4:27.

For it is written,

          “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,

                    burst into song and shout, you who endure no birthpangs;

          for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous

                    than the children of the one who is married.”

This OT prophetic passage predicts a time when the population of Jerusalem would experience incredible growth.  At the time that the prophet spoke these words, Jerusalem was small and insignificant; it appeared barren.  Paul con­nects the prediction of the growth of Jerusalem, a prediction made at a time of apparent barrenness, to the birth of Sarah’s child by the power of the promise at a time when Sarah was apparently barren.  He also connects the propheti­cally predicted growth of Jerusalem to the growth of the Jerusalem above through the spreading of the gospel to non-Jews.

Now please look with me at Gal 4:28-5:1.

Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.  But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.  But what does the scripture say?  “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.”  So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.  For freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Here we come to the last pair of contrasting key words.  We have already had “flesh” in the slave column contrasted with the key word “promise,” but here we have the word “flesh” again.  This time it is contrasted with the key word “Spirit.”  So put “flesh” a second time in the slave column, and put “Spirit” across from that word in the free column.

Now let’s look down the columns.  One column has in it the words Slave, Flesh, Mount Sinai, the present Jerusalem, and Flesh.  The other column has in it the words Free, Promise, the Jerusalem Above, and Spirit.

Which column do you want to be in?  That’s not a difficult question is it?  Any column that begins with the word “slave” and ends with the word “flesh” is not a column to which a Spirit-filled Christian wants to be added.  Any column that begins with the word “free,” includes the word “promise,” and ends with the word “Spirit” is a column in which includes all Spirit-filled Christians.

Paul’s point is clear.  In the slave column is where the Law-keeping con­nected to Mount Sinai and Jerusalem belong.  In the free column you will not find those Law-keeping connections.  Paul is driving home the fact that the Galatian Christians are not to long for a sense of connectedness to the Mount Sinai and Jerusalem of the agitators.  The Galatian Christians are to be con­nected to the Jerusalem above because that connection gives to them freedom, the promise, and the Spirit.

But we must also notice how strongly Paul feels about what he is saying here.  Listen again to the OT quotation found in Gal 4:30:  “But what does the scripture say?  ‘Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.’”  This quotation is comprised of the words of Sarah to Abraham in Genesis 9:8.  Sarah’s instruc­tion to her husband was upheld by God in verse 12 of that same chapter.  Paul’s purpose for that quotation is clear.  Hagar and her child, Ishmael, were driven out away from the child of the promise.  In the same way, the Galatian Christians should drive out the Law-keeping, slave bearing agitators from among themselves.  Because the Galatian Christians are not, Paul insists, chil­dren of the slave woman; they are children of the free woman.  Christ has set them free, and they must stay free.  To do that they must drive out those who draw them into Law-keeping slavery.

That concludes Paul’s allegory.  Let’s see what Paul builds on top of the very strong message that he communicates through that allegory.

Please look with me at Gal 5:2-12.

Listen!  I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be cir­cumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.  Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.  You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.  For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for any­thing; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth?  Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.  I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise.  But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty.  But my friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision?  In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.  I wish those who unsettle you would cas­trate themselves!

Paul’s intensity is impossible to miss here.  He is certain that the Galatian Christians are about to be lost.  Those who have turned to Law-keeping as their way of walking with God are on the wrong path.  They have fallen from the high mountain of grace upon which God had placed them through the work of Christ.  They have fallen, and the work of Christ will no longer “benefit” them (Gal 4:2).  This is not just a moral lapse.  This is not a misguided detour.  This is a departure from Christ, from grace, from redemption, from freedom, and from the promise.  This is a religious road to damnation even though that road is paved with scripture.  It looks like such a biblical path.  But it is a path back to “this present evil age” from which Christ had set them free (see Gal 1:4).

Why was this path appealing?  Why would anyone choose slavery?  Obviously they did not see it as slavery.  They saw it as an appropriate way to be religious.  Paul had convinced them to love God and to love God’s Son, Jesus Christ.  I think they thought that these new teachers were just teaching them how to do that even better.  They thought that what they were hearing was just further development of what they had already come to believe.

The New Testament scholar, J. Louis Martyn, has a fine article on the Book of Galatians in the July 2000 edition of the journal Interpretation.  In that article he refers to what he calls “the circular exchange.”  The circular exchange is the idea of “this for that.”  Sometimes that kind of exchange is referred to with the Latin expression quid pro quo.  Circular exchange takes place when I give you something so that you will give me something.  For example, circular exchange takes place when we give a salesperson some money and receive in exchange an item of clothing.  Martyn has these words to say about the heresy of circular exchange that Paul is fighting:

Indeed its being linked to this notion [of circular exchange] is surely a major reason for the fact that the [false] message proved highly attractive to the Galatians.  For like all other human beings––ourselves included–
–the Galatians were doubtless glad to think that there could be between themselves and God a secure and dependable exchange, set in motion by an act carried out themselves (“The Apocalyptic Gospel in Galatians,” Interpretation 54 [July 2000]: 247-48).

Later in this same article Martyn again addresses the tendency toward a view of Christian faith that moves it toward a “this for that” circular exchange under­standing.  He says, “In the theology of the apostle there never has been, is not, and never will be a [salvation creating] circular exchange between human beings and God; for there is nothing human beings can do that will place God in their debt” (Ibid., 250).

Sisters and brothers, we do not contribute anything to our salvation.  We repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord because God’s power in the gospel inspires those responses.  They are not really our words; they are words declared by God through the gospel.  We do not contribute to our salvation by being baptized.  First of all, even the physical aspect of baptism is not some­thing we do; it is something done to us.  It is an act of another upon us to which we submit because God’s power transmitted through the gospel compels us to submit.  And the more important spiritual aspect of baptism is solely the work of God.  God is the one who washes away our sins and baptizes us with the Holy Spirit.  God is the one who raises us up to walk in the resurrection power of God’s eternal life.

Do not be enslaved to a life of external obedience.  It is slavery.  Live instead a life that is transformingly aware of the wonder of God’s power alive within us because of the power of the promise, the power which has forced itself into our world through the faithfulness of Christ Jesus.

A believer named Mike Quarles tells his story.  He left his job as presi­dent of a Stock Brokerage firm to head off for ministry training.  He became a minister.  He was incredibly zealous for the gospel as he understood it.  But he was legalistic in his approach to that gospel.  He says, “My marriage was a mess and my personal life was a shambles.”  He left the ministry and went back to working as a stockbroker.  But, he says, “I felt like a failure.”  He began to drink and in “a short period of time . . . became a full-fledged alcoholic.”  Lis­ten to the thirty things he tried in an effort to sort out his life:

1.            Consistent Quiet Time

2.            Bible Study

3.            Fasting

4.            Visitation Evangelism

5.            Christian Twelve Step Program

6.            Accountability Group

7.            Hundreds of AA meetings And Five Different Sponsors

8.            Christian Counselors

9.            Christian Psychiatrist

10.        Secular Psychiatrist

11.        Christian Psychologist

12.        Secular Psychologist

13.        Addictions Counselor

14.        Flew To New Jersey and Spent Three days With an Addictions Specialist

15.        Secular Treatment Center

16.        Christian Treatment Center

17.        Read Every Book On Addiction I Could Find

18.        Healing Of Memories Session

19.        Baptism Of The Spirit Session

20.        Casting Out Of Demons Session (Twice)

21.        Public Confession

22.        Group Therapy

23.        Took The Drug Antabuse

24.        Disciplined By My Church

25.        Rigid Schedule With Every Minute Planned

26.        Hundreds of Hours Studying Scriptural Principles

27.        Memorized Chapters Of Scripture

28.        Discipleship Groups

29.        Prayer

30.        Promises To God And My Wife

He finally woke up to the power of God to set him free rather than external observances.  His life was radically transformed, and his alcoholism was con­quered.  But listen to what he says about all the things he tried that did not work.  “All were things I was doing in the flesh and “sinful passions are aroused by the flesh” (Romans 7:5)” (<http://www.freedomfromaddiction.­org/mtest.htm>).

Sisters and brothers, let’s turn to God for freedom.  Let’s turn to the power of the promise.  Let’s turn to the power of the Christ who lives within us.  Because it is that power and that power alone that sets us free from the power of this “present evil age.”

Do not turn to slavery by taking up a life of external observances.  That kind of life is powered by the elemental spirits of this world.  That kind of life, Paul teaches, causes Christ to be of no benefit to us.  That kind of life causes us to fall from grace.

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