Tell me, ye who are desirous of being under law, do ye not listen to the law?
Paul has just spoken of his anguish over believers slipping back toward the law. Now he changes his approach. Instead of arguing against the law, he asks the people who want it one question: have they listened to it? The question turns on a small detail — the word "law" does not mean the same thing twice in one sentence.
The verse only makes sense once you notice that Paul is using "law" in two different ways.
He uses the word "law" in two different senses in this verse. You who desire to be under the principle of law, do you not hear what the books of the law say? That is, the early writings of the Bible. Sometimes "law" means the word of God in general as it was revealed at that time. Psalm 19 is an example: "The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul." But when it is called something the Christian is not under, it means this principle: the conscience is put under certain obligations to gain a standing with God. This is the fallacy Paul is laying bare.
Paul does not brush the law aside. He takes it up and turns it back on them. His charge is inconsistency.
The Judaizing teachers would put the Galatians under the law of Sinai. They had placed themselves under the law, and they were in the process of bringing others there. Now Paul is going to show how inconsistent they were. He asks, "Do you not listen to the law?" His argument was this: "If you are under the law, you had better listen to the law. But you are not listening to the law at all. You are totally inconsistent!"
Paul's case is already made. Now he calls one more witness — the law itself.
He has another witness in reserve. He now brings this witness forward. His aim is to complete their confusion and put a final stop to all further legal questions or leanings on their part. By the law's own mouth he will convince them of their folly in wanting to take up its yoke. He now turns to Moses's inspired account of how Abraham's double family began. The apostle's reasoning rests on a principle of Jewish law: the child followed the social condition of its mother. Abraham had one son by a slave woman, and the other by his free wife.
Each mother stands for a different basis on which blessing could come.
These two women set forth the two covenants. One is the covenant of law, which makes the blessing depend upon man carrying out his part. The other is the covenant of promise, in which the blessing for man depends entirely upon the sovereign grace of God. The two sons set forth the two conditions that come out of these covenants: one a condition of bondage, the other of liberty. These two covenants, and the conditions that come from them, are connected with Mount Sinai, where God gave the law, and with the Jerusalem above, from which sovereign grace flows out to the world.
Some say they do not want the law to save them, only to guide their daily living. The law itself does not recognise that distinction.
In vain he says he is born again; the law knows no such distinction. It asks, "Are you what I require?" "No, I am not," says the born-again man, who indeed is the only one who truly says so. "Then," says the law, "I curse you." But you say, "I am not under you for justification, only as a rule." "But I curse you," says the law, "because you have not kept the rule." The law will not and cannot do anything else.
The damage showed in how these believers treated one another.
The Galatian believers were truly converted and had the Spirit. Yet they were turning back to the law as a rule of life. In practice they were making their blessing depend on their own efforts. In the language of the allegory, they became the children of Sinai. Their character took on the traits of the flesh. Jerusalem above sets forth sovereign grace. Had they been connected with its liberty, they would have shown the character of Christ. Instead, putting themselves under law made them proud and boastful, and that spirit led to envy. They were biting and devouring one another, and the world was drawing them in.
- Listen first. "Law" means two things in one verse. It is the principle of earning a standing with God. It is also the books Paul tells them to hear.
- Listen honestly. Paul's charge is inconsistency. They claim the law but have not heard what it says.
- Listen to the story. The law tells a family story: two women, two covenants. Blessing rests on man's performance or on God's grace.
- Listen to the verdict. Taken as a rule of life, the law still asks the one question it always asked, and still answers with a curse.
- Listen to the fruit. Children of Sinai grow proud and quarrelsome; children of grace grow like Christ.
For it is written that Abraham had two sons; one of the maid servant, and one of the free woman.
Paul has pleaded with the Galatians. Now he points them to a family story from Genesis that they all knew. Two sons, two mothers, two ways of coming into the world: one produced by human arrangement, the other by God's word.
Paul asks those drifting back to the law to listen to what the law itself says about Abraham's household.
The Apostle now appeals to the law itself, to show how unreasonable it is to turn back to it. If they would not hear the gospel, nor listen to the Apostle, let them listen to the law they were turning to. He recalls the times of Abraham. He uses some facts in his history as an allegory. It teaches us the contrast between the bondage of a believer under law and the liberty of a believer under grace. Abraham had two sons by different women, one a slave and the other a free woman. The son by the slave "was born according to the flesh," entirely according to the will of man. The other, by the free woman, was born by God's sovereign intervention.
Two verses later Paul calls this story an allegory. That word does not turn it into fiction.
The word allegoreo occurs only in Galatians 4:24. The passage does not mean that Abraham having two sons was an allegory. It was history. But that history had an allegorical application, and Paul, by the Holy Spirit, explains it fully. The Greek word means 'to speak otherwise,' and an allegory is a description of one thing under the image of another.
The two sons differ in how each came to be born. One birth needed only ordinary human strength. The other was impossible without God.
One son, the elder, Ishmael, was born in the natural way. But his mother was a slave, and he was born to be a slave too. The other child, Isaac, was not born in the natural way. That was because his father was a hundred years old and his mother was ninety. She had long ago lost the power to have children. But God had promised that Sarah should have a son... By her own natural power Sarah could not have borne a son. But God Himself gave her that power, because He had promised to do so.
Two mothers, two sons — and each pair pictures something different.
These two women stand for the two covenants. One is the covenant of law. It makes the blessing depend on man carrying out his part of the covenant. The other is the covenant of promise. In it, man's blessing depends entirely on the sovereign grace of God. The two sons also stand for the two conditions that come out of these covenants. One is a condition of bondage, the other of liberty.
Ishmael came from man's own planning, aimed at something God had already promised.
When God makes a promise, there is no "if" attached to it. He makes it with no conditions, and He is determined to keep it. Faith rests in Him, in perfect liberty of heart. A divine promise needs no effort of nature to bring it to pass. This is the very point where Abraham and Sarah failed. They made an effort of nature to reach a certain end. God's promise had already made that end completely sure. This is the great mistake of unbelief.
The Galatians pointed to Abraham as their proof. Paul starts there too.
Look at Abraham and his house. Look at Hagar the servant, and at Isaac and Ishmael. There you have in a figure the two parties still found on the earth: the law party pictured by Ishmael, the child of flesh; and those who cling to the grace of God, who have their pattern in Isaac, the child of promise... Abraham, their main support as they thought, had two sons. But according to Scripture the two sons stood on completely different principles... Which son represented them? Under which type did they fall — Ishmael or Isaac?
The same choice faces us today.
Here is the application. The moment we want to get blessing based on our own initiatives, actions, strength, goodness, power, whatever, we are using 'works of law.' That puts us on the ground of bondage, not the liberty God calls us to as sons — as Isaac had the place of son and heir.
- History — The two sons are fact, not fable. The record is true, and God shaped that true record to picture something more.
- Two births — One son needed only nature's strength. The other could not exist unless God kept His word.
- Two covenants — One makes blessing depend on what man does. The other rests it all on God's grace.
- Two conditions — What each covenant produces is a person: one in bondage, one in liberty.
- One question — Which son do we resemble? Seek blessing by our own initiative, and we repeat Hagar's arrangement. That road ends in slavery, never in inheritance.
But he [that was] of the maid servant was born according to flesh, and he [that was] of the free woman through the promise.
Paul takes the Galatians back to Abraham's household, where one father had two sons. Human effort arranged the first birth; God's word secured the second, and that gap is the gap between bondage and freedom.
Paul answers people who wanted to be under the law by making the law itself speak.
The apostle now appeals to the law itself, to show how unreasonable it is to turn back to it. If they would not hear the gospel, and would not listen to the apostle, let them listen to the law they were turning to. At once the apostle recalls the times of Abraham. He uses some facts from his history as an allegory. It teaches us the contrast between a believer's bondage under law and a believer's liberty under grace. Abraham had two sons by different women, one a slave and the other a free woman. The son by the slave "was born after the flesh," entirely according to the will of man. The other, by the free woman, was born by the sovereign intervention of God.
The first son came from a plan, not from a promise.
At 85, Abraham still had no son. In Genesis 16, the anxiety of both Sarai and Abram prompted them to devise a plan to try to fulfil God's promise. They could not wait for God to fulfil it in His own way and His own time. Using their own cleverness, Abram had a son by the slave woman, Hagar. What a striking picture of Israel trying to get the promise of God by their own righteousness, by their law-keeping! They set out to establish their own righteousness, and so they have not submitted to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3). Abraham did the same. He tried to establish God's promise in his own way, and showed no real faith that the promise was altogether God's promise. So the son of the slave woman was born after the flesh. The whole affair was human devising and no fulfilment at all of the promise of God. The son of the slave woman cannot enjoy the full liberty of a son's place. He is really himself in bondage, a servant.
Older translations read "after the flesh" where the ESV reads "according to the flesh." That little word is chosen with care. Scripture never says a believer is under the flesh, nor after the law.
"Under" is applied to sin and law; "after" to flesh, as in Romans 8:4-5, 12, 13. These are nowhere swapped round. "Under" expresses domination; "after" expresses inclination or disposition. So it is always "under the law," "under sin," but "after" the flesh. The same distinction can be seen in Galatians 3:25 and 4:4, 23, 29.
Isaac arrived only when every natural possibility had run out.
Isaac is this child of promise, born to Sarah when she was 90 years old and Abraham 100, when their bodies were as good as "already dead" (Rom. 4:19), and any natural hope of childbearing was long gone. But it was God who stepped in, in sovereign grace, to fulfil His own word... Isaac then is a beautiful picture of Christ, the promised Seed (Gal. 3:16). He came to earth not because of man's successful law-keeping or anything of the sort. He came because of the unbreakable promise of God, fulfilled by grace alone.
Paul sets "flesh" opposite "promise," so this verse defines both words. One rests on what man can manage. The other rests on God alone, and carries no conditions.
In this important passage, "the flesh" stands opposite "promise." So we get God's own idea of what the term "flesh" means. We also get His idea of Abraham's effort to get the seed through Hagar instead of resting in God's "promise."... But the Sarah-covenant reveals God as the God of promise. That promise is completely independent of man. It rests on God's willingness and ability to fulfil it. When God makes a promise, there is no "if" attached to it. He makes it unconditionally, and He is resolved to fulfil it; and faith rests in Him, in perfect liberty of heart.
Paul does not leave the two sons side by side. He follows the story to its end in Abraham's house.
The sentence of Scripture is: Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. Grace refuses partnership with law or flesh. The child of promise alone inherits.
- Two births. One father, two sons, two different origins. Man's will arranged one. God stepped in and produced the other.
- Flesh. "After the flesh" describes what Abraham devised when he could not wait. It pictures Israel trying to get God's promise by their own law-keeping.
- Promise. Isaac came only when nature was as good as dead, so that the blessing rested wholly on God's word, which carries no "if."
- Word choice. Scripture says "under" law and sin, but "after" the flesh — domination in one case, inclination in the other.
- Inheritance. Grace accepts no partnership with law or flesh. Only the child of promise inherits.