But *ye*, brethren, after the pattern of Isaac, are children of promise.
Paul has just set Abraham's two sons side by side. One was Hagar's son, born in the ordinary way. The other was the free woman's son, born by God's promise. Now Paul tells the Galatians which of the two they resemble. The question is what makes someone a true heir: human effort and law, or God's promise alone.
Isaac did not arrive by natural strength. His birth came late, and it took a miracle. One writer draws the line from that birth to every believer. He quotes an older translation, which reads "we" here where the ESV reads "you."
"Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise." He now turns back from the picture he has been drawing out. He says nothing here of Sarah. He speaks instead of the first child of promise, to show that all believers share one origin and stand equal as heirs of the grace that chose them. We are children of promise, he says, in the same way Isaac was. Abraham's heir came late, and his birth was a miracle. The birth of each child of God is just as much a miracle. Flesh and blood have no part in the kingdom of God, and the children of promise are not born by the will or the power of men. … These deceived Galatians are "brothers" still. He will not treat them as illegitimate, but as true sons of God by faith in Jesus Christ.
Elsewhere Isaac points forward to Christ, but here he is used differently. Paul turns the household into a portrait of the two natures at work in a Christian:
In this passage the apostle uses Isaac, not as a picture of Christ, but of believers — those who receive God's sovereign grace. Just as he uses Isaac to show all that we are as born of the Spirit, so he uses Ishmael to show our old man — all that we are as born after the flesh.
Ishmael came from Abraham's own effort to help God's promise along:
The comparison is now concluded, "You brothers, after the pattern of Isaac," that is, the son of the free woman, "are children of promise," over against the flesh. Abraham tried to act according to the flesh, but what was the result? He had this son from Hagar. Here we see the result of what the flesh can produce, even with the best intentions. Abraham had good intentions, but the flesh can only produce flesh.
Isaac's place was settled before he could do anything about it:
God called Abraham out of the world — away from his relatives, his country and his father's house — separating him to Himself and to His promises. But Isaac was already chosen, called and set apart while still in his father's house. He was at home from birth, and he was there with God. He was born by promise, and by a power that gives life to the dead. In all this he pictured sonship, as Abraham had pictured God's choosing. In Isaac we see the family "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God," who stand in liberty.
Some teachers wanted these believers to stand before God on the ground of law. One writer's answer is blunt:
What a death-blow to all who maintain that the child of God has anything to do with the law as that which determines his own relationship to God! The law is a powerful weapon for probing the ungodly; but in our own standing we have done with it.
Knowing you are a child of promise is not a fact to file away. It is the cure for a joyless Christian life:
The Galatians had heard and received the good news, and for a while had run well. But legal teaching and its principles had trapped them… They had lost the true joy and liberty of redemption, though, thank God, not the redemption itself. How sadly true this is of many today: saved but not satisfied, redeemed but not rejoicing, saints but not singing. The Spirit's way of recovery is by the ministry of the positive truth.
- Promise, not power — Isaac came when nature had nothing left to give. Every child of God begins the same way, never "by the will or the power of men."
- Spirit, not flesh — Isaac stands for believers born of the Spirit, and Ishmael for the old nature born of the flesh.
- Effort, not promise — Abraham meant well, but his own effort produced only flesh. Good intentions do not change what the flesh can give.
- Home, not on trial — the child of promise starts inside the family, free and a son. He does not work his way in.
- Free, and singing — promise, not law, fixes your standing before God. The mark of knowing it is not just being saved, but rejoicing.
But as then he that was born according to flesh persecuted him [that was born] according to Spirit, so also [it is] now.
Behind this verse is a family scene in Abraham's house. Ishmael came by ordinary human arrangement. Isaac came because God promised him. Paul reads that old quarrel as a picture of something still going on, and he asks the Galatians which side of it they stand on.
The two boys stand for two sources of life, and those two sources cannot get along. One writer traces the clash through three settings at once.
Turning again to his allegory, the Apostle says that believers now are like Isaac, the children of promise. But on the day Isaac was weaned, Ishmael mocked. So now the one born according to the flesh, under the bondage of law, will persecute the one born after the Spirit, in the liberty of grace. The flesh and the Spirit are always opposed. It was so in Abraham's house, it is so in the world, and even in the heart of the saint. It was always the religious Jew who persecuted the Apostle.
Ishmael had lived in the house for years without trouble. Scripture says nothing against him until the child of promise arrives and receives his place.
As soon as Isaac was weaned and a great feast was made, the son of Hagar the Egyptian mocked. Ishmael shows his true character. As long as there was no Isaac, we hear nothing of Ishmael. The presence of Isaac makes known what was in the son of the slave woman. The presence of the new nature makes known what the flesh really is.
Genesis records laughter, not violence. Paul still calls it persecution, and one writer follows that same hatred all the way to the death of Christ.
The old nature and the new can never be reconciled. The old always hates and persecutes the new, driven by a will that will not submit to the will of God. This hostility shows in the smallest instances as well as the greatest. A child's mocking laugh is as real a mark of persecuting hatred as the bloody death of a prophet or apostle of the faith. That is the judgment of the heart-searching Spirit of truth. Ishmael mocked Isaac. The joined authorities of this world mocked the true Heir and Firstborn of the whole family of God, and persecuted Him to death without pity.
The real offence is not God's holiness. It is that God gives, and the receiver adds nothing.
There is nothing man more instinctively dislikes than grace. He cannot bear the thought that God makes one person differ from another, and that man does not make that difference himself. Man frets more against the grace of God than against His holiness. He assumes he can somehow meet God's holiness by ways of his own devising. But grace is God's ability to meet man in his deepest need and to bless him beyond words. The story of religious persecution repeats again and again. It is simply the story of Ishmael and Isaac that the apostle points to here.
The hostility is not random. Paul could have preached a message that bought him peace. He refused.
Here another incident is taken up. In Ishmael's mocking, the Spirit of God saw an expression of the deep-seated hatred of flesh towards Spirit. Paul knew much of this. Had he been a preacher of circumcision, he would have been spared a great deal. That would have put honour on the first man, and no persecution would have followed for him. But he was a faithful minister of heavenly things. He had to bear the consequences in his own person and circumstances. Others know this in some measure.
Paul's "so also it is now" is not just a complaint about bad manners. One writer names the source of the pressure and its aim.
The Galatians had become spiritual sons. So the religious flesh grew zealous, and the false teachers came after them. Satan does not want this position of sonship to work. He does not want us to be true worshippers. So the flesh will always be there to persecute what is after the Spirit.
Paul gives no end date for this conflict. One writer marks how far it runs, and what actually draws the hostility.
The "now" of this verse covers the whole time of God's patience. What provokes contempt and persecution from people who do not know God is not what someone professes, but what is real. Christians stay safe from persecution as long as they pursue the same goals as the world.
- Born. Two sons, two origins: one produced by human effort, one given by promise. Everything in the verse follows from that difference in birth.
- Exposed. Ishmael causes no trouble until Isaac is honoured. The arrival of the new nature is what reveals what the flesh has always been.
- Mocked. Persecution here begins as a laugh. On the Spirit's scale, a sneer and a martyr's death belong to the same hatred.
- Grace. The mocker cannot stand a blessing he did not earn and cannot match. That is why religious zeal, not unbelief, has led the attack.
- Free. Paul could have preached circumcision and been spared. He stayed faithful to heavenly things and paid for it, as every child of promise may have to.