Two Mothers, Two Sons

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? So I pressed the Galatians (Galatians 4:21), and I press you still. They wanted the law as their mother, their nurse, their claim before God. So I sent them back to the law itself — to the story of Abraham, who had two sons: one by Hagar the slave woman, "born according to the flesh," and one by Sarah the free woman, "born through promise" (Galatians 4:22-23). Ishmael came by the ordinary strength of the flesh. Isaac came when Sarah was barren and old and could do nothing — he came because God had spoken, and God does not fail to keep his word.

Now I read this account for what it teaches: "these women are two covenants" (Galatians 4:24). Hagar answers to Sinai, to the present Jerusalem, "in slavery with her children" — for every soul that would earn its standing by the law is a slave, laboring under a debt it can never pay. But there is a Jerusalem above, and "she is free, and she is our mother" (Galatians 4:26). Hear the wonder of it: the barren woman is told to sing. "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear" (Galatians 4:27), for her children, born not of her strength but of God's promise, outnumber the rest. That is you, if you are in Christ — a child brought forth not by your striving but by mercy.

Do not be surprised, then, that the flesh hates the promise. As Ishmael mocked Isaac, "so also it is now" (Galatians 4:29) — the religion of self-effort has always scorned the freedom of grace. But mark what the Scripture commands: "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" (Galatians 4:30). The two cannot share the estate. You cannot keep one foot in slavery and one in sonship, adding your works to Christ's finished work as though his blood needed your help.

So here is where I leave you: "we are not children of the slave but of the free woman" (Galatians 4:31). Stop laboring to be born again by your own flesh — it cannot do it. Rest in the promise kept for you at the cross, and live as a free-born child of the living God. Grace and peace to you.