Lent 4
Gal
4:21-31
3/30/25
The promise, faith, and freedom, or
the flesh, works, and slavery? That is what the apostle Paul is setting before
the Galatians in our text this morning. The apostle is trying to bring the Galatians
back to the Gospel – to keep them from losing the Gospel. In our text, he uses
what happened with Hagar and Sarah in the Old Testament in order to illustrate
his point.
The apostle Paul had preached the
Gospel to the Galatians in Asia Minor – what is now Turkey – during his first
missionary journey. As he describes in
the first verse of the letter, he had gone there as “an apostle--not from
men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who
raised him from the dead.” The Galatians
were Gentiles. They were not Jews. But they had heard the message of the death
and resurrection of Christ, and the Holy Spirit had called them to faith.
Paul had returned to Antioch at the
conclusion of the missionary journey.
But in his absence, other teachers had come to Galatia. These men also confessed faith in the death
and resurrection of Jesus. However, they
told the Galatians that Paul had not told them the whole story. Yes, they needed to believe in Jesus. But if they wanted to be part of God’s
people, then they needed to do what God’s people the Jews had always done. They needed to keep the Law that God had
given to Moses at Mt. Sinai when he took Israel into a covenant with himself.
Faith in Christ was not enough.
Instead, they also needed to keep the law of Moses. This meant that these teachers were urging
the Galatian men to be circumcised.
Circumcision marked a great divide in the ancient world. Jewish men had received circumcision in
accordance with the Law of Moses. Gentile men, on the other hand, were not circumcised. In fact, the Greco-Roman world viewed
circumcision as a kind of mutilation of manhood. It was held in contempt.
For an adult male Gentile to receive circumcision meant not only
undergoing a painful procedure. It meant
taking on a condition that those around them disdained. It meant becoming a Jew and keeping the law
of Moses with its food laws. It meant keeping the Sabbath. It meant following
the Jewish calendar with its observances such as the Passover.
However, these teachers were saying that all of this was
necessary in order for a person to be saved. Faith in Jesus was not enough. The works of
the law – the doing of the law of Moses – also had to be done. Only in this way could a Gentile become part
of God’s people.
Paul knew that to require doing of the law was a denial of the
Gospel. He said at the beginning of the
letter, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who
called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel--
not
that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to
distort the gospel of Christ.”
The apostle rejected the idea that
works of the law could have anything to do with salvation. He says in chapter two, “we know that a
person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in
Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be
justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works
of the law no one will be justified.”
Paul says exactly why the law cannot
save. He states, “For all who rely on
works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be
everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law,
and do them.’” The law is about doing –
doing that is full, complete, and perfect.
However, no one is able to do
this. We cannot because of our sinful
condition. Paul told the Galatians, “But
the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.” The law cannot provide the
power to obey God’s will. Instead, our violation of the law brings God’s curse.
The apostle describes this life under the law’s curse as slavery. In fact Paul
tells the Galatians that if they submit to the law they will be enslaved just
as they were when they were pagans who did not know the true God.
We all sin in violation of God’s law
– his will. But God sent his Son into
the world in order to free us from slavery of the law’s curse. Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, ‘Cursed
is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”
Jesus received the curse in our place as he died on the cross. And then
on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead as he vindicated Christ and
demonstrated that he had been working through the cross to give us forgiveness.
This salvation is now received by
faith in Christ. Faith believes God’s promise of the forgiveness that we have
in Jesus. Paul says that this is how God had dealt with Abraham – by the faith
in the promise. He says, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham,
saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are
of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
Paul says that the promise to
Abraham has been fulfilled in Christ, the seed of Abraham. Now through faith and baptism, the Galatians
– and you – have been joined to Christ and you are part of the people of
God. Paul writes, “for in Christ
Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you
as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” You are in
Christ and so Paul draws the conclusion, “And if you are Christ's, then
you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Salvation is by Christ or by the law. It is by faith or by works. There is no middle ground. And the result is
either freedom or slavery. Paul seeks to
drive home this point in our text. He
says, “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the
law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman
and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according
to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.”
Abraham first had his son Ishmael who was born through Hagar, his
slave woman. This son was not born on
the basis of God’s promise, but instead through his own action in the
flesh. Then, Isaac was born to Sarah his
aged wife in miraculous fulfillment of God’s promise.
In our text, Paul uses these two woman in a non-literal way. He says, “Now this may be interpreted
allegorically.” He is using them to
illustrate the two options that are before the Galatians. Paul explains, “One
is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is
Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she
is in slavery with her children.”
Ishmael was associated with Arabia where Mt. Sinai was located. And
so the apostle identifies Hagar with Mt Sinai and the covenant God made with
Israel through Moses. And in turn, Paul connects this covenant and law of Moses
with the present Jerusalem – with the Jews who are seeking to keep the law of
Moses. Paul says that they are in the slavery of the law. If the Galatians go this way, they too will
be slaves.
Then Paul says, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is
our mother.” Jerusalem above is a
reference to the end time salvation of God worked in the Son and now given
through the Spirit. It is this work of
God that has given you salvation. As Paul said earlier in this chapter, “And
because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son,
then an heir through God.”
Paul tells the Galatians that, like Isaac, they are children of
promise. They cannot give in to those
who are trying to bring them back into slavery under the law. Instead, they must follow the instruction of
Scripture which says, “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.” They must remove
these false teachers.
The apostle’s words teach us that the Gospel is never Jesus plus
something. It is not Jesus plus works as
medieval theology taught at the time of the Reformation, and Roman Catholic
theology continues to teach today. It is
not Jesus plus holy living. It is not
Jesus plus my ability to choose to believe in Jesus. Like Paul’s opponents at Galatia, all of
these pervert the Gospel by adding our doing – they add the law.
Instead, salvation is God’s gift – it is purely by grace. It is the gift made possible by Christ’s
death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. It is received by faith in
Christ – a faith that is itself God’s gift as it has been worked by the
Spirit. Through faith in Christ we have
freedom. We have been freed from the
slavery of sin and the curse of the law.
Yet this freedom doesn’t mean we are free to do whatever we
want. That is not how things work for
those who have new life in Christ through the work of the Spirit – for those
who are led by the Spirit. Paul says in
the next chapter, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not
use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve
one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall
love your neighbor as yourself.’”
This is the life of faith because it is Christ living in us through
the work of the Spirit. Paul said
earlier in this letter, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” This is, as Paul describes it, “faith working
through love.”
The law continues to reflect God’s will, and so the life of faith –
the life led by the Spirit – fulfills the law.
That is why Paul can say in the last chapter of this letter, “Bear one
another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
As a new creation in Christ, the Spirit leads and we follow. The
Spirit makes the new life possible, and we apply ourselves to living in those
ways that are true to God’s will. As Paul says, “If we live by the
Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” – or “let us keep step with
Spirit” as it can also be translated.
We avoid and turn away from what Paul calls in chapter five “the
works of the flesh” – things like sexual immorality, enmity, jealousy, fits of
anger, and envy. And instead as the Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit – we
seek to live the life that is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. For in this way the life of faith fulfills
the law.
Paul’s words remind us this morning we have received salvation
through God’s promise fulfilled in Christ.
We live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself up for
us on the cross. Because of Christ we now have freedom from sin and the curse
of the law. And through the work of the
Spirit our life of faith is active in love as we fulfil the law of Christ.
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