Abe's Two Boys

The Judaizers have duped the followers of Jesus in Galatia to believe faith in God wasn't enough to save them.  Christ's work may have gotten them into God's kingdom, but they've got to keep working to stay there (Gal 1:6; 3:1-3).  

These false teachers have twisted the Torah and fooled the gullible Galatians.  Despite their evil intentions (Gal 2:4), the Judaizers are pretty nifty in their knowledge of the Old Testament.  

But there’s just one problem. They’ve brought a toothpick to a knife fight.  They're up against the Apostle Paul.  Few people on the planet knew the Scriptures as well as he did.  

As Saul, he was rapidly rising superstar (Gal 1:14).  The young man from Tarsus was one of the few, the proud, the Pharisees (Phil 3:5).  He did his post graduate work under Gamaliel, the leading Jewish theologian of the first century (Acts 22:3).  

The Judaizers may be good.  But they are completely out of their league when it comes to the Bible.  Little do they realize that they've chosen to pick a fight with the man God's chosen to write most of the New Testament.  

This is like a little leaguer stepping in to face Hall of Famer Bob Gibson.  It ain't gonna be pretty.

Previously, Paul has made a powerful case for grace through the OT Scriptures (Gal 3:8-4:7).  Despite everything the false teachers have said about the law, it was never meant to save.  

We are only saved by placing our trust in what Jesus did for us that we could never, ever do on our own.  Jesus is the One God promised to Abraham.  Jesus is the the Point of the OT.  Jesus is the Hero of the entire Bible!

Once again, Paul flips his Bible open to Genesis.  Once again, he'll go back to the very beginning to demolish the faulty foundation of the Judaizers' counterfeit gospel.  

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise" (v23).  

These boys aren't mentioned by name, but everyone knows he's talking about Ishmael (Gen 16:1-16) and Isaac (Gen 15:4-6; 17:15-18:15; 21:1-7).  

You see, there's a striking parallel between this ancient story from Genesis and the unfolding train wreck in Galatia.  God had promised Abraham and Sarah that He would provide them a son despite the fact that they were old enough to be in a nursing home.  

They believed His promise.  But they thought Almighty God needed a little help.  So Sarah cooked up a scheme to have her hubby hop in the sack with a young maid named Hagar.  

Like the false gospel of the Judaizers, Abe and Sarah believed God might start something but they needed to help Him finish it.  

You know the story.  Hagar gets pregnant and has a bouncing baby boy named Ishmael.  And the Middle East has been at war ever since.

Paul pleads with the Galatian believers not to step into the same spiritual pot hole as Abe and Sarah.  What God starts, He WILL finish.  Or as he asked earlier, "Are you so foolish?  Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:2).  

Or as he wrote to his friends in Philippi, "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6).  What God starts, He finishes.  

Yahweh Himself stated it bluntly to Abe: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Gen 18:14).  You don't need to answer that.

Not lost in the story of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac is the fact that God continually reaches out to messed up and jacked up human beings.  They aren't great examples of biblical heroes.  On the contrary.  They continually got it wrong.  

Yet God placed them under the waterfall of His grace.  While Abe's faith may have been flawed at critical times, the One in whom he had faith was without flaw.  In other words, this isn't about the strength of our faith but the strength of the One in whom we place our faith.  

Abe, Sarah and their boy Ike are just early members of the endless parade of losers, goofballs and weirdos that God has graciously chosen to use to further His kingdom.

Paul is asking the Galatians who they are going to be like.  Is it going to be Ishmael, "born according to the flesh?"  Or will it be Isaac, "born through promise?”  

Will we fail to trust that God will keep His promise and finish the work?  Or will we believe that He will do EXACTLY and COMPLETELY as He has said?

What's it gonna be? 

©2012

Jay Jennings