Same as It Ever Was

Paul concludes his analogy where he uses the soap opera of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael to explain situation involving the Judaizers and the new believers in Galatia.  

In this letter, he's doing everything he can to undo the damage these false teachers have done.  

They've infiltrated these churches and convinced them that the only way they can stay saved is through their own good works (Gal 2:4; 3:1-3).  The apostle repeatedly uses the Old Testament as an explosive to blast away at their false gospel.  

Beginning in Galatians 4:22, he uses the story of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory to illustrate just what's going down.  The Judaizers and those who follow them are just like Ishmael and his mom.  The followers of Jesus are like brothers of Isaac, "children of the promise" (Gal 4:28).

Ultimately, the man from Tarsus hopes his readers will understand that the relationship between these two half brothers still exists today.  He wants us to see that history repeats itself.  Here we go again.  

Same as it ever was.

Once again, Paul flips open the pages of Genesis.  He recalls, "But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit..." (v29).  He reminds them that Ish and Ike weren't exactly close.  

Once again, he describes Ishmael as "born according to the flesh."  In other words, this was when Abe and Sarah took things into their own hands to fulfill God's promise (Gen 16:2).  

The writer of Genesis says that the day Abe and Sarah weaned Ike as a baby, Ish mocked his little brother (Gen 21:9).  This is more than a little sibling rivalry.  Hagar’s kid openly talked trash and laughed at his kid brother.

Paul points out that just as Ish ridiculed and insulted Ike, "so also it is now" (v29).  What's happening in now Galatia is the same thing that happened back in Genesis.  In other words, don't fall for the Judaizers' trash talk of Paul and the rest of Jesus' followers.  

That's what Jesus taught His followers on a Galilean hillside (Mt 5:10-12).  Unbelievers will persecute those who trust God.  It’s Christ’s way of saying, “Haters gonna hate."

As a matter of fact, the radical Rabbi/Carpenter says this is pattern of persecution is actually a good thing.  It let's you know that "your reward is great in heaven."  

It happened then.  It's happening again.  Here we go again.  Same as it ever was.

The apostle quotes Genesis 21:10 which describes how Sarah insisted that Abe kick Hagar and Ishmael to the curb so that they would not be included in Isaac's inheritance.  

Paul wants us to know that folks like the Judaizers that teach self-salvation will never be saved through trying to keep the rules.  When the divine will is read, they won't hear their names.  

This family feud continues today.  Forget the Hatfields and the McCoys.  That ain't NOTHING compared to the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.  Jews and Arabs have been at war ever since.  We're not talking centuries, but millennia!  

Same as it ever was.

Notice in Paul's analogy the different ways he refers to the unnamed Isaac.  He's the child "by a free woman" (Gal 4:22, 23, 30).  He's the boy born through the "promise" (Gal 4:23, 28).  He's kid "born according to the Spirit" (Gal 4:29).  

He wants us to know that they all mean the same thing.  When we're born according to God's promise, we're born according to the Spirit and we're born free! 

Paul concludes his allegory with the bottom line: "So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman" (v31).  

This is what he wants the Galatians to take away from the illustration.  They are NOT like the Judaizers.  They are NOT like Ishmael.  

If you've placed your trust in what Jesus has done FOR you, then you're a child "of the free woman."  

Don't let these spiritual snake oil salesmen fool you with scriptural slight of hand.  And it's still happening today!  That's why we need be aware just like the Galatians.  It happened then.  It's happening again.  Here we go again.

Same as it ever was.

©2012

Jay Jennings

Brother from Another Mother

Family history and genealogy are incredibly popular these days. It's easy to understand why. The United States is a melting pot. 

Other than the native people who were already here when the explorers and colonists set foot on the shores, we all came from somewhere else. 

People want to know where they came from. We want to know who we are.

That's Paul's point here in verses 24-28. Using the story of Hagar and Sarah as an analogy, he draws a distinct difference between the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant. 

He wants the Galatians to understand that while the followers of Jesus may share a few things in common with those who are under the law, they are actually brothers from another mother.

Don't forget that the apostle continues to hammer away at the Judaizers' false gospel taught in the Galatian churches. They've tried to use the Old Testament to teach these new believers that Paul didn't get it right. 

According to the false teachers, Jesus may have saved us but we must make sure we stay saved through religious rule-keeping. 

The Judaizers have clearly picked a theological fight with the wrong person. There may not be anyone on the planet with a better understanding of the OT than the man from Tarsus. 

In this letter to the Galatians, he uses the truth of the Hebrew Bible as a wrecking ball to pound away at their phony gospel.

After bringing up Abraham's two sons, Ishmael and Isaac (Gal 4:22-23), Paul uses their story as analogy. "Now this may be interpreted allegorically" (v24). The original text literally reads "which are things allegorized.” 

The Greek verb here is αλληγορεω/allegoreo. It's the idea of trying to convey something other than literal meaning. It means to talk figuratively, to use analogies and to illustrate using comparisons.

Let's be VERY clear here. Paul is NOT saying that the story of Abraham's two ladies in Genesis is some sort of fairy tale fabricated to explain something not understood. 

The story of Abe, his aging wife and their young maid is much more than some sort of risque soap opera. It's actually TRUE! It is history. It is fact. 

We're to read the OT for what it says. It's not to be spiritualized. We are to read it in context of God's bigger story, the Meta-Narrative. In that story, Jesus is the Point of the story. Jesus is the one and only Hero of the Bible. 

And here, Paul is simply using the story of Hagar and Sarah as a way explaining the difference between those living under the law and those living under grace.  

When the apostle's done with his illustration, we'll have a better understanding of who we are and where we've come from.  We'll realize that living under the law is NOT a family heritage.  That's a brother from another mother.

The apostle begins his analogy.  "These women are two covenants" (v24).  Paul compares Hagar and Sarah with two of God's covenant promises.  

The mother of Ishmael plays the part of the Mosaic Covenant, "One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, she is Hagar" (v24).  

In case you missed it the first time, he repeats it again: "Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia" (v25).  She reps the promise Yahweh made with His people through Moses on the mountain just after He freed them from 400-plus years of Egyptian slavery.  

It included the Ten Commandments but actually numbered a grand total of 613 commands.   That’s right, the Mosaic Covenant was 613 conditional commands.  

In order to gain God's blessing, the people had to obey them perfectly, completely and flawlessly (Ex 19:5-6).  

Read that again. There were 613 backbreaking commands.  Take a look at the impossible standard God dictated to Moses that's listed in Exodus 19-31.  

And it really didn't make it any difference if there was one or 613.  Before the Big Mo could make it back down the mountain, the people were partying like rock stars in front of a golden cow (Ex 32).

The Mosaic Covenant was NEVER intended to save anyone.  God gave it to His people to let us know that we could never save ourselves through our own performance, even on our best day.  

The law is not a spiritual therapeutic treatment but a diagnostic device.  Paul puts it this way in Romans: "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom 4:20).  It's used to diagnose our disease.  

It is NOT the cure.  He gave us the law to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we need a Savior.  We need Jesus.  The Ultimate Remedy.

But there are those who misuse the law as a means of salvation.  That's like trying to cure an appendicitis with MRI.  It doesn't matter how many times the patient gets scanned, there's no treatment involved.  It only reveals the disease.  

The Judaizers were some of those that used the Mosaic Covenant as the cure.  Paul let's us know that Hagar represents that futile and foolish effort of self-salvation in his analogy.  "She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children" (v25).  

The "present Jerusalem" is where priests still offered animal sacrifices at the temple altar in the first century.  This was pointless for two reasons.  

First, Jesus' death on a Roman cross fulfilled God's requirement for sacrificial death once and for all (Heb 7:27; 9:12; 10:10).  Second, God's Spirit hit the road and left the temple centuries before (Ezek 10:18; 11:23).  

Hagar is the ultimate femme fatale in this drama.  She's the bad girl that leads us down the bad road.  She is the "present Jerusalem."  

She is the pinup girl for the Judaizers.  She represents slavery.  She represents works righteousness.  She represents self-salvation.

Meanwhile, the other female lead in the story is Sarah, or as Paul describes her, the "Jerusalem above" (v26).  She symbolizes life under the grace of Christ.  

Just as Abraham and Sarah should have trusted in the promise of God to provide a son through Sarah, we should trust in the promise of God to save us through grace by faith in Jesus.  Sarah is free.  And she represents the freedom we have in Christ.  

This reference to "Jerusalem above" is the New Jerusalem that God will drop from heaven when all things are made new at the final fulfillment of His promises (Rev 3:12; 21:1).  

It's God’s heavenly paradise.  And one great and glorious day, heaven comes to earth when His kingdom literally comes.

Then the apostle makes a VERY important description of Sarah (who is strangely unnamed in this analogy).  "She is our mother" (v26).  Let's be clear about this, Paul says.  If you’re a follower of Jesus, Sarah's your mom.  Not Hagar.  

Your spiritual identity is found in the one through whom God pledged to fulfill His promise to Abraham.  Sarah is not only Paul's spiritual mom, but she's also the matriarch for the Galatians and all of those who've placed their faith in Jesus.  

As a follower of Christ, you are not one of Hagar's kids.  You're a brother from another mother.

Paul goes on to quote the prophet Isaiah.  "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!  For the children of the desolate one will be more than the one who has a husband" (v27; Is 54:1).  

He's applying this prophecy to the "Jerusalem above."  Like Sarah, one great day she'll have more kids, grandkids and great grandkids than you could ever imagine.

The apostle connects the dots in verse 28 by writing, "Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise."  By placing our faith in what Jesus did on our behalf, we are Sarah's kids and Isaac's brothers.  

Hagar represents taking things into our own hands and trying to do what only God can.  Sarah plays the part of the one who realizes that the only answer is to place our trust in the Lord.  

If we've trusted in Jesus' perfect life in our place, bloody death in our place and glorious resurrection in our place, we're like Ike and "children of promise."  

And like Ike, a brother from another mother.

©2012

Jay Jennings

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

Frankenstein's Monster and the Walking Dead

Paul continues to pound away at the counterfeit gospel spread by the Judaizers in the Galatian churches.  In essence, these spiritual snake oil salesmen have duped these new disciples into believing that Jesus may have brought them into His kingdom but its up their own rule-keeping to stay there.  

Let's face facts.  We continue to fall for this scam 2,000 years later.  That's why the apostle's letter to the Galatians is so very, very important for us today.

After contrasting God's law with God's promise (Gal 3:10-19), Paul demonstrates that these two things are not opposition but working together.  "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?  Certainly not!" (v21).  

After following his previous argument, it would be very easy to dismiss God's law as something bad, something to be avoided, something to stiff arm.  

But the apostle let's us know that is not the case at all.  He responds to his own question with an unequivocal answer.  This is the absolute strongest language he can use.  He literally says, "May it never be!"  Heaven forbid that the law and the promise would ever be seen in opposition!

The big idea here is that God can never be in opposition to Himself.  That's completely impossible for the Lord to do one thing and then turn around to do something against that.  That's completely foreign to His nature.  

While we might not understand His ways (let's face it, they ARE mysterious!), we don't see things from His omniscient perspective.  God never contradicts Himself.  Ever.  Take that to the bank.

Paul tells us that God's law doesn't give life because that's not why He gave us the law.  "For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (v21).  The law is not the tool to create life.  That's not it's purpose.

Think of it this way.  If Dr. Frankenstein hooked his monster up to the Mosaic law, the creature would still be on the slab.  The maniacal doctor can scream, "Give my creature life!" all he wants.  The law is NOT a source of life.  

Since we've gone down the horror movie path, let's take it a step further.  Trying to follow the law in order to find life only transforms us into spiritual zombies.  The Walking Dead.  Only without all that nasty brain eating.

Paul goes on to conclude that if the law could give life, "then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (v21).  If we could become righteous, holy and perfect by simply obeying the law then there's no reason for Jesus.  

No need for Him to live the life we could never live.  No need for Him to die the death we should have died.  There would be no point if the law brought life through righteous and perfect obedience.

The apostle goes on to give us the two-fold purpose of God's law.  "But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin" (v22).  Understand that when Paul refers to "the Scripture," there was only the OT at the time.  

At the moment he put pen to paper, the only NT book written at this point was James.  So he's talking about the Torah.  The Law and the Prophets.  The Jewish Bible.  

He let's us know that one very important thing that God's revealed Word does is to let us know that we're all sin-sick.  Every last stinkin' one of us.  

Take a look around.  Who do you see?  They're all sinners.  That includes the one in your mirror.  Sinners.  It's universal.  

My wife and I just returned from a trip aboard the largest cruise ship in the world.  The ship holds 6,200 guests and 1,500 crew members.  

That's a total of 7,700 sinners.  Every last person on that massive craft falls short of God's righteous standard.  

That's the consistent message of the Bible (1Ki 8:46; Ps 143:2; Pro 20:9; Ecc 7:20; Is 53:6; Rom 3:9-23, 11:32).  You.  Me.  Everyone who has ever lived (with One marvelous exception!).  Everyone who will ever live.

In other words, the first purpose of God's law is to diagnose our sin.  It's to let us know just how completely jacked up I am.  

God's law is our diagnostic tool.  It's His MRI, CT scan, x-ray or ultrasound.  It doesn't heal anything.  It simply reveals our terminal condition.

The second purpose of God's law is to point us to His promise.  "So that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (v21).  In other words, God's law so devastates and destroys us that we come to see our desperate need for a Savior.  

That's the Good News.  The Gospel is His promise.  We receive His promise by placing our trust in what Jesus did for us that we could never, ever do.  

God's law could never give life.  It could never provide righteousness.  Not in a million years.  The only source of life and righteousness is Jesus.  

He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14:6).  He is our righteousness (2Cor 5:21).  The only way we truly live is to embrace what He has done for us (Jn 3:16; Acts 10:43).  That's God's promise in Jesus.

Or we could try to gain life through the law.  We are Frankenstein's monster, a lifeless corpse on the table.  We are zombies, the living dead.  I don't know about you, but I'll take the promise, thank you very much. 

©2012 

Jay Jennings

I Fought the Law and the Law Won

So what's the deal with the law anyway?

That's the question Paul begins answering in verses 19-20.  He's working hard to surgically remove the spiritual shrapnel among the Galatian church left from the attack by the Judaizers.  

They've convinced these believers that Jesus saves but it's up to each of us to work like crazy to maintain our salvation by religious rule-keeping.  

He's flipped through the pages of the OT to disprove this idea while explaining that God has always said, "The righteous shall live by faith" (Gal 3:11; Hab 2:4).

So what's the deal with the law?  That's the obvious question at this point.  If God's promise to Abraham is not voided by God's law that came some 430 years later, then what's its purpose (Gal 3:17-18)?  

Paul addresses the 800 pound gorilla in the room: So what's the deal with the law anyway?  "Why then the law?" (v19).  Let's be clear what "law" he's talking about.  This is the law that God gave Moses at Mt. Sinai after God freed His people from slavery in Egypt (Ex 19-31).  

If you're scoring along at home, that's not just Ten Commandments but 613 laws Yahweh gave His people after busting them out of Egypt.  All they had to do was obey them perfectly and everything was peachy.

But there was just one small problem.  God's standard is perfection.  God's standard is absolutely impossible.  

You see, God didn't give His law to save.  God gave His law in order to reveal just how jacked up we are.  Paul says it this way: "It (the law) was added because of transgressions" (v19).  

Yahweh handed the law to us through Moses to reveal our sin, our inability to save ourselves and our desperate need for a Savior.  

God gives us the law as a wall that we slam into.  The very moment we try to save ourselves through obeying the list, we quickly realize that we've brought a toothpick to a knife fight.  We would have better luck trying to reach the moon with a step stool.  It's just not possible.

I soon find out that when I attempt to follow the law, I'm actually fighting the law.  It surrounds me.  Everywhere I turn, the law never stops its unending attack on me.  The fight is pointless.  I fought the law and the law won.  And it does so EVERY time.  

So again it forces us to ask, "What's the deal with the law?"  The apostle tells us that the law "was added because of transgressions" (v19).  

I think Matt Chandler explains this incredibly well.  He says the law is simply a diagnostic tool.  It's like an x-ray, MRI, CT scan or ultrasound machine.  All it does is reveal our desperate condition.  

No matter how many times we go back for another diagnostic test, these miraculous medical tools don't heal.  They simply disclose the disease.  

God gives us the law so that we can understand there is only one cure: Jesus Christ.  That's Paul's point in both Romans 7 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11.  The law is good.  We're the problem.

For those who think that Jesus ignored the law or softened the law, you may want to crack open the Gospels.  Ever tried to obey the Sermon on the Mount?  Sheesh!  

Christ takes the OT law and lets us know that God's impossible standard is even higher than we've ever imagined.  Jesus didn't ignore the law.  It reminds me of the company in the commercial that doesn't make anything, they just make it better.  

I fought the law and the law won.  And it wins EVERY time.

Paul goes on to say that God gave us this diagnostic device called the law "until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made" (v19).  

He's clued us in earlier that this "offspring" is actually Jesus (Gal 3:16).  And God made His promise to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 12:2-3).  In other words, the Jewish people.  

Jesus came first to the Jews to then offer God's salvation to the entire world (Gal 3:7-9; Gen 22:18).  Remember, the majority of believers in Galatia aren't Jewish.  

They need to know they don't have to become Jewish in order to follow Christ.  That's what the false teachers have told them.

The apostle uses the phrase "the promise was made" (v19).  This is the verb επαγγελλω/epangello.  It's the verb form of the noun επαγγαλια/epangelia, which means promise or pledge.  

Paul uses both of these words a total of eleven times in this short letter.  Nine of those occurrences are in chapter three.  

What's this promise?  Glad you asked.  The Gospel.  Jesus.  God fulfills EVERYTHING in Him!

Paul pulls back the divine curtain just a bit to let us know that the law "was put in place through angels and by an intermediary" (v19).  

A couple of different times we read in Scripture that angelic messengers play a role in delivering God's Word (Acts 7:53; Heb 2:2).  But that's about all the info we get.

The intermediary he writes about is undoubtedly Moses.  The Israelites wanted know part of any face-to-face contact with an awesome God.  They begged the Mighty Mo to do it for them (Ex 20:19; Dt 5:5).

The meaning behind verse 20 is a little murky.  "Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one."  Most likely it refers to God's role as both the initiator of the covenant promise to Abraham as well as the ratifier.  It describes God's grace to us.  

There was absolutely nothing Abe did to instigate such a promise, ratify such a promise or keep such a promise.  It was only through the sovereign and amazing grace of God.

In the end, Paul lets us know that God gave us His law to break us, not to save us.  It's a diagnostic tool.  Not a therapeutic treatment.  Only Jesus saves.  Only Jesus heals.

I can fight the law, but the law wins.  EVERY time.

©2012 

Jay Jennings