Galatians 4:21-31

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Galatians 4:24. Which things are an allegory.—Under the things spoken of—the two sons, with their contrast of parentage and position—there lies a spiritual meaning.

Galatians 4:25. Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.—Judaism as rejecting the light and liberty of the new dispensation.

Galatians 4:26. But Jerusalem which is above is free.—Is the spiritual reality which, veiled under the old dispensation, is comparatively unveiled in the dispensation of grace, and destined to be fully and finally manifested in the reign of glory. Christians are very different in standing to slave-born slaves.

Galatians 4:27. The desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.—The special purpose of the quotation appears to be to show that the idea of a countless Church, including Gentiles as well as Jews, springing out of spiritual nothingness, was apprehended under the Old Testament as destined for realisation under the New.

Galatians 4:30. Cast out the bondwoman and her son.—Even house-room to Judaism is not matter of right, but only by sufferance, and that so long and so far as it leaves the gospel undisturbed in full possession.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 4:21

The History of Hagar and Sarah allegorical of the Law and the Gospel.

I. The two women represented two different covenants.—

1. Hagar represented Sinai, typical of the law with its slavish exactions and terrible threatenings (Galatians 4:22; Galatians 4:25). Sinai spoke of bondage and terror. It was a true symbol of the working of the law of Moses, exhibited in the present condition of Judaism. And round the base of Sinai Hagar’s wild sons had found their dwelling. Jerusalem was no longer the mother of freemen. Her sons chafed under the Roman yoke. They were loaded with self-inflicted burdens. The spirit of the nation was that of rebellious, discontented slaves. They were Ishmaelite sons of Abraham, with none of the nobleness, the reverence, the calm and elevated faith of their father. In the Judaism of the apostle’s day the Sinaitic dispensation, uncontrolled by the higher patriarchal and prophetic faith, had worked out its natural result. It gendered to bondage. A system of repression and routine, it had produced men punctual in tithes of mint and anise, but without justice, mercy, or faith; vaunting their liberty while they were servants of corruption. The Pharisee was the typical product of law apart from grace. Under the garb of a freeman he carried the soul of a slave.

2. Sarah represented Jerusalem, typical of the gospel with its higher freedom and larger spiritual fruitfulness (Galatians 4:26).—Paul has escaped from the prison of legalism, from the confines of Sinai; he has left behind the perishing earthly Jerusalem, and with it the bitterness and gloom of his Pharisaic days. He is a citizen of the heavenly Zion, breathing the air of a divine freedom. The yoke is broken from the neck of the Church of God; the desolation is gone from her heart. Robbed of all outward means, mocked and thrust out as she is by Israel after the flesh, her rejection is a release, an emancipation. Conscious of the spirit of sonship and freedom, looking out on the boundless conquests lying before her in the Gentile world, the Church of the new covenant glories in her tribulations. In Paul is fulfilled the joy of prophet and psalmist, who sang in former days of gloom concerning Israel’s enlargement and world-wide victories (Findlay).

II. The antagonism of their descendants represented the violent and incessant opposition of the law to the gospel.—“As he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.… Cast out the bondwoman and her son” (Galatians 4:29). Sooner or later the slave-boy was bound to go. He has no proper birthright, no permanent footing in the house. One day he exceeds his licence, he makes himself intolerable; he must be gone. The Israelitish people showed more than Ishmael’s jealousy toward the infant Church of the Spirit. No weapon of violence or calumny was too base to be used against it. Year by year they became more hardened against spiritual truth, more malignant towards Christianity, and more furious and fanatical in their hatred towards their civil rulers. Ishmael was in the way of Isaac’s safety and prosperity (Ibid.).

III. The gospel bestows a richer inheritance than the law.—“The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.… We are children of the free” (Galatians 4:30). The two systems were irreconcilable. The law and the gospel cannot coexist and inherit together; the law must disappear before the gospel. The higher absorbs the lower. The Church of the future, the spiritual seed of Abraham gathered out of all nations, has no part in legalism. It embraces blessings of which Mosaism had no conception—“an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”

Lessons.—

1. The law and the gospel differ fundamentally

2. The law imposes intolerable burdens.

3. The gospel abrogates the law by providing a higher spiritual obedience.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Galatians 4:21. Legal Bondage and Spiritual Freedom contrasted—

I. In their inception and development (Galatians 4:21).

II. In their ceaseless antagonism (Galatians 4:29).

III. In their inevitable results (Galatians 4:28; Galatians 4:30).

Galatians 4:21. A Lesson from the Law—

I. Addressed to those eager for its subjection.—“Ye that desire to be under the law.”

II. Is suggestive of solemn warning.

III. Should be seriously pondered.—“Tell me, do ye not hear the law?”

Galatians 4:26. Jerusalem Above.

I. The Church of Christ as she exists in the present world.—“Jerusalem, above and free.”

1. Above; that is, seen in connection with God and the scenes of the heavenly world.—

(1) Her Head is from above.
(2) If we take the Church as a whole, though she is in part on earth, the greater number of her members are in heaven.
(3) Our Jerusalem is above because her members all fix their affections there and thither tend as the great end of their profession.
2. Jerusalem above is free, and so are her children.—From the bondage of seeking salvation by works of law, from the guilt of sin, from its dominion.

II. The filial sentiment with which we ought to regard the Church of Christ.—She is “the mother of us all.” The general idea is, that if we are indeed spiritual, under God, we owe all to the Church. To her God has committed the preservation of His truth. In stormy times she has sheltered her lamps in the recesses of the sanctuary, and in happier times has placed them on high to guide and save. The Spirit of God is in the Church. To her you owe your hallowed fellowships. In the Church it is that God manifests Himself.

III. The animating anticipations we are thus taught to form of the Church as glorified.—Turn to the description given in Revelation 21:1. Mark the wall great and high—denoting the perfect, impregnable security of those who dwell there.

2. At the gates are angels—still ushering in the heirs of salvation, and disdaining not to be porters to this glorious city.

3. Mark the foundations, garnished with all manner of precious stones—implying permanency.

4. Mark the circumstance that in the twelve foundations are inscribed the names of the twelve apostles—the whole being the result of their doctrine.

5. The whole city is a temple all filled with the presence and glory of God. No holiest of all is there where every part is most holy. All are filled, sanctified, beatified, by the fully manifested presence of God. He is all in all; all things in and to all.—Richard Watson.

Jerusalem a Type of the Universal Church.

I. God chose Jerusalem above all other places to dwell in. The Church catholic is the company chosen to be the particular people of God.

II. Jerusalem is a city compact in itself by reason of the bond of love and order among the citizens. In like sort the members of the Church catholic are linked together by the bond of one Spirit.

III. In Jerusalem was the sanctuary, a place of God’s presence, where the promise of the seed of the woman was preserved till the coming of the Messias. Now the Church catholic is in the room of the sanctuary, in it we must seek the presence of God and the word of life.

IV. In Jerusalem was the throne of David. In the Church catholic is the throne or sceptre of Christ.

V. The commendation of a city, as Jerusalem, is the subjection and obedience of the citizens. In the Church catholic all believers are citizens, and they yield voluntary obedience and subjection to Christ their King.

VI. As in Jerusalem the names of the citizens were enrolled in a register, so the names of all the members of the Church catholic are enrolled in the Book of Life.

VII. The Church catholic is said to be above:

1. In respect of her beginning.
2. Because she dwells by faith in heaven with Christ.—Perkins.

Galatians 4:28. Believers Children of Promise.

I. The character.—

1. Believers are the children of promise by regeneration.
2. By spiritual nourishment.
3. In respect of education.
4. With respect to assimilation, likeness, and conformity.

II. State the comparison.—

1. Isaac was the child of Abraham, not by natural power. Believers are children of Abraham by virtue of promise.
2. Isaac was the fruit of prayer, as well as the child of promise.
3. Isaac’s birth was the joy of his parents. Even so with reference to believers.
4. Isaac was born not after the flesh, but by the promise; not of the bondwoman, but of the free. So believers are not under the law.
5. Isaac was no sooner born but he was mocked by Ishmael; so it is now.
6. Isaac was the heir by promise, though thus persecuted. Even so believers.

III. How the promise hath such virtue for begetting children to God.—

1. As it is the discovery of divine love.
2. The object of faith.
3. The ground of hope.
4. The seed of regeneration.
5. The communication of grace.
6. The chariot of the Spirit.

Inferences.—

1. If believers are children of promise, then boasting is excluded.

2. Then salvation is free.
3. The happiness and dignity of believers—they are the children of God.—Pulpit Assistant.

Galatians 4:29. On Persecution.

I. That no privilege of the Church can exempt her from persecution.—

1. From the consideration of the quality of the persons here upon the stage, the one persecuting, the other suffering.

(1) The persecuting—“born after the flesh.” Like Hannibal, they can part with anything but war and contention; they can be without their native country, but not without an enemy. These whet the sword, these make the furnace of persecution seven times hotter than it would be. The flesh is the treasury whence these winds blow that rage and beat down all before them.
(2) The suffering—“born after the Spirit.” Having no security, no policy, no eloquence, no strength, but that which lieth in his innocency and truth, which he carrieth about as a cure, but it is looked upon as a persecution by those who will not be healed. “For he must appear,” said Seneca, “as a fool that he may be wise, as weak that he may be strong, as base and vile that he may be more honourable.” If thou be an Isaac, thou shalt find an Ishmael.
2. From the nature and constitution of the Church which in this world is ever militant.—Persecution is the honour, the prosperity, the flourishing condition, of the Church. When her branches were lopped off she spread the more, when her members were dispersed there were more gathered to her, when they were driven about the world they carried that sweet-smelling savour about them which drew in multitudes to follow them.

3. From the providence and wisdom of God who put this enmity between these two seeds.—God’s method is best. That is method and order with Him which we take to be confusion, and that which we call persecution is His art, His way of making saints. In Abraham’s family Ishmael mocketh and persecuteth Isaac, in the world the synagogue persecuteth the Church, and in the Church one Christian persecuteth another. It was so, it is so, and it will be so to the end of the world.

II. The lessons of persecution.—

1. The persecution of the Church should not create surprise.

2. Not to regard the Church and the world as alike.

3. Build ourselves up in faith so as to be prepared for the fiery trial.

4. Love the truth you profess.

5. Be renewed in spirit.—A. Farindon.

Galatians 4:30. Cast out the Bondwoman and her Son.—To cast out is an act of violence, and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part. How shall the Church cast out those of her own house and family?

1. By the vehemency of our prayers that God would either melt their hearts or shorten their hands, either bring them into the right way, or strike off their chariot wheels.
2. By our patience and longsuffering.
3. By our innocency of life and sincerity of conversation.
4. By casting our burden upon the Lord.—Ibid.

The Fate of Unbelievers.

I. All hypocrites, mockers of the grace of God, shall be cast forth of God’s family, though for a time they bear a sway therein. This is the sentence of God. Let us therefore repent of our mocking, and become lovers of the grace of God.

II. The persecution of the people of God shall not be perpetual, for the persecuting bondwoman and her son must be cast out.

III. All justiciary people and persons that look to be saved and justified before God by the law, either in whole or in part, are cast out of the Church of God, and have no part in the kingdom of heaven. The casting out of Hagar and Ishmael is a figure of the rejection of all such.—Perkins.