A TALE OF TWO WOMEN

Throughout the Bible there runs two groups of people. The story is an old one. It goes back to the Garden of Eden when a smooth-talking serpent conned a backwoods babe with a fixation on forbidden fruit. There followed a voice in the Garden, some embarrassing questions and then a promise from the Lord that was to set the stage for the rest of history.

This verse provides the theme of the rest of Genesis. This will be a book about two seeds:

Even though Cain was descended from Eve, he eventually follows the way of the Serpent in rebellion against God. While he is the physical descendant of Adam and Eve, he is the spiritual descendant of the Serpent. Like the Serpent, he rebels against God. And like the Serpent, he is cursed for his rebellion. The story continues as we are given two separate genealogies representing each of these two seeds.

Lamech is the culmination of the Seed of the Serpent through Cain. He takes Cain's sin and compounds it, threatening to do seven times the damage that Cain had done. In contrast, Enoch walks with God and Noah obeys the Lord in the building of an ark. But after Noah, there is again a departure of a seed to follow after the Seed of the Serpent.

Ham sins and shows by his sin that he is of the Seed of the Serpent. His son Canaan is cursed and continues to be a curse to the Israelites. The pattern continues as Ishmael is cast out while Isaac shows himself to be the son of faith. And again when Esau despises the promises of God, it is to Jacob that the promise is given.

Moses writes the book of Genesis to the Israelites in the wilderness. It is much more than a mere history book. It is a call to be a seed and a generation and a people. The question before the Israelites in the wilderness is which seed they will be a part of - the seed of the serpent or the seed of the woman? Each new generation will determine which seed it is. Will it continue in the covenant relation to God and show itself to be a part of the promised seed? Or will it turn from God to join and be a part of the seed of the serpent?

But the question does not stop with Genesis. The rest of the Bible, indeed, the rest of history contains the same issue. There are those who will seek the Lord and there are those who will seek their own way.

As we come to the end of Galatians 4, we see that Paul establishes a similar contrast. It is a contrast between two groups of people.

• Don't eat a junk food crop.

• Don't move to the wrong city.

• Don't be a part of the wrong church

We have already seen this chapter as a study in contrasts. We have contrasted the bondage of the Law versus the Adoption that we have in Christ. We have contrasted both the teachings and the attitudes of the Judaizers versus that exhibited by Paul. The final set of contrasts will come in the form of an allegory.

What is an allegory? Paul uses the term in verse 24 when he says: This is allegorically speaking. The Greek term used here is a present participle. It is a compound word made up of the joining together of two Greek words:

An allegory is a story which speaks another message beyond the plain meaning of the story. In the midst of its narrative it carries a deeper message which is apart from the story itself. This brings up a question to our Western minds. Why would Paul summarize his arguments with an appeal to an allegory? Several reasons can be proposed:

1. This allegory brings us full circle back to where Paul began in chapter 3 with the story of Abraham.
2. It is possible that this method had been used by the Judaizers and now Paul turns their own method against them.
3. Paul is able to use this allegory to illustrate and to review all of his main points.

a. There is a radical difference between law versus faith.

b. Life under the Law brings a curse; the life of faith brings blessing.

c. Life under the Law leads to slavery while the life of faith is liberating.

4. The story is a fitting climax to both the formal argument of 3:1 - 4:11 as well as to the personal appeal of 4:12-20.
5. It allows Paul to gently suggest in story form what he wishes the Galatians to do as a result of his epistle -- that the Galatians should obey God by casting out the legalizers.

Abraham had two sons. That in itself was significant because he originally was unable to have any children. He and his wife were both old and his wife had been barren even when she was young. God had promised to take Abraham's offspring and make from it a great nation. Abraham figured that he would help God out by having a son by his wife's handmaid. This was considered to be an acceptable practice in those days - I don't recommend trying it today.

Abraham had Ishmael by Hagar the Egyptian handmaid. But then God demonstrated that He didn't need Abraham's help in the first place when Sarah became pregnant. She gave birth to Isaac. Instead of having no sons, Abraham had come to have two sons. And to make matters worse, they did not get along. This was sibling rivalry multiplied by a factor of ten.

The birth of Ishmael is the story of Abraham not trusting God but instead, trying to accomplish the right thing in the wrong way. It is a story of unbelief. And that is exactly what has been at issue in Galatia.

Here is the point. It is possible to be the physical son of Abraham and still not be a partaker in the promise. The Judaizers were the sons of Abraham, but they had abandoned the promise that came through Abraham and Sarah. They wanted to hold on to the old bondage of the Law. They wanted to hold onto their own works-righteousness. It is as though they were of Hagar. They are like Ishmael who was born according to the flesh but are not children of the promise.

Now we have a further development of the allegory. We have already seen how one woman represents the flesh while the other represents a birth that is by promise.

This would have been a shocking statement to the Judaizers. They knew that Ishmael had given birth to the Arab nations. They were quick to look down upon the Arabs as being the people who were descended from a slave of Abraham and therefore of less position than themselves. But Paul points out that all who were under the Mosaic Covenant were in this same position of slavery

Paul is not necessarily picking on the Jews. He is not anti-Semitic. The truth of the matter is that ALL people who are outside of Christ are in this same position of slavery.

There is a lot of excitement these days among Christians about the possibility of the Jews rebuilding their Temple as though that had some wonderful prophetic ramifications. And perhaps it does. But the blessings of Jerusalem do not lie in the earthly state of Israel. They lie in the heavenly Jerusalem.

This corresponded to a persecution that took place by Ishmael against Isaac. Abraham seemed to be unaware of that persecution, but it was apparent to Sarah. Ishmael went out of his way to mock his younger sibling. His treatment of Isaac was paralleled by the treatment of the Gentiles by the Judaizers. Just as the flesh wars with the Spirit (5:17), so Ishmael, a child of the flesh, was at odds with Isaac, a child of the promise, born according to the Spirit (4:29).

But the issue was the inheritance. If Ishmael was allowed to remain, he might have become a contestant for the inheritance of Abraham. God had promised a supernatural inheritance through a supernatural seed. If that promise were not allowed to be fulfilled, there would be no salvation and the human race would find itself without hope in its sin. At stake was nothing less than the salvation of mankind.

The tragedy is in those who seek to follow in the way of Ishmael. These are the people who insist on trying to approach the Lord on the basis of their own works.

1. The Ishmael Church is a product of the flesh.

2. The Ishmael Church is man's substitute for the real thing.

3. The Ishmael Church is permitted a measure of blessing.

4. The Ishmael Church mocks the things of the Spirit.

5. The Ishmael Church remains in the same house for a while.

The good news is that if we are in Christ then we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. We have partaken of a supernatural birth. It has linked us to the promises of Abraham. And that has brought us true freedom.