JUNE 25, 2023
THE APOSTLE’S EARNEST REASONING AND WARNINGS (PART II)
INTRODUCTION:
1. The reason why the Galatian Epistle has been called “the battle cry of the Reformation,” is because in it the Apostle quite convincingly proves the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without the works of the law.
2. Paul’s powerful arguments have thus far been presented in the forms of a defense. We have considered his powerful defense of himself and his office. (Ch. 1:11-2:21); and his defense of his doctrine (Ch. 3:1-4:7).
3. On the basis of his solid defense of the truth, the Apostle earnestly reasons with the Galatians, and warns them of the dangers of listening to false teachers. (Ch. 4:8-5:12)
I. THE APOSTLE WARNED THAT THEY WERE IN DANGER OF SUBJECTING THEMSELVES TO BONDAGE SIMILAR TO THAT FROM WHICH THEY HAD BEEN DELIVERED. (VERSES 8-11)
II. THE APOSTLE POINTS OUT THAT SINCE THEIR CONVERSION, NOTHING HAD OCCURRED THAT SHOULD CHANGE THEIR FEELINGS TOWARD HIMSELF OR HIS DOCTRINE. (VERSES 12-16)
III. THE APOSTLE EXPOSES THE UNWORTHY ACTS OF THE JUDAIZING TEACHERS. (VERSES 17-20) In the preceding verses, he had endeavored to rekindle the affection that the Galatians once had for him, by showing how fondly he recalled their kind regards, and if he ever had deserved their esteem, he had done nothing to become unworthy of it. He now proceeds to expose the base acts of the false teachers, who had deliberately tried to under- mine their love for him, and seduce them from the true Christian doctrine, as he had taught it to them.
A. THE JUDAIZERS WERE ZEALOUSLY COURTING THE GALATIAN CHRISTIANS, BUT NOT FOR ANY COMMENDABLE PURPOSE. (VERSE 17)
1. These Judaizing teachers pretended the warmest attachment to the Galatian converts, and sought to ingratiate themselves with them, but there was nothing honorable about their motives.
2. Ostensibly, the Judaizers were deeply concerned for them. “They zealously affect you.” But Paul saw through them, and discerned dishonorable intentions.
3. Their real object was to exclude the Galatians, to shut them out from all influence except their own, particularly to isolate them from any effect Paul might have on them.
4. Paul exposes the real motive of these false teachers. “They would exclude you that ye might affect them.” They wanted to isolate the Galatian believers so that they would zealously court them.
B. IT IS GOOD TO BE ZEALOUSLY AFFECTED BY GOOD MEN IN A GOOD THING. (VERSES 17-20)
1. Paul had himself been the object of their whole soul’s attention and affection in a good thing. He had himself courted their favor, if you will, and had won it in a good cause. They had been won to Christ by him and his gospel, which resulted in their being zealously affected to him as well.
2. It had been good had they remained zealously affected to Paul and his gospel even in his absence. “It is good to be zealously affected…not only when I am present with you.”
3. That was the trouble. Their attachment to Paul had lost its warmth. Their zeal for the truth had subsided. Their loyalty was in the process of being transferred from Paul to the proponents of dangerous error. Everything was fine as long as Paul was present with them. But once he was gone, and the false teachers had arrived, the alienation of affection had begun, and that, to their own hurt.
C. THE APOSTLE EXPRESSES HIS DEEP ANXIETY FOR THEM AND HIS WISH TO BE PRESENT WITH THEM. (VERSES 19, 20)
1. He expresses his great anxiety for the Galatians in terms particularly touching. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” (Verse 19)
a) They had been brought into the faith through his instrumentality. He had been as their mother in travail, as it were, in bringing them to faith in Christ.
b) Now, seeing that they are still unsettled in their faith, he must yet travail as a mother giving birth, until he can know that Christ is truly formed in them. The phrase is very expressive. When one becomes a true Christian, Christ is formed in him.
c) Folks who are not settled in their faith, but are wishy-washy and changeable, give cause to question whether they are truly born of God. Zion must continue in travail for them, until there is evidence that Christ is formed in them, that a true child is brought forth. (Isa. 66:7)
2. Paul felt restricted and limited by the fact of his separation from them. He was confined to writing, which was not subject to tone or inflexion. Neither could there be any dialogue. (Verse 20)
a) It is striking that Paul, even though writing by divine inspiration, felt disadvantaged by the restrictions of time and space. They could not read the sorrow written on his face, or hear the tender love in his voice.
b) He had no choice but to reprove and rebuke them, and say, “O foolish Galatians,” but were he present, he could change the tone of his voice as he spoke.
c) Let us be so concerned as we speak God’s truth, that our tone and countenance not express hatred or bitterness, but rather love and tenderness.
IV. THE APOSTLE GIVES AN INSTRUCTIVE ALLEGORY. (VERSES 21-31)
A. THE PURPOSE OF THE ALLEGORY WAS TO GIVE UNDERSTANDING TO THOSE WHO WOULD BE UNDER THE LAW. (VERSE 21)
1. He asks the Galatians who desire to be under the law, (the Mosaic institutions) do ye not hear (understand) what the law (the books of Moses) is saying?”
2. The notions about the law which the Judaizing teachers had instilled into the minds of the Galatian converts were false, therefore their attachments to the law was formed on these false notions.
3. The best way of weaning them from their attachment to the law was to show them that such a yoke was not fraught with safety and honor, but instead with danger and disgrace.
4. This the Apostle does by a reference to a piece of Jewish history which affords a striking emblematic representation of the truth on this subject, and which had already been used by the prophet Isaiah. (Isa. 54:1)
B. THE ALLEGORY. (VERSES 22, 23)
1. “For it is written…” this does not mean that what follows is written in so many words in any of the books of the Old Testament, but that the facts here stated are related there.
2. “Abraham had two sons…” Abraham had a number of sons besides Isaac and Ishmael, but it is these, and to the circumstances of their birth, their conduct, history, and fate that the Apostle wishes to relate.
3. “The one by a bond woman, and the other by a freewoman…”
a) Ishmael was the son of Hagar, a female slave.
b) Isaac was the son of Sarah, a freewoman.
4. “He who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.”
a) Ishmael was born according to the ordinary course of nature.
b) Isaac was born in consequence of a peculiar interference of heaven, made known ‘by promise.”
5. These are the facts of the history which make for an allegory.
C. THE ALLEGORY EXPLAINED. (VERSES 24-27)
1. When he says, “which things are an allegory,” he is not implying that the factual record (Verses 22, 23) was intended merely to provide analogy.
a) God has given us such accounts not only to teach us what happened in the past, but also to enable us to apply the lessons of the past to our present situation.
b) Such things, then, are true as history, and valuable as graphic illustrations for teaching.
c) As John Brown explains it, Paul, in saying that such things are an allegory, is acknowledging that the prophet Isaiah had used them in that way. Thus, he adds the quotation from Isaiah 54:1. (Verse 27)
2. Paul explains that these two, Agar and Sarah, are the two covenants, that is, they were intended to typify and prefigure the two different dispensations of the covenant. Or, as William Hendrickson puts it, “These two women are (that is represented) two covenants, two distinct affirmations of God’s one and only covenant of grace…these two were: the covenant with Abraham (Ch. 3:8, 16-18) and the covenant of Sinai.” (Ch. 3:19, 24)
a) Agar represented that which was given from Mt. Sinai, and “which gendereth to bondage.” (Verse 24)
(1) Though it was a dispensation of grace, its purpose was to bring souls into a state of bondage, that is, to a realization of their condition as slaves to their sins.
(2) It became to the Jews even more so a cause of bondage through their mistaken notion as to its design.
(3) “For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia” (Mount Sinai was then called Agar by the Arabians) “and it answereth to Jerusalem that now is, and is in bondage with her children.” (Verse 25) That is, she justly represents the present state of the Jews, who adhering to that covenant remain in bondage.
b) Sarah, on the other hand, was intended to prefigure Jerusalem which is above, that is, the state of Christians under a new and better dispensation of the covenant, which is free from both the curse of the moral law, and the bondage of the ceremonial law, and which is the mother of us all, both Jews and Gentiles. (Verse 26)
3. To this greater freedom and enlargement of the church under the Gospel dispensation, which it typified by Sarah the mother of the promised seed, the Apostle refers the words of the prophet Isaiah. It was Isaiah who first made allegorical use of these historic figures in this manner. (Verse 27, Isa. 54:1)
D. THE ALLEGORY EXTENDED. (VERSES 28-31)
1. The Apostle applies the history thus explained to the present case. (Verse 28)
a) “Now we…as Isaac…are the children of promise.” We, who trust in Christ for justification, become the spiritual, though not the natural, seed of Abraham.
b) Isaac was the child of promise, for in Isaac would the seed by called. (Rom. 9:7, 8)
2. The persecution that Christians would suffer at the hands of the Jews was also prefigured in the type. (Verse 2;
Gen. 21:8, 9) That Paul was thinking particularly of this incident, the next verse strongly indicates.
3. Although the Judaizers would hate and persecute them, yet it would be Judaism that would sink and perish with her children, while Christianity should flourish and last forever. (Verse 30; Gen. 21:10)
4. The happy condition of all who are trusting to Christ alone for their salvation is beautifully portrayed in the Apostle’s summation of this allegory. “So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” (Verse 31)
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