Galatians 4:24 - Homiletics

Allegorized interpretation of the facts.

"Which things are to be allegorically treated."

I. THE FACTS ARE CAPABLE OF THIS TREATMENT . The apostle does not mean to signify that the facts are not historical; nor does he mean to explain them away as if they were allegory like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress; ' nor does he mean that Moses shaped his narrative in Genesis with a view to this allegorized treatment. It is more correct to say that the lives of these real personages were so shaped by Divine providence as to afford a striking illustration of other events or objects. The two covenants were prefigured in the Old Testament under the image of the two wives of Abraham and their seed respectively. There is nothing in the apostle's usage to justify the allegorizing methods of Origen and the rabbis, which destroy the true sense of Scripture. If we admit the apostle's inspiration, we cannot reject his allegorical interpretation of the ancient facts.

II. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO COVENANTS . "For these"—that is, the two women—"are the two covenants." Hagar and Sarah represent the two covenants in three important points of contrast.

1 . In the historic origination of the covenants.

2 . In their religious effects.

3 . In their future expansion. Both Hagar and Sarah were to have large posterity, but Sarah was to have the larger family, according to Scripture prophecy itself. The original promise—"In thee and in thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed"—implied this pregnant fact. But a voice from Isaiah sets it forth in an impressive light, "Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not," that is, Sarah, or the Abrahamic covenant; "break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she" (Hagar) "which bath the husband" (Abraham). Thus Sarah was to become "the mother of nations." Thus Abraham was to become the heir of the world, and Jews and Gentiles were to enter into his wide inheritance. Verses 28-31 .—Conclusion of the whole matter. The apostle points to a further coincidence between the type and the antitype.

I. MARK THE HISTORIC FACT . "He that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit." He refers to Ishmael's mockery of Isaac. As the elder son, with the right of primogeniture, he ridiculed the feast given in honour of Isaac as the heir. The spirit of persecution was in that mockery that sprang out of jealousy and ill feeling.

II. MARK ITS ALLEGORIC SIGNIFICANCE . "Even so it is now." The persecutors of Paul were Judaists "born after the flesh," for they claimed to inherit the blessings of the covenant by virtue of carnal ordinances. They were adroit in all the arts of cruel mockery. Scripture tells the vivid story of persecution directed against the Christianity of the first age by the fanaticism of the Jews. The apostle might well say in his first epistolary writing concerning the Jews, "who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and drove out us; and please not God, and are contrary to all men" ( 1 Thessalonians 2:15 ).

III. THE INHERITANCE AN EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION . "Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall in no wise be heir with the son of the freewoman." The apostle adopts the words of Sarah addressed to Abraham; not giving any hint of the nearness of the destruction of Jerusalem and its whole ecclesiastical polity, but emphasizing the importance of the Galatians standing clear of the doomed system. As there could be no joint heirship between Ishmael and Isaac, so there could be no fusion or amalgamation of Law and gospel. Judaism could not be combined with Christianity. It was to be utterly cast out, though it then tenaciously held its ground side by side with Christianity even within the Church of God itself.

IV. INFERENCE FROM THIS WHOLE ALLEGORIC LESSON . "So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free." "We, as Isaac was, are children of promise." Let us, therefore, recognize our true position with its blessed immunities and privileges. Let us forsake the dangerous fellowship of those who are children of the bondwoman. The Galatian tendency was false and evil; for it involved their losing what they had and getting nothing better in its place. Their true attitude was that of freedom.