The Life of Legalism Portrayed - Pt 2
Galatians 4:21-5:1 · Roger Henderson · Aug 22, 2010
Galatians (2010), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926213105721

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well last week, the reason I drew the three lines here is that people have kind of divided this section of scripture into the first part, 21 through 23, is called the story or the issue. It sets the stage for the rest of it. And we saw last week that we kind of have two lines. We have the line of Ishmael and we have the line of Isaac. And then we have two mothers, right? Hagar, which is a bondwoman, and we have Sarah. And we're going to see how these lines kind of play out.

And different titles can be given to those lines of people. And actually, in this context, we're going to see, and actually, as Paul wanted to point out, that actually represents the contrast between law and grace. And boy, the more you look at this, the more you see that scripture really has within it, you know, there's given in what God did. He had explanations for other things down the road and you marvel.

How could that play out? How could there How could their sin, in a sense, Abraham and Sarah, well, they decided they would do things their way. They would have the child of promise. They would create, well, we'll have a child, and we'll take care of that. I'll get my bondswoman here, my slave, and you have a child by her, and we'll take care of this.

But God had a different plan. So even through that going outside of God's will, there's a story, there's a lesson to be learned. And that's what Paul's trying to communicate here. And so we basically see a little phrase where we say, by the bondswoman or out of the bondswoman. So there's out of the bondswoman and there was consequences there and out of the free woman.

And then we see things according to the flesh, in verse 23, according to the flesh, which is sinful. And then the Son, by the free one, was according to the promise, God's promise of an heir of Abraham. And that heir would ultimately have his result in the Lord Jesus Christ and our blessing.

So it's just incredible. So today we're going to look at the middle part, which is the allegory. And before I go there, somebody asked me last week, give me your working definition of allegory. And it doesn't have to be, so this section, actually, and the more I look at it, there's actually bits and pieces of allegory kind of filters on down to the rest of it. But this is what's considered, these four verses are what's considered an allegory. So what would you say an allegory is? It is a parallel used for illustrative purposes. Let me clarify this by telling you something you're familiar with. Right. And then drawing the ties between those. Excellent. Very, very good. Very, very good.

Well, what's happened is that because and this is actually the only occurrence of this word allegory in scripture. So some people, you know, the critics that want to discount scripture say, oh, well, hey, here we go. Scripture is an allegory, see, and all that stuff in the Old Testament, that's all an allegory. You guys are, you know, so they try to discount scripture.

But if you look at what Paul does here, he has an allegory related to historical facts. Here's the facts of what happened. And I'm going to tell you. And it's actually spiritual truth being drawn out of the events that happened. So it's a different form of allegory. And actually, there's like maybe two parts. And we'll see that as we get into this.

Verses 24 and 25 talk about Hagar. and verses 26 and 27, even though her name's not mentioned, and this is the part that was interesting, talks about Sarah, by implication. I found this actually a fairly tough one, because I'm trying to understand an allegory, right? I understand the historical facts, and then you got, well, what's being said here, and how does that mesh? and without some help from Hal, and a few other people, and Burr, and other folks, I found it not easy. You possibly could go astray here, but I think actually once you look at it, it actually hangs together. Randy, did you have something you wanted to... Oh no, I'm excited to see where we go with this. So am I. I'm going to look ahead on my notes. Okay, so here we go.

Just to review the historical facts, Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. There were two mothers, Hagar and Sarah. Hagar was Sarah's slave. So she was under Sarah's control. And here's a little key point. There was a code, Hammurabi or something. I'm not sure. Hammurabi. Hammurabi, thank you. Hamra, thank you so much.

That said, if a slave bears a child by the master, the birth of the slave is still a slave. In Roman times, that was a different deal. But in this time, her offspring was a slave. So Ishmael was a slave. And that really fits in, that's key to this whole whole assumption here that that's a line of slavery and this is a line of freedom. If you kind of just read through it quickly you'll see slavery, freedom, slavery, freedom, just through the whole context. That's really key to understand that the line of Hagar and Ishmael is a line of slavery. Ishmael did not become, even though he was Abraham's son, he still was a slave. That was carried through pretty much during the Civil War in this country.

Good point. I hadn't thought about that. That's a good point. Excellent. They weren't elevated to... Like in Roman times, that was incredible. It was a much different deal. That's an excellent point. So basically, two positions. The one of a bondswoman, a slave. and a free woman, and then two births. One was a fleshly birth, a fleshly scheme. This was Abraham and Sarah.

Actually, Sarah came to Abraham with the idea, and last week we kind of talked about them. I liked Dale's comment. If the wife nags enough, she probably will get her way. Did I say that right? Okay, I tried to carry that through. Versus that, the promise. The promise, and we read the account last week, is a supernatural promise.

In fact, both Abraham and Sarah said, this is an impossible thing. This cannot happen. I'm too old, and we see in the New Testament Abraham says that Sarah's womb is dead. She can't conceive. And I'm 100 years old. So it was an impossible, a supernatural birth.

And we're going to see how that really ties into us as believers. Just think about it. Is our new birth, is that sort of an ordinary kind of deal? Or is that, that's a supernatural thing too. So there's a real tie in here. That we are children of promise. So it all ties back to this. It's really neat. OK, so that's kind of the summary there. OK, so we start with the first verse.

So basically, if you look at this, this actually says, in the numerical standard, it says, this is allegorically speaking. But literally, it's which things are being allegorized, or better, Actually, you could replace R by RB, R being allegorized. And that really helps.

The historical facts are being allegorized, not that they are allegories. So it's kind of a key distinction, right? I have facts, and I'm going to take those facts, and I'm going to tell you something to help you understand. That wasn't an allegory that happened back in the Old Testament. He's saying which things are allegorized.

It's very clear so that as a reader you understand what Paul meant. Right, right. But you can see the door, people just want to run with that, and they have. Okay, so actually I think the language actually supports exactly what... And so basically things are being allegorized as a history of Ishmael and Isaac and Hagar and Sarah. That's what's being allegorized. Okay, so actually I like this statement by Merriman here. He says, he Paul simply states that he is algorizing or spiritualizing the historical facts of Hagar Ishmael and Sarah Isaac incidents since they conveniently illustrate his point about the distinction of law versus grace.

So that's the key, that's what's going on here. Okay, it says, for these two, for these women are two covenants. The statements in here, because it's an allegory, you have to step back. They illustrate or represent the covenant. The word covenant is diakēfei. to place between two parties so as to bind them together. And it's a legal term. And one prime example is marriage. That's a covenant between a man and a woman.

And then in a biblical sense, the types of covenant we see between God and man are conditional or unconditional. And their duration is either temporal for a time period or eternal. So with that setting, Let's go on and look at the next part of the verse is the one covenant implied, one covenant proceeding from Mount Sinai. So what covenant was established at Mount Sinai? No looking at your notes. And this isn't hard. The Mosaic. Right, very good. The Mosaic covenant. So the Mosaic covenant was established and I think just to get our feet in the ground we should look at that a little bit. In Exodus 19. Can I get someone to read verses 1-8?

In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Maniach. When they set out from Lathedion, They came to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. And there Israel camped in front of the mountains.

Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountains, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the sons of Israel, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on equals wings, and brought you to myself.

Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.' So Moses came and called the elders of the people and said before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. Thanks Cheryl.

So we see that if you look at verse 5 It's an if-then, right? It's not, as we're going to see in contrast, the Abrahamic covenant. It's if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples. So, it's a conditional covenant. They had to do something. They didn't do it. In fact, we've seen other places where there's blessings and curses. If they obey God, they're blessed. If they don't obey God, they're cursed.

So the Mosaic Covenant was very much a conditional covenant. All right. And then secondly, it's temporal in nature. It had a time period. And let's look in Galatians. Back to where we started. Galatians chapter 3. We've covered this earlier. But in Galatians 3, and I'll just go ahead and read this. It's Galatians 3, 19.

And so what you'll notice is, since this is the Mosaic Covenant, sometimes there's a variety of things that happen with the Mosaic Covenant. Before we read this verse, they were given the commandments, which is the law, the judgments, and the ordinances. And that actually goes from about Exodus 20 through about Exodus chapter 20 through about Exodus chapter 31. There's a lot to the Mosaic Covenant, but many times we'll refer to the Mosaic Covenant, the key part of that is the law that was given, and so we'll just call it the law, the law that was given, referring to the Mosaic Law.

So, now let's read verse 19. Why the law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made. So if you look at that in context of what we read here, the law was given.

It wasn't given for salvation. It was given because of transgression. It was to keep them in line. It wasn't given for salvation. And that's kind of a key understanding, that the Mosaic Law was not for salvation. Salvation is by faith through grace. You can't keep enough laws to be saved, because you're always going to miss a law. You're always going to miss one. That's what we're going to see with the Mosaic Covenant. They couldn't keep that law system. It was impossible.

Questions about this chart? Let's go on to the next part. Now we're going to see, when I go on the next chart, we're going to see And this might shock some people, but the fruit are the children that are bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar. So what it's saying is that this line through Hagar and through Ishmael is really a line that goes through, Mosaic law kind of typifies that.

They're actually in a, catch 22, that's not the right word, but they're in a system where they can't win. They cannot, because God's law is holy and righteous and just, they can't do it. They can't keep it. But they sign up to it. If you notice back, and I'm really jumping all over the map, but you notice back earlier on, when Moses presented, they said, oh yeah, we'll keep it. They had the right intent. Many people say, oh yeah, I'll do that.

Have you ever had, I do it myself, you make a promise and you really can't keep it? The real thing that convicts me is like praying for somebody. People say, when you pray for so-and-so, I get home, I get busy, I totally forget about it. I say, Lord, I promise that person I'm going to pray for them. So we say things sometimes we can't keep. And that's kind of what Israel is all about. Yes, Lord, we'll obey that. It sounds really wonderful. And you're an awesome God. That mountain is pretty fiery and it looks pretty dangerous there to me. Yeah, we'll do that.

But they couldn't do it. So that's one of the messages. So they basically were in this line of slavery, and literally children destined to be for slavery. And so what I did here, I got started with a little help from my friends. Okay, so Hal had some great lines here. I've been studying his notes, so I thought it was really good.

The law was given by God through Moses at Mount Sinai. It required God's chosen people, the Jews, to keep underlying all the commandments, judgments, and ordinances for moral, social, and religious life. Because the terms of the covenant were humanly impossible to keep because of the sin nature. We'll come back in just a second when we look at that verse. A person under the law was spiritually like a child of Hagar in bondage, death, separation.

Separation in terms of a believer. Believer who goes back under the law is separating himself. He's not he's not lost. He's still saved But he's just he's lost fellowship with Christ and that's kind of what that's why Paul's warning him. Don't go back Don't go back there. Don't go back to the law because you're all you're gonna do is lose fellowship with Christ You're not gonna be walking with Christ. You're not gonna lose your salvation But you're gonna lose your fellowship and he doesn't want them to do that.

So I So it's kind of interesting if you look in Romans there, and this is a struggle that Paul has reiterated before in Romans 7. So let's look at that for a second, Romans 7. And I'm kind of whizzing through this, so if you have something you'd like to share, don't hesitate. Yeah, 7, 14 to 20. And this is a struggle that Paul talks about in trying to live A system, any system, a law system of your own doing. Romans 7, 14 to 20. And Bonnie?

Yes, thanks. For we know that the law is spiritual, that I am a flesh sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do. But I practice the very evil that I do not want. And 20. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

This is a wonderful passage and really points out that, and it's just key, here's another key thing, realizing that we have a sinful nature and that as a believer we can go over and hang out there and we can try to live the Christian life you know, that way.

But it's, and that in a sense was what the Israelites were doing, even though you might argue that that really, you know, they weren't made, you know, it's a different dispensation. So there's some, you know, some little issues there. But basically, Paul's trying to use this as an allegory to point out not to live under the law. That's kind of the bottom line. Because it's interesting, maybe you're getting into this. themselves to be under the blessing because they were through Sarah, but Paul takes that twist that out from the context.

Excellent, excellent. That's really good. We're going to see that because when we get to the Abrahamic covenant, we're going to see that they're blessed. But really, they're blessed if they follow, if it's under grace. If they go back to law, they're not. They're in slavery. So they're blessed ultimately. The nation of Israel is going to be blessed. King David came through that. Ultimately Christ came through that blessing.

So we're going to see that. But you're right. It's good to see that that they change lineages. If they go back on the law, they're under Hagar. If they're walking by faith, they're under Abraham in that line. Conditionally, they're changing between those two lineages. Two clicks there.

Okay. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. Now obviously she is on a mountain and also I found that the location of Mount Sinai is somewhat, I don't know, and I didn't even go there. I mean there was just, I started reading some stuff and it, you know, they can't necessarily locate this place. I might be careful. There might be a Well, I better just leave it alone. Geographical names have changed over time. Exactly.

And then they have problems with locating Mount Sinai. But basically, it stands in scripture. It's a geographical location where the law was given to the Jews. So the law was given to the Jews. So basically, what's happening here is, once again, we're just kind of funneling in on this track. Okay, we've got Hagar, we've got Mount Sinai. The law is wonderful. It's God's holy law.

But if that's your life principle, you're in slavery. And now he's going to tie it to the present Jerusalem, at the time of his writing. The present Jerusalem is a geographical location where the law was upheld, exemplified, and propagated by the Jews. We live by the law, and the law was put forth. So those two things. So basically, it says, it corresponds to the present Jerusalem.

Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai, or represents Mount Sinai, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem. So he's really kind of, like you say, he's telling you guys have gone back over and you're under Hagar's line, and you're not, you think you're in Abraham's line, but when you follow the law, you're not. So the Jews under law share Hagar's slavery.

And that's kind of a shocker. But it's interesting. That was something they knew well. And to say that you're in the slavery that Hagar was in is kind of, you know. It would have been offensive to a Jew. It would have been a Judaistic Jew, not maybe. Hopefully these believers can get a little shock tactic. But that would have been really offensive. Right. It was interesting. I was looking at Hal's notes. And he had one part in here. He presented this at Hal over many weeks.

And he says, does that mean Holly Hills is anti-law? It's so shocking that you think, wait a minute. This law is pretty bad. But he says, no. The law is holy, righteous, and just. And the only way. God is showing them that the law is not their way to salvation and it's not their way to live in the Christian life as well. I'll start tap dancing here. Okay, this is my statement.

Starting with the butt, in verse 26 we have an implied contrast between Hagar representing the Mosaic Covenant and Sarah representing the Abrahamic Covenant. Now you'll notice nowhere in these verses does it say that. But if you look at the fact that it talks about Freedom she's our mother remember went back to the earlier verses. It said she's a free woman So it kind of fits it seems like but not everybody I look through different people I look through you know different people had some people didn't present the Abrahamic Covenant, but I thought it was helpful some people just went ahead and try to explain what does the Jerusalem above mean?

What is that? And I'm going to do that too. But I thought just one chart kind of showing us the Abrahamic covenant was worthwhile. And I think it kind of fits because obviously that line is the line that we come through basically, that we get blessed through Christ. So I thought it was appropriate. But not everyone took the time to do this.

OK, so the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional and eternal. And OK, so this is a big chart I used in the past, which I got from Hal back in his notes here. But basically, this kind of gives the overview of the Abrahamic covenant. There are three aspects, and it's in Genesis 12, verses 1, 2, and 3. I think in the interest of time, we'll just go ahead and go through this. So there's three aspects.

There's a land, a blessing, and a seed. That land was given to Israel. And even though people try to take it away, even in today's, it's their land forever. And actually, if you look in the Millennial Kingdom, there's still an earthly people. So that land continues on.

The blessing, the new covenant, that's Israel's new covenant. Basically, they're going to have the law written in their hearts. There's all kinds of wonderful blessings that Israel gets as a result of that. And then the seed has two parts. The seed, the physical seed, of Abraham. There's a kingdom, a throne. We see David's throne. We see Christ coming through that line.

And then another aspect of that, it says, all the nations shall be blessed. And I do want to look at these couple of verses here. Let's look at back to Galatians again, if you're already there. Let's look at Galatians 3.16. And this is talking about, let me just go ahead and read it here first.

Galatians 3.16 now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed and that's singular he does not say seeds plural as referring to many but rather to one and to your seed that is Christ so we see that seed the singular seed is the Lord Jesus Christ and then if we go to verse 29 in Galatians it says And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to our promise. So we see our line as believers in the Lord Jesus. We see that we come through the line of Christ, and because we put our faith and trust in Christ, we're spiritually Abraham's seed. So I think it ties in well, because since Paul's talking to the believers there in Galatia, he's telling them that this is the line that all believers come through. So I thought it was appropriate. as a line of faith.

So I'm just wondering if this is an eternal covenant and there's possession of the land is eternal too. I always stop for a second, I said is that... So they always have the law written on their heart. They'll never be in Christ in a sense, but always...

Well, it seems to be the paradigm. It seems to be the church is only, you know, and that's the distinction between Israel and the church. But that's not a lesser position. They have that in heavenly Jerusalem, right? It says there's access and it's hovering. This is, you know, this is incredible stuff that this new Jerusalem, which we're going to talk about shortly here, hovers above the earth, and there's an access day and night between, you know.

So it seems like, since they're an earthly people, they have access, and they go back and forth, and there's no penalty for that, I mean, as far as being written in their heart. Well, the thing is that if they're given a new, if the sin nature physically walking out of the righteousness of God in a legal way, but they're going to do that. The reason that the law is such a traumatic, problematic scenario in our condition is because we have the flesh constantly wrestling, but if the flesh is not wrestling any longer in the new earth, then you have only something that glorifies God. I don't know, maybe it seems like the law written in their heart is given to them for the tribulation period, so they'll be the evangelists. And so I wonder, when Christ comes again, if that really... I know, it seems like they're in their eternal state. That's true, that's true. Maybe it goes beyond that. We have some more studying to do. We don't know everything yet. That's true.

So that's my chart on the Abrahamic covenant. So let's look at this, the Jerusalem above is free. So what we see, if you look in Revelation chapter 3, in verse 12, And then, did someone read that? In that over cometh will I make it clear in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new name. I like all the personal, it's kind of cool. So this is the New Jerusalem, the city of my God, which is kind of cool. So it seems like the Jerusalem above is referred to as the New Jerusalem. And then in 21, it says, 21 and verse 2, and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. Notice it's always coming down out of heaven.

It's like it never lands. I think the original language supports that. It's coming down. It doesn't arrive. There's a lot of things that are beyond our comprehension there. Is the coming down a verb? I didn't think of it as a verb. I thought of it as a That's a good question. I think of it like a ramp. When I've read that historically, I thought coming down out of heaven more like a ramp rather than a verb. I guess I don't know the Greek. I'm not sure I know what that is or not.

I guess I've seen pictures. They got to be right, right? Actual pictures? You like the actual pictures, right? Anyway, portrayed as being hovering and so on. Well, it's an interesting thing to look at. And actually that's a good, you know, we have all kinds of good things here to look at. questions and answers. Well so do I. Okay well I'm not sure we'll be able to answer that today.

So basically every believer is positioned with Christ in the heavenlies and we see that in Ephesians. We're seen with Christ in heavenly places. Right okay then Then another kind of important verse here is talking about the believer. For our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus. So the real key here is that we are already seated in the heavenly place. We are already in this place where positionally we're already there. So that's kind of the And in that place, we are free.

We are free from any law system and free from our sin nature. And if you look at those couple of verses there, 219, it talks about that we've been freed from that and then from the law system. And then Romans 6, 2 is that we've died. We've died to our sin nature. So we've been separated.

She is our mother. We're spiritual descendants of Sarah through Christ. Actually, what's interesting here, you begin to see that everybody says I'm an Abraham, but most people don't think about Sarah. So we actually, both Abraham and Sarah, we're descendants of both of them, one being the mother and one being the father through Christ.

So that's kind of a neat little thing that's kind of neat. And then 27 is a quote from Isaiah 54, 1. And let's read a little bit of that. And it looks like here that actually what's interesting, I think the Lord does this more than once, he'll take a passage, this is almost like an allegory in itself, and of course it is an allegory when I say it, Roger. This is a piece of scripture and he's going to interpret it in the light of what he's been teaching. But in this context, Isaiah 54. Can I get someone to read maybe 1 through 8?

Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child. Burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor, because more are the children of a desolate woman than of her who has a husband, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left. Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. Do not be afraid. You will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace. You will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

For your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back. as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be rejected, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer." Okay, yeah, thank you, that's great.

So what would you say, in this context, It's kind of a different context, right? God is the husband or the father, right? Israel is the wife. And he's talking about, you know, he's gone away and I have issues with that. So it's a different... So Paul's going to take that context, which was, you know, Israel's husband was the Lord and they rebelled against him. And God says, well, I'm going to let you go your own way, but I'm going to bring you back. So it's a different context than what we're going to see here. We're going to apply it to Sarah, basically. So here we go, basically.

Who is the barren woman who does not bear in this context? So remember, in the other context, we talked about Israel was that picture and God was the husband. In this context, who's that woman? And this isn't hard. Even though she's unnamed, looking at this, she's unnamed. I think that applies.

Sarah was barren until God's promise was fulfilled. Then next, Sarah can rejoice. She rejoiced greatly when she had a child. She realized I couldn't possibly do this. This is a miracle. So she could rejoice. She could break forth and shout. So he's reapplying it to Sarah's case. And then lastly, Sarah has many more spiritual children than physical children.

So that kind of fits. Now, I have to say, not everybody agrees with these bullets here. But that's that verse brought forward. And some will take it. Some have that there's more more people of Israel than there are Arabs. Boy, I hate to have to count that up. I don't know. That sounds like I'm not sure.

Anyway, I thought this fit much better because Sarah, and that's why studying the Abrahamic Covenant we see, wait a minute, that line of Abraham, that includes all believers, and that's a lot of people. So in that context, they're more spiritual than physical. And it also violates the Jew-Gentile principle, which I think is more prominent, rather than the actual Arab. It seems to be an improper context. At least that's the way I would take that, if you were to just narrow it down to You're going to count the people in Israel and the people in the area. I don't know.

I found that this was much more in line with the Abrahamic covenant. Much more in line with what I think it's talking about there. So I felt that was better. Okay. Especially since he's tying it into that covenant, you need to take it in line with that covenant. Right. To go outside. Specific for your own purposes. Right. Okay.

All right, so here's what our brother Hal kind of summarized in terms of the principles out of the allegory. Once again, two covenants, Mosaic, the law, Abrahamic, his grace, two sources, Mount Sinai is earthly and Jerusalem is earthly versus the promised seed with a heavenly Jerusalem. two positions, bondage, which is death, liberty, which is life, and there's only one heir. There's only one line a person can be an heir. Now what I'd like to do, I'd like to just go to the following verse here, because I think it kind of really sums it up kind of neatly. So let's go back to Galatians and look at verse, this gets into next week a little bit, but I thought it was just kind of a good kind of closure here.

And verse 28 says, Galatians 4.28, so we've kind of gone through this, we see we're down to this Abrahamic line, and that we're heirs, we're believers, and then Paul says here, in verse, Galatians 4.28, and you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.

And if you, and here's where it's kind of good to spend some time, if you look at the sentence structure here, it really would read better, and you brethren, are children of promise, Like Isaac, put like Isaac at the end of the sentence. And like is this idea, it's this word that can be translated according to. We are children of promise according to Isaac. The line that Isaac came through is the line that standard, which is Christ, is our, so we are children of promise based upon the standard of coming through that line, the line that Christ came through. So I thought that was kind of neat.

And you, brethren, are children of promise, like Isaac." And I was mentioning earlier, and our birth is miraculous too. We have a miraculous birth. Ours isn't an ordinary birth, just like Isaac's was an ordinary birth. So it's just really kind of cool how it all kind of, through that line of Isaac, and that's what he wanted to point out. that if they went back to the law, they went back to Sinai, they went back to bondage, they went back to Hagar, which they knew Hagar was a slave.

And we're going to see later, he gets pretty, he says, cast out the bomb woman. She has no place here. I mean, that's what Sarah did. She cast her out. And so that's what he's saying. He says, the law is nothing to mess with. Don't go there. So it's neat.

Any last thoughts, sir? At least for me, looking through this passage, I think that it's important to understand that with the allegory stuff, and I wasn't here last week, maybe you covered this, he is very explicit that he's using the allegory interpretively, and then when you go in and you dig into this, the depth of what's there is not something that is, you don't want to read into it too much, which is It's like a Rubik's Cube where they get it all twisted up and then suddenly you're like, it's broken. Well, you're saying you want to be careful. You want to be careful that you don't take this allegory and just make it into some kind of, you know, you stick closely to what's there. He uses a powerful literary tool, but you don't want to, it's on a springboard for the interpretational gymnastics. Well, I kind of felt good that as you start looking through this and you see like this, you know, starting in verse 28, this is the application.

He's applying it to the believers there in Galatia and to us. this is our line and we are children of promise and we have a miraculous birth like Isaac did and that it's just that all really hangs together well and so it all you know I think I think using the Abrahamic covenant as that line kind of fits even though it's not in there and that's and I can see why people didn't I felt a little bit nervous about I'm going to cover the Abrahamic covenant it doesn't say anything about the Abrahamic covenant it doesn't mention Sarah But he does mention Sarah in 22. Yeah, he does. But in 26 and 27, he doesn't. And that's kind of the, this is allegorically speaking.

But you could argue that the whole passage has allegory kind of written all through it, maybe. And in that context, you could do it that way, too. So next week, we'll continue the application. We'll continue on through the... And he gets pretty strong here.

Cast out the bomb woman. And that actually is probably well taken. Don't mess with the law. Don't think the law is going to help you in any way. It can't. He's quoting Abraham. I know. They're going to argue with Abraham? Yeah. They're going to argue with the two lines of the slave woman?

It's really pretty incredible what he did. The Lord is doing it. The Holy Spirit is doing it. It's pretty neat. Okay, well let's close. We thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day. Father, we thank you for the blessings we have in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for your word and we thank you for just the depth and the beauty and how How incredible that you're able to, that events that happen that would seem random in our minds are not random and that you use them for your purposes and you explain your word through historical events, Lord, and we thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.