March 21 - Galatians 4:24-27

March 21 - Galatians 4:24-27

These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written:

“Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

Can you imagine the shock that those Jews who were trying to get the Galatians to re-align their way of thinking would have at Paul’s words?  Their history came down from Abraham and Sarah through Isaac.  To associate Hagar and Ishmael with Jerusalem was far from anything they could imagine.

Paul didn’t want the Galatians to consider themselves Jews first and then Christians.  These were Gentiles who had never been circumcised, never offered sacrifices at the temple and had never known the restrictions of the law.  The Judaizers in their community wanted to bring them into some sort of structure so that they had more control over these new converts to the faith.  This doesn’t mean that the Judaizers weren’t believers in Christ, it simply means that they wanted everyone to follow the Jewish faith first. 

Paul and Peter had both dealt with that issue already with God and Paul didn’t want these people to go backwards in their faith.  He wanted them to look forward … to look forward to the heavenly idea of Jerusalem … the new Jerusalem.