Children of the promise
These things can be understood as a figure: the two women represent two covenants. The one whose children are born in slavery is Hagar, and she represents the covenant made at Mt Sinai. Hagar, who stands for Mt Sinai in Arabia, is a figure of the present city of Jerusalem, in slavery with all its people. But the heavenly Jerusalem is free, and she is our mother. (verses 24-26)
Read Galatians 4:21-31
Are we still slaves or are we children of the promise? This was an issue for Paul as he wrote to the people of Galatia. They had been made free in Christ, but now they were allowing legalistic Jewish Christians to take their freedom away. The gospel was being made subservient to the law.
What about us? Do we put conditions on salvation, things we must do or be before we are really Christian? Do we still make ourselves slaves to the law, a very harsh taskmaster indeed?
God’s covenant with his people in the Old Testament was based on the people’s response to the gospel: God’s act of delivering them from Egypt, from slavery, from oppression. Because of what God had done for them, the people had strict codes of practice which had to be met so they could be holy enough to come into God’s presence in worship. The people were terrified of standing in the presence of God.
God’s new covenant, in Jesus, is based on God’s promise of a relationship with him through the forgiveness of sin. We can never reach God’s standards of perfection. Jesus is the fulfilment of the promise. In him we have real freedom.
Guard your freedom against those who would take it away. And live in that freedom.
I thank you, Father, for the promises you have given me and that I can trust them so completely. Amen.
by Robert Turnbull, in ‘Living Water for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2001)
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