Chapter 1: What false teachings were the Galatians facing?
In the book of Galatians, false teachers were trying to convince the people to return to God's law to earn God's favor.
So they said, okay, we'll go back to the law. And Paul's saying, are you crazy? Do you hear what the law says? Do you want to be the child of slavery or the child of promise?
That was almost 2,000 years ago. But what the Apostle Paul was pleading with the Galatians to rediscover is just as important for us today. Thanks for being with us for Renewing Your Mind. And in this final sermon from R.C. Sproul in this series in Galatians chapter 4, you'll see that the answer always was and always is the gospel.
As this is the final message in the series, it means it's also your final opportunity to add Dr. Sproul's commentary, not just on Chapter 4, but on the entirety of Galatians, to your library. This single-volume hardcover commentary can be yours when you request a copy when you donate before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org. Well, here's Dr. Sproul.
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.
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Chapter 2: Why does Paul question the Galatians' return to the law?
But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically, These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother." For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear. Break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor. For the children of the desolate will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.
But just as at that time who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what do the Scriptures say? Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman."
It was the night of my twenty-fourth birthday. I was coming home from a basketball game, through the portion of Pittsburgh which was called East Liberty. I was coming back to our apartment where we were going to celebrate my birthday, when as I was walking past a jewelry store, suddenly I heard a woman screaming, stop thief!
And I turned and looked, and this man ran out of the jewelry store and ran right into me, instinctively and certainly not heroically. I just grabbed him by the shoulder, and I said, hold it right there. And he looked at me meekly, and he said, I give up.
Fortunately, he didn't have a knife or a gun or anything, but I just stood there and held him until the police arrived, and they took him away into custody. A couple days later, I saw one of the arresting officers on the street in East Liberty, and I said, what was with the man who robbed the jewelry store? And he says, oh, he says, that fellow's a strange one.
He said he had just gotten out of jail, but jail is his comfort zone.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the allegory of Hagar and Sarah?
He likes it there. three square meals a day, and a roof over his head. He can't cope in free society. So as soon as he gets out of jail, he immediately commits a crime and allows himself to be apprehended so he can go back to jail. Can you imagine somebody just getting out of jail and wants to go back? Well, this is what Paul is saying to the Galatians. He says,
In chapter 4, tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? Do you not pay attention to the law? Are you listening to what the law says? The law says thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, and if you are under this law, you're in bondage. under the curse of the law, and you are not living in freedom."
He says, you're like the people of Israel who cried out while they were enslaved by Pharaoh in the Old Testament, and they groaned and moaned, and God heard the groanings of His people, and He sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, let my people go. And you know the story of the Exodus and the magnificent thing that God did to free His people
But no sooner had they been liberated, and as they were wandering in the desert, sick and tired of eating manna morning, afternoon, and night, they began to think nostalgically of how great they had it in Egypt. They had garlic, cucumbers, onions, and they said, let us go back. They wanted to go back into prison for the sake of some garlic. and they murmured against the God who set them free."
Now, Paul goes on here when he said, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. You know the story of Abraham and Sarah. God came to Abraham in his old age.
When his wife was past the age of childbearing, she was barren, and God promised Abraham that he would have a son, and he would be the father of a great nation. His descendants would be more than the stars in the sky and the crystals of sand on the seashore. When Abraham told that vision that he had to his wife Sarah, she laughed. And the word for laughter in Hebrew is the word Isaac.
But Abraham was convinced that God would keep His promise, and so he waited for a week. He waited for a month and expected Sarah to become pregnant, and she wasn't. He waited for six months, a year, six years. And every day,
Sarah grew older and older, and the promise was all the less likely to be fulfilled until finally Abraham and Sarah concocted a scheme to make sure that God's promise would be fulfilled. And Sarah said, why don't you join with my servant, Hagar? and have a son. And so as the story goes, Abraham got with Hagar. She became pregnant and bore a son whose name was Ishmael.
But Ishmael was not the son of promise.
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Chapter 4: How does Paul relate the story of Abraham to freedom and slavery?
He was the son of slavery. God had not forgotten the promise that He had made to Abraham, and so it came to pass that Sarah became pregnant, and she had a son whose name was Isaac. Laughter. Well, Paul speaks of this story in history and attaches an allegorical significance to it. He says, now this may be interpreted allegorically, these women are two covenants.
They represent two different covenants. One is from Mount Sinai. where Moses received the law. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She's Hagar. Now, Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to the present Jerusalem. Sinai in Arabia, Jerusalem here, because the Jews in Jerusalem were still living under the old law of Moses.
had rejected the covenant that God made to Abraham, which was a covenant of promise, that the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. Let me just pause for a second and say that The Bible is filled with discussions about freedom and slavery. This tension is being discussed over and over and over again in sacred Scripture.
It's also been a point of discussion for intellectuals, for philosophers through all of Western history. You think of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. is famous for saying, man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. I agree with half of Rousseau's assessment, the second half, that yes, we are in chains. But I don't believe that we are born free.
Lions may be born free, but human beings are not born free. The Scriptures tell us from the moment of our birth we are afflicted by the corruption of original sin. The American philosopher, theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote a treatise on original sin that's not nearly as well known as his treatise on the freedom of will or on his religious affections.
But in that treatise on original sin, Edwards goes through all of the biblical texts and deals with them in an academic, exegetical fashion to probe this whole debate about freedom and slavery and the corruption that we experience at birth.
then suddenly he shifts his attention from the Scriptures, and he said, if the Bible never said a single word about original sin, natural reason would have to posit it in order to explain the human condition. We've heard the clichés over and over and over again. Nobody's perfect. To err is human. To forgive is divine. I've heard people say that God entitles all of us to one sin.
I don't read that anywhere in Scripture that we have an entitlement to disobey God, but even if it were true that we're entitled to one mistake, how long ago did you use yours up? But Edwards is saying if we were all born free from any sin, inherited corruption, wouldn't you suppose that at least 50% of the population would remain perfect and sinless? You say, well, wait a minute.
We're born free, but we're in a corrupt society. Well, what's society made up of? People, and they're corrupt people. You would still think that 50% of the people in the society would be free from evil. But Edwards says the universality of the fallen human condition, screams from natural reason for an explanation.
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Chapter 5: What does Paul mean by being children of promise?
He can choose to be sinful or he can choose to be obedient to God with equal power. That is, his will is neutral or indifferent. Now, of course, looking at Scripture, we're told on every page that that's not the case, that we are born in a state of spiritual and moral bondage.
And here is where Edwards makes this very important distinction, where he distinguishes between natural ability and moral ability. What's the distinction all about? Natural ability is what nature equips us to do as we are created. I do not have the natural ability to fly through the air like a bird.
If I want to fly, I have to have some kind of mechanical equipment to enable me to fly through the air. I don't have the natural ability to live underwater. I may be able to swim underwater for a few seconds, or I may be able to go underwater in a submarine. But by nature, I don't have the equipment necessary to live underwater.
I don't have the gills and the fins and the scales anymore that I have feathers and lightweight bones and wings that make it possible for me to fly through the air." Now the reason for Edwards' distinction was this. He says, we have the natural ability of freedom insofar as we have a faculty that we call a will. We have the natural ability to make choices, and we make choices every day.
What we don't have is the moral ability to choose the things of God. By nature, we're in moral slavery, and only God can set us free. You shake your head and you're thinking, wait a minute, does that mean that if a person wants to choose God that they aren't able to do it? No, that's not what it means. Anybody who wants to choose God can choose God freely. But the problem is what?
With the want to. Sure, you can choose what you want to, and you can choose God if you want to. but not if you don't want to, because in one sense, we're doomed by our freedom. And Edwards goes on to explain it. He says, a choice is an effect, and it has to have an antecedent cause.
And what causes the choice that you make today and tomorrow and yesterday is the strongest inclination that you have at a moment. Now think about it for a minute, folks. Edwards would say, you have never made a choice to do anything in your life that you didn't want to do. Last week, I had a root canal, and it wasn't pleasant. It didn't work.
It was a disaster, and it was so bad that the dentist after two hours gave up and said, I'm going to pack that tooth. I still wasn't able to calm it down to make it numb, and you're going to have to come back in a week. and we'll go after it again. The worst pain I've ever experienced in my life in a dentist chair. And he says, come on back and we'll do it again. Now, here's the crazy thing.
I chose to do it again. My doctor who was here this morning prescribed some drugs that made me willing to go back again. And so, even though all things being equal, I would never choose a root canal. What person in their right mind would?
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