Slave or Free?

“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. 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 one will be more than those of the one who has a husband."

(Gal 4:21-27 ESV)

Our tendency is to believe that we are the children of God. We believe so because of our actions. The people of God, we believe, are those who live according to God’s law. And those who do not live according to his law are clearly not his children.



We tell ourselves, therefore, that if we’re to be assured of our salvation, we have to pay attention to our life and see if we’re obedient to God’s law. We have to pay attention to our life to see if we’re growing in faith. If we are good people, then we are God’s children. If we are avoiding outward sin, then we are God’s children. But if we fall into sin, or if we struggle with sin, we are not his children.



This is the mindset that Paul is addressing in the above passage. And he does it in a way that would have made the Jews of his day cringe. In fact, he does it in a way that makes many of us cringe. He addresses it by looking at the two children born to Abraham by two different women.



The son of the slave woman, he says, was born according to the flesh. In other words, he was born in the natural way. His conception is easily explained by our knowledge of the birds and the bees.



The son of the free woman, however, was born through a promise. Sarah, you recall, was past the age of childbearing. It’s safe to say, I believe, that she was way past the age of childbearing. But God had promised to Abraham a son, who would be born of Sarah. And, in their old age, God miraculously enabled this pregnancy and birth.



He goes on to say that the present Jerusalem corresponds with Hagar, the slave woman, and is therefore in slavery. But the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, is free. And she is the mother of those who believe.



This, then, put the Jews in a place they never expected to find themselves. It was also putting those who clung to their own righteousness in a place they never expected to find themselves. Paul was classing them not with the free woman, but with the slave woman. They were classed with the slave woman because they sought to attain salvation by the law rather than the promise of God.



The child of God, then, is not the one who seeks salvation by the law. It’s not the one who seeks salvation by his own obedience. He is the one who seeks salvation by the promise of God. He is the one who seeks salvation through faith.



As Christians, this gives to us a true assurance of salvation. It does so because, if we measure our spiritual state by our obedience to the law, we’ll always come up short. But, through faith in Jesus, we can be absolutely certain. We can be certain because it’s not dependent upon us in any way, but upon Christ himself. It’s dependent upon Jesus, who bore our sin on the cross, that we might receive his righteousness by faith.