Lent 4 2025

Intro:

Verse 23 - This first sentence will need some context. The Galatian church had joyfully heard and received the Gospel when Paul was present with them. Paul was satisfied with their belief enough to set some elders and move on in his church planting work. But the church had been plagued with these traveling teachers who worked to convince church folks that the way to become a true member of God’s covenantal people was to first enter the Old Covenant by getting circumcised and following the law of Moses, then coming to the life given in Jesus. The Galatians apparently were very enamored with this in that they had begun to live out more and more of the law of Moses. Paul sees the Law or the Old Covenant as a thing that points to God’s perfect Character, and points to our inability to live up to that Character. So, we are enslaved to our sinful ways that cannot live out the Law. Jesus comes and offers a New Covenant that is not ours by works but by adoption into the new family of saved people. So, in our text we are going to see St. Paul point to an early Old Testament event that prefigures what eventually happens in the work of Christ.

Verse 22 - The Early event was that God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. Yet by the time he and his wife were in their nineties they had no children. Abrahams wife get the idea to have Abraham sleep with his slave, and they can call their child theirs and that child would fulfill God’s promise. And then Sarah become pregnant by Abraham after the child is born to the slave. Now there are two children. For St. Paul the two children will point to the two different covenants.

The Meat of the text

Verse 23/34 -  Born of Flesh vs. born of promise: One was born by the capability of human actions (unsavory), one born by the miraculous intervention of God. Remember one represents what we can accomplish as law abiders vs. Adopted creatures.

Vs 25 – Siani in Arabia (Decalogue), Earthly Jerusalem. Like Hagar these holds us as slaves.

Vs 26 - Jerusalem from above, grander more wonderful than its early counterpart. Revelation 21. We are adopted into that family

Vs 27 – Paul then collaborates his reading of Genesis with a Prophecy in Isaiah, reminding us that God makes the barren joyous with children.

Vs 28 – Therefor because of what had been put forward in the beginning of the section we as New Covenant members, as members of Faith in Christ and not keeping of the Law, are connected to the miraculous child of Abraham, of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Verse 29 – Paul then looks to the persecution of the true believers by the law keepers as the sign of true faith. Isaac was persecuted by Ishmael. Jesus was Persecuted by the Jewish Leaders, and True believers will be persecuted by those trying to reign in the Gospel.

Verse 30 - Paul puts to rest any musing that maybe law keeping can find some kind of eternal reward. The Child of Hagar has a different lesser inheritance, and the law keepers will have none.

Verse 31 - And in case we missed it he gives us the the summation.

Application (Beyond Pauls Application)

Fight for a Gospel of Faith and not works. I can tell you how often I hear non-Christians say things like, a real Christian would not do x or y. And because the Christian does x or y they don’t believe in Christian faith. So they admit that the person is not behaving like a Christian, therefor Christianity must be a farce.

Well bad logic aside there is only 2 things that make a Christian, the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, and the confession that follows it. Now if someone wants to debate how the regenerative work of the HS arrives and what that confession should look like, that is a worthy event. BTW for us the Regenerative work Holy Spirit is applied at baptism, and the confession of the baptised or his God parents is that necessary confession. We believe it because it is what the Early church has given us…but we also admit that the HS might turn the heart of an adult and make a believer of them before the baptism has taken place. God keeps his own counsel. To our skeptic who believes they know the true behavioral code of Christianity I give you these words from a favorite hymn. Let not Conscience…

The Gospel is the work of Christs perfect righteousness applied to us by faith, alone, not by works, that no make could boast.

But if we are saved by faith and made the adopted sons of God and citizens of the Heavenly Jerusalem, let us have good citizenship. Yes Faith saves, but it also transforms us in to the image of God. Allow God to stir you to repentance, to turn your heart and its affections to him and away from sin. We don’t have the shackles of the Law requiring of us these duties, we know have the joy of living up to our beloveds name.