Offending Grace
Notes
Transcript
The Two Covenants (V.21-28)
V.21
O: Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law?
I: Are you even aware what the scriptures say, or just listen to other people?
A: It is important to know why you do what you do
What is even the purpose for doing the things you do?
Is this what the Bible actually says, or just a person’s interpretation?
V.22
O: For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman
I: Now Paul brings in the women who were involved, Sarah and Hagar.
A: All of a sudden, these two women become important to the story of our salvation.
V.23-24
O: But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the freewoman through the promise. (24) This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are slaves; this is Hagar.
I: These women represent two covenants made, one that is the promise and the other was the law, that is Hagar.
A: Important to know that Paul says this is allegorically speaking.
What makes the Bible so fun is how everything we read relates to eachother. You cannot have the New Testament without having the Old Testament, and everything in the Old testament were all types for us to understand our salvation and what the Lord is doing.
V.25
O: Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
I: Hagar represents the Law that the Jews still follow today.
A: Remember, Mount Sinai is where the Law was given, so Hagar represents the covenant that God made with Moses and the people there.
V.26
O: But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother
I: The promise is freedom, and that is what we have been born into… freedom.
V.27
O: For it is written, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; For more numerous are the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband.”
I: The scriptures say that the one who cannot have children will rejoice and be more fruitful.
A: The one who is barren, referring to Sarah… she is the mother of promise. The one with the husband, which is referring to the nation of Israel, the Law, or Hagar.
Remember, this is allegory, and refers to Paul’s argument that he is making. This is being quoted from Isaiah 54:1.
V.28
O: And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
I: Speaking to the Galatians, the Gentiles, the Christians, that we are children of promise
A: (Put your application here)
Cast Out the One (V.29-31)
V.29
O: But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.
I: The flesh always wants to come against the Spirit
A: (Put your application here)
V.30-31
O: But what does scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the sons of the free woman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman.
I: We don’t belong to bondage, but to freedom and to the promise. Therefore, get rid of the law and the slavery, for it has no part in our lives.
A: This is why we throw out legalism and any attempt to live by the law, because it has nothing to do with freedom and the gospel.
Hagar= Flesh, the Law
Sarah= The promise, GRACE
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
4 So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
6 Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
9 Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.
10 Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
11 It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman;
12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
13 “Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.”
14 It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
15 Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.
16 Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.
17 But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
18 Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
19 “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go.”
20 Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.
Then we go to Genesis 15:1-6
1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great.”
2 Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.”
4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
5 And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
6 Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Then the Lord confirms the covenant with Abraham
Then we see Hagar join the story… officially in Genesis 16:1-6
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar.
2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
3 After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.
4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight.
5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.
Then the Lord reaffirms to Abraham the promise with the sign of circumcision, But then we see Abraham in Genesis 17:15-19
15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.
16 “I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!”
19 But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
It doesn’t stop there…
1 Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the land of the Negev, and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he sojourned in Gerar.
2 Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.”
4 Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a nation, even though blameless?
5 “Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.
7 “Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”
8 So Abimelech arose early in the morning and called all his servants and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were greatly frightened.
Then Sarah is returned and everyone is restored.
Then the promise finally comes in Genesis 21:1-14
1 Then the Lord took note of Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised.
2 So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.
3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
4 Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5 Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
9 Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
10 Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.”
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son.
12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named.
13 “And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.”
14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
