The Two Covenants

Do you have a passion for Evangelism? Do you want to see people in Abilene come to faith in Christ? How would you like to be involved in that effort?

This coming Tuesday August 7th - there is a ReviveTx meeting happening at the First United Meth. Church on 202 Butternut, from 6:30pm-7:30pm. Snacks provided.

One of the most widely read and influential books of all time was written from a jail cell by a Baptist minister. He was in England, in jail for twelve years for preaching without a license when he wrote it. The title of the book is Pilgrims Progress and the author is John Bunyan.

There are probably many reasons why this book has been so widely read and remained in print for over three hundred and twenty years since it was first published 1678. What is so appealing about the book is that it is an allegory.

Every part of the book has a deeper and hidden meeting.

One example from Pilgrims Progress is when a man is led into a parlor, full of dust that has never been swept, this man swept it, and the dust flew up and choked him. Then a woman sprinkled the floor with water and when she finished sweeping it, it was clean.

There is more to it than just a story of sweeping and cleaning.

The parlor– is the heart of man.

The dust– is sin, inward corruption. .

Sweeping– The law, sweeping could not clean, choked him

Water sprinkled– The Gospel that cleans.

The whole book is filled with this kind of illustration of the Christian life. It is an excellent book using allegory.

But the use of allegory has also been very harmful. People take the Bible and do their own allegorizing. They give every part a deeper meaning. For example, they find fake or false meaning to the Good Samaritan story that Jesus told in response to a question, “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus teaches who your neighbor is. He is teaching how to really love your neighbor. But, people have found every imaginable meaning from every intricate part of the parable. From the Samaritan, Priest, Levi. People have misused allegory to justify their particular type of church traditions, their cultural fads and even their prejudices.

As a general rule we reject the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture. Of course it does make the interpreter seem smart. The listener is left thinking, how did he get that meaning?

Using an allegorical method to interpret the Bible will lead to reading into scripture our preconceived ideas, and that of course can be dangerous. Our goal is to let the teachings of Scripture flow out of the Bible.

So we must let the Bible show us what is allegorical and keep from the temptation of making places and parts of the scripture allegorical ourselves.

Galatians 4:21-31 is an example of where Paul who is being lead by the Holy Spirit is pulling from an OT Historical event and bring a deeper meaning to that event in history. Just like when Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when he says on another occasion “the rock in the wilderness was Christ,” this is not a license for us to find our own meanings in the minute details of Scripture.

Because if we are not careful in this we can become like liberal Bible scholars who allegorize the fall of man, flood, Jonah etc.

We must find what the Scripture means in its context. In addition we must find the principles in Scripture and prayerfully apply them to our lives today.

So with that said lets read from

Galatians 4:21–23 NKJV

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise,

These events are recorded in Geneses 15-21. When Abraham was seventy-five years old God promised him he would be the father of a great nation. He was told he would have a son from his own body with numerous offspring. So numerous as the dust, even as numerous as the stars of the sky.

Sarah was sixty-five years old when this promised came. So they waited. They waited a month, a year etc. A decade later when Abraham was eighty-five and Sarah seventy-five they still had not conceived a child. Abraham and Sarah were frustrated. They took matters into their own hands.

They decided to build their family through Sarah’s maidservant Hagar. Be bottom line was, is that they got impatient and just decided to take the promise into their own hands. So Hagar, the slave women, conceived and gave birth to the son Ishmael.

The way of flesh causes problems. Trying to do God’s work in our strength is like shaking an hourglass to make the sand pass through quicker. A problem arises whenever we try to achieve in our own efforts what only God can do.

At ninety-nine years old God appears to Abraham. This child will come by miracle of God, not by human effort. When Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah ninety years old Isaac was born. Twenty-five years later the promise of God realized in miraculous fashion through Sarah.

There is a stark contrast between these two sons. They have the same father, but different mothers. The son of slave woman Hagar is Ishmael. He was born through sinful human effort of an ordinary birth.

The son of Sarah is Isaac. He was the child of promise. There was nothing ordinary about his birth. It could be explained by nothing but the hand of God.

There is a deeper meaning already in the historical text. Paul has his figurative lesson. Paul is speaking figuratively about the two sons representing the two covenants. With respect to historical context Paul makes a spiritual implication.

Galatians 4:24–27 NKJV

which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children Than she who has a husband.”

The two covenants are law and grace. Hagar represents the law. This represents the covenant made at Mount Sinai. We find that Mount Sinai is not in the promise land. It lies outside the promise land. It represents the way of human effort.

There is a principle here. Are you seeking righteousness by the law? The law was given at Mount Sinai outside the promise land. If you are seeking righteousness by good works then your religion is mans efforts to achieve God’s promise. You are in bondage. You are like the child born to Hagar, enslaved.

Those who belong to Jesus Christ are the children of promise. The Jews have their religious center in Jerusalem. This is an earthly, man-made city. Those in Christ have a heavenly citizenship. In Christ you belong to a heavenly Jerusalem from above.

A follower of Christ can go to Jerusalem and to the site of the temple there, stand at the Western Wall. But that is not the center of your religion. Our religious center is the heavenly Jerusalem. Look up where Christ is.

Paul tells the Judaizes the same message that John the Baptist gave, that Jesus gave. You must have a spiritual birth. To be a child of promise is not about being a physical descendent of Abraham. A child of the promise is about being a spiritual descendent.

Hagar and Sarah represent the contrast of law and Grace. The Galatian Christians were being deceived into thinking the law would bring them blessing. Paul wants them to see what we really find there.

Galatians 4:28–31 NKJV

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.

All religion outside of faith in Christ is mans effort to relate to God outside the miracle of spiritual birth. You are born again by the power of the Spirit. Expect persecution from those who try to merit salvation. Ishmael persecuted Isaac.

The law keeping and grace living will always clash.

Paul is upset because, the Christians he loved are trading the promise land for the desert. They should be walking by faith and they were walking by sight. You were born again by the Spirit, not by efforts of the flesh.

Don’t live the spiritual life in the energy of the flesh. Live in a way that is consistent with your spiritual birthright.

Don’t trade God’s way for mans way. Don’t trade freedom for bondage. Live by Faith and by the power of the Spirit. Don’t try to achieve what only God can do.

God will bless those who live by faith not those who live by sight, not by flesh. Are you a spiritual descendent of Abraham? Is your faith in Christ?