GALATIANS 4:24
“This is speaking allegorically, for these women are two covenants: one coming from Mount Sinai giving birth to children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar.”
I have to admit that I am not a grammatical genius. If you have read many of my blogs, you have probably already figured that out. Right? So, I looked up the definition of allegory. “It is a figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal object is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances.” – Webster. Thank you, Mr. Webster! I am sure we all understand it now.
Paul tells us plainly that he is going to be speaking “allegorically.” This Greek word is only used one time in the New Testament. It literally means to speak publicly something other than. Paul is going to be comparing the story of Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac to our slavery to sin and our freedom in Christ. This allegory is not to imply in any way that the Old Testament story is not true. You can use an historical truth allegorically to make a point, which is what Paul has done here.
APPLICATION
Now that I have bored you to tears with the English lesson on allegories, how do we use today’s verse in our lives? Well, let’s focus on the topic of this first part of the allegory – Hagar. Who was she? She was a servant girl of Sarah’s. But she was more than a servant. She had been given to Abraham by Sarah to try to conceive a child which would satisfy God’s promise to give then a child. God never instructed them to do this. They just decided to “help God along.”
This first part of the allegory isn’t very encouraging. Hagar and Ishmael represent slavery to sin. Even after Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, she was still a servant. Nothing had changed. You and I are slaves to sin until we come to Jesus. We have no power to resist. We have no way to escape the devil’s schemes. There is no hope. We can’t “perform” our way out of sin. We have to have the chains broken.
Praise be to God we have a “chain-breaker.” He is Jesus, the Righteous One. He is the One to whom we run for freedom. Paul is so aware of this. He now sees how bound to sin he was while he was under the law, which is also represented by Hagar. Paul wants these Galatians to be free in Christ, not bound to the law. In the same way, God wants us to be free in Jesus. Are you free today?
Lord, I am thankful You gifted men like Paul to write under the inspiration of the Spirit to give us these truths.