Responding to Dispensationalism, Installation #5: Who are the Children of Abraham?: A discussion of Galatians 4:22-26

Who are the Children of Abraham?

Galatians 4

22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Here Paul formally states what he said in the previous chapter of Galatians, that there are two covenants in mind: the one of promise and the one of flesh. Interestingly enough Paul uses an Old Testament text and allegorizes it to illuminate his audience to the fuller meaning of the text. Paul and his readers certainly believe that the two literal women existed in history and that the literal account of their lives was written down in scripture, but God had a bigger, fuller purpose with those women, and the events spoken of here are meant to do more than merely establish ancestral integrity or historical validity. So we have a contrast of two covenants, a tale of two cities, if you will:

Hagar ------- Sarah
Moses ------- Abraham
Sinai/Jerusalem ------- Heavenly Jerusalem (the Jerusalem above)
Slavery and law ------- Promise of Freedom
Flesh ------- Spirit
Sons of flesh ------- Sons of promise

There are two items in the study of this text that I believe argue against dispensationalism, and they are:

1. Paul contrasts the blessings of the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants.
2. Paul allegorizes the historical/grammatical interpretation of an Old Testament event.

It is my understanding that both of these items above are contrary to rudimentary dispensational hermeneutics, which states that the meaning of the Old Testament text to its then, contemporary audience is the only meaning of that text, thus rendering it the so called “literal” interpretation. Also (according to dispensational theology), the promises God made to Abraham (land and many seed) were reiterated and expanded in the Mosaic Covenant and given even more strenuous stipulations; and even today they have not been realized, thus they cannot be arrogated by the gentile/Jewish “Church” because God never made those promises to that group and He still plans to fulfill those promises of physical seed and land to a group strictly made up of believing Jews in the future in a literally physical way.

As I close this post, take a look at another statement that clearly associates Old and New Testament believers in the same covenant.

Philippians 3:3 For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—

In Paul’s mind there were two circumcisions, one made with hands and one made by the Spirit (the real one). Obvious from more passages than can be listed, Abraham was of the real circumcision, and according to Galatians 3:29 we are Abraham’s spiritual children, but what makes us so? It certainly isn’t our physical Jewish heritage because in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. We are grafted into the Abrahamic Covenant and made fellow recipients of the promises thereof, because it is an overarching covenant, one which is ultimately fulfilled in the New Covenant and which affords gracious provisions for all of God’s children throughout the entirety of redemptive history.