Paul allegorically interprets the story of the birth of Abraham's two sons, one by the concubine and the other by Abraham's wife Sarah. The allegory is that one of the two, born of the concubine, symbolizes...
Paul allegorically interprets the story of the birth of Abraham's two sons, one by the concubine and the other by Abraham's wife Sarah. The allegory is that one of the two, born of the concubine, symbolizes a union-covenant with God "according to the flesh," promising nothing but slavery, while the second symbolizes a union of freedom, a covenant of the spirit. The Torah, in describing the birth of both sons, contains both covenants within itself, but the fullness of relationship with God is possible only in the spirit, in freedom, and therefore in the Kingdom, which the heavenly Jerusalem symbolizes as, in the apostle's interpretation, the antithesis of the earthly Jerusalem, and in Christ, who brought this Kingdom into the world. Here the Torah ceases to be only history or only a set of prescriptions, whether legal, moral, or religious.
It becomes a description of a spiritual path, a path leading to liberation from the power of nature and therefore from the world that lies in evil. Indeed, evil first of all, at least when speaking about the human person and human history, consists in this: in that stream of human life which the language of the Bible calls the soul, the natural component has prevailed over the spiritual one, completely or predominantly determining the life of fallen humanity. And no human efforts by themselves can radically change anything here. The Torah as a set of legal or moral prescriptions is powerless here: the moral person remains under the power of sin; he is only sometimes able partially to hide his sinfulness so that it does not draw attention, just as law can sometimes hinder the most odious manifestations of the same sinfulness in public life.
And the religious component of the Torah also cannot help in any way: religion by itself does not change a person; by nature the religious person remains the same as he was born, only trying to arrange his life so as to live in harmony with God or, more broadly, with higher powers. Meanwhile, harmony with God is possible only in His Kingdom, and here a change in the person himself is already required, his liberation from the power of sin and from the predominance of the natural component in the stream of his life.
What is needed here is the inner Torah as that spiritual imperative which can give a person a certain inner dynamism directed toward changing the quality of his life, the very process of his existence. But these changes make sense only when they go all the way, to the complete transformation of the person, to a change in his very nature; and such a change is possible only with the direct participation of the Savior Himself, who brought the fullness of the Kingdom into the world and showed the world the only example of the living Torah. From the fullness of Christ, from the fullness of the Kingdom, it hardly made sense to return to religion or morality. That would not simply be a step backward, but a genuine rollback, a return from the Kingdom under the power of this world.
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4:11 The apostle here, dropping the argument, applies to the affections, Gal 4:11-20, and humbles himself to the Galatians, with an inexpressible tenderness.
4:12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am - Meet me in mutual love. For I am as ye were - I still love you as affectionately as ye once loved me. Why should I not? Ye have not injured me at all - I have received no personal injury from you.
4:13 I preached to you, notwithstanding infirmity of the flesh - That is, notwithstanding bodily weakness, and under great disadvantage from the despicableness of my outward appearance.
4:14 And ye did not slight my temptation - That is, ye did not slight or disdain me for my temptation, my "thorn in the flesh."
4:15 What was then the blessedness ye spake of - On which ye so congratulated one another.
4:17 They - The judaizing teachers who are come among you. Zealously affect you - Express an extraordinary regard for you. But not well - Their zeal is not according to knowledge; neither have they a single eye to your spiritual advantage. Yea, they would exclude you - From me and from the blessings of the gospel. That ye might affect - Love and esteem them.
4:18 In a good thing - In what is really worthy our zeal.True zeal is only fervent love.
4:19 My little children - He speaks as a parent, both with authority, and the most tender sympathy, toward weak and sickly children. Of whom I travail in birth again - As I did before, Gal 4:13, in vehement pain, sorrow, desire, prayer.Till Christ be formed in you - Till there be in you all the mind that was in him.
4:20 I could wish to be present with you now - Particularly in this exigence. And to change - Variously to attemper.My voice - He writes with much softness; but he would speak with more. The voice may more easily be varied according to the occasion than a letter can. For I stand in doubt of you - So that I am at a loss how to speak at this distance.
4:21 Do ye not hear the law - Regard what it says.
4:22 Gen 21:2, Gen 21:9.
4:23 Was born after the flesh - In a natural way.By promise - Through that supernatural strength which was given Abraham in consequence of the promise.
4:24 Which things are an allegory - An allegory is a figurative speech, wherein one thing is expressed, and another intended. For those two sons are types of the two covenants. One covenant is that given from mount Sinai, which beareth children to bondage - That is, all who are under this, the Jewish covenant, are in bondage. Which covenant is typified by Agar.
4:25 For this is mount Sinai in Arabia - That is, the type of mount Sinai. And answereth to - Resembles Jerusalem that now is, and is in bondage - Like Agar, both to the law and to the Romans.
4:26 But the other covenant is derived from Jerusalem that is above, which is free - Like Sarah from all inward and outward bondage, and is the mother of us all - That is, all who believe in Christ, are free citizens of the New Jerusalem.
4:27 For it is written - Those words in the primary sense promise a flourishing state to Judea, after its desolation by the Chaldeans. Rejoice. thou barren, that bearest not - Ye heathen nations, who, like a barren woman, were destitute, for many ages, of a seed to serve the Lord. Break forth and cry aloud for joy, thou that, in former time, travailedst not: for the desolate hath many more children than she that hath an husband - For ye that were so long utterly desolate shall at length bear more children than the Jewish church, which was of old espoused to God. Isa 54:1.
4:28 Now we - Who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles.Are children of the promise - Not born in a natural way, but by the supernatural power of God. And as such we are heirs of the promise made to believing Abraham.
4:29 But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, so it is now also - And so it will be in all ages and nations to the end of the world.
4:30 But what saith the scripture - Showing the consequence of this. Cast out the bondwoman and her son - Who mocked Isaac.In like manner will God cast out all who seek to be justified by the law; especially if they persecute them who are his children by faith. Gen 21:10.
4:31 So then - To sum up all. We - Who believe. Are not children of the bondwoman - Have nothing to do with the servile Mosaic dispensation. But of the free - Being free from the curse and the bond of that law, and from the power of sin and Satan.