Children of the Promise

Read aloud

Paul asks those who want to be under the law whether they have listened to what the law says. He turns to Abraham's two sons, one born by the slave woman and one by the free woman. The first was born according to the flesh; the second through the promise.

Paul says these women represent two covenants. Hagar represents the Sinai covenant and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, which Paul describes as enslaved with its children. By contrast, the Jerusalem above is free and is our mother. Sarah and Isaac's story helps Paul explain this family formed by promise. The point is not an ethnic insult against Hagar's descendants or a denial of the dignity of enslaved people. Paul is using the story as an argument about covenant status and the source of inheritance.

He quotes Isaiah's call for the barren woman to rejoice because the children of the desolate woman will be more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband. The promise does not follow ordinary expectations. God creates a family whose future depends on His word.

As Isaac was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. The child born according to the flesh persecuted the child born according to the Spirit, and Paul says Scripture records the slave woman's son being sent away because he would not share the inheritance with the free woman's son.

Paul concludes that believers are children of the free woman. The inheritance cannot be secured both by God's promise and by returning to bondage under the law. His use of the expulsion command makes the choice sharp: they must not surrender their place as children of promise.