December 24
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UNDER THE LAW OR UNDER GRACE
21 Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the Law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. 23 But the son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 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. 25 Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is enslaved with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. – Galatians 4:21-26
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According to a commentary, Paul writes directly, both to those who promoted legalism and to those who succumbed to legalism. He writes to those who desire to be under the law, living under law keeping as the basis for their relationship with God. There are many advantages to being under the law as your principle of relating to God. First, you always have the outward certainty of a list of rules to keep. Second, you can compliment yourself because you keep the rules better than others do. Finally, you can take the credit for your own salvation, because you earned it by keeping the list of rules. Under the law it is what you do for God that makes you right before Him. Under the grace of God, it is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ that makes us right before Him. Under the law the focus is on my performance. Under the grace of God, the focus is on who Jesus is and what He has done. Under the law we find fig leaves to cover our nakedness. Under the grace of God we receive the covering won through sacrifice that God provides. The legalists who troubled the Galatians protested that they were children of Abraham, and therefore blessed. Paul will admit they are children of Abraham, but they forget that Abraham had two sons. Abraham’s first son was named Ishmael. He was born not from his wife, but from his wife’s servant (the bondwoman), from a misguided surrogate mother scheme to “help God” when Abraham’s wife Sarah couldn’t become pregnant. It often doesn’t look like it, but legalism is living according to the flesh. It denies God’s promise and tries to make your own way to God through the law. This is living like a descendant of Abraham – but it is living like Ishmael. Our inner conflict of following the law and living under God’s grace dates back to Abraham’s time. We need to focus on the sacrifice that Jesus has already made on the cross to free us from the law.
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REFLECTION
• How can we deal with the warfare between the flesh and living under grace?