Gal 4:21-31

Children of promise

Warm-up: Whom do you remember as your best school teacher, and why?

Read Gal 4:21-31

1) What was Paul’s stated goal when he penned this text? v19

• How was Paul’s approach of ‘forming Christ in you’ different from the pedagogy of his opponents? vv16-18
  • What was their root problem? cf 1Tim 1:5-7 —>
    • What was wrong about how they applied God’s commandments? 
    • What held them so captive in this tradition, and what could have prevented their error? v21; cf 1Tim 1:7
  • How did Paul tackle the problem?
    • i.e. how does this example model proper teaching?
    • What do you think of his choice of the story of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis 16 as his Scripture proof? (If you have not yet done so read Genesis 16.)

2) What do you think of Paul’s choice of this story of Hagar and Sarah to explain the purpose of the law of Moses?

• v23: What distinguished the children of these two women? Was it circumcision? Gen 17:23
  • How else was Isaac not just born “according to the flesh” like Ishmael? cf Jn 3:6; 6:63
• v24: Did Paul only offer here one possible ‘interpretation’ (ESV)? Or did he claim to provide the one true symbolic meaning of this inspired text from the OT? [gr. allegoroumena, lit. (things which) are speaking allegorically]

3) v25: What evidence led Paul to conclude that the ‘present Jerusalem’ is like Hagar? Hint: Why did Paul associate Hagar and her slavery with Mount Sinai?

• Was this Paul’s creative rhetorical argument suited to oppose merely the custom of circumcision? => How can we be sure that it wasn’t? Hints:
• Why can’t Mount Sinai represent circumcision?
  • When was circumcision prescribed? Gen 17:12
  • Was circumcision even mentioned >400 years later on Mount Sinai? Ex 20–31:18

4) v26 refers to a heavenly Jerusalem: What is this? cf Heb 12:18-25

• Where did the first Christians get this notion of a heavenly ‘city of God’ distinct from the literal Jerusalem?
  • Did they read this into the Bible, or is it the original vision from the Old Testament? ->
  • Does Ps 2:4-7 place this city on earth or outside of spacetime?
  • Read Ps 48. Why does Ps 48 locate this ‘city’ in the far ‘north’ of the immutable polar star, v2? Is it equated to God himself, vv13-14
  • cf Ps 87:2, where God is said to love the ‘gates’ of this ‘city’ more than all (literal) Israelite ‘tabernacles’ (dwellings)

5) v27 quotes Isa 54:1. Since neither Hagar nor Sarai were without husband (Gen 16:3), who else did Isaiah compare to a barren and still unmarried desolate woman, and why? cf Hos 2:19

• By contrast, how does the present Jerusalem resemble the children of a married woman ‘in labor’?
• Did Paul question that God’s promises in Isa 54 were also for this literal nation of Israel? cf Ro 11:23-24 [For the nation, Isa 54:4-8 asserts that God will eventually gather her again too]

6) vv 28-31 conclude this passage with a warning about conflict: Which one?

• Why is such conflict inevitable throughout the ages, and why do Christians need to know? cf Jn 16:1-4, 33; 1Thes 3:3-4

7) Personal & application

• How can you know whether you rightly consider yourself a citizen of God’s heavenly Jerusalem, or whether you side with professing Christians who instead ‘desire to be under the law’?
• What is the effect of properly regarding ourselves as ‘children of promise‘?
• To whom can you reach out these days to encourage them to embrace this freedom and live accordingly?  

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