I will apologize first. [Start singing “This is the Song that Doesn’t End” and invite people to join you.] Who remembers Lamb Chop and Shari Lewis? This clever song is a one verse wonder that once you start singing has no discernible end. It simply and naturally repeats. By now you’re realizing that the Apostle Paul is much the same way. Paul is both creating an argument and addressing critics which has him rhetorically building a number of arguments that continue to make the same point. Like a spiral staircase, they repeatedly swirl in the same direction in order to reintroduce the same point over and over again – God has graciously redeemed us through the faithfulness of Jesus, nothing else is required. This is the song that doesn’t end. I’d like to explore Paul’s song once again as he talks about our Father Abraham, how to read the Bible gospely, and what we need to get rid of.
1. Redemption is on Repeat - You gotta laugh.
Paul’s rivals were teaching the Galatians that to become descendants of Abraham, they had to both follow Jesus and be circumcised. In response, Paul taught that they became so through the faithfulness of Jesus. We’ve heard now, on repeat, that salvation is the activity of God and that it is God’s promise alone that gives birth to what God wants. And to ensure that we get that – Paul tells us that God loves to make big promises to barren realities. The Apostle Paul is telling the ancient love-triangle-story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar and God’s promise to bless all the nations through Abraham (Gensis 16-18, 21; cf. Genesis 12).
The issue is not that Ishmael was bad, he was even circumcised and also “blessed by God,” but that he could not be allowed to inherit and so reduce the inheritance to the child whom God had promised, Isaac. Ishmael was a blessed child but Isaac was a miracle. I also can’t help but remind you that Isaac, the free-child’s name, means “He laughs.” Think about the power of that for a moment. That’s your nickname too. You don’t have to earn God’s love, aren’t commanded to do something that would allow God to love you. No, God birthed you, Paul says, just like Isaac through God’s own initiative and promise. Take that with you during your week. “He or She laughs” is God’s pet name for you. Your destiny was not born not by any human decision, “according to the flesh,” but by extraordinary divine agency. God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
2. The gospel is a story that is “baked” into the Bible.
Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and most of the early church, thought the Bible was like a King’s cake. King’s cakes are a big deal in French homes. It’s a phylo-dough cake made during the season of Epiphany, after Christmas and before Lent, which celebrates the arrival of the Magi at the home of Mary and Joseph. The tradition is that a small ceramic figurine of the baby Jesus is baked into the cake and that the one who finds the figurine in their piece is the King or Queen of the party. For Paul, Jesus and the story of the gospel is the story the Old Testament wishes to tell. That’s what he means by reading “allegorically” or, perhaps, I might say, “gospely.”
But don’t confuse law and Gospel with Old Testament and New Testament. Paul is presenting the gospel solely from the Old Testament and learned this way of reading from Jesus himself. Rather than drill down into Paul’s reading of the Sarah / Hagar story I would love to spend some time on this point. I’ve preached about this before and here are a couple of practical take aways for those who wish to read the Old Testament as Jesus intended.
First, read it well. Gal. 4:22, 24, 27, 30. Paul quotes multiple Old Testament texts freely because he knows these texts. In the four Gospels, a constant indictment against the Pharisees in theological debates was Jesus’ astonished question: “Have you not read . . ?” So, Jesus and Paul both read and knew the Old Testament well. They loved it, revered it, and studied it, carefully. Don’t hide from it; not even from books that might seem scary or from stories that might not seem pertinent. Jesus loved to quote the book of Leviticus as “good news” and even made one of its verses: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:34) one of the quintessential elements of his movement. To read it well, in other words, is to read it carefully, thoughtfully, paying attention to the words, consulting different translations, asking questions of context and genre, and reading them alongside trusted partners of the past as well as the present.
But just reading it – isn’t enough. There are plenty of things the Old Testament commands that we should no longer do, plenty of positions that we must no longer take. And we must acknowledge that in terms of technical reading – what we might even call a “literal” reading - Paul’s opponents have the clearest Biblical position. Circumcision and following the law were required to be a part of the people of God.
Second, read it gospely – which is what Paul means in vs. 24 to read the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar “allegorically.” We must read it seriously as that which bows itself and prefigures the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection for our salvation. It means asking, How might this passage prefigure or point to God’s climactic story of salvation through Jesus? How does this passage anticipate Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection? Jesus himself will read the Bible this way as a story about his life, death, and resurrection. In Matthew, for example, he will speak about the story of Jonah beyond its literal meaning to refer to himself. He will allegorize Jonah’s time in the whale to prefigure his death. (Matthew 12:38-41). In John 5:39-40, he will state: You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” In Luke, Jesus will use an Emmaus-way hermeneutic and use “all the Scriptures” to explain what happened on the cross. “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27). This is what Paul is doing when he reads the Abraham story in light of Jesus. He is reading it like Jesus as that which points to Jesus’s salvific work.
Third, read it with Christlike love. Read it seriously as that which bows itself to the life of Jesus and becoming like him. A moral reading of love asks, “How can I read this passage to encourage my growth as a follower of Jesus? How can I read the Old Testament as that which helps me love God and neighbor? Again, we need only look to Jesus for this hermeneutic. “All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. ~ Matthew 22:40. The Apostle Paul will make the same argument in Galatians: 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~ Galatians 5:14 (see also Romans 13:8-10).
Augustine will echo such a position stating that literal readings of the law were what kept him from becoming a Christian until the great preacher Ambrose taught him that all of the law bowed to a gospel reading of love. What if we held as our most important reading strategy of the Bible not our own fulfillment, our own growth but love of neighbor? Augustine, in On Christian Doctrine, set forth a vision of how to interpret the Bible. He argues that the building up of love – love of God and love of one’s neighbor is the end or purpose of the Bible.
I understand that saying “love” is our interpretive lens doesn’t settle the argument but it certainly should frame it. Love fulfills the law and people must be loved. Reading it towards forgiveness and enemy love is the proper way to read it.
3. Get rid of what?
The Apostle is trying to speak to a serious issue that culturally, socially, as well as theologically is placing the Galatians back into a spirituality that is enslaving. It’s easy to read his quoting of Sarah’s words in Genesis 21:10 as a fiery command to expel the false teachers who supposedly represent Hagar’s children. In fact, a few commentators read it in precisely that way. And I would like to argue against that on two grounds. First, the Apostle has already argued that he is not setting up this allegory to reflect the choices of people per se but two covenants (v. 24). The expelling then refers to the idea of an enslaving spirituality that commands that people follow Old Testament laws plus Jesus. Such a position was akin to allowing someone to talk you out of your inheritance by stating that you weren’t truly an heir. Paul is not so much advancing a “get the hell out of here approach” but speaking to a serious issue of a teaching that will only lead to hurt and harm. So it’s not a “who” but a “what”, not a people, even though they’re being hurtful and divisive, but an idea that is harming. The church is at its worst when it forgets to separate people from ideas. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t speak up when people are being harmed but always to remember that Jesus disarms enemies by challenging their positions and loving them into a different way of being. Expelling people may feel good but it doesn’t reflect the gospel of Jesus Christ who forgives all his enemies from the cross.
I would also like to hearken back to another – two-son-story. I find it interesting that the way Paul introduces this story, “Abraham had two sons . . .” is reminiscent of Jesus’ most famous parable from Luke 15 about a man who “had two sons” (Luke 15:11ff.) In that we find two sons, one wayward and one legalistic who both encounter a gracious father who longs for their presence, their inclusion, a celebration for both. Our world right now can’t stand such a position. We must have winners and losers, haves and have nots. Both must not be blessed. And that takes me back to Hagar – the Egyptian slave – Paul’s anti-example, who after being driven out by Sarah, finds herself in the desert and near death. And who finds her but none other than the living God, the God of the Old Testament, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this God promises to bless her child and care for as well. And she offers a name for this God – She says, “You are the God who sees me” (Genesis 1613). Friends, let’s follow that God, our Lord Jesus Christ, out into the world who offers the divine promise of salvation to all.
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