2 lines
5.5 KiB
HTML
2 lines
5.5 KiB
HTML
|
<p>In these verses the apostle illustrates the difference between believers who rested in Christ only and those judaizers who trusted in the law, by a comparison taken from the story of Isaac and Ishmael. This he introduces in such a manner as was proper to strike and impress their minds, and to convince them of their great weakness in departing from the truth, and suffering themselves to be deprived of the liberty of the gospel: <i>Tell me</i>, says he, <i>you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law</i>? He takes it for granted that they did hear the law, for among the Jews it was wont to be read in their public assemblies every sabbath day; and, since they were so very fond of being under it, he would have them duly to consider what is written therein (referring to what is recorded <a class="bibleref" title="Gen.16.1-Gen.16.16,Gen.21.1-Gen.21.34" href="/passage/?search=Gen.16.1-Gen.16.16,Gen.21.1-Gen.21.34"><span class="bibleref" title="Gen.16.1-Gen.16.16">Gen. 16:1-16</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Gen.21.1-Gen.21.34">21:1-34</span></a>), for, if they would do this, they might soon see how little reason they had to trust in it. And here, 1. He sets before them the history itself (<a class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.22,Gal.4.23" href="/passage/?search=Gal.4.22,Gal.4.23"><span class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.22">Gal. 4:22</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.23">23</span></a>): <i>For it is written, Abraham had two sons</i>, etc. Here he represents the different state and condition of these two sons of Abraham—that the one, Ishmael, <i>was by a bond-maid</i>, and the other, Isaac, <i>by a free-woman</i>; and that whereas the former <i>was born after the flesh</i>, or by the ordinary course of nature, the other <i>was by promise</i>, when in the course of nature there was no reason to expect that Sarah should have a son. 2. He acquaints them with the meaning and design of this history, or the use which he intended to make of it (<a class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.24-Gal.4.27" href="/passage/?search=Gal.4.24-Gal.4.27">Gal. 4:24-27</a>): <i>These things</i>, says he, <i>are an allegory</i>, wherein, besides the literal and historical sense of the words, the Spirit of God might design to signify something further to us, and that was, That these two, Agar and Sarah, <i>are the two covenants</i>, or were intended to typify and prefigure the two different dispensations of the covenant. The former, Agar, represented that which was given from mount Sinai, and <i>which gendereth to bondage</i>, which, though it was a dispensation of grace, yet, in comparison of the gospel state, was a dispensation of bondage, and became more so to the Jews, through their mistake of the design of it, and expecting to be justified by the works of it. <i>For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia</i> (mount Sinai was then called Agar by the Arabians), <i>and it answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children</i>; that is, it justly represents the present state of the Jews, who, continuing in their infidelity and adhering to that covenant, are still in bondage with their children. But the other, Sarah, was intended to prefigure Jerusalem which is above, or the state of Christians under the new and better dispensation of the covenant, which is free both from the curse of the moral and the bondage of the ceremonial law, and <i>is the mother of us all</i>—a state into which all, both Jews and Gentiles, are admitted, upon their believing in Christ. And to this greater freedom and enlargement of the church under the gospel dispensation, which was typified by Sarah the mother of the promised seed, the apostle refers that of the prophet, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.54.1" href="/passage/?search=Isa.54.1">Isa. 54:1</a>; where it is written, <i>Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she who hath a husband</i>. 3. He applies the history thus explained to the present case (<a class="bibleref" title="Gal.4.28" href="/pa
|