Sermon Text: Genesis 16
Scripture Reading: Galatians 4:21-5:1
Sermon Title: The Allegorical Significance of Hagar and Sarah
Sarah’s Objective: “Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her” (
Genesis 16:2b).
“Throughout the ancient East, polygamy was resorted to as a means of preventing childlessness. Wealthier wives preferred the practice of surrogate motherhood, whereby they allowed their husbands to “go in with” their maids. The mistress could feel that her maid’s child was her own and exert some control over it in a way that she could not if her husband simply took a second wife” (Wenham).
It is clear that the narrator, and ultimately the Holy Spirit, disapproves of Abram’s decision. Given the social norms of the ancient Near East, Sarai’s suggestion was a perfectly proper and respectable course of action. However, this is obviously not acceptable for Abram and Sarai. We can deduce some significance from the author’s comments in 16:1, Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children” and 16:3a, “So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan.” Also, notice the pattern between
Genesis 12:1-9 (God giving the Covenant) and
Genesis 12:10 (Crisis following the Covenant) and Genesis 15 (The Inauguration of the Covenant) and
Genesis 16:1-3 (Crisis following the Inauguration of the Covenant).
Commentator Gordon J. Wenham states the following: Pay close attention to the wording of
Genesis 16:2-3, which suggests the narrator’s disapproval, for he clearly alludes to Genesis 3. “Abram obeyed his wife.” The fact that the phrase “obey,” “listen to the voice,” occurs only here and in
Genesis 3:17. Also, notice “Sarai said to Abram” (v. 2a), “Abram listened to the voice of Sarai” (v. 2b), read all of
Genesis 16:3 (
Genesis 3:6 has identical sequence of key nouns and verbs).
Genesis 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Also, notice the blame-shifting in
Genesis 16:4-6 compared with
Genesis 3:8-13
- God makes a Covenant with stipulations
- God gives a clear promise regarding the fulfillment of His Covenant
- Even when man rebels against God through outright disobedience or through using “fleshly” means to accomplish Spiritual promises, God’s plan cannot be thwarted by man’s will. Although man is fully accountable for his actions and there are certain and lasting consequences to his choices, God providentially uses man’s free choice to accomplish His plan.
Abram’s family now finds themselves in ruin. Abram is at odds with his wife and seems to have lost his first son. Sarai is angry with her servant, has lost her servant, and the son she sought to have through the surrogate mother. Hagar is on the way to Shur (Egypt).
God’s promise to Hagar/Ishmael continues the theme that we saw with Cain, Ham, and later Esau: There are two distinct lines.
- “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:22-23).
The danger of living by the law has existed before and exists after the Mosaic Law (Old Covenant). It is not as though God has changed His mind as to what pleases Him. God did not say in one era, “live by the law” and then change His mind and say, “live by grace.” The Mosaic Law was not given in a particular dispensation in order to damn people. Those with a dispensational view would possibly think, "Those who lived during the dispensation of the law got dealt a bad hand." They lived in compartment of time where God dealt harshly with man by the giving of the law. However, the covenantal view would see that all throughout the Scriptures, the sinful disposition of man has always lead man to live by “the law” as defined by striving by the power of the flesh to be righteous before God.
Genesis 16 shows that man desired to live by the law 430 years before the Old Covenant (Mosaic Law) and Paul’s letter to the Galatians shows that man desired to live by the law after the Old Covenant was made void by the death and resurrection of Christ.
Beer-lahai-roi (beir-la-hi-roee - pronunciation) means “The well of the Living One who sees me.” I have not sought God, nor had respect for Him, except by constraint; whereas, he had before looked down upon me: even now in the desert, where being afflicted with evils, I ought immediately to have roused myself, I have been stupefied: nor would I ever raised my eyes towards heaven, unless I had been first looked upon by the Lord (Calvin’s Commentary on Genesis).
Read
Genesis 16:2, with an emphasis on “I shall obtain,” and compare with
Genesis 16:15-16. The absence of Sarai is noteworthy. The child was intended to be Sarai’s, but three times the text says, "Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram." Although fruit might be produced from fleshly effort, it will not be spiritual fruit. Neither salvation nor sanctification will result from fleshly striving.
Read
Galatians 3:1-3. Paul’s primary evidence for this principle is his reference to the Sarai and Hagar narrative in Genesis 16. We will spend the rest of our time studying
Galatians 4:21-5:1. Here, Paul shows that there is deeper spiritual significance to the Genesis 16 account.
Abraham had two sons:
- One by a slave woman à One by a free woman
- Son of the slave born according to the flesh à Son of the free born through promise
This may be interpreted allegorically: meaning, there is much deeper and lasting significance to this story.
These women are two covenants:
- One is from Mount Sinai: Hagar (Exodus 19-34) à No parallel to Sarah
- Hagar corresponds to present Jerusalem (geographical)
Paul constructs a contrasting, but uncompleted parallel.
- Paul moves past Sarah to “The Jerusalem Above” à Jerusalem above is our mother
- Paul then quotes Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians 4:27
Paul seems to deviate from his argument. He moves from an incomplete parallel that depends on two women with sons and addresses an “O barren one who does not bear.” Who is this barren woman and how does she contribute to Paul’s argument and how does she relate to Genesis 16? We must approach this passage in Galatians with a hermeneutic of intertextuality. When two different texts are introduced, the meaning of each text depends on the joint context of the two, and cannot be determined by taking either text by itself (Westminster Theological Journal #55).
It is important to note that Sarah is only mentioned by name in the Old Testament by Isaiah. As Moses describes Sarah as one who bore a child, Isaiah describes Sarah as one who bears a nation. “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him that I might bless him and multiply him” (
Isaiah 51:1-2).
By using the text in Isaiah, Paul disassociates “Jerusalem” from ethnic Israel. Because Jerusalem has been conquered by Babylon, Jerusalem is personified as a barren woman – to continue under foreign rule would mean the extinction of a nation. It is normal language to personify a city (Babylon is often referred to as a harlot).
What God did in the past for barren Sarah, Rebekkah, and Rachael, God will do for barren Jerusalem. Isaiah 54 documents God telling the “faithful city who has become a harlot” (
Isaiah 1:21) that just as He intervened to transform Sarah from a barren woman as good as dead to a fruitful mother of many children, so He will transform a Jerusalem destroyed by sin into a city with a thriving population of righteous seed (Westminster Theological Journal #55). Also, notice that Isaiah 54 immediately follows the famous Isaiah 53. The suffering of Jesus is what prompts Isaiah’s call for the barren one to rejoice.
Why was Jerusalem barren? Jerusalem was barren because of failure to keep the Mosaic Law. As we read earlier,
Genesis 16:15-16 shows that Sarai was still barren although Hagar bore Ishmael.
The Holy Spirit: Power to Save
- “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
The Holy Spirit: Power to Serve
- “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7)
- “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:4-5).
- “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…” (Acts 1:8a).
The Holy Spirit: Power to Sanctify
- It is important to understand WHY the resurrection is directly connected with the Holy Spirit. This is also how we tie together Jesus’ death with Old Covenant redemption and New Covenant Inauguration. On the Cross Jesus “becomes like the animals” God passes through when He cut the Covenant in Genesis 15 and He simultaneously “cuts” the New Covenant with His blood, and seals it with the giving of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the same power (Romans 8:11) that raised Christ from the dead, is what brings us to live spiritually AND enables us to serve AND enables us to be sanctified à see the outworking of Paul’s argument in Galatians 4:21-5:1 tied to Galatians 5:16-26
Just as the birth of Isaac eventually issued in the population of earthly Jerusalem by his descendants, the resurrection of Jesus issues in the populating of the New Jerusalem. Paul does not say that Sarah is “our mother.” The Jerusalem above is Heaven (
Hebrews 12:22;
Revelation 21:2). The Holy Spirit, provided by the resurrection of Christ, births us from Heaven. The law gave Sarah no children (
Genesis 16:15-16).
Remember when we discuss the imbalance in the parallel construction of Galatians 4:22-25? Hagar is Mount Sinai, but no corresponding parallel place is given for Sarah. The significance of this imbalance in the parallel construction is that because of its fulfillment in Christ, Paul cannot relate the Abrahamic covenant of promise to Sarah in the same way he relates the Mosaic covenant of law to Hagar (Westminster Theological Journal #55).
In other words, Sarah did not birth the promise. The promise was birthed in the resurrection. This is seen, as it seems that God asks Abraham to kill Isaac (Genesis 22). In Genesis 22 God is showing Abraham how Isaac is truly birthed (through death).
In Galatians, Paul’s point is that you can be a circumcised son of Abraham, but not a son of Sarah. “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of promise are counted as offspring” (
Romans 9:6-8).
The Galatian Christians must learn to live in the New Jerusalem, where sin is not defined as failure to comply with Jewish Law, but as failure to live as Spirit-born, Jesus bought, Sons of the LORD. (Divine power) is displayed not in dramatic manifestations that intrigue men but in lives of quiet confidence and steady persistence that glorify God.
Alistair Begg:
Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness is the soul and substance of all false religion… The Spirit alone is sufficient for this work. All ways and means without Him are useless. He is the great efficient. He is the One who gives life and strength to our efforts.
John Owen:
- Temptation and Sin, Sovereign Grace Book Club, 1958, p. 7, 16.
