The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 266

Christ is repr~sented by the freewoman. We are taught to regard it as the home of freedom. We feel free in our covenant position before God, in our immediate relation to him, and_ iyi our glorious prospects. (b) It has a numerous offspring. "For it is written, ReJ01ce, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailcst not: for more are the children of the desolate than of her which bath the husband." 'l'his is a quotation from Isa. liv. 1. In the same prophecy (li. 2) use is made of God gi,ing Abraham a~d Sarah a numerous offspring. In this language the prophet makes use of Sarah havmg a more numerous people descended from her than H:war. And what the apostle does in quoting it is to give the fact another application. '.J.'he Church represented by the desolate Sarah is to have a more numerous offspring than the Church represented by the favoured Hagar. (c) It has an off.pring according to promise. "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise." We are not certainly children according to the course of nature, or in virtue of influences that belong to our nature. We are children through the Divine influences that are efficient in the gospel surmounting great natural obstacles. Vv e are miraculously, supernaturally born. (2) An instructive parallel added. (a) The persecutors. "But as then he that was born after the flesh prrsecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." It is said, in connection with a festival in honour of the weaning of Isaac, that Sarah saw the son of Hagar, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. This little circumstance is referred to here, not so much for what it was in itself, as for its fore~hadowing the bearing of the Arab tribes toward the Israelites. As the de.scendants of Ishmael persecuted the descendants of Isaac, so in the apostle's day did the Jews persecute the Christians. It was & well-known fact that they were the bitterest enemies of the Christians and were the principal instigators of persecution against them. (b) Their fate foreshadowed. "Howbeit what saith the Scripture? Cast out the handmaid a.nd her son ; for the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the sori of the freewoman." Ishmael could not be allowed to live in the same house with Isaac. He bad to be cast out and was no sharer of the inheritance with him. So the Jewish Church and the Christian Church could not coexist. Jews could only be ia the Church as Christians. As Jews they were cast out of the special covenant position_ the stern reality of which was soon to be made evident in the destruction of Jerusalem and the breaking up of the Jewish nationality. (3) General conclusion regarding our state of freedom. "Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a handmaid, but of the freewoman." Exhortation founded on it. (a) To maintain our freedom. "With freedom did Christ set us free : stand fast therefore." We owe our freedom to Christ. And it can be said that with a great price have we obtained our freedom, that price being his blood. We are not, therefore, to treat lightly what bas been so dearly won, We must show our sense of it by maintaining it in its entirety. (b) To eschew bondage. "And be not entancrled acrain in a yoke of bondage." 'fhey had formerly been under the yoke of h~thenis; ; they were not to put themselves under the similar yoke of Judaism. A slave who has been liberated does not voluntarily put himself into the hardships he has left. So they who had experienced tho sweets of Christian liberty were not to go back to bonds.-R. F. Vers. 4, 5.-The advent in redemption. We naturally ask the question which forms the title to Anselm's famous book, ' Cur Deus Homo ? ' Why could not God effect his gracious purposes without the incarnation of his Son? The verses before us throw light on this question. Ver. 4 indicates the two leading points of the humiliation of our Lord-the personal and the moral Ver. 5 shows the object of these respectively, " The Son of God was born a man, that in him all men might become so □ s of God; he was born subj~ct to Law, that those subject to Law might be rescued from bondage" (Lightfoot). I. CHRIST BECAME A SON OF MAN THAT WE MIGHT DECOMI!: SONS OF GoD, .. He was born of a woman"" that we rnicrht 0 receive the adoption of sons." His humanity was real; he had a natural body and soul, and he entered the world by birth._ His l!umanity was a humbling of himself (see Phil. ii. 7, 8). It was the ernptyrng himself ol prim.reval glory; the subjecting himself to earthly limitations of knowlc<l~e, powe~, etc., even down to the unconscious helplessness of infancy; the endurance of the toil, the weariness, the distress of a hard life, endine; in that horror and mystery which we call orr. IV, 1-31.) 'l'llE EPIS'l'LE TO THE GALATIANS. 233