These are the Two Covenants

Covenant Theology in Genesis 17: The Abrahamic Covenant as Singular and Dual in Scope

Well, this morning we continue forward in Genesis chapter 17, our third week in Genesis 17, our second week considering covenant theology. Of course, throughout our time in Genesis, we've been keeping a close eye on the covenants that we've come across, beginning in creation with the covenant God made with Adam and all in Adam, and then also its renewal under Noah.

And so we've already considered in times past the Adamic and the Noahic covenant. And in chapter 12, we saw the great promise that was given to Abram. In chapter 15, that promise was established through the covenant that was cut.

Remember, that God himself and God alone passed through the animals that had been divided. And then in chapter 17, we began to see this covenant that God made with Abraham. We began to see it elaborated, further instruction added to this covenant, and we began to consider that last week.

The first point last week was that the Abrahamic covenant is a singular covenant, meaning there's not more than one covenant that God makes with Abraham. Throughout the rest of the Scriptures, whenever the covenant is referenced, it is the covenant, not the covenants.

There's not more than one.

It is simply the covenant God made with Abram. At the same time, the second point last week was that singular covenant is dual in scope. It's twofold, it's dichotomous, and we began to consider that last week.

We also briefly touched on the sign of the covenant, which is circumcision, and the seed, which according to Galatians 3, the true seed is Jesus Christ. Now we're going to zoom in on points two and a little bit of three this morning, and then next week we'll zoom in a little bit more on the same point.

So as I said, this will be a triumph for note-takers. I realize for some who are just cutting their teeth on covenantal theology or Reformed theology that this is a bit like taking a sip from a fire hose.

I sympathize with that. Do not be discouraged. These things will become clear, and as I said, we're in a holding pattern. We haven't quite landed yet, and so if things are a little fuzzy this morning, that's okay.

They'll probably be a little more clear next week when some of these things are again rehearsed in different angles with more detail. So we're going to zoom in on this idea of the dual scope this morning, the dichotomy within the Abrahamic covenant, and that's going to lead us to understand its relationship to the Mosaic covenant.

That's the big focus for us this morning. Next week, we're going to go back and look at this dynamic, and we're going to start to distinguish why we are Reformed and Baptist. In other words, our approach to covenant theology within the Reformed circle, within the Reformed world is a little bit distinctive, and we're going to look at some of the theological and biblical arguments that our confession makes therein.

So that'll be next week, but we want to lay the foundation, lay the building blocks together.

This morning.

We'll try to do that in three parts. So the first thing we'll consider is the flesh and the promise, the flesh and the promise. Secondly, we'll consider two covenants, the two covenants, and then lastly, heirs by faith.

The Flesh and the Promise in the Abrahamic Covenant

So the flesh and the promise, the two covenants, and we being heirs by faith. So first, the flesh and the promise. The Abrahamic covenant unfolds in Scripture really according to these two labels, the flesh and the promise.

Sometimes you might read the physical and the spiritual. That's certainly fine to use as labels. I think it can be a little misleading to our modern ears. We tend to speak of that as though it's matter.

Matter is physical and spiritual is ethereal. That's Gnosticism, that's not Christianity. And so I'm using flesh in a technical way and promise in a technical way. You might read about covenant theology or the Abrahamic covenant and come across the terms physical and spiritual.

God's covenant unfolds according to the flesh in the history of the physical fleshly seed, which would be the offspring immediate to Abraham, the offspring of Israel. And then God's covenant with Abraham also unfolds according to the promise, the history of the seed, singular, capital S, who is Jesus, the true Israel of God, the yes and amen of.

God.

So Christ bridges these two dimensions of the Abrahamic covenant. He is born according to the flesh as an Israelite, born of women, born under the law. And yet he's also the child of promise. And his culmination of the Abrahamic covenant is not according to flesh so much as according to promise.

So Christ bridges these two dimensions within the Abrahamic covenant with the spiritual or what we could say promised unconditional dimension of the Abrahamic covenant in which all of the elements of the promise find their true completion, the blessing to the nations, the everlasting land in the presence of God.

We continue to trace this two-fold dual dimension understanding of the Abrahamic covenant. As the storyline of Scripture unfolds, moving out of Genesis 17, indeed throughout the rest of the Old Testament, what we call redemptive history, we find these interwoven dynamics of the flesh and the promise.

And they all spring out of this Abrahamic covenant. We find the fleshly dimension progressively fulfilled in the Old Testament according to conditional and typological purposes. We find the promise or the spiritual dimensions progressively revealed and culminated in the New Testament according to their unconditional and fulfillment purposes.

Now here's one point that's very important and we'll rehearse these again next week.

Stay with me.

Both dimensions, both the fleshly and the promise, both the physical and the spiritual, both dimensions of this unfolding redemptive history work together in God's singular purpose to save His people through His promised seed.

Both are necessary. Both are vital. Both are designated by God to bring about redemption. Both dimensions are necessary to properly understand God, to properly understand His ways and His work, to properly have a relationship to Him by blood-bought grace and grace-given.

Faith.

So we need both dimensions. We cannot camp out on the one at the expense of the other. We must take them both and see them as necessarily mutual. When we make either of them exclusive, when we pull them apart out of the singular purpose of God in the unfolding of redemptive history, we introduce all sorts of errors into our understanding of God, our understanding of salvation, and our application to the Christian life.

We'll talk about that a little bit more next week. These two dimensions, the flesh and the promise, these two dimensions do not represent two different purposes of God, two different ways to find His singular redemption.

And we'll continue to rehearse this. The fleshly dimension that immediately, physically follows this Abrahamic covenant foreshadows the promise, and it becomes the corridor through which the promise is brought about.

This is Jeffrey Niehaus, who wrote some very helpful things on biblical theology, and I agree with this statement here. He's speaking on the dual condition of God's covenant with Abraham in the same way we have.

For the past week.

He says, it's unconditionality shows God's commitment to the accomplishment of His ultimate salvific purpose, His ultimate purpose of salvation, the universal blessing given to all nations by the Spirit.

It's conditionality, what we might call this fleshly stream, shows He is still the holy God with holy kingdom requirements that cannot be dismissed by cheap grace. I think that's a correct statement about these two dimensions.

The Two Covenants in Galatians 4

So, let's move into what will be the bulk of our time and consider the two covenants. The best way for us to see the profound significance of these dual dimensions, the flesh and the promise, the physical and the spiritual, brings us forward in Galatians.

We spent some time last week in Galatians 3, seeking to understand the way that Paul reveals Christ as the true seed that was promised to Abraham in the covenant. The only obedient son who could satisfy the conditional requirements of the covenant and therefore receive the unconditional blessing that was promised in the covenant.

He's the true seed that fulfills both dimensions of the covenant. Now in order to bring these blessings upon us and bring about the promise of the Spirit, that's what Paul equates to the promise in Galatians 3.

He not only satisfied the conditional requirement, but he also took our place, our place of condemnation and bore the furious wrath of God due to covenant breakers. So not only fulfilled it as the obedient son, he took our place as covenant breakers and bore the curse, bore those who break the covenant, the wrath that is due them.

Galatians 3, beginning in verse 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, why? So that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So you must hold these things together. Paul's thinking in terms of the Abrahamic covenant and it's not simple enough to say Christ took the curse of the law if you detach that law from the Abrahamic covenant.

Christ became a curse for us, Galatians 3, 13 and 14, so that the blessing of Abraham, in other words, what was promised to Abraham, could be brought about by the Spirit upon the Gentiles through faith.

We see once more that Paul cannot understand the relationship of Christ to his people or the church to Israel or faith to the law outside of the Abrahamic covenant. That is the contour for Paul's understanding of these relationships.

Now as we turn to Galatians 4, and I actually encourage you to do that if you have a Bible, as we turn to Galatians 4, we continue in this stream of Paul's understanding of the Abrahamic covenant. We begin to trace its relationship to the Mosaic covenant and here in the relationship of faith and law.

Not only is Paul going to address the relationship of the Abrahamic covenant apart from the Mosaic covenant, but he's also going to address the Abrahamic covenant through the Mosaic covenant. Very important that we recognize that.

If you were a visual thinker, the best little sketch I could have you draw would if you write out the Abrahamic covenant, or maybe an A with a circle around it, and then maybe a straight line across, and maybe another circle with a NC, new covenant, or CG, covenant.

Of grace.

There's a direct line from the Abrahamic covenant to the new covenant, but that's according to the promised dimension. According to the fleshly dimension, you're going to have to draw a line underneath it.

Now they both end at the same place, but along this line you have the Mosaic covenant and the Davidic covenant, and this is part of the stream. So there's a way in which the Abrahamic covenant is apart from the Mosaic covenant in terms of promise, but also vitally a way in which it is through the Mosaic covenant.

Both of these dual dimensions must be held together. Let's read Galatians 4, beginning in verse 21, and trace out these dimensions of the flesh and the promise in redemptive history. Galatians 4, beginning in verse 21.

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a free.

Woman.

But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar.

For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us, all us believers. For it is written, rejoice, O barren, you who do not hear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor, for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say?

Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be the heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The whole thrust of verses 21 through 31 is to establish the contrast between this dimension of the flesh in the unfolding history and purpose of God and the dimension of the promise or of the Spirit.

And where does Paul take us? Remember that Paul is being inspired by the Spirit of God and he does this by taking us to Genesis 16 and Genesis 17. So he's introducing this contrast by bringing us back to the difference between these two chapters.

Genesis 16, where we were when he goes into Hagar and the product of that illicit union is Ishmael. And then he takes us to Genesis 17, where God establishes the covenant in further detail and says, Ishmael will not be your heir, but rather the child that I will give you, the child that I promised.

So what is the contrast here? It's between the child of the flesh and the child of the promise. Between Hagar and Sarai, between bondage and freedom, between Sinai and the Jerusalem above. This is the great contrast that Paul's holding in view.

Contrast, contrast, contrast. That is the emphasis. Now, he says in verse 24, these things are symbolic. And then he says, these are two covenants. These are the two covenants. What are the two covenants in view?

We'll go into more detail about this next week, because it's very significant. The two covenants in view are the Mosaic covenant, typified by Sinai, where God gave the law. Remember, as soon as Moses came down, the people had already broken.

And so in his fury, he threw the tablets. And the covenant had to be re-established, literally re-cut immediately after. That doesn't give you a foretaste of what that ministry of condemnation looks like.

The Mosaic covenant, and then the new covenant, the covenant by grace, which is typified not by Sinai, but by the Jerusalem above. These are the two covenants that Paul is contrasting in Galatians 4. Notice that Paul is looking at the Abrahamic covenant according to both flesh and promise.

The contrast of fulfillment boils down to Abraham's two sons, Ishmael versus Isaac. So regarding these two sons, in the most basic terms, which Paul is developing theologically, Ishmael is the seed, according to the flesh, Isaac is the seed, according to promise.

These two seeds correspond to the flesh and the promise, the physical and the spiritual dimensions of the Abrahamic covenant, according to Paul. Ishmael represents the fleshly, physical descendants of Abraham that take up the remaining historical unfolding of the Old Testament.

Please keep in mind what I just said, Ishmael represents the fleshly, physical descendants of Abraham. That is a stunning statement, as we'll see in a moment. Isaac represents the promised spiritual descendants of Abraham, having been foreshadowed by the physical descendants.

They realize the fulfillment of this unfolding promise toward the New Testament. Paul comes to understand the purpose of God through the mystery of Christ, and of course this for Paul doesn't mean there was not an advantage in being a Jew.

Romans 3, beginning in verse 1, what advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. In other words, he says it was a tremendous advantage for them to have proximity to God's revelation, to be able to hear the word of the Lord, to partake in all of that God had prescribed to them by way of the oracles, to hear the word of the prophets, to partake in the sacrificial system.

That was a great advantage. He says later in Romans, in chapter 9, Israelites to whom pertained the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises, of whom are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came.

These are the advantages. Paul's not spurning this at all. The historical progression of this fleshly dimension reaches its height in the coming of Christ. And so that's what Paul's doing in shorthand in Romans 9, through whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, eternally blessed.

This is the seed of the promise to the woman. And this is why Paul comes to view believers in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, as the reason for this unfolding fleshly dimension. This is an incredible development in the life and theology of Paul.

As a former Pharisee, this is not the way he would have understood God's purpose in history or God's purpose for the world. He comes to understand that believers in Jesus, the people that are cobbled together in the basements and insulae of the ancient churches, are the reason that this whole fleshly dimension and all of the kingdom of Israel unfolded throughout history.

Listen, 1 Corinthians 10, beginning in verse 11, Paul's just described the Israelites falling in the wilderness. All these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the ages has come.

So baseline for Paul, what happened to them was written for us. What happened to them was for our sake, Paul says. That's the difference between the shadow, the foretaste, and the fulfillment, the reality.

Moreover, Romans 9, 6, they are not all Israel, who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed of Abraham, the fleshly seed of Abraham. But in Isaac, your seed shall be called, you see?

Not according to the flesh, but according to the promise. They are not all Israel, who are of the flesh, but they are Israel according to the promise. And that's why Paul can say some of the most shocking language about his heritage.

And we just glaze over this, we can't understand how world-shifting this would have been for.

Paul the Pharisee.

Look at this language from Galatians 4, beginning in verse 24, these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. The very badge of identity as a Jew, he now associates with Hagar.

And he says it's all bondage, for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and it corresponds to the Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. In other words, the inhabitants, the unbelieving Jews of Jerusalem are Hagar in bondage with her children.

Jews are children of Hagar, according to Galatians 4. No wonder he was dragged out of cities and stoned. This is utterly shocking language. This is a stunning message. He used to be a Pharisee of Pharisees.

What do we know from John the Baptist's ministry? The Pharisees, like the Sadducees, viewed themselves as secure simply because they were fleshly descendants of Abraham. We're in, we've got it, because the promises of Abraham are ours.

We're his children, we're his flesh. And so what does John the Baptist say in Matthew 3? When he saw many of the Pharisees coming to his baptism, he said to them,.

He's a prophet.

He knows what they're trying to think to themselves. Do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

Something that God goes on to do in the New Covenant, he raises up children to Abraham from people who are stone dead in their trespass and sin. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. You see, John was forcefully rebuking this confidence in the flesh.

We have Abraham as our father. And he says, you brood of vipers, bear fruits worthy of repentance. Show yourself to have the faith of Abraham. That's how you become a child of Abraham. And so Paul the Pharisee, he comes to a place in his understanding of the purpose of God and the redemptive unfolding of God's purpose.

And he can say in Philippians 3, beginning in verse 4, if anyone thinks he can have confidence in the flesh, you want to go down that Pharisaic route, I've been there, done that. I've done that better than you could.

I was circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin.

I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.

Concerning the law, I was a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, I persecuted the church.

That's how zealous I was.

Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. I did all that the law required me to do. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. He understands the fundamental shift that Christ has made in his erroneous understanding of what God was doing in the covenant of Abraham.

And so he comes to Romans 3. Remember, he's already said, is there an advantage to having been a Jew? Is there an advantage to circumcision? Much in every way. What does he say a few verses later, Romans 3, 9?

What then? Are we, Jews, better than they, Gentiles? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they're all under sin. In other words, the fundamental problem remains. It didn't matter whether you were born according to the flesh of Abraham.

The fundamental issue is still here, sin. And all that sin brings with it, separation from God and the certain expectation of judgment. The fundamental problem respects all peoples, all tribes, all tongues.

It's a problem that affects the whole of humanity through the first man's sin. And it's the problem that only the last Adam's obedience can rectify. Paul has come to understand that. So Abraham's fleshly children, this dimension of the flesh as it unfolds throughout the biblical storyline, they may have been born privileged, having access and advantages in God's proximity, in God's great deliverance, in God's profits, in God's manifestations of His power.

But the fundamental issue remained. They, just like those who are far off, are dead in trespass and sin. So if that's the case, then why does God establish the Mosaic Covenant with Israel? The answer is so massive, we could spend many weeks unpacking it.

So I'm just going to make one point off of it, realize this is not exhaustive. I might give several points, but the Mosaic Covenant was, this is one of the answers, the Mosaic Covenant was given to Israel to manifest their sinfulness, to expose it, Romans 3 .20.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. It was meant to manifest it. Come to know it. The condition, in other words, the law, the condition of the Mosaic Covenant was given not to save the children of Israel, but to condemn them, so that they would see along with all who heard their witness as they went about being a light to the nations, that all stand guilty before God, and like Abraham their father, must walk before Him in sincerity by faith, trusting that He will bring about what He has promised.

Because He Himself, He alone passed through the slaughtered animals, Romans 3 .19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, that all the world may become guilty before God.

That's why Paul can say to the church at Galatia, with these Galatians wanting to become Judaizers, Galatians 4 .21, tell me you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear.

The law?

You want to be under it? Do you not hear it? The condition of the law, Paul explains in Galatians 3, in terms of redemptive history, was a tutor. It was meant to lead Israel to Christ. Now this is a little footnote here.

We're not going into the third use today. As a Reformed gentleman, I am fighting every instinct I have to jump into the third use of the law, but that's not the purpose here in Galatians 3 and 4. That's just a little footnote if that means anything to you.

The law was given to be a tutor to lead Israel to Christ. Galatians 3 .24, therefore the law was our tutor, our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Paul understands that.

This is the stumbling stone that Israel stumbled at. They tried to establish righteousness by works of the law. They stumbled at that stumbling stone. They didn't pursue it as righteousness really comes about, by faith.

Galatians 3 .21 and 22, is the law then against the promises of God?

Certainly not.

If there had been a law which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been.

By the law.

Paul is saying that was never the intent of the law, never the design of the law. For the Israelite, for all apart from Christ, there was no way to attain life and righteousness through the law. Paul says, if there was a law that could be given in that way, it would have been given.

But because the fundamental issue of man's sinfulness remains, Galatians 2 .21, I do not set aside the grace of God. If righteousness could come by the law, for me, Christ died for nothing. If righteousness could come by my attempts to strive and to meet the bar and to pursue the very reflection of God's perfection, then Christ didn't need to come.

And certainly Christ did not need to die on the cross and bear the curse. And so this condition of the law that was established with Abraham, we see that moving forward in Genesis 18, he uses this conditional language that Abraham would keep all of the statues and decrees, keep in other words the covenant that God made with him, so that the promises could be brought about.

And we know that, as we said last week, there was only one seed, one obedient son who could actually do that. And yet the Mosaic covenant, in other words, opens up now to Israel and clarifies, impresses its burden of condition upon the people as a yoke that neither we nor our fathers could bear, Acts 15.

The condition of the law was part of the witness, part of the tutelage to point everyone to faith in the promised seed, faith in Christ, who alone fulfills its righteous demand.

The law is holy and good.

And so the whole sweep of redemptive history in this fleshly dimension comes to the fulfillment through its zenith, where these two dimensions meet in the person of Christ and in His work. And as a result of that work, Romans 3, 21, but now, now that all of the world stands guilty before God, now the righteousness of God apart from the law has been made known, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, right, the tutelage of the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.

The key point is that for Paul, all of this revelation begins in the Abrahamic Covenant. That's the framework. Next week we're going to show how even the Abrahamic Covenant is very closely building off of the Adamic Covenant in terms of a covenant of works, but we'll save that for next week.

All of this revelation is framed in by the Abrahamic Covenant. And that brings us back to Galatians 3 and 4. Now we can understand what Paul's argument is. The first thing to note is that the condition of the law cannot annul what God gave by promise.

This fleshly dimension, this condition, this requirement in order to receive the blessing, the fact that that law, that condition came after the promise means that what came after it cannot annul what was promised.

Galatians 3, beginning in verse 17, this I say, that the law, which was 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant, in other words, cannot make void or cancel out the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.

For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Do you see the contrast again? What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, all of those dynamics we just talked about from Romans 3, until the seed, capital S, until Christ should come, to whom the promise was.

Made.

So then how does the Abrahamic covenant relate to the Mosaic covenant? In terms of the conditional or fleshly dimension, the Mosaic covenant simply clarified what was already contained in the Abrahamic covenant.

It elaborated upon what was already demanded by God in the Abrahamic covenant. If you don't understand that point, you cannot make sense of Paul's argument in Galatians.

4.

And so all of this, for example, is contained in the sign of circumcision. Remember that according to Galatians 3, 7, and 18, both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants run concurrently until both are abrogated in their completion in the new covenant, which is in the blood of Christ.

And so what's already demanded in the Abrahamic covenant is clarified, brought into focus, elaborated more fully in the Mosaic covenant. How that connects to Adam and the covenant of works is very significant.

We'll talk about that next week. So then in seeking to understand these two covenants, in seeking to understand the relationship between the old and the new covenants, the dual dimension, the flesh and the promise of the Abrahamic covenant, we have to understand that the Abrahamic covenant contained the promise that would become fully manifest in the covenant of grace, fully manifest.

And it did that even through its conditional fleshly dimension. Its condition was clarified in the Mosaic covenant such that grace could not come through the law for God's people, right, Galatians 2, 21.

But without that condition, without that stipulation being fully satisfied by the seed, by Christ, there could be no grace at all. So again you see this contrast. In order for grace to be grace, God established this dimension of promise so that since no flesh can be justified by the works of the law, we might be justified by grace through.

Faith.

And yet it was also the whole unfolding purpose of this fleshly dimension that the seed would come, that he would fulfill and satisfy this holy requirement and thereby unleash the blessings that had been established by God's covenant.

In other words, the promise was not according to the flesh and the flesh was not according to the promise as it pertains to believers. The promise was not according to the flesh and the flesh is not according to the promise, and this again brings us to Galatians 4.

Hagar represents the conditional fleshly dimension of the Abrahamic covenant, just as Ishmael was born from Hagar, the slave woman, so it is for all who are born of the flesh and not of the promise. In other words, those who are born according to the flesh, dead in trespass and sin and not according to the Spirit of God.

Ishmael was born through sinful disobedience, complete lack of faith. Remember, we talked about Abraham's Adamic failure in Genesis 16. Ishmael was born in slavery. All those outside of Christ, outside of this fulfillment, are likewise born according to the flesh, born into bondage, born under the dominion of sin.

Abram disobeyed and he brought forth a child of the flesh. In Adam's disobedience, we are all born children of the flesh, born into bondage, born under the yoke of sin. But God intervenes. He gives Abram a child of promise, and so it is with all those who are born according to the promise and not according to the flesh, that is, those who are born again by the Spirit.

Of God.

I hope this point is becoming clear. It's so important. In the same way that Ishmael was not the promised seed, God is emphatic about this, and Paul takes it all up, and this is how Paul reasons. All of Abraham's fleshly seed, all of his physical descendants, if they have not been born again by the Spirit of God, are not the promised children.

They're born according to Abraham's flesh, not according to the promise. And so consider, according to Paul, this Sinai covenant, typified by Hagar, was conditional. It led to bondage, but the Jerusalem above, the mother of believers, typified by the promise given to the woman, was unconditional, and it doesn't begin and end in bondage, it leads.

To freedom.

Hmm.

We see the same exact dynamic in John 8. Remember, the Jews are having this exchange with Jesus, and they say, we are Abraham's descendants, right? We're in, we're in the bloodline, we're secure, we're Abraham's descendants, we've never been in bondage to anyone.

I mean, give me a break, guys, there's like Roman guards on the Antonia Fortress, yeah, you've never been in bondage to anyone? Do you not know your own history? We're Abraham's descendants, we've never been in bondage to anyone, how can you say you will be made free?

And Jesus answered and said, most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever. Do you see how Paul takes this very concept into Galatians 4?

You're a child of the flesh, but you're a slave, and a slave does not abide in the house.

Forever.

Think of that in covenantal terms, but a son abides forever, therefore if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Paul, in his own way, in Galatians 4, would tear that declaration to shreds.

Were there an unbelieving Jew to say, I've never been in bondage to anyone? Paul would say, no, you're born into the bondage of Sinai, you're a slave, you're a child of Hagar, you're a child of the flesh, no, we're Abraham's descendants, no, you're not, you're not the promised children.

So who are the promised children? Who are those born according to the promise and not the flesh, born by the Spirit? Romans 9, 6, 7, and 8, they are not all Israel, who are of Israel, nor are they all children, because they are the seed, the fleshly seed of Abraham, but in Isaac, in the promise, your seed shall be called, that is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed, Galatians 4, 28.