by Angus Harley

The last article was a hard pill to swallow, as it was tough to understand.1 I hope that the current article will shed some light on what I was saying before. For in Galatians 4:21-31, Paul comes to the hub of the matter: the contrast between heaven and earth.

Heaven vs earth

Paul is contrasting in Galatians 4:21-31 two worlds: heaven and earth. I will contrast each domain side-by-side:

Earth               Heaven

-Abraham’s fleshly son    Abraham’s son by promise

-Under the Law       Following the promise

-Bondwoman (Hagar)    Free woman (Sarah)

-Hagar’s son: Ishmael    Sarah’s son: Isaac

-Son born as to the flesh  Son born through promise

-Old Covenant      New Covenant

-Mount Sinai       Heaven above

-Slave children      Free children

-Arabia         Heaven above

-Earthly Jerusalem    Jerusalem above

-In slavery        Free

-Earthly mother     Mother abov

-Bearing children    Barren

-Children by flesh    Abundant children by promise

-Husband       No husband

-Judaizers       Christians

-Born of flesh      Born of Spirit

-Persecuting      Persecuted

-Cast out       Embraced

-No heir        Heir

-Not brothers     Brothers

Figures. Abraham is contrasted to himself: father as to the flesh; father as to the promise. Hagar is contrasted to Sarah, Ishmael to Isaac, Jews to Christians.

Geographics. All the geographic places are located in one of two places: heaven or earth. To the earthly belongs Mount Sinai, Arabia, and earthly Jerusalem. By contrast, the Jerusalem above is in heaven.

Powers. There are contrasting powers. There is the state of being “under the Law”, which is contrasted, by implication, to the promise. The Old Covenant is contrasted to the New Covenant. The Law and its holy places (Sinai and Jerusalem) are contrasted to the New Covenant and its holy place. Those born of the flesh are contrasted to those born of the Spirit, the earthly mother is contrasted to the heavenly mother, the flesh to the promise, the flesh to the Spirit.

Conditions. “Under” the Law is contrasted to being in the Gospel. Bondage and slavery is contrasted to freedom and heavenly sonship. Heirs are contrasted to non-heirs. Brothers are contrasted to those who are not brothers. Persecuting contrasts to persecuted. A mother giving birth is contrasted to a mother who is barren. A mother who gives birth to some is contrasted to a mother who gives birth to far more than the other woman.

Interpreting the contrasts

This world produces merely the flesh. Everything in the list above associated with this world is a version of what Paul calls the elementals. This world of the elementals is characterized by the flesh, bondage, slavery, and persecution. Mount Sinai and earthly Jerusalem (the two most holy, religious, places for Israel) are places of bondage that generate sons of the flesh. Paul nails this down explicitly by arguing that the Old Covenant itself generates the flesh. And then Paul puts the final nail in the coffin by insisting that the Law itself- the precious Law that the Galatians were flocking to- generates merely sons of the flesh. Jewish religion in toto is completely and utterly considered ‘unclean’, fleshly.

Paul is not done. He adds yet another layer to the fleshly nature of the Law. He equates it with Hagar, the woman not of the promise. And then Paul lumps in Jews with not only her, but her son, Ishmael. Horror of horrors! And, to cap it off, he unites Gentile Arabia to Jerusalem! But Paul has still one more thing to do: he deliberately names Sinai of the Covenant as belonging to ‘Arabia’, Gentile Arabia!

The coup de grâce is that Paul names all of this fleshly religion as spiritual enslavement and the source of the persecution of God’s free children. He is, therefore, describing a war between two kingdoms.

Paul has anticipated every possible attempt to associate Jewish religion with heaven and freedom, so, he immediately destroys any bid to link the two.

Contrasting Abrahams. Dispensational Theology (DT) puts a tremendous emphasis upon Abraham and his fleshly relationship to Israel. Paul rejects this union by contrasting Abraham with Abraham, Abraham the father of the flesh over against Abraham the father of the son of the promise. Everything outside of the promise, including Abraham as a man of the flesh, is destroyed by Paul.

Heaven is the place of true sonship and freedom. Abraham’s true children are not of the flesh, but of the promise. They are born from above by the Spirit, by the Gospel-covenant (aka, the New Covenant) of heaven, that is by the heavenly Jerusalem. This promise given to Abraham and to his Seed is fulfilled by the true sons- those of the promise- being born by the Spirit from above, and by them receiving an inheritance as heirs.

Contrasting birthing mothers. Hagar (the Old Covenant and Law) gives birth to many children according to the flesh. By contrast, Sarah was barren. This barrenness is her inability according to the flesh. Similarly, as to the flesh, she has no husband. In other words, she has no link to the flesh. None whatever, for she is barren and without a husband! Yet, miraculously, she has far more children than the wife of the flesh. How so? Because she gives birth according solely to the promise, and therefore, by the Spirit. The Spirit naturally creates ‘more children’ than the flesh.

Contrasting lifestyles. The reference to Sarah’s multitude of sons is not referring to actual quantities of people or souls that outnumber children of the flesh, but to the super-abundance of the victory and life of the New Covenant of heaven. Earthly, fleshly, life is by its enslaving nature delimited, contained, boxed-in, and incapable of enlargement. Whereas, God’s promise produces freedom, sons, heirs, blessing-upon-blessing from the ages-unto-ages. That is, the world and the flesh enslave and do not engender growth. From the New Covenant and the Spirit, however, flows a constant river of freedom and sonship.

Peeling away time and history to reveal the heart of the matter

What Paul has done is that he had stripped away time (the X axis) and left only the Y axis: heaven contrasted to earth. It’s as if God is looking down from heaven on all time and history from the time of Abraham on and seeing them as one giant, contemporaneous, block of flesh. Heaven and its religion is contrasted to the world and its elemental religion based on the flesh. As time and history are no longer factors- but only which domain the heir belongs to- Paul is able, using allegory, to blend Jew with Gentile, Gentile Arabia with Jewish Jerusalem, and the Old Covenant and its Law with the flesh. By contrast, all children of the Spirit (whether Jew or Gentile, and regardless of time and history) contemporaneously belong to heaven, not earth, and issue from a different covenant.

1Angus Harley, “Hermeneutics and Galatians: the two gospels’ paradigm,” All Things New Covenant, December 22, 2023, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2023/12/22/hermeneutics-and-galatians-the-two-gospels-paradigm/.