Which Things are an Allegory

Spurgeon.

Galatians 4:24-25

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which engenders to bondage, which is Agar.

I. THE TWO WOMEN.

1. Sarah, the type of the covenant of grace, was the original wife of Abraham. This covenant is the original one.

2. Though Sarah was the elder wife, Hagar bore the first son.

3. Hagar was not intended to be a wife, and ought never to have been anything but a handmaid to Sarah. The law was meant to be a handmaid to grace.

4. Hagar wished to be mistress, so was driven out. The law is a good servant, but when it usurps the mastership it must be expelled.

5. Hagar never was a freewoman, Sarah never a slave. So with the law and grace.

6. Hagar was cast out as well as her son, but Sarah never was. So the law has ceased to be a covenant, and it and all who trust in it are now driven out by Christ.

II. THE TWO SONS.

1. Ishmael was the elder — so the legalist is older than the Christian.

2. Where was the difference between them?

(1)  None as to ordinances; both were circumcised.

(2)  Nor, probably, as to character.

(3)  It was that one was of the flesh, the other of' the Spirit.

III. ISRAEL'S CONDUCT TO ISAAC. He mocked him — so the legalist is irritated by the doctrine of free grace, and mocks at it.

IV. WHAT BECAME OF THE TWO SONS.

1. Isaac had all the inheritance and Ishmael none. Not that he had nothing, but no spiritual inheritance. The legalist gets respect and honour, and has his reward.

2. Ishmael was sent away; Isaac was kept at home.

(Spurgeon.)