11 How Paul Uses Allegory Without Misusing Scripture (Galatians 4:21-31)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today we'll study Galatians chapter 4, verses 21 through 31. This is the 11th talk in our series on the book of Galatians. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, or you can go to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Galatians 1 1. Thanks so much for listening today. We're finishing chapter 4 of Galatians today. Many people consider this passage the most difficult passage in Galatians. It's difficult because it assumes you have a pretty decent knowledge of the Old Testament, which sadly many of us lack today. There are references to historical people we may or may not be familiar with. There's references to geography that we may not know where it is on a map. The argument is allegorical, not didactic, and it can be kind of technical. It seems at first reading that Paul uses questionable Bible study methods, but I'm going to argue he doesn't. But despite all that, most scholars agree on what Paul's main point is. As always, let's start by locating ourselves in the book. In the first two chapters of Galatians, Paul defends his authority as an apostle and the trustworthiness of his gospel. Then in chapters three and four, he makes a series of five arguments for the fact that his gospel is the one true gospel and that we are justified by faith alone. Today we're looking at the last of the five arguments, but let's review the first four. First, Paul said, look at your own experience. Did you receive the spirit because you got your act together and finally started keeping the law? Or did you receive the spirit because you heard the gospel and you believed it? He says, Obviously, you received the spirit because you had faith, and he's talking about receiving the spirit as the mark of God accepting you. Second, he says, your experience is confirmed by scripture. The scripture teaches that Abraham believed and God counted it to him as righteousness. From the beginning, righteousness came through faith. God promised that all those who had faith like Abraham would be blessed. His third argument involved the nature of a promise and a deal. He argued that God made a promise to Abraham. That's a one-sided covenant where God promised to bless Abraham and those who had faith like him. The law, which came later, was a deal, a two-sided agreement where each side was required to uphold certain standards. And Paul argued that the law, which came later, did not nullify the promise. Then he digresses slightly to answer the question, well, why give the law then? If the promise was so good, why did God even bother to give us the law in the first place? And he explains that the law functioned as a kind of drill sergeant to discipline us and teach us, put a fence around our rebellion and drive us back to God. Then in his fourth argument, Paul made a personal appeal to the Galatians based on his relationship to them. He reminds them how much they respected and admired him when he first preached the gospel to them. He reminds them how he loved them and served them and that nothing on his side has changed. And he appeals to that trust and that relationship for them to come back and take his word seriously. Well, now we're going to look at his final argument. This is in 421 through 31. This passage closes this section of the letter, and it's not really a new argument so much as it is an illustration of the arguments he's already been making. Many teachers will make a point and then give an illustration to make that point more clear. And that's what Paul's doing. He's already made his point that we are justified by faith alone, not by keeping the law. He's argued that four different ways, and now he's going to illustrate it with an Old Testament story. Now let me read the whole section first, then we'll go back and walk through it. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through the promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery, she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother, for it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now. But what does the scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. Okay, so the first question we want to ask here is what is Paul doing? Why is he using an allegory? An allegory is a continued metaphor. In an allegory, one object is described by another which resembles it in some way. The point of resemblance is the point of the allegory. So in an allegory, the elements of the story are picked for their symbolic value. So if we wanted to write an allegory about American politics, we might use a donkey and an elephant because those are widely known symbols for our political parties. Allegories, parables, and metaphors abound in the writings of the ancient Near East. They believed that truth was more easily grasped through a story and could be better preserved and transmitted when it was connected to a story. The ancient Greek philosophers were very fond of this mode of teaching. So perhaps Paul chooses to use an allegory here to make his point airtight. He's argued every other way possible. And this type of argument was a favorite method at the time he's writing. So he uses it, maybe just to make sure he's covered all the bases. If you're familiar with church history, you know that the early church greatly abused the use of allegory. Many of the church fathers, especially of the school of origin, made the Old Testament almost wholly allegorical and found strange, mysterious meanings in the plainest and most straightforward of narratives. They made the Bible a book of enigmas and puzzles, and they encouraged a rather ingenious and fanciful interpretation of all the narrative portions of scripture. And at times it seemed like the more fanciful, the more ingenious the better. Since anyone can find just about anything in any passage of scripture that way, scripture became pretty much useless as an infallible guide. Thankfully, better principles of interpretation now prevail. It is now widely recognized that the Bible is to be interpreted using the same principles as all books. The Bible uses normal human language, understood by the same laws of language as any other book written today. Most people agree that no more liberty should be taken to allegorize the scriptures than may be taken with something like Homer or Shakespeare. I'm going to argue that Paul is not really drawing a proper allegory. He is using this story as an illustration of his point. If you asked him, I think he would say, no, Sarah and Hager are not widely known cultural symbols of freedom and slavery. I'm just drawing a comparison between the story that presumably everybody in my audience knows, and the point I'm trying to make. And we'll talk about that more as we go through. This passage breaks down into three sections. In verses 21 through 23, Paul gives the historical background. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael, the son of a slave woman, and Isaac, the son of a free woman. In 24 and 27, he illustrates his point by allegory. He argues that the two mothers represent two religions, one a slave to law keeping, the other freedom in Christ. And then in 28 through 31, he applies the allegory and he says, as Christians, we are sons of the free woman, so we have freedom in Christ and are no longer slaves to the law. First, let me give you some background. Remember that the Jews believed they were not under God's judgment because they were physical descendants of Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham. God promised to make Abraham a great nation, to give Abraham's descendants the land of Canaan, and to bless all nations of the earth through Abraham. The Jews thought they were safely part of God's chosen people because of this covenant, and the Judaizers counted on that heritage from Abraham. The Jews boasted that Abraham was their father. All they had to do to be in God's favor was to be born Jewish and make a reasonably sincere and consistent effort to keep the law. Well, John the Baptist, you may recall, warns against this very assumption. This is Matthew chapter three, verses seven through ten. But when he, that he is John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees, every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So John's out in the wilderness doing his baptism, some Pharisees and Sadducees come and he says, Wait a minute, why are you here? Don't assume that because you are a physical descendant of Abraham, that's enough to save you. If you're in fact repentant, then your lives will show evidence of that change. But your lives show that you're complacent and confident in the fact that you're born Jewish. And John says, Being born Jewish is no big deal. God could take these stones and make children of Abraham. You better wake up and smell the coffee because the axe of judgment is already here, ready to cut down those who don't show the fruit of repentance. Jesus teaches the same thing in John 8, 37 through 40. He's speaking to the Jews, and he says, I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. That is not what Abraham did. So John the Baptist and Jesus both taught that the true children of Abraham are not those who are genetically, physically descended from him, but those who share his faith. And you may recall Paul made that same point himself back in chapter three. Now Paul's going to illustrate that point with Abraham's two sons. He's taking an actual historical event, real people who had real lives and lived, and he's saying, look, we can see a parallel, we can draw a comparison to make this point. Both sons had the same father, the same genetics, but only one inherited the promise, the one who had faith. That alone should tell you that not all those who are physically descended from Abraham get the promise given to Abraham. Now, if you read through Genesis, you'll note that Abraham actually had six other sons by a woman he married after Sarah's death, but for Paul's purposes, those sons are irrelevant. He's going to use Abraham's two most prominent sons to illustrate his point. With that in mind, let's walk through the passage. 421. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? So the first thing we should notice is this passage is addressed to people who want to be under the law. His point here is you want to be under the law, then listen to what the law says, for the very law you want to follow condemns you as a sinner. Now, remember he is addressing people who want to do more than merely obey the law. The Galatians are not in a situation where they see the law as holy, just, and good as a description of righteousness and a great description of what God values and thinks, and so therefore they want to obey it. They are not seeking to obey the law out of a love for God or out of gratitude for God. They are seeking to obey the law because the Judaizers have taught them that it is necessary for their salvation. So they are seeking to obey the law because they believe salvation depends on their obedience. There's a real sense in which they are returning to a covenant of works, which Paul has argued is downright foolishness. He has argued attempting to achieve justification by following the law will actually condemn you. It places you back under the yoke of bondage and slavery to sin. Now we believers might study the law, we might love the law, we might appreciate the law for what it teaches us about our Heavenly Father, his worldview, his values, and his character. We might seek to obey it out of gratitude and love for God and a hunger and thirst for righteousness, and that's all okay. But we also must recognize it does not now, nor did it ever, bring about our salvation. It was never, as Paul has argued, it was never intended to produce salvation. So Paul says here, do you not hear the law? Do you not understand what the law says to sinners like you? Don't you realize that the law declares you guilty before God and pronounces you cursed and judges you worthy of death? Now he goes on, 422 and 23. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through the promise. To contrast the bondage of the law with freedom in Christ, Paul makes a comparison between Ishmael and Isaac. These two sons had the same father, but they had different mothers. Hagar was a slave, and her son Ishmael was born into slavery. Sarah was Abraham's wife, she was a free woman, and her son Isaac was free. Isaac was regarded as a son, not as a servant, and he was Abraham's heir. Now Paul does not mean that history was mere allegory. These were actual historical people who lived real lives. They are historical figures that Paul expects his audience to know. In fact, he's counting on his audience being familiar with their stories, and he's making a point based on those stories. Let's review the circumstances of Ishmael's birth. At this point in the story, Sarah is still named Sarai, and Abraham is still named Abram. Later in the story God will change their names to the ones we're more familiar with. This is Genesis sixteen one three. Now Sari, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abraham, Behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abraham lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife. So instead of waiting on God to provide children, Sarah and Abraham decide to take matters into their own hands. Sarah wants children. She's barren. She decides she has waited on God long enough. It's time to solve this problem of getting an heir. And so she gives her slave to Abraham as a concubine in order to produce a son. And it works. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, and this child was born naturally. There's nothing miraculous about the circumstances at all. Now let's review the circumstances of Isaac's birth. This is Genesis chapter 17. I'm going to read verses 15 through 21. And God said to Abraham, As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations. Kings of people shall come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before you. God said, No, but Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you, behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. Now note that last verse, Genesis seventeen twenty one. I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. We have two sons, they have the same father, but they have different mothers, and God establishes the covenant with only one of the sons, Isaac. Isaac was born supernaturally. Sarah was barren, it was a divine miracle that she conceived him. By the time she conceived, she was ninety and Abraham was a hundred. They are past the time of childbearing, but God gave Abraham and Sarah a baby even after it was physically too late. One thing becomes immediately clear from the story is that not every physical child of Abraham inherits the promises and blessings of Abraham. Notice Abraham asks God, he said, Ishmael might live before you, and otherwise, won't you bless him? Won't you give him the promise? And God specifically says, No, I'm going to bless Isaac. And God is very specific. He names the child's mother, Sarah, he names the father, he names the year, he names the month, he gives the child's name. This is the child of promise and no one else. If this child dies in infancy, there's not going to be an Isaac 2.0, because that child wouldn't fit the details of the promise. Keep that in mind the next time you study the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But we'll save that for a later podcast. Now let's go back to Galatians. Let's read 24 through 27. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother, for it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Paul says, We have this historical situation. Abraham had two sons, one by his slave, Hagar, and one by his free wife, Sarah. God chose to bless only the son by his free wife. He did not bless the son of the slave woman. And these two mothers and their sons illustrate the two covenants. As you'll recall, a covenant is a special type of promise. A covenant can be unilateral, like this one, where God, the greater party, promises to do something for Abraham, the lesser party. Or a covenant can be bilateral, where two equal parties commit to certain promises. So a marriage is a bilateral covenant. Paul uses Hagar and Sarah to illustrate the difference between the old covenant, which is the law given through Moses, and the new covenant of justification by faith, which was inaugurated by Christ. The old covenant was based on law with the people agreeing to certain responsibilities and consequences if they failed. The new covenant is based on promise. It was ratified by Christ, but foreshadowed in the Abrahamic covenant. In the new covenant, God promises blessings without condition to those who have faith like Abraham. The old covenant was made at Sinai, which is in Arabia, outside the land of promise, and was based on self-effort. The new covenant was made inside the land of promise. It was inaugurated by Christ's death and resurrection, and it is based on faith. And Paul's making the point, these two women symbolize the two different ways we can approach God. We can approach him through the slavery of the old covenant, trying to keep the law to justify ourselves, or we can approach him through the freedom in Christ that we have under the new covenant. If you seek God's favor through the old covenant by keeping the law, then you are bound by that law. You are not free to pick and choose which laws you want to keep and which ones you want to ignore. You have to follow all of them. In that sense, you are a slave to the law. You are in bondage to the law. But if you seek God's favor through the new covenant, through faith in Christ, then you are free with respect to the law. You can keep kosher when the situation warrants it, and you can eat with Gentiles when the situation warrants it. You are free from the law in that sense. I think his point is if you are metaphorically in the line of Hager, if like the Judaizers, you're seeking to please God by keeping the law, then you are in bondage to the law. You don't have the option of not keeping the law. You are outside the promise made to Isaac, despite the fact that Abraham is your father. If you are metaphorically in the line of Sarah, if you are born of the Spirit, if you believe in God's promises and trust him, then you are free from law keeping. You will inherit the promise made to Abraham, and Abraham is your father because you are like him in faith. I think that's the contrast, the point he is trying to illustrate. Both sons were descendants of Abraham, but when determining the heir, it matters who their mother is. Not every child of Abraham inherits the blessings of Abraham. What really matters is whether they have faith or not. Sarah's line was the line of freedom. Hagar's line was the line of slavery. That contrast between their mothers symbolizes that difference. Then Paul concludes this section by quoting Isaiah 54 1. Isaiah is addressing the exiles. Speaking metaphorically, Isaiah compares being in exile as a result of God's judgment to being a barren woman whose husband has deserted her. A barren woman without a husband has no hope of having children. Likewise, the exiles had lost everything. They'd lost the land, they'd lost their identity as God's people, they are scattered among a pagan nation, they've lost the temple, they've lost Jerusalem, and their whole system of worship. They are very much like a barren woman without a husband. They have been cut off from God and they have no hope of being metaphorically fruitful. This is Isaiah 54, one through three. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out. Do not hold back, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes, for you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. What Isaiah is very beautifully and poetically saying is that God's people have a great cause for joy because the new covenant is greater than the old covenant. He doesn't use that language, but that's his point. He's saying Israel, as the married woman, was poised for fruitfulness. She had the law, she had the promises, she had the prophets, she had the history of God dealing with his people, she's in the land, she's got a king, she's all set up to be fruitful and prosper, but she failed. She was the adulterous wife. She turned her back and rejected her faithful husband, God. Now the prophet says, the servant, the desolate one, the one who isn't even in a position to be fruitful, the one who showed no promise, who didn't look like a king, who didn't meet their expectations of what the Messiah should be. He didn't usher in a political revolution. He was crucified. This is the one that's going to succeed. His sons, the result of his labor will far outnumber those of the married woman. So he says, You who have borne no fruit, you who are spiritually barren, but you can shout for joy because the new seed will be a spiritual seed, and it will far outnumber the physical seed. And that's going on in the passage in Isaiah. The new seed will not be according to the flesh, but it will be according to God's spirit at work changing lives. So Israel is pictured kind of like Sarah, barren and childless in her old age, but she will be blessed with a seed born supernaturally by the Spirit, a child like Isaac, who is born of the promise. The barren woman is not to sing because she has now ceased to be barren. The contrast is not between an Israel that was barren and an Israel that is now fruitful. The contrast here is between one who has absolutely no chance of having children, that's the desolate one, and the one who is naturally placed to be fruitful, the married woman. The point being that the new seed, the new gathering family, can't be naturally explained. The servant's children will be spiritual and supernatural in origin. They will be born out of God's resources and God's miraculous actions, not out of human effort or human striving. And Paul's saying, you are that seed. The children of Abraham are not those who are physically born Jewish, but those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are the ones born according to the promise. You are born according to the Spirit. You are children of Abraham because God reached out into your heart and gave you the Spirit. So the barrenness, the failure of physical Israel will be supernaturally surpassed by the children of the servant or the Messiah. Isaiah goes on to talk about God gathering his children, writing the law in their hearts, replacing their disobedience and idolatry, replacing the physical children that forsake him with a spiritual seed that, like their spiritual father, the servant will follow, obey him, and honor him, and they will far outnumber the children of Israel of old. So Isaiah says, shout for joy because God is going to solve the problem. God's going to gather the exiles and bring them home. God's going to make a new covenant with them. And this time the covenant will work because God will give his people a new heart that wants to follow and remain faithful to God. Now, Paul, I think, brings in Isaiah to make that point. I think what he's saying is, don't you get it? The seed, the children of Abraham, are not those who are physically born descendants of Abraham. We can see this from Isaac and Ishmael. Not all of Abraham's sons qualify as children of Abraham. The children of Abraham who will inherit the promise of Abraham are those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You Gentiles, you're the ones born according to the promise and the Spirit. You didn't have a chance to be a physical descendant of Abraham. Yet you are true children of Abraham. Why would you go back to the law? Remember, it's not enough to say that Abraham is your father. The real question is who is your mother? Are you striving to please God by keeping the law? If you are, then Hager is your metaphorical mother, and you are in bondage to the law and you will fail. But if you have faith in the promises and the grace of God, then Sarah is your metaphorical mother, and you will inherit the promises given to Abraham. This is what he says next, this is four twenty eight through thirty-one. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise, but just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also it is now. But what does the scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. The Galatians are trading in their Isaac heritage for an Ishmael heritage. How foolish is that? Why would you go back to slavery? The children of Sarah are the children of promise. With Isaac, we accepted salvation by grace. We were supernaturally born by the Spirit. In a sense, we're divine miracles. We didn't accomplish any of this through law keeping. God did it by his spirit. Why would you want to trade all that in for law keeping and going back to the status of a slave? He warns that one result of being a child of promise is persecution, just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, so it is today. The line of Hagar, or the line of unbelief, will mock and persecute the line of Sarah, those who believe. And Paul quotes a part of the Genesis story from Genesis 21. As the two boys grew up, Ishmael began to bully Isaac and pick on him. Eventually Sarah had enough. She went to Abraham and she told him, You need to do something about this, cast out the slave woman and her son. Abraham is reluctant to banish them. After all, Isma Ishmael is his son too. But God comes to Abraham and tells him, Listen to Sarah, cast Ishmael out, but don't worry about him, I'll take care of him. But you need to cast him out because he is not going to be your heir. So this is Genesis twenty-one, twelve and thirteen. But God said to Abraham, Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named, and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. Notice again, God says, Through Isaac your offspring shall be named. He's the child of promise. I will make a nation of Ishmael too. But he's not the one who's going to receive the blessing. You should not consider him part of your line. And Paul uses this situation as an illustration of the point he's making. Just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, you'll find Jews persecuting you and maybe even challenging you to keep the law. But remember what was true of Ishmael and Isaac is true of you, Gentile believers and the Judaizers. Hagar and his sons were cast out. Her sons will did not inherit the promise. You are an heir to the promises. The Judaizers are not. They stand to be cast out. And he concludes, So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. The Messiah set us free from God's wrath and from the demands of the old covenant. That's a direct contradiction to the Judaizers. The Judaizers would say, the Messiah set us free from God's wrath so that we can obey the law. Now we have to keep the law. Paul's saying the Messiah set us free from God's condemnation and into freedom from the demands of the law. We are no longer required to keep it. And he's going to go on with that theme in the next verse. This is 5-1. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. I think that verse ties this passage with the one following together. He's saying, keep standing firm in the faith. Do not take on the yoke of slavery again. Don't be pressured into joining the Judaizers. Hold fast to the truth. I taught you. Know what's true and hold your ground. That closes the allegory, and it also is the last of Paul's five arguments. But before we leave it, I want to make a comment about allegory and scripture. Paul's illustration here does not make it proper for us to turn everything in the Old Testament into an allegory. Paul is not making symbolic substitutions. He's not finding secret riddles in the text. He's not seeing riddles or puzzles or deeper meanings. He is not teaching that the history of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis never happened. He treats them as actual historical persons, and we should too. He is using them to illustrate his point. And I would argue we do the same kind of thing today. We borrow the language of Scripture and we use it metaphorically. Just go to any church or talk with any Christian and you'll hear phrases like, Oh, I was in the wilderness, or we finally reached our promised land, or we're lusting after forbidden fruit, or we're putting out a fleece, or we're finding manna from heaven, or taking up our cross. Paul is using a familiar story to illustrate a point, just like we use the familiar language of Scripture to make a point. He's borrowing that language and the events to explain the truth he's been arguing for through the last two chapters. And I think that's okay. There are parallel points between history and truth, where one may be illustrated by another. Just to use a story to illustrate my point. One of the stories in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the book The Silver Chair, is about two children and a marshwiggle who travel to the land of giants. At one point in their journey, they're walking on a hillside that's covered in little trenches that seem to lead nowhere. And the children can't figure out what is this all about? What's the point of these trenches? But then later on they discover that an important message was written in the hillside. If they had stood back far enough, they could have seen that the trenches formed letters, and an important message was written on the hillside. Similarly, I think Paul's saying there's a theme in scripture. There's an important message, which if we would back up far enough, we would recognize as a theme that runs throughout the Bible. God made a supremely important announcement, and all the details taken together point to it. And that announcement is that human history is headed to a division of humanity into two camps. There are two sons, two wives, two covenants, two mountains, and two cities. And that theme runs throughout Scripture. And in the end, we're going to see that there are only two kinds of people, those who throw themselves on the mercy of Jesus Christ and those who reject him. Slavery or freedom. Those are the two options. One path leads to eternal life in the kingdom of God, and the other leads to destruction. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. Please take a moment and follow, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. The more people who rate and review us, the easier it is for others to find the podcast. It really does help. But most importantly, please tell a friend what you learned. And if you can, you can mention where you learned it. You can hear all the episodes in this series on my website, Wednesdayintheword.com. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krissan Morata, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.