Ishmael vs. Isaac: The Allegory of Law and Grace Explained

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Good evening. It's good to see everyone back again this week, and I'm going to have you turn to Galatians chapter 4, where we left off in the closing moments of our last program. But while you're looking for that, I'd like to again mention to our television viewers that this is the month we would like to have a good letter campaign. Write to us, let us know if you're watching the program. If you enjoy it, we can always accept good constructive criticism. And many of you have already responded and have been asking about VCRs and books and literature and what have you. So yes, have VCRs available that go all the way back to Genesis 1-1, when we first began almost a year ago. And you can get them in three different sizes. You can have a two-hour, which we can send to you for $10, and we stand the postage. We can have a four-hour tape, which would be $15, and then we have a six-hour, which we feel is by far the best, and that's for $20, which would be 12 programs. And remember that as we tape on a Wednesday afternoon, once a month we tape four programs, each a half-hour in length. And as you've probably already noticed, those of you who've been watching, we take a coffee break after each half-hour program until we have a total of two hours. But you can have all these put together on tape. And as one young man called the other night, and I told him what we had, he said, send me all four, and we had the check for $80 in the mail the next day. So that's what we appreciate, and we feel it will just make a good study library. So no, we have no books. I haven't had time to do that. I don't know where I'd find time, but I've had several ask if I've written any books or anything, and I'll just have to be honest that we haven't gotten that far. As I try to let people know, I'm a full-time rancher. All of this that we do for the Lord is in our spare time, and remember that we're going almost every night of the week besides these afternoons for television. And then quite a few have called and asked if I'm married, and don't I have a wife? And I've said, well of course I've got a good wife. She's on the program every time. And they said, point her out. So I'm going to have the camera pan my wife Iris for just a few seconds, and she has been my helpmate now for almost 39 years, and I think I can honestly say that over the years I have failed very, very seldom daily to thank the Lord for the day that our paths crossed. So much for announcements. Now we've got to get right into the book because time is precious, and these 28 minutes seem to go awfully fast, at least to me. So if you're in Galatians chapter 4, remembering that in our last program we covered the allegory that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, which of course was brought about by the energy of the flesh. God never told Abraham to have a child by the Egyptian slave girl Hagar, but Isaac was the child of promise. And so then all that was really set up, as I've said so often, everything in the Old Testament was for our learning. And here is a good example, that even as Ishmael was a child of the flesh, whereas Isaac was a child of promise, Paul comes along now here in Galatian and uses the allegory that Ishmael represented the law, which was fleshly, and that's where I'm expecting some flack, whereas Isaac, the son of promise, is indicative of the age of grace, the very grace of God based upon all the promises that He would form a plan of redemption. So now if you want to just rehearse your memory, or refresh your memory rather, go back to Galatians chapter 4 verse 30, and remember what it said back in Genesis, and Paul is quoting it. Galatians 4 verse 30, Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, which of course was Hagar and Ishmael, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then brethren, we, and of course Paul is writing to Gentile believers up there in Galatia, who were being besieged by Judaizers that they could not be saved unless they also kept the law, and of course Paul screams at that, that we cannot bring legalism into grace. And so this is the reason for the allegory, that just as surely as Ishmael had to leave the whole area, in other words I pointed out, God doesn't tell Abraham, well build him a separate little tent next door so he can be in proximity. But what does He do? He says, cast him out, send him into the wilderness so that there was no contact between Isaac and Ishmael, and of course the lesson is, this is what we have to do with the law and with legalism in all its hideous forms. We have to totally be separated from it. We have to cast it out. And then if you'll remember, one of my closing remarks was, because after all the law was carnal, it was fleshly, it was weak, and that is not going to go down easy with a lot of people because we know the law is. It's spiritual, it's perfect, it's holy, but that's from God's point of view. From man's side the law is what I've just said. Now turn back in this same chapter 4, and I'll show you from the Scripture what I'm talking about. In Galatians chapter 4 verse 9, where Paul writes to these Galatian believers, Gentiles remember, now saved by grace, but were being tempted to go back under the law. But now, Paul writes, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements wherein or whereunto you desire again to be in bondage. What's he talking about? The law, see. Now come back a little further to Romans chapter 8, and you'll see the Apostle says practically the same thing in this tremendously important 8th chapter of Romans. You drop down to verse 2 and 3, Romans 8 verses 2 and 3, where he writes, and always remember by inspiration, "...for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Now does that sound like something very beautiful? The law of sin and death. That was the Mosaic system. Now look at the next verse, "...for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh." Now that's just to show that the Scripture tells us that when it came to the law, from man's point of view, it was weak, it was beggarly. And now let me show you another Scripture where Peter even calls it what it really was, and that would be in Acts chapter 15, because I'm afraid someone might say, well, that's Paul. And sad to say, there are a lot of people who do not like the writings of Paul. I've even heard men in the sacred desk almost feel as though the letters of Paul shouldn't be in our Bible. And I've had people in my class who have heard it said right out that they can't understand why Paul's letters are in our Bible. But listen, it's the epistles of Paul that are very bedrock of our Christian faith. Acts chapter 15, and here the setting, of course, if we had time I'd like to be able to teach the whole chapter, but we haven't. But you see Paul has been up there at Antioch, north of present-day Beirut, up there on the corner of the Mediterranean Sea, and he's been ministering to Gentiles. Remember it was at Antioch that they were first called Christians. And when the Jewish believers down at Jerusalem got wind that Gentiles were being brought into a relationship with their God, they got all shook up, didn't they? And so they send men from Jerusalem all the way up to Antioch to check out and see if this is really true. Do you mean to tell me this Jew, Paul, is permitting Gentiles to claim that they're saved without becoming proselytes of Judaism? Now if you doubt me, all you have to do is read the first verse. And certain men who came down from Judea, that is Jerusalem, taught the brethren, that is the believers up there at Antioch, and said, except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Now isn't that plain English? That's what the Jewish believers from Jerusalem were now trying to convince the Gentile believers at Antioch. And then you come into verse 5 when Paul finally gets down to Jerusalem, and what he is, he's called on the carpet. I mean after all, they've brought him down like a heretic to bring him on the carpet before the church there at Jerusalem, and look what verse 5 says, "...but there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed." In other words, these weren't the self-righteous Pharisees that we're most acquainted with in the Gospels. These were Pharisees who had become believers of who Jesus was, that He was the Christ, but they're still lawkeepers. They are still under that economy that, yes, they were now believers, but they were also still keeping the law. So these were Pharisees who believed, saying, verse 5 again, that it was needful to circumcise them. Who? The Gentiles up at Antioch. To circumcise them, and to, and I always point out, what's the next word? Command. It wasn't just a suggestion. It wasn't that the Jewish believers said, well, now maybe it'll help those Gentile believers if they keep the law. No, it was a commandment. See, they're going to be adamant. And so these believing Pharisees come up against Paul, and they say, you have to command those people to keep the law of Moses. And there had been a great controversy, and I like to picture the Scripture doesn't say it, but I like to picture that it probably went on the good part of a day, a tremendous argument between Paul and these Jewish believers at Jerusalem. And Paul kept saying, and you'll pick it up in Galatians chapter 2, read that in your own spare time, where Paul picks it up and he says, you cannot force these Gentile believers under the law. They're under grace. But all right, now Peter, and I think he's been sitting in the corner all this time, hasn't had a word to say, whereas earlier, you remember in the Gospel accounts and in early Acts, Peter's the spokesman. He's always the one that speaks up. But now Peter has been silent, and now all of a sudden I think the Spirit of God wakes him up, and look what he says, verse 7, "...and when there had been much disputing," you know what that means? Just what I said, there had been a lot of argument, and they had been at it, I think, the better part of the day. So, "...after there had been much disputing, Peter rose up." Now just from those words, Peter rose up, where has he been? He's sitting down. And I think everybody else has been congregating and having all this uproaring conversation, and Peter just kind of has been sitting off there on the side, just taking it all in nonchalant. I mean, he really wasn't all that interested. But now it comes to the point where it says, "...and Peter rose up and said unto them," now this is the first time Peter has spoken, he says, "...Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago." Now, of course, he's referring to Acts chapter 10, and this shakes people up, bless their hearts, they've just never heard this before, when Peter says, "...a good while ago." Do you know how long it was? Twelve years. It's been twelve years since he went to the house of Cornelius the Gentile, and he has not approached another Gentile since. And now he is brought up face to face with Paul's dilemma, and God reminds him, I think this is providential, this is the sovereign God at work, and God reminds Peter, look, don't you remember what happened twelve years ago in the house of that Gentile Cornelius? Now there is another good example, just like you remember I told you a couple of weeks ago, God sent Hagar back to the tent of Abraham and Sarah even before the child was born, just to have to go through the same thing thirteen years later. Why? So that we could have a New Testament lesson. Now the same thing here. I think, yes, God wanted the house of Cornelius saved, no doubt, but the bigger picture was that God had to prepare Peter for this event in Acts 15 to come to Paul's defense and remember, yes, God did save Gentiles by my preaching a long time ago, twelve years ago. All right, let's read on. He says, Acts 15, verse 9, "...men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among us," that is from the Jew, "...that the Gentiles," the house of Cornelius, "...by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe." Then come down to verse 9, and puts no difference between us and them. Now don't you know that was a tough thing for Peter to say? Peter was like every other Jew. He thought the Jews were God's own, and that the Gentiles were just dogs as yet, who could maybe eat a few of the crumbs as the Canaanite woman asked to be able to do. But now Peter has to admit that there is no difference, as Paul has been proclaiming for many years now, that there is no difference between us and them, that is between Jew and Gentile, purifying their hearts by faith. And then verse 10, this is the verse I wanted you to see. Remember what I'm going back to, that the law was weak, it was beggarly? Now look what Peter says, Now therefore, why tempt or test God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, or these believers up there at Antioch, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers, nor even we, and he's speaking of himself, were able to bear? What's he talking about? The law. See, it was a yoke, it was a burden. Just have them think another verse. Come back to Galatians if you haven't lost it. Go back to Galatians in chapter 5, and Paul uses the very same words. And so this is what we have to get you to realize, because, oh, I've had so many folk in my classes, especially professional people who deal one-on-one with their clients or their patients, and they'll come back and tell me, Les, it's amazing how many people still think that they can somehow get to heaven by keeping the commandments, doing the best they can. And so this is why I'm almost like Paul says, you know, I have to raise my voice to get people to understand, look, the law was never given to save anybody. The law was never intended to save even the Jew who was under it. And we're going to be seeing the verses in just a little bit, if not in this program, then certainly in the next one. But now look what Paul says in Galatians, remembering what Peter said in Acts, verse 1 of chapter 5, "...stand fast therefore in the liberty..." Now remember what Peter said, the yoke of bondage? "...stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the..." What? "...yoke of bondage." Now just as soon as someone says, well, I'm trying to keep the commandments, where are they putting themselves? Under that yoke of bondage, because another Scripture says that if you're going to keep part of the law, then how much do you have to keep? All of it. And if you're going to keep all of the law, then as someone in this class told a friend of his, and he couldn't have said it better, well then you better have a temple, you better have a priesthood, you better have an altar, and you better get a flock of sheep. Because if you're going to keep the law, you've got to keep the whole law, and that meant sacrifices, a priesthood, and the whole bit. But you see, just as soon as the age of grace came on the scene, what did God sovereignly have happen to the temple in Jerusalem? It was destroyed. The Roman armies came in and took it down stone by stone. Why? Because the age of law had faded off the scene, and grace had now come in. But see, people are still trying to somehow go back to that temple worship, even though it's a poor facsimile. But anytime someone says, well, I'm trying to keep the commandments, I'm trying to do the best I can, that's what they're doing. They're trying to somehow resurrect that legal system, and it is gone. The temple is destroyed. Now remember, it's going to come back someday, but not until the age of grace has ended. Sure, Israel is all excited about rebuilding their temple. They've got all the clothes for the priesthood made and hanging on mannequins. They've got all the utensils that they will need for the sacrificial worship. They've got them all ready. They've got young men trained for the priesthood. The Jerusalem Post even reported here about six months ago that they've got the red heifer already pretty much isolated out there in the countryside on some farm in Israel, where they can make the ashes and purify their new temple when they get it built. Oh, it's coming back, but the church is going to have to go first. But for now, we are not under law. We are under grace. Well, I haven't got time to really go back to Genesis right now like I wanted to, so let's just pursue a few more verses about the law, and then we'll come back to it again in a future program. Come back with me to Romans chapter 3, where Paul in this chapter for the first time makes the statement, there is no difference that is between Jew and Gentile. Now, if you know anything about your Bible at all, you certainly realize that the mentality of the Jew all the way up well into Paul's ministry and to a certain degree to our own day-to-day, the Jews' thinking was that they were the only ones that had any access to God. And to put the Gentile in that same category with them, oh, that was anathema. They couldn't stomach the very thought of it. In fact, I usually like to point to a verse in Acts. We won't take time, but you know, Paul was addressing that huge Jewish crowd there in Jerusalem, and remember just a few moments before they had just about killed him, mob rule, but the Roman authorities came in and rescued him, and then he got back onto a stairway, and he addresses that huge crowd of Jews in the Hebrew, so he could get their attention. And he rehearses everything that had taken place up through Jewish history, and how that Christ died, and so on and so forth. But anyway, he gets to the place where he quotes Jesus as saying, "...depart from Jerusalem, they will not hear you concerning me." And then he goes on another statement or two, and then he repeats what Jesus said again. He said, "...depart, for I will send you far hence to the Gentiles." And then you know what your next verse in your Bible says? "...at that the Jewish crowd went into an uproar." And if it hadn't been for the Roman authorities, they would have torn Paul in pieces. It says, "...at that one word, Gentile." Now that was the thinking of the Jew. And now comes this little Jew, Saul of Tarsus, who we know now as Paul, and he says, there's no difference. Can you imagine what that did to Israel? Can you see now why Peter had so much problem with it? And I'll point out, if not in this program, in a future one, how that Peter in his little epistles, way there at the back of your Bible, just shortly before he ends his life here in this sojourn, and he goes to a martyr's death, he writes, even as Paul writes in all of his epistles, in which are some things, most of you know it now, some things hard to be understood. He says that at the end of his life, and so you can imagine what it was early on. Well, anyway, Romans chapter 3, drop down to verse 19. Romans 3, verse 19, "...now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law." Now of all the peoples of the earth, there was only one group of people who were literally under the law. Who was it? The Jew. That's all. God didn't expect the Gentiles to keep the law. He didn't expect the Gentiles to have temple worship. Oh, a few proselytes came in, but I think even a lot of them were not really true believers. They were kind of hangers-on, but it was to the Jew that the law was given. But look what follows, that colon, "...that every mouth may be stopped." Now who does it include? The whole human race. Israel under the law, but the law also condemned the whole human race that every mouth may be stopped and all the world might be made fit for heaven. Oh, that's not what it says. See, that's what I like to do with my classes so I know they're reading. It says that all the world may become what? Guilty. Guilty. Now that's not sending you to heaven. That's sending you the other direction. And so this is the only purpose of the law was to condemn mankind, to show man that he was a sinner, that he was not fit for God's heaven. He's a lawbreaker. Then verse 20, "...therefore, since the law was given to do nothing but condemn, it had nothing in it to save." Verse 20, "...therefore by the deeds of the law shall..." How much? "...no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is salvation..." No, "...the knowledge of sin." Now in that plain English, why can't people see this? That's all the law could do was condemn. And all it could do was show a man that he fell far short of what God demands in righteousness. And then verse 21, to close out our half hour, "...but," and what I always tell you that little three-letter word does, the flip side, "...oh, yes, the law condemns, and the law simply proves everyone a sinner, unfit for God's heaven, but now the righteousness of God..." What's the next word? "...without the law." See? Oh, people don't like to hear that, but that's what the book says. I was driving up this morning in preparation for this programming. I couldn't help but think that how many people there are that somehow say, well, I'm doing what my church teaches. I'm doing what my parents and my grandparents taught. And I was thinking yet to myself, Iris probably knows why I'm silent a lot of the time. I'm running all these thoughts through my mind, and how many folk are going to stand before Christ the righteous judge someday, and they're going to say, but Lord, didn't I do what my denomination taught? Didn't I do what so-and-so said? But you know what the book says? Every person is going to be judged according to Paul's gospel. And don't ever forget that. We're not going to be judged on the basis of, well, I was obedient to what I'd been taught, I did the best I could. We're going to be judged on what did we do with the gospel. 1-800-369-7852 or call 1-800 -369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.