Today’s first reading (Galatians 22‑24, 26‑27, 31‑5:1) is preceded with a verse not in our reading: “Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law?” (Galatians 4:21) To inherit God’s promise, it is not enough to be a descendant of Abraham, as Ishmael, Abraham’s son by the slave Hagar, was. It is necessary to be descended as the result of God’s promise, as Isaac was. It is necessary to be a spiritual descendant, not just a genealogical one. Hence for Paul, Isaac’s birth prefigures the rebirth of Christians.
Paul uses the examples of Hagar and Sarah to illustrate the difference between the Jews, who were following the Law of Moses, and Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, who follow the law of Christ. Hagar was a slave woman while Sarah was a free woman and the wife of Abraham. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren, so he took his slave girl, Hagar, who gave him a son, Ishmael. It was only later, when she was already past child-bearing age, that Sarah bore Isaac. The difference between them, according to Paul, is that Ishmael was born “according to the flesh”, that is, in the ordinary course of nature and without any special intervention on God’s part. Sarah, however, had been barren into her old age, and the child she eventually bore was the result of a special promise that God had made to Abraham about his descendants. That promise only applied to Isaac and his descendants. The point Paul is making is that it is not enough to be descended from Abraham, as Ishmael and many Jews could claim.
Paul is using the story to illustrate the theological truth he is sharing with the Galatians. The first covenant Paul identifies was that made on Mount Sinai between God and Moses. But, says Paul, its children (the “present Jerusalem”) are now to be regarded as slaves, slaves of a Law that cannot save them. This is in contrast with the messianic Jerusalem, to which, as Isaiah foretold, “all the nations shall stream…” (Isaiah 2:2). This is the “new Jerusalem” that the prophets proclaimed—a Jerusalem not of laws, rituals and holocausts, but a Jerusalem which created a society of truth and justice for all.
The second covenant, however, belongs to this second Jerusalem, what Paul calls the “Jerusalem above”. The rabbis taught that the “Jerusalem above” would come down during the time of the Messiah. It is the place where Christ now reigns as King and whose citizens are his followers. Paul tells the Galatian Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are children, not of the woman “enslaved by the Law”, but of the “free woman” who has the Spirit of Jesus. Accordingly, there is no need for them to continue following the old ways of the Law. To do so is to renounce the freedom which came to them in Christ.
The purpose of Christ’s liberating death was precisely to make us free. To go back under the Law would be to return to a way that is equivalent to a form of slavery. We must choose either Christ or the Law as author of our salvation. The burden of the rigorous demands of the Law as the means of our gaining God’s favor makes an intolerable burden for sinful man. As Peter said at the Council of Jerusalem when the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community was being debated: “…why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we [the Jews] will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:10-11)
It is important for us Christians to be aware that following Christ and the Gospel is meant to bring real freedom to our lives. If we do not experience our being Christian as liberating, then there is something lacking in our understanding of what the Gospel is about. One gets the impression that many Catholics do not have any real sense of liberation, although their faith may give them a measure of security, but at a price. They have replaced the Law of Sinai for another set of legalities, a gospel heavy with rules and regulations and threats of sin and damnation.
For this reason, some remain riddled with guilt because they consistently feel they are not living up to the requirements of their religion. Others rid themselves of this guilt by leaving the Church altogether, saying: “Now that I am not a Catholic, I am not bound by that nonsense anymore; I don’t have to go to church on Sunday; I can have sex with anyone I like, whenever I like” and so forth.
Others see virtue in ‘denying themselves’ and ‘making sacrifices’, giving up the ‘freedom’ that other people seem to have in order ‘to save their souls and go to heaven’.
There is no question of doubting the sincerity of such people, but it is sad that they have not learned, or been taught, that the true Christian is a truly liberated and free person. To be free is not simply doing just what one feels like doing. Such an attitude inevitably leads to self-destruction and certainly not to happiness and fulfilment. To be free is to choose to follow the good.
That good, we believe, is found in the vision of life that Jesus proposes and which he personally followed. It is not a way just for Christians; it is a way for people everywhere. It is the vision of the Kingdom—a world of truth and goodness and justice and mutual respect for all, without exception—a Way that leads to God, a world where God and the people of the world are living in a beneficially harmonious relationship.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!