Cast out the bondwoman, and her son.

CAST OUT THE BONDWOMAN, AND HER SON

GENESIS 21; GAL. 4:21-5:1

There are times we find ourselves despondent.  If we are not actually outcasts, pariahs, alone, unwanted, vulnerable and without a future, we feel very much as though we were.

Sometimes, it's because of other people.  Believers can be cruel, just like lost people.   When I look at Genesis 21, I see a whole ugly lot of abuse going on.  Ishmael abuses Isaac, Sarah abuses Abraham (How many times do you think she said “cast out this bondwoman and her son?”  I would stake my life on it being at least several), and Abraham appears to abuse Hagar and Ishmael.  From a human standpoint, there is really nothing heroic or commendable in anything that we read.  

Sometimes – and I think this is more often the case - we are in bad shape just because of ourselves.  Christians can be stupid, self-destructive, and our own worst enemies, just like lost people. 

But for whatever reason we find ourselves cast out, we aren’t out of God’s sight, or His mind.   We don't always know why we’re put on a hard lonely path, but we do know that God is just, and His purposes are perfect.  So whatever may befall you, or others that may be out there – people that you know about that you really can’t help - you can be certain that God not only knows about it, but that He planned it for some reason, which may be known only to Himself.  That’s all been said before, in Romans 8:28.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

I think there is mutual responsibility here.  Hagar and Ishmael aren’t completely innocent.  You might remember that before Isaac had been born, Sarah had been mocked by Hagar.  The story is given in Gen. 16.  Sarah was so vindictive that Hagar decided to run away with her baby while she was still carrying him.  But the LORD appeared to her, and told her to go back and start behaving herself.

So when we’re wrestling with this story, we have to remember that Hagar had been out of order herself, in the same way (the sins of the parents are usually mirrored in the child) and had been chastened because of it.  That was a pretty close call back there.  She was almost a homeless refugee.  But God sent her back to Abraham and Sarah, with instructions to shut up and stand down.  Apparently, that’s what she did – on the outside at least.

Funny thing though, our kids pick up on our spirit, and they aren’t as good as we are at hiding things.  Ishmael never had to see Hagar mock Sarah.  He could read it in her.  And Ishmael’s attitude toward Isaac was just a Xerox copy of his Mom’s attitude toward Sarah.  She should have stepped up and reigned in her son, but she didn’t, or couldn’t.  And tensions came to a nasty level. 

But be that as it may, it still looks like the punishment is excessive compared to the crime.  Commentators try to justify Abraham’s handling of the situation by pointing out that Hagar obtained her freedom hereby;  food and water were available along the way; without any expensive junk to haul around, they weren't likely to attract attention; and that facing the world, and becoming a man, was not the ruin of Ishamael, it was the making of him. 

Another angle taken is to say that Abraham portrays the parent who must take severe action against an incorrigible child for the good of all concerned.

Those are pretty good, but imagine trying to explain this story to a hostile unbeliever using those explanations.  We believe and love the Bible and can accept almost any explanation to a problem text.  But the skeptic hates it, and will try to find a problem where there isn’t one.  And I’ve gotta tell you that no matter how you come at it, Abraham and Sarah wind up looking awfully petty and vindictive, and Hagar and Ismael appear to be victims.  And the “Friend of God” and “Father of the Faithful”, who did not want to take any action, comes out looking like a hen-pecked Caspar Milquetoast.

He basically had four options - possible solutions to the problem:

-       Get rid of Isaac. Not gonna happen

-       Keep both children.  Have perpetual conflict.  Not a good situation.

-       Try to effect some change over Ishmael.  Also not gonna happen.

-       Get rid of Ishmael.

BUT, as harsh as his actions seem, Abraham is acting according to the promise and command of God, by faith.  And this is even more offensive to the skeptic -

GOD HIMSELF GOES ALONG WITH IT

Now, as difficult as it may be to put up with a woman that has her mind made up about something she wants done until you’ve done what she wants, we don’t think of our God as being subject to that.  I have no doubt that Sarah is systematically wearing Abraham down, but I contend that she’s not wearing God down.  

If I’m right about that, why in the world would God go along with this?  Is there an answer to offer the skeptic?   It’s one more reason to call God names – like “bully” and “despot” – and to say; “I just can’t believe in a God who tells his polygamous friends to turn some of their wives and children out into the street just because they act human and don’t always get along with the favorite wife and child.”  “How can you say that the Bible could be the so-called Word of God when it presents so-called God that tells people to do such terrible things?

Well, of course there is, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is – especially since it ties in to the gospel.

First of all, because He’s going to take care of Hagar and her son.  He made that clear to Abraham.  That may not sit well with the critic either, but God, being real, and being personal, and Abraham knowing that very well, by personal experience of revelation, would not have any trouble taking Him at His word. 

If you were in a similar situation – if you had people living at your house that was causing a constant uproar, and your family was in a constant state of bickering and conflict because of them – you wouldn’t just turn them out into the street, now would you?  I hardly think so.

But what if I came to you and said, “I’ll take care of them, they will not be in any danger, and they will not want for anything as long as they live”;

-       you would believe that I existed and was talking to you,

-       you might believe my good intentions to do as I had promised

-       but you might not be convinced that I could make good on my word

Abraham knew God “face-to-face”, and therefore He had no doubts that

-       God existed and was talking  to him

-       God would make good on His word

The unbeliever who doubts that God exists and that He speaks, isn’t any more inclined to believe that if He does, that He can be trusted to keep His Word.

But, of course, He does.  He keeps His Word, and we have that Word on our laps – at least most of us do.  But may I say to you, that since you and I do not hear an audible voice speaking to us, we have to be very careful about lifting anything out of the Bible and claiming it as “God spoke to me.”  That’s always iffy at best, and it can be very discouraging, even faith-destroying.

But what is clear, and to all, is to be trusted implicitly.  For example, the gospel, the 2 great commandments, the instructions of the epistles.  You don’t have to mine them out of their context and “claim” them as God’s special promise just to you.  They are addressed to some group – and if you belong to that group, they are to you, prima facie.

Secondly, and even more importantly, because He’s going to bring this story out later to illustrate some spiritual lessons that you and I need to understand – and the best way for us to understand most things is with some kind of simile or metaphor or object lesson.  Something that God can point to, and about which He can say, “it’s like that!”  We’re coming to that, but not yet.  I have to yet make a few more remarks about the story as it happened.

Were it not for God’s promises, what Abraham did (v.14) is nearly despicable.  But God had ordered it, and promised His protection and provision.   The lunch Abraham packed for them was sufficient for them to begin their journey. 

“But they wandered in the wilderness!”, someone objects.  But was the “wandering in the wilderness” unnecessary?  Should she have headed someplace on purpose, someplace she was told to go, but refused?  I’m not sure.   But it wasn’t long before they ran out of provisions.   And then, desperation overcame her.

As usual, it was at that point that God stepped in.  He heard their voices.  She had met Him before, and would not have forgotten his voice.  He came with promises, and with provisions, and He did as He had promised. 

So, that’s the story, and a few remarks about it.  But what’s is it really all about?  Some of you can guess.  Most of the rest of you will slap your head and say, “I should have guessed”.  It’s about LAW and GOSPEL.  What else would you have come to expect around here?  More specifically, it’s about the old man and the new man.  But those are law/gospel categories. 

There are numerous and important types in this story.  Four people relate to Abraham (who represents the believer – i.e. you and I), each in a different way

-       Hagar represents law and works.  Her son

-       Ishmael represents what the Bible calls “the flesh” (Men have invented other terms for it, such as “the old nature” or “the sin nature”, and even “original sin”, which I’ve come to prefer over the others).  He was born a slave, born of the flesh.

-       Sarah represents grace and faith, her son

-       Isaac, born supernaturally, and free, represents the new nature.

You cannot have the wives nor their sons combined without having constant turbulence and disorder.  Who is going to be thrown out? 

According to Romans 7:18-23, we have, in ourselves, the same situation.  

Isaac was to Abraham’s household what the new birth, and the implantation of the new nature is to those that are saved.  It’s the start of a war.  The bad news is that the war will be on for some time – probably quite a long time.  But the good news is that the hope and the future were not to be found in Ishmael changed, but in Isaac born.  

When you were born-again, it wasn’t a change in the old nature.  You didn’t suddenly get an infusion of “godly character”.  You got a new man, a new life, and that life is Christ (Col. 3:4).  And the old man can’t be changed.  It continues to be what it was, and is made in no respect better by Justification, or Sanctification.  On the contrary, it seems to want to assert itself even more strongly in opposition to the new man.

Ga 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

You may be able to control it with a rod or a rule, you may be able to dress it up and make it look cultured and refined and put it on display, but isn’t changed.  Not even a little at a time.  Not even a little at all.  That’s why we’re commanded to

Eph 4:22 …put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

Here’s the only remedy – put off, or cast out anything that any religious person trying to work his way to heaven might look to as the means to earn it.  The spiritual truth of the gospel that God is allowing all this mess to happen in order to illustrate.  The crooked can’t be made straight.  All attempts at improving the flesh are futile. 

The error in Galatia was thinking that if they added some law to the gospel, they would come out ahead.  “Except ye be circumcised…”  Or in Keswick-speak, or Wesleyan speak, or Holiness Perfectionism speech, “There must be something we can do to ourselves outwardly that will help our sanctification.  Maybe even something irreversible.”  If you take pride in all the outward things you do that you think make you more righteous, especially the ones that hurt, let me ask you – do they hurt as much as circumcision would have, do you think maybe?

The trouble with that outward stuff is that it takes the eye off of Christ and places it on something else as a means to God.  There is no other.  Whatever you think is getting you closer to God, if it isn’t Christ, it’s another way, and you’ve put yourself in the position of climbing up like a thief or a robber. 

So, Isaac must be cast out, along with his mother.  The old man must be put off and the new man put on.  But this leaves the flesh nothing in which to glory.  If Ishmael could be improved, and become more like Isaac, he would have something in which to glory.  But instead, the ugliness of his disposition became more glaringly apparent every day as Isaac grew. 

THIS IS WHAT GALATIANS 4:21-5:1 is talking about

I think one of the reasons God allows this whole ugly episode is to exemplify, not just law vs. gospel, and Sinai vs. Calvary, but also, and very marvelously, to how distasteful the idea will be to us to get rid of the things that Hagar and Ishmael represent for you and I – i.e., Sinai and bondage.  “How could he do that?” is exactly how we react to the idea that our rules and standards and lists aren’t of any use toward real Christian sanctification.

It couldn’t be clearer, and it couldn’t be harder for self-righteous American Evangelicals such as us to swallow.  Believe me, I’m as inclined toward getting this backward as anyone.  But despite all of our natural thinking, the way to continue and grow as a Christian is not to get closer to Sinai and bondage but to get rid of it.  Because, as someone said,

The old nature knows no law, and the new nature needs no law"

I say it kindly, and sympathetically, but you are never going to understand what Paul is saying in Gal. 4:21-5:1 if you cannot allow for the “counter-intuitive implausibility” of it.  I couldn’t – not for a very long time.

If you understand what Paul is saying, your first reaction is to say, “Paul, what have you been smoking?”.  If you don’t get what Paul is saying, and you do get what I’m saying, you’re going to be asking me the same thing.  I know some of you have never heard this in your lifetime.  You’ve been in bondage your whole life to, “This is what Christians do – now go out and do it”, as though you had any ability to do it.  And if what I’m saying makes no sense to you, let me try and explain what will have to happen first. 

You’ll hunt the elusive “victorious life” for years, maybe decades, but eventually you’ll end up just hungry for a spirituality of stillness, contentment and acceptance instead of spiritual competition and wretched urgency.   You’ll eventually get sick and tired of being challenged to do more and feel more and surrender more and to finally rededicate that one wonderful time in such a way that’s going to finally fix the mess that is you. 

Eventually you’ll catch on that you are never in this world going to be anything more than merely human, and that to be merely human means that you can be a “Christian” but that you can never measure up to the myth of the “good” Christian that you’ve heard about in Church your whole life.  You’ll come to grips with the fact that you can neverlive the victorious Christian life the way it’s been preached to you.

You’ll get fed up trying to act more holy, and long to just pray.  By that, I mean, to come to God in a way that isn’t a means to accomplish or obtain something, work a miracle or impress somebody, but just to humbly kneel before your Creator, confess your sins, receive forgiveness, plead for grace and daily bread, intercede for others, and then go in peace; to get off the treadmill, and to lie down in green pastures, after having drunk from still waters, and have your soul restored, and not expect anything in the way of material blessing for having done so. 

You’ll come to understand that you cannot even pray the way I just described without sin finding its way into the event. 

And then you’ll give up, or you’ll finally understand why God brought this allegory to pass, and put it in the Bible, and why Paul cited and applied it the way he did.  You’ll be desperate to understand (in the words of Michal Spencer) “the real spirituality of those whose religion does not make them argumentative, vengeful, belligerent, or bigoted, but makes them beautiful servants of peace.”  And to hope for and pursue a simple spirituality that lifts up, instead of beating down, and doesn’t require any liver shivers to in order to know that God is there, and that He has forgiven you once again. 

You’ll understand just how silly and pointless it was to ever think that your rituals, your cuttings, your meticulous measurements of mint, anise and cumin was ever demanded from you of God.   Hopefully, you’ll learn what it means to be spiritual, and be forever done with trying to show anyone else how spiritual you are.

And after recognizing the havoc that you’ve wreaked after years of hypocrisy and self-delusion, and catch on to the height, and depth, and width and breadth of the mess that is you, you still might be content to defend yourself and pretend to be greater, godlier, and stronger than all the lesser saints, and then you’ll just dry up a little more and become even more critical and frustrated than you are already. 

But you might just tire of the bickering and bloody conflict, and you’ll do just what Abraham did in this little allegory.  You’ll cast out the bondwoman and her son too.