Hagar Is Like Mount Sinai in Arabia

(A teaching series on the Freedom of the Spirit and the Bondage of the Law)

Blessed be the Name of the Lord Jesus, the Author of Life. Welcome to this Bible study. The Word of our God is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path (Psalm 119:105).

The Bible compares Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah and Abraham, to the earthly Jerusalem. It also compares Ishmael, the son born to Hagar, to all those who live under the bondage of the Law in the present earthly Jerusalem in Israel.

In the same way, Sarah, who was free, represents the Heavenly Jerusalem, and her son Isaac represents all who belong to God spiritually those who are free from the bondage of the Law. This is exactly what Scripture teaches:

Galatians 4:22–26 (NIV)
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.
23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.
25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

In simple terms, the children of Israel received the Law through Moses when he went up Mount Sinai (Horeb). Through this, they entered into the covenant of the Law, and everyone under it became a slave to the Law that is, the Jewish people.

This covenant of the Law that Israel received from Mount Sinai, which bound them under its demands, is symbolized by Hagar, because she herself was a slave and not free. Likewise, Ishmael and all his descendants remained children of the slave woman.

But Sarah was not a slave she was free, together with her son Isaac. This represents the second covenant, the covenant of freedom, for those who are born of the Spirit. In them, the Law is no longer written on stone or paper but written in their hearts.

These are the spiritual children of Sarah the citizens of the Heavenly Jerusalem. All who live led by the Holy Spirit will inherit the New Jerusalem, because that is their true homeland. But those who continue to depend on the Law, whose origin is Mount Sinai, belong to the earthly Jerusalem.

And just as Hagar and her son were cast out because he was not the child of promise, the same is true for all who seek to be justified by the Law they will be separated from Christ.

Galatians 5:4 (NIV)
You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

The Bible clearly teaches that we are justified by grace through faith, not by the works of the Law.

Romans 3:9–11 (NIV)
9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”

To study more deeply the difference between the works of the Law and the works of Faith, continue learning further.

May the Lord bless you.

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