Natural or supernatural?
Paul proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ with great zeal in Galatia, so that many people came to faith and received a new life through God. It wasn't long before unrest spread among the church. A group we know as Judaizers put the good news to a severe test. They demanded that non-Jewish Christians observe Jewish laws, including circumcision. Paul recognized this false teaching as a serious threat and wrote a powerful letter: Salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone, not through obeying the Mosaic Law. The title of today's sermon is: Natural or Supernatural?
Part One: The Story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar
First, let's consider the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Old Testament. It illustrates the profound contrast between law and grace, works and faith, and natural and supernatural action. They are as fundamentally different as fire and water, or light and darkness.
The natural line is embodied by Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the bondwoman. He was born of human deliberation and self-help. Isaac, the child of Sarah, Abraham's wife, has a supernatural line because he came into the world through God's promise. In this tension, we recognize the question of whether we trust God and hope for his intervention or rely on our own efforts and religious duties.
Sarah, Abraham's legal wife, was barren. Because the promised son didn't appear, Sarah came up with the idea that the 86-year-old Abraham could sleep with her Egyptian maid and thus ensure offspring:
1. Mose 16,1-4 “Sarah, Abram’s wife, did not bear him a child. She had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, ‘Look, the Lord has made me unable to bear children. Go to my servant, and perhaps I may have a son through her.’ And Abram obeyed Sarai. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian servant Hagar and gave her to Abram, her husband, as his wife. And he went to Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, she despised her mistress.”
Thus, Ishmael was born. When he was about 14 years old, Sarah unexpectedly conceived a son by Abraham. He was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90:
1. Mose 17,15-19 “And God spoke again to Abraham, ‘You shall no longer call Sarai your wife Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. For I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and nations shall arise from her, and kings over many nations.’ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall I bear a child when I am a hundred years old? Will Sarah, when she is ninety, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘Oh, that Ishmael would live before you!’ But God said, ‘No, Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants.’”
When the younger Isaac was about three years old, he was weaned from his mother. Abraham held a special celebration, which, of course, was also attended by his older half-brother, Ishmael, now 17 years old. At that time, he could already appreciate what the unexpected little Isaac meant to him. For 14 years, it had been clear that he would be the sole heir of the wealthy Abraham. And now, at the age of 90, his father's wife was finally having a child. Ishmael must have found this annoying, and he despised and mocked Isaac:
1. Mose 21,9-11 “And Sarah saw that the son of Hagar, the Egyptian slave, whom she had borne to Abraham, was acting wickedly. So she said to Abraham, ‘Put out this slave woman and her son, for this slave woman’s son shall not inherit with my son Isaac!’”
There was great tension in the family, so Sarah demanded that Abraham drive Hagar away with her son. At first, he refused, but eventually God spoke to Abraham:
1. Mose 21,12-14 “But God said to him, ‘Do not be displeased about the boy and the servant girl. Obey everything Sarah has told you, for your descendants shall be named after Isaac. And I will also make a nation of the servant girl’s son, because he is your son.’ So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and put them on Hagar’s shoulders, along with the boy, and sent her away.”
A final separation was brought about, making Isaac his parents' absolute sole heir. From our human perspective, this sounds very harsh and unfair.
Part Two: Faith, Spirit and Promise
In the second part of the sermon, we consider how Paul applies the Old Testament story to the gospel. He shows us unequivocally that law and faith, flesh and spirit, merit and promise cannot dwell under the same roof. They are hostile to one another and must be separated, just as Ishmael and Isaac could not remain together in Abraham's household. The Judaizers in Galatia insisted on the law as a justification. Paul confronts them with a penetrating question:
Galater 4,21 "Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not hear the law?"
Those who promoted this legalism proudly emphasized that they were children of Abraham and therefore blessed. Paul counters that Abraham, in fact, had two sons:
Galater 4,22-23 “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but the one by the free woman was born according to the promise.”
Here we can see the first contrast between true Christianity and legalism: freedom versus slavery. Isaac was born of a free woman, a baroness or baroness, symbolizing her exalted position. Ishmael, on the other hand, the son of a bondwoman, was born according to the flesh through unbelief. It is an attempt to enforce God's promise through human means. What is the difference between law and grace? Under the law, the emphasis is on my own performance. Under the grace of God, however, it is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ that makes us righteous before him. These are two entirely different covenants:
Galater 4,24-25 "This is to be understood figuratively: The two women represent two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth into slavery; this is Hagar. Hagar, however, signifies Mount Sinai in Arabia and is a parable for present-day Jerusalem, which lives in slavery with its children."
Mount Sinai represents Hagar. It was there that the laws were given, and in the Temple in Jerusalem, the sacrificial system, with its prescribed days, foods, and purifications, took place, all in the hope of becoming righteous before God. Hagar, Sinai, and the earthly Jerusalem symbolize bondage: The law reveals our sins and shows us our inability to fully fulfill God's commandments. Thus, the law becomes a curse for man rather than a liberation.
Which path leads us to true freedom? Paul directs our attention to the covenant connected with the "upper Jerusalem":
Galater 4,26-28 “But the Jerusalem that is above is free; she is our mother. For it is written: ‘Rejoice, you barren woman who will not bear children; break forth into singing and be glad, you who are not in labor; for she who is desolate will have more children than she who is married.’ But you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of the promise.”
This second covenant is not tied to the earthly Mount Zion, but to God's own heavenly Jerusalem. Therein lies the third contrast Paul emphasizes: heaven versus earth. True Christianity comes from above—from God himself—and cannot be tied to the present Jerusalem of this world. The heavenly city is the mother of all believers, regardless of whether they are of Jewish or pagan origin. Whoever believes in Christ belongs to the children of the promise and therefore comes not from the earthly Jerusalem, but from the Jerusalem above.
This makes it clear: Paul teaches that law and grace are mutually exclusive and that our true freedom lies in the supernatural work of God, who makes us righteous through Christ. Only the promise, not our merit, opens the gate to the heavenly Jerusalem—to the sublime freedom of the children of God. Therefore, Jesus said to Nicodemus:
Johannes 3,3 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
The Greek word "anothen" means primarily "from above" and only secondarily "anew." People who stand in living faith are born from above, from the new Jerusalem. Although Christ worked in earthly Jerusalem, acquired our salvation, and the first church arose there, and one can therefore also speak of it as the Holy City, Paul equates it only with fleshly Israel. For him, Jerusalem is the city of the religion of the law and not the city of believers. Their city is the new Jerusalem, the upper Jerusalem. They long not for the so-called Holy City on this earth, but for the heavenly Jerusalem. It is their mother, it is their home. Although Abraham had already been to the promised land of Canaan and lived there in permanent tents, he longed for more than an earthly fatherland:
Hebräer 11,9-10 “By faith he was a sojourner in the promised land, as in a foreign country, and lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
And so it is with all believers. They long for more than a holy city here on earth:
Hebräer 11,13 "These all died in faith, not receiving the promises, but seeing them from afar, greeting them, and acknowledging that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."
Abraham and Sarah believed the promise. They didn't forget that this world was not their home. They knew that God had prepared a better and permanent home for them in heaven.
Hebräer 11,16 "But now they are going to a better land, the heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to call them their God, for he has built them a city."
Of this heavenly city, of the heavenly Jerusalem and of the mother of us all, from where we were spiritually born, Paul speaks:
Epheser 1,3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
All our blessings and spiritual goods come from heaven. The source of our salvation is not from the earth, but from the upper Jerusalem. We even bear the name of this city:
Offenbarung 3,12 "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my name the new"
John was once shown this truly Holy City in Heaven:
Offenbarung 21,2 "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
Jesus and the church, his bride, are the upper Jerusalem. The line that leads to the freedom of the children of God, to salvation and eternal life, runs through Sarah, Isaac, and the upper Jerusalem. On this road are also Jews and Gentiles, all who are saved by grace through faith. The children of the promise, who come after the promised Isaac, are as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky, a host that no one can count. Sarah, the incapable one, has endless children, throughout all ages, from all lands, peoples, tribes, and languages.
Finally, let us read the powerful words from the Epistle to the Hebrews:
Hebräer 12,18-24 “For you have not come to anything that could be touched, something burning with fire, nor to darkness, gloom, and storms, nor to the sound of a trumpet and a loud cry. Those who heard this begged that no more words should be spoken to them, for they could not bear what was said: ‘Even if an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ And so terrible was the vision that Moses said, ‘I am terrified and trembled.’ But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the thousands of angels, to the assembly of the holy congregation, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
At the end of this sermon we hear the personal conclusion of Apostle Paul:
Galater 4,28 and 31: “Brothers and sisters, like Isaac, you owe your lives to God’s promise. But we, my dear brothers and sisters, are not the children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!
by Pablo Nauer
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