ガラテヤの信徒への手紙4:24-27 Galatians 4:24-27,

なぜなら、次のように書いてあるからです。「喜べ、子を産まない不妊の女よ、／喜びの声をあげて叫べ、／産みの苦しみを知らない女よ。一人取り残された女が夫ある女よりも、／多くの子を産むから。」　　　　　　　　（ガラテヤ4:27）

これは、旧約聖書のイザヤ書54章1節からの引用です。「子を産まない不妊の女」とは、元のイザヤ書の文脈では、罪のゆえに国を滅ぼされてバビロンに捕囚として連れて行かれたユダ王国の人々のことを象徴的に表しているのでしょう。パウロは、一方で、イザヤ書54章1節の「子を産まない不妊の女」を、高齢で子どものいなかったアブラハムの妻のサラと結びつけています。そして、他方では「子を産まない不妊の女」を、旧約聖書の律法を守らない人々、特にユダヤ人以外の異邦人の人々と結びつけています。そして、「多くの子を産む」とは、元のイザヤ書の文脈では、ユダ王国の人々がバビロン捕囚から帰って来て再び子孫が増えていくことを象徴的に表しているのでしょう。パウロは、一方で、「多くの子を産む」というイメージをサラの子孫が生まれて増えて多くなったことと結びつけ、他方では異邦人の人々がキリストを信じることによって多くの人々が天国に属するようになるということと結びつけています。そうすることによって、神様の約束によってサラの子孫が生まれて増えて多くなったように、「人はキリストを信じることによって救われる」という神様の約束によって、多くの異邦人の人々が救われるということを述べているのです。

人が掟や戒律を守ることによって救われるというのは、わかりやすい考え方です。わかりやすい考え方ですから、私たちの心に固定観念として染み付いています。そして、多くの人々がキリスト教の教えをそのような固定観念の枠組みの中で理解しようとしてしまいます。つまり、人は「〜しなければならない」という義務を果たすことによって救われると考えるのです。ところが、新約聖書が教えるのは、人がキリストを信じる信仰によって救われるという教えです。そして、この教えには救いの約束とともに、聖霊による清めの約束がともなっています。つまり、キリストを信じる人には聖霊が共にいてくださり、清め導いてくださるという約束です。キリストによる救いと聖霊による清めを受けることによって、私たちは自由でありながら、自分勝手な生き方ではなく、神様に喜んでいただける生き方をすることができるのです。（3月3日の説教より）

There are people who are interested in the Bible and Christianity, but are hesitant to be baptised. The reason for this may be that being baptised and becoming a Christian brings with it obligations. For example, “you have to attend worship services” or “you have to give offerings.” Certainly, Christian churches encourage their congregations to “attend worship services” and “give offerings.” But it is asking them to do so in the freedom given to them by faith in Christ.

However, there are surely some people who will not be satisfied with that answer. Those who are not satisfied may ask, “When you say, ‘Do it in freedom,’ aren’t you in the end forcing us to do it as an obligation?” They may harshly pursue this question. To this I would reply, “When the Holy Spirit is in us, we have true freedom.” This answer will be difficult to understand for those who do not know what it means to live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But those who have had the experience of living under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, will understand it. When we live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are willing to do things we thought we didn’t want to do. And we become able to do things we thought we could not do. In other words, we are freed from the stereotypes that we thought we were like this and like that, and we are able to live in a new way.

In this letter to the Galatians, Paul teaches that Christians are free from the various stereotypes of the world. That is, in 4:3 of this letter, Paul says: “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” “When we were children” does not literally mean under 18 or any age. It refers to a time when human beings could not directly receive the heavenly estate of being “justified by God and receiving eternal life” through faith in Christ. In other words, it refers to the time before Christ was born into the world. The Greek word stoikeia (στοιχεῖα), which is translated as “syorei” i.e., “spirits” in the Japanese translation which we use, can also be translated as “elementary principles,” as we have mentioned many times before.

Then, what exactly does it mean to be “enslaved to the elementary principles of the world”? Firstly, for the Jews, the Old Testament law was “the elementary principles of the world.” As in 3:10, the Jews lived as slaves to the law, being taught that “cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” And what was it like for the non-Jewish peoples – the Greeks, Romans and other Gentiles – who were not directly given the Old Testament law? For the Gentiles, the stereotypes of their time were “the elementary principles of the world.” In other words, even in New Testament times, there were stereotypes of the world, such as “Greeks should live this way” or “Romans should live this way.” These were “the elementary principles of the world” for the Gentiles, and they lived bound by them. Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to free the people of the world from slavery to such “elementary principles of the world.” In other words, Christ took the curse and died on the cross on behalf of us human beings who could not keep God’s law and had to suffer the curse. Through this redemption of the cross, Christ paid in full on our behalf the debt that we, the human beings, owe to God. In other words, He paid the precious price of the sacrifice of the cross to set us free from the slavery of the law.

In this way, Christians were freed from slavery to the stereotypes of the world, made children of God and heirs to the heavenly estate. However, the believers of the churches in Galatia were returning to the slavery of the stereotypes from which they had been freed. This is because the evangelists who came to the churches in Galatia after Paul’s departure took Paul’s authority lightly, teaching them that they could not attain full salvation without not only believing in Christ but also undergoing the ritual of circumcision as prescribed by the Old Testament law. In the past, the believers of the churches in Galatia were bound by stereotypes of worshipping Greek and Roman mythological gods and Roman emperors. Although they had been freed from them by faith in Christ, they were now bound by the stereotypes of Old Testament ceremonial law through the false teachings that the evangelists taught.

Paul therefore tries to bring the Galatian believers back to the grace of Christ by taking up the Old Testament account in Genesis of Abraham, the ancestor of the Israelites, who had a son Ishmael, born to a female slave Hagar, and a son Isaac, born to his wife Sarah. Paul writes in verses 22 and 23 before today’s passage as follows.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

The story of these two sons of Abraham was told in detail in last week’s service, but I would like to look back on it briefly. Abraham was probably a Middle Bronze Age man of the 18th to 16th centuries BC. Abraham and his wife Sarah were an elderly childless couple. By common sense, they were long past the age when they could have children. However, God showed Abraham stars in the night sky and said, “So shall your offspring be,” promising him a child. And Abraham believed it and was counted by God as righteous (Gen. 15).

If this was the case, then Abraham and Sarah’s marriage should have waited quietly for the birth of their child. However, Sarah, the wife, could not wait and became numb. Sarah assigned her female slave Hagar to her husband Abraham and tried to impregnate Hagar to have a child. The result was Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Later, after the angel of God again told Sarah of the promise that she would have a child, she also had a child, just as God had promised. She gave birth to a son called Isaac. However, Sarah was not at peace. She feared that in the future Ishmael might succeed her husband Abraham with their son Isaac and rule over Isaac as the elder brother. She then pressed her husband Abraham to “cast out this slave woman with her son.” Abraham was very distressed. Ishmael was also a son of his own blood. God then said to Abraham: “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring” (Gen. 21:12-13). Thus, it was Sarah’s son Isaac who succeeded Abraham. However, Hagar and her son Ishmael, who were driven out of Abraham’s house, were also protected by God and lived a strong life in the wilderness, and their descendants became a numerous nation.

When Paul says in verse 23 that the son of the female slave was born of the flesh, he means that the child of the female slave Hagar was born through a natural human process. This means that he was born of a woman who was young and capable of bearing children. On the other hand, “the son of the free woman was born through promise” means that the son of the free woman Sarah was born through God’s special promise. In other words, he was born through God’s special promise to give birth to a son, even though Sarah was too old to bear children under normal circumstances. What is Paul trying to say by quoting the story of Hagar’s and Sarah’s sons? First, the son of Hagar, born of human thoughts and means, represents those who are trying to be saved by human thoughts and means: “one cannot attain full salvation unless one not only believes in Christ but also undergoes the ritual of circumcision as prescribed by the Old Testament law.” And Sarah’s son, born of God’s promise, represents those who are trying to be saved by God’s promise that “one can be saved by believing in Christ.” In other words, God’s promise is sufficient to be saved, and no human thoughts or means need be added. To be more precise, it means that no human thoughts or means must be added in order to be saved.

Having said all this, in verses 24 and 25 of today’s passage, Paul writes as follows.

Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

“This may be interpreted allegorically” means the story of Abraham and the two children has not only a literal meaning, but also that there is a deeper meaning. And “these women are two covenants” means that Hagar, the female slave, represents the covenant based on the law given to Israel at Mount Sinai, and Sarah, the wife, represents the covenant based on the grace given to Abraham. And the grace-based covenant given to Abraham points to the new covenant of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and freedom by the Holy Spirit.

Paul makes a connection between Hagar, who was driven out of Abraham’s house and lived in the wilderness of Arabia, and the location of Mount Sinai. And because the law given at Mount Sinai makes one a slave to the law, the earthly Jerusalem, which is central place of those who believe the teaching that one can be saved by keeping the law, is “in slavery with her children.” “Her children” are those Jews and Judeo-Christians who consider the earthly Jerusalem to be the centre of salvation. The evangelists who misled the Galatian believers by teaching that “one cannot attain full salvation without not only believing in Christ but also undergoing the ritual of circumcision as prescribed by the Old Testament law,” were such Judeo-Christians.

On the other hand, Paul links Abraham’s wife Sarah with the city of the heavenly Jerusalem, saying in verse 26: “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” This is because Sarah’s child, born according to God’s promise, represents those who are being saved by God’s promise that human beings are saved by faith in Christ. “The Jerusalem above” can be paraphrased as heavenly kingdom. This means that those who belong to heaven are like children born of God’s promise to be saved by believing in Christ. And Paul is saying that those who belong to heaven are different from those who belong to Jerusalem on earth, who believe that they can be saved by keeping the law.

In the following verse 27, Paul grounds his argument that Sarah’s child, born of God’s promise, represents those who are being saved by God’s promise of salvation of Christ on a quote from the Old Testament passage. Verse 27 says as follows.

For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;

break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more

than those of the one who has a husband.”

 

This is a quote from Isaiah 54:1 in the Old Testament. “Barren one who does not bear,” in the context of Isaiah, may symbolically refer to the people of the Kingdom of Judah, whose country was destroyed for their sins and taken into captivity to Babylon. On the one hand, Paul links “barren one who does not bear” of Isaiah 54:1 to Sarah, Abraham’s aged and childless wife. And on the other hand, he associates “barren one who does not bear” with those who do not keep the Old Testament law, especially the Gentiles, i.e., non-Jewish people. And “the children of the desolate one will be more,” in the context of Isaiah, is probably a symbolic reference to the people of the Kingdom of Judah returning from the Babylonian captivity and having more descendants again. Paul, on the one hand, links the image of “the children of the desolate one will be more” with Sarah’s offspring being born and multiplying and becoming many, and on the other hand with Gentiles believing in Christ so that many will belong to heaven. In so doing, it states that just as God’s promise caused Sarah’s offspring to be born and increase and become many, so God’s promise that human beings will be saved by believing in Christ will cause many Gentiles to be saved.

It is an easy concept to understand that human beings are saved by keeping the law and commandments. Because it is an easy-to-understand idea, it is ingrained in our minds as a stereotype. And many people try to understand Christian teaching within the framework of such a stereotype. In other words, they think that they can be saved by fulfilling their obligation “to do something.” What the New Testament teaches, however, is that human beings are saved by faith in Christ. And this teaching is accompanied by not only the promise of salvation but also the promise of cleansing by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the promise that the Holy Spirit will be with those who believe in Christ to cleanse and guide them. Salvation of Christ and cleansing of the Holy Spirit enable us to live a life that is free and yet pleasing to God, not a life of selfishness.