Offspring of the Flesh

The past two chapters have had clear New Testament interpretations. Genesis 16 is no different. In Galatians 4, the Apostle Paul writes this:

“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. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants” (vv. 22-24).

What? Is Paul saying that this was “mere allegory”—i.e., not real history? No, not at all. But as we saw with the creation account, the wisdom of God is such that He can inspire in the human author a multiplicity of literary forms and purposes in the same passages. So it is here that God wrote an allegory into real space and time. Sarai and Hagar were two real historical women who God made stand forth as signs or types.

And that little expression by Paul, ‘according to the flesh,’ has a dual application. Sometimes in Paul’s letters the word FLESH (σάρξ) means the sinful nature—that is, in distinction from simply physical skin—whereas other times to be ACCORDING TO THE FLESH calls attention to that literal humanity so that Jesus was “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3) or that “Abraham [was] our forefather according to the flesh” (Rom. 4:1). But sometimes, the two meanings come together, so that the sin nature and our physical sight team up to form another way of relating to God.

• The flesh does not trust the goodness of God.

• The flesh cannot deliver the promise of God.

• The flesh cannot foil the grace of God.

Doctrine. is that the victory of faith is to turn from the manipulation of the flesh to wait on the promises of God.             

The flesh does not trust the goodness of God.

It says, ‘Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children’ (v. 1). They are in an understandable predicament—except that we just got done reading God strengthening the promise to Abram. So Sarai in Chapter 16 is in the exact same place of lacking faith as Abram was at the beginning of Chapter 15. But that doesn’t make her the sole participant in evil here. He would have at least known that God’s promise was for God’s direct provision.

Belcher notes “interesting parallels with Genesis 3 placing Sarai in the role of Eve and Abram in the role of Adam. Like Eve, Sarai took and gave to her husband (v. 3), except Sarai is not giving fruit from the tree but is giving Hagar as a wife to raise up a seed. Like Adam, Abram listened to the voice of his wife and walked on the path of disobedience.”1

The flesh cannot deliver the promise of God.

The plan worked for something—just not the same thing: ‘And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress’ (v. 4). This was not the promise, and when it’s not the real thing, you know it. The flesh can produce things, but only after its own kind. Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6); and three chapters later says,

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all” (Jn. 6:63a).

This latter saying of Jesus to the crowds links the word and the Spirit for this life—“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63b). So the Holy Spirit alone gives life, and He does so through a word of promise. Sarai could not contribute to God’s delivery of the promise.

To believe the promise means to be content with exactly that promise, whatever it means for the waiting. Like Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, or Rachel later in this book, Sarai would be made type or symbol of the barrenness of Israel and the souls of us all, in our inability to raise a godly offspring to God.

“‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the LORD” (Isa. 54:1).

In being this type Sarai would have a greater name than anything she could produce by her own ideas.

As Adam and Eve had their “awakening” moment turn out to be a rude awakening, so it was for Sarai.

“And Sarai said to Abram, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!’ But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.’ Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her” (vv. 4-6).

Hagar had gone from slave to the potential “New Number 2. Sarai hadn’t considered that when she hatched her plan. Likewise Abram tried to wipe his hands of the whole thing too with ‘do to her as you please’ (v. 6).

The slave woman is called ‘Hagar the Egyptian’ (v. 3) to remind the Israelite reader what Paul would later tell every Gentile reader: “Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children” (Gal. 4:25). Now what on earth does that mean? Well, on earth, it refers to the place that God’s people had been birthed from—the house of bondage, the mountain of the stone tablets, and brought to Zion; but then Paul throws those Galatians for a loop, because the contrast is not merely “on earth,” Egypt versus Israel, Mount Sinai versus Mount Zion, but even Jerusalem had fossilized and become the most treasured captive of Babylon. The Jerusalem on earth, Paul says, corresponds now to Hagar as much as Egypt did back then.

But one more important point Paul adds. Hagar is IN SLAVERY WITH HER CHILDREN. Not only was she literally the slave in the house. Not only would she represent the house of bondage headed by Pharaoh. But the apple could not fall far from the tree, or, in other words, the fruit of her womb—the product off the assembly line of stone tablets could be nothing but stone hearts.

The flesh cannot foil the grace of God.

 As we have also seen throughout Genesis so far—man sins and God is still working behind the scenes for the good of His people. Two provisions are given here, and the reader of Scripture may not think they’re perfect provisions; but God does two things here: He steps in to preserve the house and He steps in to comfort the outcast.

First, God steps in to preserve the house—‘The angel of the LORD said to her, ‘Return to your mistress and submit to her’ (v. 9). This sets up Sarai to find her real contentment in the promise, but it also sets up another type that Paul draws out at the end of that section of Galatians 4, but which we will have to wait for. Isaac and Ishmael must dwell together for a time.

Second, God steps in to comfort the outcast. When Hagar is on the run and hiding, what does the Lord do but give her the same kind of promise as was repeated to Abram, except now it is specific to her: ‘The angel of the LORD also said to her, ‘I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude’ (v. 10). This is universally recognized to be the beginning of the Arab people—Muslims in particular will trace their lineage back in this way. That is all the more curious because of the following expression:

“He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen” (v. 12).

Whatever one wants to read into in terms of the future of the Arab people, the fact of the matter is that God at least shows Himself to care for this woman in her affliction.

The name ISHMAEL means “God hears.” So she is told: ‘You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction’ (v. 11).

One last point that I hate to treat as a side note, but we will have a chance to unpack this more with the three visitors to Abraham in Chapter 18. Notice that Hagar realizes in some sense that she is not merely being visited by an angel:

“So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (v. 13).

A brief summary which (as I said) I will unpack more when we get to Chapter 18: (1) No one can see God in His essence (Ex. 32: ; Jn. 1:18; 1 Tim. 6:16); (2) Angels are messengers—as the word literally means in Hebrew and Greek—and so God utilizes them; (3) God can communicate through the medium of an angel as easily as He does through a burning bush or a donkey or a man.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. For whatever reason, I received the objection that the Bible commends polygamy at least a dozen times during the course of my time on Ask Ligonier chats. I was starting to get the impression that polygamy was becoming popular somewhere in our land. My response always involved making a few important distinctions.

First, you will find not one word in the Bible where God either commanded or morally approved of multiple wives, no more than any other kind of sexual relations outside of the one man / one woman marriage.

Second, we interpret Scripture in light of Scripture. Genesis 2:24 is cited by Jesus (Matthew 19:4-6)—“from the beginning it was not so”—and by Paul (Ephesians 5:32) as a creation ordinance, and so it is abiding moral law throughout history.

Third, it is true that there are narrative examples of polygamy in Scripture—such as in Genesis 16—but we distinguish between what God allowed as opposed to what God approved.

Fourth, we might also remember that the multiple wives of Abraham, no less than with those of Jacob, David, or Solomon did not bring blessing by their number, but rather snares and manipulation.

Fifth, as to other blessings received by these same men within the same basic life trajectory, the simple explanation that conforms to the rest of Scripture is that it was God’s sovereign mercy and redemptive purposes with them that explains these allowances.

Use 2. Admonition. The temptation to sin is not something that the devil makes plain. Why would he? It will not only come from commercials, or from hostile enemies, or from remote places at all. It will very often come from those closest to us. Jesus wan’t only tempted by the devil in the wilderness and the garden; He was propositioned by his ever loyal disciple Peter to avoid the cross at Caesarea Philippi (cf. Mat. 16:23). Abram might even have taken comfort in the promise he has just received in that ceremony as if he were automatically on the right track. Besides, “What could be wrong with it, if the other person is willing to make sacrifices.” “Nobody gets hurt.” “We’ll probably never see those people again.” And so in countless ways, Christian agrees with Christian to sin.

As Matthew Henry put it here, “Foul temptations may have very fair pretenses, and be colored with that which is very plausible.”2 There’s an old saying: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” But we might as well substitute that last word with the word disbelieve. The Egyptian woman gave Abram a boy—but not the promised one of Israel.

“And now what do you gain by going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile?” (Jer. 2:18)

Going back to the Egypt of our efforts is actually much more work, with more wearisome results, than simple trust and obedience.

Use 3. Consolation. Abram went before us in history; Jesus went before us into heaven. Abram walked by faith in one chapter and by the flesh in the next; Jesus said, “I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (Jn. 8:29).

____________________

1. Belcher, Genesis, 126.

2. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 42.