“Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.” . . . “So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.” (Galatians 4:28, 31, ESV)
In 1966 a movie came out titled “Born Free.” It was based on a real-life couple, Joy and George Adamson, who raised an orphaned lion cub in Kenya. The cub became orphaned with two others and the couple took the cubs in and nurtured them until they became too large to manage. They then transferred two of the cubs to zoos, but decided to keep the youngest, a lioness they named Elsa.
In time George was to be transferred to another location. Unfortunately, he and Joy would not be able to take Elsa to the new location. Rather than put Elsa in a zoo, they decide to return the lioness to the wild. They felt the lioness was born free and deserved to be free, not caged up in a zoo.
The couple knew that returning Elsa to her former habitat would be a challenge and that it might not work. Yet they took the challenge on. After many frustration and unsuccessful attempts to integrate Elsa to a pride, a group of lions, they finally were successful. Elsa was then free.
In this section, Paul continues with his allegorical explanation using the free woman, Sarah, and the slave woman, Hagar. Here, he brings the allegory to some concluding points. The first of these is that those who have believed in Jesus, have been born free.
Paul wrote, “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise,” and he concluded with, “So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.” Remember that Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the free woman. This was to fulfill the promise that the Lord made to Abraham. He used this picture to let the Galatians understand that all those of faith are partakers of the promise and thus also born free.
This refers to the new birth. Every person who has trusted in Jesus for eternal life has been born again of the Spirit. This joins every believer to the promise. Every true believer has the guarantee of eternal life.
This was the message that Jesus expressed to Nicodemus. You can read about the conversation the Lord had with him in John Chapter 3. Jesus stated, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5, ESV) In other words, unless a man is born of the Spirit, he will not be a partaker of the promise of eternal life.
So, we who have believed must rejoice together in the great blessing of God’s grace. We did not earn or deserve such a blessing, but have been born again into a blessed hope.
Renewing the Heart 