In this episode, Pastor Skip Heitzig takes us on a deep dive into the profound differences between the old covenant rooted in the law and the new covenant established through grace. Using the familiar analogy of Santa Claus, he illustrates how many perceive God as a keeper of a checklist of rights and wrongs. However, as we journey through the letters to the Galatians, we uncover the freeing truth of grace, which enables believers to soar beyond the limitations of the law.
00:22:42 Spiritual Analogy of Old and New Covenants
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Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We’re so glad you’ve tuned in today. At Connect with Skip, our passion is to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus through solid verse-by-verse Bible teaching that’s both clear and practical. Every message you hear is designed to strengthen your faith and help you live out God’s truth wherever He’s placed you. But did you know that you can stay connected beyond the broadcast? When you sign up for Pastor Skip’s free weekly devotional, you’ll receive biblical encouragement, exclusive content, and free resources to help you go deeper in God’s Word, all delivered straight to your inbox. As our thanks for your signing up today, we’ll send you a free digital download of a chapter of Skip’s book, Biography of God. It’s quick, easy, and completely free, and it’s a great way to stay rooted in truth every week. Sign up today at connectwithskip.com. That’s connectwithskip.com. Now, here’s today’s message from Pastor Skip Heitzig.
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To a lot of people, God is like Santa Claus. That is, they remember the song about Santa Claus growing up like I do. He’s making a list. He’s checking it twice. He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. And as a kid singing that song, I thought, you know, uh-oh. You know, I better be good because Santa Claus… is keeping a record of all the things I’ve done wrong. And if that’s the case, I’m getting nothing for Christmas. Right? If you bought into that as a kid, like I did when I was young before I was enlightened, that’s how I viewed that season of the year. And sadly, I sort of viewed God the same way. It’s a list of do’s and don’ts. Right and wrong, he’s keeping that list meticulously on my life. He knows every action, every thought, and he’s keeping a record of it. And so I lived under the law, not like what Paul is writing about with these believers being influenced by Judaizers, but I did live under a code of regulations because I was brought up in a religious system that taught that I can add to the work of God’s grace in my life. And I can do certain things to have God give his grace to me. It was this system of works. And Paul writes very differently about that here. But know the background. The rabbis taught that God made Gentiles in order to provide fuel for the fires of hell. That’s why he made non-Jewish people, is to fuel the fires of hell. Now, this was a radical belief, but 2,000 years ago, that was sort of standard belief in and around Jerusalem and Judea. They also said that heaven rejoices with great joy when one sinner is obliterated from off the face of the earth. Jesus turned that around and said there’s joy in heaven when one sinner repents. So consequently, as a nation, especially the religious groups within the nation of Israel, they didn’t believe that Gentiles could be saved They believe the only way to be saved if you’re a Gentile is to become a proselyte, a convert from your Gentile background to a Jewish worship system. And even when Gentiles started coming into the church by the preaching of Peter and Paul and Barnabas and Silas, those leaders in Jerusalem didn’t take it very easily. They didn’t take it sitting down. They thought, well, I’m glad that these Gentiles are hearing about our truth, our Messiah. But they need to become like our forefathers and part of our worship system. They need to be circumcised. They need to keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. So you had a whole group of non-Jewish believers up in Syria, Antioch of Syria. People down in Jerusalem heard about it. Some of these leaders went up to Antioch and gave them that message. Sorry, Gentiles, you might feel like you’re saved, but you’re not. You’ve got to go through the ritual of circumcision. Imagine telling that to your adult male friend. That’s not good news on any day. And you have to then keep the law of Moses. Now, I know you don’t know what that is, but we’re going to tell you what that is. And you’ve got to keep those rules and regulations and keep the Sabbath every week and do the best you can. So when Paul heard about that, he reacted against it, as did Peter. And they went down to Jerusalem to settle the issue. Well, that issue didn’t die. The issue just moved around. And some of those leaders made their way to the places where Paul established churches, in this case, Galatia. And these leaders, we call them Judaizers because they’re pushing Judaism to the Gentiles. Paul had strong words for them. And tonight we get into some of the strongest words to them. They misunderstood the message that Paul was preaching, the message of grace. They misunderstood it. What do I mean they misunderstood it? They believe that if you just simply preach grace, God’s unmerited favor to all men and all women, that anybody can believe and be saved, that you’re removing the parameters that cause the old nature to be restrained. So you are removing the border, the boundary, right? And it’s gonna lead to people practicing and doing whatever they wanna do. It’s gonna be a license for them for the kind of living that would be godless living. So the law gives its commands. Though the law gave its commands, as we have seen, it doesn’t give us the ability to keep those commands. It doesn’t give us the ability to live in such a way that is pleasing to God. There’s a little poem that I have memorized and shared with you over the years. Do this and live, the law commands, but gives us neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings. It bids us fly, and then it gives us wings. So the law gives us commands, but no power. The gospel of grace gives us the power. It bids us to fly, to soar, and it gives us the ability to do it. And so Paul says, why go back to the law when you can have the freedom of grace? So he’s writing to the Galatians, once again, Galatia, was in Central Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. He’s writing to the churches in Southern Galatia that he visited once on his first missionary journey and again on his second missionary journey. They were in the towns of Antioch, of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, those are the main four towns in Southern Galatia that we read about in the Book of Acts. When he writes this letter to them, He writes it in three parts. The first two chapters is one section. The second two chapters is another section. The last two chapters, another section. The first two chapters are personal, autobiographical. This is my experience, says Paul, with the law. This is my background. This is what I have discovered. Here is my faith journey. That’s the first two chapters. They’re personal. The second two chapters, chapter 3 and 4, are doctrinal. He lists several arguments from the Bible, from history, to buttress this gospel of grace, not of works. And then the last two are practical. Paul always has a practical point to his letters, but Paul usually begins with doctrine and then he adds the practicality at the end. There are certain things you need to know before you can then grow and apply it to your life. So the last two are practical. This is how the gospel of grace will lead you to become a more spiritual person. So we are technically in chapter 5, the applicational chapter, but… If you’ll go back with me to verse 21 of chapter 4, I just want to point a couple things out. Tell me, he says, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by the bondwoman, the other by the free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through the promise. Now you remember, Abraham, when he was living in Ur of the Chaldees, God told him, get out. Leave your family, leave your country, and go to the place I’m going to show you. It was the land of Canaan. And then God gave him promise after promise, one of them being, I’m going to make out of you a great nation. That’s quite a promise, especially for a man who was married to a woman who was infertile and couldn’t have children, and he at that time had no children. God said, not only are you going to have kids, you’re going to have a nation come out of you. So that was quite a promise. Abraham believed God. It was counted unto him as righteousness, as we have already discovered last week and the week before. But time took its toll. Abraham was not getting any younger. He’s getting older. And he was 86 years old when he said, okay, God, you know, I’ve been waiting around and I want to have a kid and you haven’t fulfilled the promise. And so, you know, got to do something about it. He became impatient. In his impatience, and it was his wife Sarah’s suggestion, she says, look, I’m old, you’re old, but I’m old, I’m infertile, and I’m past the age anyway of having kids, so it’s not going to happen, baby. The only way it’s going to happen is if you take Hagar, my servant girl, my handmaiden, she’s much younger, and have a child with her and we’ll call that the child.
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You’re listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, the generosity of friends like you helps reach more people with clear, practical Bible teaching, changing lives as they discover who God really is. And this month, we wanna thank you with a powerful resource bundle designed to help you know God more deeply and walk in the freedom He offers. It features Skip’s book, Biography of God, a thoughtful, approachable look at God’s character, His attributes, and the hope we gain when we understand who He truly is. You’ll also receive Skip’s six-message CD series, Expound, Galatians, a verse-by-verse journey through Paul’s call to spiritual freedom. freedom from legalism, shame, and striving. We’ll send you both resources as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now let’s return to today’s teaching.
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So evidently Sarah and Abraham felt that, yes, God made a promise, but we need to help God fulfill his promise. We got to help him out a little bit. He hasn’t performed it. Maybe what he meant was we could do it this way and it’ll be a surrogate kind of a birth. So they had Ishmael. And when God made another promise to Abraham, Abraham said, oh, let Ishmael live before you. And God said, no, that’s not the son of the promise. One from Sarah’s own body is going to be born. I’m going to fulfill my promise through that child. That child was born, Isaac. It was a miraculous birth. Infertile woman, past the age of childbearing, old dude. It was a miraculous birth. The first son, Ishmael, was the son of the flesh. The second son, Isaac, was the son of the promise of faith. And that was the legitimate son because later on, even though there were two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, God came to Abraham after the birth of both of them and after Isaac was already an adult. And God said to Abraham, take now your son, your only son, Isaac. Now Abraham could have said, no, wait a minute, God. I know you’re God, but you got that wrong. I actually have two sons. But God didn’t even recognize the son of the flesh, the work of the flesh. God didn’t recognize. The only one he recognized was the son he promised, Isaac. I am so glad that all the mistakes that I have made, all the Ishmaels I have born, all the things I’ve tried to do in my own works, that God doesn’t even recognize them. He only recognizes the work he has done by his spirit through my life. That’s legitimate. But they tried to help God out. They had two sons. Now look at verse 24. Which things are symbolic? He’s using that history, this symbolism, to prove a point. And here’s the point. Which things are symbolic? For these things are… the two covenants, Old and New Covenant, Old Testament, New Testament. The one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear, break forth and shout. You who do not travail, for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. Now I have to unravel that because that’s sort of an enigmatic passage to us. We’ve read that, we’re probably familiar with it, but most of us probably don’t know what that means. What he is doing is writing an analogy, a symbolic statement. He’s using two mothers and their two children and two different locations to speak of two covenants. So Hagar, Ishmael, Sinai, along with earthly Jerusalem, speak of the old covenant, whereas Sarah, Isaac, and the heavenly Jerusalem speak of the new covenant. The new covenant, by the way, promised even in the old covenant. Jeremiah chapter 31, God said, I’m going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel. Not like the one that I made with their forefathers in the desert, a covenant which they perpetually broke, he said. I’m going to make a new one. I’m going to write my law in their hearts. I’m going to put my law in their minds. So Paul is using two analogies, two moms, two sons, two locations to speak of two covenants. the old covenant of the law and the new covenant under grace. Now, when he says, for this Hagar, verse 25, is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children, the earthly Jerusalem. This is what he’s speaking about. The law was given at Mount Sinai, down in the Sinai Peninsula or in Arabia. There’s a couple of different locations, not important. What is important is that the law was given at Sinai, but it got its fullest expression in Jerusalem at the temple where the temple was, the sacrifices were, they went through them every day. So the law at Sinai found its fullest expression, fullest fulfillment in the temple of earthly Jerusalem. That’s all the old covenant. Whereas, The new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem he is speaking about, which is a future literal city we read about in the book of Revelation, corresponds to the new covenant, covenant of grace that comes by faith. A couple interesting things. The Arabs refer to Mount Sinai as the Rock. And the name Hagar in Arabic means rock, right? Also, her descendant Ishmael and his descendants settled in the area of Sinai. It was the area from which they came. But if you go back to the book of Genesis where you had Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, Sarah was the slave of the free woman. Sarah. And so he’s making this all an analogy of the bondage that comes by the law, which corresponds to Hagar, the slave of the free woman who bore the son of the promise, Isaac. So he’s making an analogy that way. Verse 27 is just a very interesting verse because it’s a quote out of Isaiah 54. Now, Isaiah 54 comes after what? Isaiah 53. Very good. You’ve passed your math classes. And as you know, Isaiah chapter 53 is all about that atoning work of the Messiah, bruised, wounded for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. And it’s all about the suffering Messiah. Well, the suffering Messiah of Isaiah 53 According to Paul here, he sees Isaiah 54 as the speaking of in regards to the heavenly Jerusalem when he says, Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear, break forth and shout, you who do not prevail, for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. Speaking about the number of people who will be saved in the new covenant as opposed to the old. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, even so it is now. When Hagar got pregnant, Even though Sarah told her husband, get her pregnant. Let’s have a kid together through her. As soon as Hagar got pregnant, Sarah got jealous. Got all up in her face and was like, I can’t believe it. She exhibited an ongoing jealousy against Hagar because she got pregnant and Sarah was unable to. And then once… Ishmael was born, and then eventually, miraculously, when Isaac was born, there was a rivalry between the two boys. So Ishmael was 13 years older than Isaac, and Isaac was weaned after he was weaned in Genesis chapter 21. They threw a feast for him, celebrating the fact that he is now becoming a young child after being weaned as an infant. And so they had a party for him. And at that party, the older brother, Ishmael, started mocking Isaac. And Sarah looked over and saw this older kid, not hers, but Hagar’s son, mocking her son. And she said to Abraham, cast the bondwoman out. Get her out of this house. And Abraham was just kibetching over that, like, ah, I can’t do that. You know, that’s my son too. And God came to Abraham and said, listen to your wife. That could be a word for some of you men tonight. Listen to your wife. And God said, don’t worry, I’m going to take care of him. I’m going to make him a great nation. And God did. A very numerous nation. But that is what he’ll also refer to here. We are, as Isaac was, we are the children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh was then persecuted, persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, even so it is now. Still to this day, unbelievers mock people of faith. Even to this day, legalistic people mock people of faith. which is really the greater point that Paul is making, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say? Now he’s quoting Sarah out of Genesis 21. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. All of that’s just a spiritual analogy that Paul brings up to draw the comparison between the old covenant of the law and the new covenant of grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That sort of unravels that passage. So the new covenant, very different from the old covenant. You say, well, what does the Old Testament require? Actually, that is summed up by one of the minor prophets, the prophet Micah in chapter six, verse eight. He has shown you, oh man, what the Lord does require of you. And here it is, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. So first of all, God requires that you do or you practice justice, righteousness. You just act righteously, just keep all the law. And you go, well, oops. Okay, so I don’t like the Old Testament. What about the New Testament? Well, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said this, be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. And you read that and you go, okay, so I’m not batting very well here. I mean, I had two strikes, Old Testament, New Testament. So what is God’s actual requirement in the New Testament then for me? Here it is, here it is, because you can’t do either of those.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, here’s a reminder. As our thanks for your gift this month, we’ll send you Skip’s book, Biography of God, along with his Six Message CD series, Expound Galatians. These two resources work together to help you understand God’s character more deeply and experience the freedom that comes from the gospel of grace. Your support helps keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting more people with God’s Word. Give today at connectwithskiff.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your March resources. See you next time.
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Make a connection Make a connection at the foot of the crossing
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Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God’s never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
