Did the Judaizer misunderstood the Mosaic Covenant?

aleksanderpolo · #1 (**permalink**) 04-26-2008, 12:06 PM

Hi, I was discussing this passage with Randy and would like your input:

Galatians 4:21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; [5] she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

So, here are my questions.
1. What are the two covenants?
2. What is the covenant from Mt Sinai? Is it the Mosaic Covenant?
3. If #2 is yes, does that mean Paul see the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of work? Or is Paul responding to the Judaizer's misunderstanding of the Mosaic covenant? (I lean towards the later, as the Judaizers misunderstood how one is justified, they misunderstood the nature of circumcision, and they misunderstood the nature of covenant of grace, so it wouldn't surprise me that they misunderstood the nature of Mosaic covenant).
4. If Paul see the Mosaic covenant as a typological covenant of work, what is Paul responding to in this passage? I mean, did the Judaizers mis-applied the typological covenant of work in their justification?

I know it might

, but thanks in advance. And no, I don't intend this to be another baptism debate...

Contra_Mundum · #2 (**permalink**) 04-26-2008, 03:34 PM

1. Hagar: "Do this, and live" a works-covenant, corresponding to the externals of the Mosaic Covenant/Sinai
Sarah: "Sarah shall have a son" a gracious covenant, corresponding to a promise which no part of any later covenant can annul

2. Yes, or more precisely, the burden of the laws of that covenant; for at the heart of that covenant--literally and figuratively--is the Leviticus, the grace to come to God despite the failure to live up to the law. But it is "veiled" (2 Cor 3:15).

3. There is, as I indicated, a "works aspect" to the Mosaic covenant, although fundamentally I would argue that it is an administration of the Covenant of Grace. If you treat it like a Covenant of Works, as the Judaizers did, then you are liable to its judgments. Paul is addressing the Judaizers "as if" they are correct, and showing them they are doomed by focusing on the commandments. Law only commands or condemns. It never saves; it never commends. Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end [telos, goal] of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth. That verse should serve to show that Paul thought ultimately of Moses' covenant in its proper sense.

4. I think I've actually addressed this somewhat.

hope this is helpful.

Semper Fidelis · #3 (**permalink**) 04-26-2008, 06:09 PM

Bruce did a great job answering. Let me just point out something obvious in the section that when Paul uses this analogy he is comparing Hagar to present Jerusalem for a reason because they are under bondage.

The answer to the title of your post is an obvious "Yes", the Judaizers fundamentally missed the purpose of not only the Abrahamic Covenant but the Mosaic Law as well. As Bruce noted, they believed they could live by them but, as Paul notes, anyone who lives by them is cursed when he breaks one portion of it.

Thus, the Jews in essence had walked outside of both the Mosaic Law and the Abrahamic Covenant and were living according to the flesh. They were externally in the CoG but they had completely missed that the types and shadows in its administration were meant to direct them, in faith, to its true substance - Christ.

Remember, the Law could not annul the Abrahamic Covenant. O. Palmer Robertson's book on the Covenant is excellent as it shows an expansion of the CoG as one administration subsumes the previous. It's not as if the Abrahamic Covenant took a break during the administration of the Mosaic Covenant. The Law was added for a gracious purpose. God never considered some crass, faithless offering of a sheep to be the thing that took away sin but it was a sign that was to direct the attention of the believer to the perfect Sacrifice. Abel understood this well before this process was codified.

I agree with Bruce that to push the "re-publication of the CoW" too hard is to miss an important teleological aspect of the Mosaic Covenant. Of course you're going to have reprobate minds treat the administration like a CoW but that doesn't make it a CoW. This is where I think some folks fundamentally miss Paul's argument about the Law and how he is dealing (especially in the passage cited) with a mind set on the flesh and how it's going to perceive the Law: thunder, lightning, with no desire to truly approach it. Instead of approaching it, then, in faith because Christ is the only way to approach it, the unbeliever in the CoG actually shuts his eyes, stays in the place of threatening, and pretends he's not there anymore but fashions a golden calf and calls it true worship.

Hence it is that Ishmael and the "present Jerusalem" were figuratively linked because Ishmael had persecuted Isaac due to his pride in his firstborn status and taking stock in the flesh and the present Jerusalem that is still taking stock in the flesh and missed the entire purpose of the Mosaic Law that testified to Christ. David understood this in Psalm 51. Ishmael and present-day Jerusalem were both under the CoG under differing administrations but both ignored what the administrations pointed to (Christ) and were still in bondage because they refused to have faith.