Paul has compared the Judaizers and legalists in a very poor light with Hagar and Ishmael and bondage. He has proclaimed that Jerusalem, and the Jewish Mosaic system, are like the bondage of Ishmael, the child of the flesh.
Sarah and Isaac, meanwhile, Paul compares with all the children of faith in the Gospel, as the free sons born of the New Jerusalem above!
Like Hagar and Ishmael persecuted Sarah and Isaac, so to the legalists treated Gentile believers in Jesus with contempt, and tried to exclude them from the covenant and from salvation apart from works.
But then in Galatians 4:30, Paul reaches the pinnacle of his discourse against law-works for righteousness: he announces that, as in Ishmael's case, the Judaizers and legalists are to be cast out, without hope, and without inheriting the blessings of Abraham - imputed righteousness, justification, salvation, blessing, eternal life, and sonship in God's family!
All preachers of the false Gospel of works added to faith must be excluded from Christ's church, in order to protect true believers from their persecution. And they have been cast out of Christ's kingdom already, because they will not inherit with believers all the benefits wrought by Christ and received by simple faith.
Paul had previously made clear that the false gospel was cursed; that works could never make righteous; that blessings only come by faith in the promised sacrifice of Jesus; that they who trust God like Abraham are the true heirs of promise.
Now he explicitly states the logical implication of all he wrote before: all legalists are excluded from the blessings, no matter their lovely heritage, no matter how self-righteous they be!
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
