Bible Verse of the Day Friday March 26th 2021

Jeremiah 50:6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray
and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.

Jeremiah's prophecy was pointing to Satan using false teachers attempting to turn people away from Christ Jesus. People were falling away from the promise of the coming Messiah in the days of Jeremiah. The day would come that even though the promise of the Messiah had come, and Christ Jesus proclaimed himself as the one true Lord and Savior, people would still be drawn away by the wiles of Satan.  

The Apostle Paul composed his letter to the churches in Galatia to assist the Judaizers, that we refer to today as legalists, to understand the difference between the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and trying to live by the Law. Paul's objective was to discern between the believers who are set free from the Law by faith in Christ Jesus and the legalists who remain in servitude to Satan—constrained by good deeds of the flesh to the Law of Moses.

Paul wanted to exhibit the great gulf between the freedom we receive, by faith through grace in Christ, and the repressive subjugation that comes from attempting to live by the Law. The Apostle wanted to assure that the children of God did not fall for another gospel and believing in another Jesus entirely.

Paul utilized the historical characters of Isaac and Ishmael, the two sons of Abraham. He used these two individuals to figuratively demonstrate the disparity between the Christian's supernatural freedom in Christ Jesus and the legalistic captivity and oppression to sin that trying to live the Law presents. (Galatians 3).

Paul used Isaac to illustrate a spiritual believer freed from the Mosaic Law's burdens while using Ishmael to represent one who walks in fleshly carnality. Isaac was the supernaturally born 'child of the promise' who was the son of Abraham and his freeborn wife, Sarah... in fulfillment of God's covenant promise with Abraham and his Seed (the Lord Jesus Christ). God had ensured that the promised Messiah would come into the world through Isaac. The promised Messiah would come through Abraham's lineage through Isaac, through Jacob - and ultimately through the nation of Israel.

Isaac was a symbolic representation of Christians who are heirs of the promise by God's will through faith in Christ. Christians are heirs of the New Covenant, paid for on the Cross of Calvary. Ishmael, on the other hand, was the natural-born child of the flesh. He was born to Abraham and Hagar, one of Sarah's handmaidens. Ishmael was born in gratification and pleasure of a human choosing and was not the outcome of God's promise to Abraham. Even though Ishmael enjoyed many blessings, he was not the heir of God's Promise. He was not the one that the promised Messiah would come through. Paul consequently allegorically related Ishmael, the child of slavery, with the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law, on Mount Sinai. Followers and believers in Christ Jesus are not heirs of the Old Covenant. Paul aspired to display that being one of Abraham's descendants does not automatically make a person an heir or a child of the promise.

One only becomes a beneficiary of God and a child of the Promise through God's grace by faith. A person can only be affirmed righteous by faith and not by legalistically keeping the Mosaic Law.  We only become a beneficiary of God and a child of the Promise through God's grace by faith. One can only be affirmed righteous by faith and not by legalistically keeping the Mosaic Law. The children of the flesh, enslaved by the Law, are not children of The Promise. God cast the servant woman and her son out, which foreshadowed the Old Covenant's replacement with the New Covenant of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, replacing the law of sin and death.

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