get rid of the slave woman and her son

To all those who wonder how I feel about national politics I will tell that I am much more fearful about what goes on inside Christianity than what goes on without. The greater threat to Christian witness is the loss of the true gospel.

In my opinion there are few things more potentially destructive than religious legalism. I see it as a growing threat within our denomination as well as within evangelicalism. I believe it is a threat to the gospel and should be battled as defiantly as Paul to the Galatians. The legalist teaches religiosity over Christianity. True Christianity centered on His grace is the difference between a morally restrained heart (as in religion) and a spiritually transformed heart (as in genuine Christianity). Lawrence Crabb once wrote:

Religion is the invention of the devil. The world has taken out the patent. We humans have mortgaged our souls to the product and think we have gotten a good deal. Religion is the most dangerous energy source known to humankind.

The longer I am a pastor, the more I see this truth. The most joyful and pleasant people I know are those who have an ever expanding awareness of the incredible forgiveness and deep grace afforded them by the substitutionary work of the cross. By contrast, the most miserable and hateful people I ever encounter are those who believe that it is by their religious works that they have been accepted and forgiven.

The legalist spins hard to justify his acceptance- and must constantly point out the sin of others in order to justify and demonstrate his own piety. He sees himself as saved by his own righteousness. He has reversed the gospel. There is no one on earth more pitiful and unattractive than a religious legalist. Consider the words of Richard Lovelace:

In the New Testament justification- the acceptance of believers as righteous in the sight of God- and sanctification, which is progress and actual holiness, are closely intertwined. Justification is God’s acceptance of us. Sanctification is our actual holy life. The gospel is in that order. The order in the gospel is that because you are justified, the affect is you are sanctified. However this is not how it works in a lot of churches. Not at all. In their day to day existence, many fundamentalist Christians rely on their sanctification for their justification. Drawing their assurance of their acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or their relative infrequency of conscious willful disobedience. Christians who are no longer sure if God loves and accepts them in Jesus apart from their willful obedience are constantly and radically insecure- much less secure than non-Christians. Because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have, their insecurity then shows itself in pride, a fierce defense of assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legalistic pharisaical righteousness; envy, jealousy, and all other branches of that tree of sin grow out of that fundamental insecurity.

One of the best tests of whether you have accepted the gospel into your heart is when you find yourself in disagreement. Someone who has experienced his grace is humbly aware of their own condition and that it was only by God's grace that they are even aware of their sin. This kind of person is able to disagree without taking it personally- as they have no stake in their own righteousness. True Christianity therefore does not gloat in the face of disagreement. The result of grace is a love that points out truth but never points down.

Consider what Paul wrote in Galatians 4:28-31:

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son."31Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

To unlock the mystery of the passage, think about who Paul was before he became a Christian. He was a persecutor of Christians. He was a legalist. He was Ishmael persecuting Isaac. He was a follower of the law who had not yet received the gospel. When he was transformed by Christ's grace, he became a son of promise and was removed from the bondage of the law. His nature was changed to the degree that as a former racist Jewish prosecutor of Christians, he becoming the compassionate evangelist who would continually risk his life to bring that gospel to the non-Jew.

He was set free from the bondage of legalism.

The meaning of this passage must then be that when you are set free by the gospel, you are no longer a persecutor. Paul is saying that you know you have the gospel when you have reached a point in your life when you can passionately love people even when you do not agree with them. He is saying that the result of the gospel is that we cast off the bondage of legalism.

This is why in genuine Christian community we may not always agree, but we always show love and acceptance and forgiveness. The gospel has set us free. The contrast to this is the bondage of legalism that threatens the joy of fellowship.

And this is why we should see it as our greatest threat- as it comes from within and not from without. This is why Paul teaches very directly and succinctly, perhaps drawing from his own memory of the affliction, to cast out the slave woman and her son.