Children of the Promise: Understanding the Allegory of Hagar and Sarah
October 14, 2024 - Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Galatians 4:22-24, 26-27, 31–5:1
In today's excerpts from Paul's letter to the Galatians, we have an example of the classical method of interpreting the Bible, captured in the famous statement of Saint Augustine: "The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old is unveiled in the New." This method is also known as typology, and its objective is to see how the historical events and personalities of the Old Testament point to their true representatives in the New Testament.
The main focus is on searching for references to Jesus Christ, but it is also used to unveil the mystery of the Church, the Eucharist, or the meaning of life. For example, the woman and her heir in Genesis 3:16 refer to Jesus Christ and His mother; Israel prefigures the Church; the manna prefigures the Eucharist; and the entire journey of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land prefigures the Christian life from sin to holiness and everlasting life in the New Jerusalem. Today, Paul employs this method to explain to us the hidden meaning of two women in the life of Abraham: Hagar and Sarah.
Hagar was Sarah's slave woman, whom she probably acquired when the couple was in Egypt (see Gen. 12:16). According to Paul, both women represent two covenants. Hagar represents the covenant at Sinai with its law, while Sarah represents the new covenant in Christ that leads to freedom. In a surprising move, Paul argues that Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, represents Paul's own people. On the other hand, Isaac, the miraculous child of Abraham and Sarah, represents both the Jewish and Gentile Christians.
On August 11, 2021, while reflecting on the letter to the Galatians, Pope Francis said in his catechesis that "the Law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of the promise because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it." Then the Pope added: "Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ." This statement caught the attention of contemporary Jewish rabbis, who sent a letter to the Vatican objecting to it and demanding clarification. The Vatican's response came a few weeks later from Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with Jews, who said that "the troubling phrase ‘the law does not give life…’ must not be taken out of Paul’s historical context and his overall theology."
In his typological approach to the Old Testament, Paul moves from Sarah to the heavenly Jerusalem. Sarah gave birth to Isaac, a free child, and the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church, gives birth in the sacrament of baptism to free children. The Galatians should see themselves in Isaac. They have also been miraculously reborn through the Church and the Holy Spirit as free people of God. Paul ends his biblical argument with the final appeal: "For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1).
However, we have to be careful not to misunderstand this freedom. It does not dispense us from the moral standards of the Old Testament. It is precisely the freedom that we gain in Christ that enables us to love God and love our neighbor.