Gods Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

opposite outworking of each. He saw Isaac as a representation of the former, and Ishmael of the latter. When the Galatian believers were diverted from the one true religion, Paul illustrated their experience by directing their at tention to the course adopted by Abram and Sarai, which result ed in the birth of Ishmael. Then he showed them that the way Isaac was conceived provided a lesson in the procedures by which the true church operates. “Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar—for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written: ‘Rejoice, O bar ren, you who do not bear! Break forth and shout, you who do not travail! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.’ “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Never theless what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the lib erty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 4:21–5:1 (NKJV). Ishmael was born after the flesh, but Isaac was born after the Spirit. Therefore Ishmael had no place in the covenant, was no part of God’s true work, and was not accepted by God as the promised child. Through him the Messiah could not be born. To be born after the flesh means to be the product of human devising and trust in self. Every project we have ever undertak en without first receiving instructions from God, falls into this category of human devisings, which can be further subdivided into two types. There are people who scheme to advance their