Galatians 4:24-25 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which engenders to bondage, which is Agar.… 1. It is by no means affirmed that the history of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis had any original reference to the gospel. The account there is a plain historical narrative, not designed to have any such reference. 2. The narrative contains important principles that may be used as illustrating truth, and is so used by St. Paul. There are parallel points between the history and the truths of religion, where the one may be illustrated by the other. 3. The apostle does not use it at all in the way of argument, or as if that proved that the Galatians were not to submit to the Jewish rites and customs. It is an illustration of the comparative nature of servitude and freedom, and would therefore illustrate the difference between a servile compliance with Jewish rites and the freedom of the gospel. 4. This use of an historical fact by the apostle does not make it proper for us to turn the Old Testament into allegory, or even to make a very free use of this mode of illustrating truth. That an allegory may be used sometimes with advantage no one can doubt while the "Pilgrim's Progress" shall exist. Nor can any one doubt that St. Paul has here derived, in this manner, an important and striking illustration of truth from the Old Testament. But no one acquainted with the history of interpretation can doubt that vast injury has been done by a fanciful mode of explaining the Old Testament, by making every fact in its history an allegory, and every pin and pillar of the tabernacle and the temple a type. Nothing is better fitted to bring the whole science of interpretation into contempt, nothing more dishonours the Bible than to make it a book of enigmas, and religion to consist in puerile conceits. The Bible is a book of sense, and all the doctrines essential to salvation are plainly revealed. (Albert Barnes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. |
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