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Laws of Sonship, part 5 (final)

The concept of Sonship is unique to New Covenant Christianity. Other religions present paths which lead to certain goals such as immortality and glorification, but they do not present a path toward becoming a son of God. Those other paths are based on the will of man, self-discipline, righteous works, and meditation, all of which are what Paul calls works of the flesh.

Even most of Christendom, using its own terminology, follows such Old Covenant paths toward attaining righteousness. However, all of these paths are based on man’s vows to God and their belief that prayer will invoke God’s assistance in perfecting the flesh. The Bible tells us clearly that this is the Old Covenant method by which men hope to become righteous before God.

The Old Covenant is man’s vow to God, as seen in Exodus 19:8, where the people vowed, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” I do not question their motives or their sincerity, but Scripture records their failure to keep their vow. No one was able to be perfected by the power of their own will—not even those who prayed sincerely for God’s help. In fact, many Christians define grace as God’s assistance.

The Old Testament records Israel’s failure. Over and beyond the failure of individuals to achieve righteousness by their own diligence, both Israel and Judah as nations became failed states and were exiled into other countries. Israel was exiled by the Assyrians from 745-721 B.C., while Judah was exiled temporarily to Babylon in 604 B.C. and later permanently in 70 A.D. From then on, national salvation could not be attained through the Old Covenant, for God had established and ratified a New Covenant when Jesus died and rose again in 33 A.D.

The New Covenant is God’s vow to man. The first clear description of this Covenant was when God promised Abraham that he would have a son—a prophetic type of Christ. We read in Genesis 15:6,

⁶ Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

The Apostle Paull commented on this in Romans 4:20-22, saying,

²⁰ yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, ²¹ and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. ²² Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.

See how the promise (or vow) of God was the basis of the Abrahamic covenant. It was not based on Abraham’s promise to God. It was based on Abraham’s faith that God would fulfill His word.

The great religions of the earth (Christianity included) are dominated by faith in man’s vows and promises to God, not realizing that this is the Old Covenant path to righteousness (salvation). So many Christians testify that they were saved when they “decided to follow Jesus,” repented from their sin, and asked for forgiveness. Such things are good and desirable, of course, and I hope that everyone comes to such a decision. But this is not the basis of salvation—not unless they are able to fulfill their promise to God.

I tried that method for a long time in my youth and was frustrated every day for years. I got saved every night for many years after doing behavior inventory from the past day. God finally had mercy on me and showed me that my salvation was not based on my ability to be perfect, and this changed my life. In fact, it was the first step toward a fuller understanding of the New Covenant.

I finally saw that my own sincere promises to God were the result of God’s promise that He had given me prior to the day I was even born. He was working in my heart long before I knew Him. It simply took a long time before I understood this truth, because I had been taught that my salvation rested in my own promise to God. It was only when I realized that my own yearning for Him was the result of God’s promise to me—and His drawing me to Him—that I finally could rest fully in His promise and not in my own ability to be righteous.

It Takes Two Parents

To bring forth a son requires two parents. It takes a father to beget the child, and it takes a mother to give birth to that child. Two earthly parents, a man and a woman, are required to bring forth a child of the flesh (by natural childbirth). To bring forth a son of God requires Father God to beget “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27), but it also requires a “mother” to carry that pregnancy to full birth.

We ourselves are the “mother” of this child, and this is true whether we are male or female in the flesh. This child will be born through us here in the earth. Because God is the Father of this child, we are like the Virgin Mary, who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit apart from a fleshly sexual relationship. Jesus was the Pattern Son, and we follow the same pattern.

This is a unique teaching in New Testament Scripture, although hints of it appear throughout the Old Testament. Perhaps the most important passage is where Abraham discovered that the promised son not only had to be begotten by him but also had to be born through Sarah. Genesis 17:19 says,

¹⁹ But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.”

Abraham had tried to present Ishmael as the fulfillment of God’s promise, but Ishmael was born of a bondwoman, not a free woman. This, Paul tells us, was an “allegory,” which gives us a spiritual truth about the two covenants.

Abraham Had Two Wives

In Exodus 21:3-7 we read of laws regarding the difference between a slave-wife and a free woman. I vividly recall studying this years ago with no small amount of frustration. “What is this?” I asked God, almost threatening to throw my Bible across the room. I then heard Hiim say, “Abraham had two wives.”

This exploded in my heart and mind, as I suddenly connected it to Paul’s commentary in Galatians 4:22-31.

²² for it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. ²³ But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.

This part of “the promise” was not revealed earlier in Genesis 15 when Abraham first believed God. It was many years later before God showed him Sarah’s role in establishing this covenant. Sarah’s son was born “through the promise” (of God). Paul continues,

²⁴ This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. ²⁵ Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia [the inheritance of Ishmael] and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.

Thus, allegorically speaking, Hagar, the bondwoman, is the Old Covenant, which puts men into bondage by requiring them to fulfill their vow of obedience in order to be saved. Sarah, the free woman, is “our mother,” that is, the mother of those who base their salvation on the New Covenant promise of God.

Likewise, these two women represent two Jerusalems, one earthly and the other from “above.” Those who consider the earthly Jerusalem to be their “mother” are confessing that they are Ishmaelites (allegorically speaking). In other words, those who remain in Judaism, looking toward Mount Sinai as their spiritual foundation, are not of Sarah at all, nor are they true descendants of Isaac, the promised son. Their hope is in Hagar and Ishmael, and so they pray (in vain) that God would make the earthly Jerusalem the capital of Christ’s Kingdom.

Why is Jerusalem Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai is the site of the Old Covenant. When the religious leaders of Judaism rejected Jesus as the Christ, they rejected the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 9:15). The earthly Jerusalem was thus under the legal jurisdiction of Mount Sinai in Arabia, which is the God-given inheritance of Ishmael. The real Mount Sinai is now known as Jabal al-Lawz, which is located in Saudi Arabia. Arabs refer to it as “Hagar.”

Judaism thus depends upon Old Covenant salvation, and Jewish faith is based on man’s vow to God. The same is true with Islam, the path of obedience, which should be no surprise to us. Ishmael represented a child of the flesh, as Paul tells us in Galatians 4:28, 29,

²⁸ And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹ But as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.

Again, we are not talking ethnically but allegorically. Biological Ishmaelites have the right to become sons of God as much as anyone else. But they must have a change of “mother” and put their faith in the promise of God through Jesus Christ. Likewise, Christians must also repudiate Hagar and the earthly Jerusalem and declare that Sarah, the heavenly Jerusalem, is their mother. Yet, sadly, Christian Zionists still are advocating Hagar-Jerusalem in the divine court, hoping that Christ will rule His Kingdom from that city instead of from Sarah-Jerusalem.

Two Jerusalems

The Hebrew name for this city is Ieru-shalayim, which literally means “two Jerusalems.” The Hebrew language has singulars, plurals, and duals. If there were multiple cities, it would read Ieru-shalim, which is plural. But it is spelled as a dual, Ireu-shalayiim, precisely TWO. The rabbis have debated this for thousands of years, asking why it is a dual. The Old Testament does not explain this. The writings of Paul and John give us the answer. There is an earthly city and a heavenly city.

Many Christians have been taught to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6), but they have assumed that there is just one Jerusalem. By understanding that there are two cities with the same name, they might receive the revelation to pray for the establishment of the New Jerusalem rather than the earthly city. Christian Zionists are unanimous, however, in praying for the wrong city.

Jerusalem means “city of peace.” To pray for the peace of Jerusalem is to pray that the meaning of the city’s name would be fulfilled. Yet Ezekiel 24:6 and 9, along with Nahum 3:1, calls the earthly city “the bloody city” on account of the fact that it persecuted the prophets and finally the Messiah Himself. Jesus affirmed this in Matthew 23:34, 35,

³⁴ Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city, ³⁵ so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth…

When the guilt of a city or nation is accumulated over a period of generations, it is always the last generation that pays the price. Paul says that the children of the flesh persecute the children of promise (Galatians 4:29). Paul knew this by personal experience, for in his early years he had persecuted the church (Galatians 1:13), and in his later years, he was persecuted by the Jewish elders.

In the end, the earthly Jerusalem will be cast out, as Paul says in Galatians 4:30,

³⁰ But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.”

Hence, if we pray that God will establish the earthly Jerusalem, we pray against the revealed will of God. Such prayers may be answered temporarily to give men time to repent, but in the end, the city will be cast out. It will be destroyed according to Jeremiah 19:10, 11 as well,

¹⁰ Then you are to break the jar in the sight of the men who accompany you, ¹¹ and say to them, “Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot again be repaired; and they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place for burial.”

It is time that Christians believe the word of God in Galatians 4 and in Jeremiah 19. If they misunderstand or if they refuse to believe the word, they will remain blind to it until the day that the great disaster takes place. Then they will have a crisis of faith until they find the answer through prayer and repentance.