Hagar’s story has been told through generations, and the Apostle Paul drew upon it centuries later to address a theological truth to the Galatians. Paul did not want to undermine her but to use her story as a comparison to two different ways of serving God.
Paul presented Hagar and Sarah as representing two covenants: the old covenant of law and the new covenant of faith in Jesus Christ. But to understand Paul’s allegory, we must remember who Hagar actually was. She was a woman caught in circumstances beyond her control, used by others to accomplish what they believed God had failed to do quickly enough. Hagar bore Ishmael through human effort and planning, not through patient trust in divine promise.
Paul was addressing those who insisted that followers of Christ must prove their relationship with God through strict adherence to the law. He pointed to Hagar’s story—to her position as a slave woman whose child was born through human striving rather than divine promise—as a picture of those trapped in performance-based religion. These people were carrying burdens God never intended them to bear, just as Hagar carried burdens she never chose to bear. Paul acknowledged he was using the story figuratively, and he didn’t shy away from the uncomfortable reality of Abraham’s choices.
“Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.” (Galatians 4:21-25)
Paul wasn’t criticising Hagar herself; she had done what she was commanded to do. Instead, he was critiquing what Hagar’s situation represented: a covenant that produces slavery, a reliance on human effort, and an attempt to accomplish God’s purposes through our own strength and timing.
The Jewish believers understood themselves as Abraham’s children through Isaac, heirs of God’s promises, recipients of the Law given at Mount Sinai, centred on the Temple in Jerusalem. Many also believed Gentile converts needed to adopt these same markers of identity to belong truly.
But Paul’s argument was startling. He suggested that, despite viewing themselves as Sarah’s descendants, their insistence on works and performance actually placed them in Hagar’s position. They were living out the very situation they thought they had achieved.
In the last few days, we have reminded ourselves of the story of Hagar. One of the main points of that story is that Abraham and Sarah couldn’t wait for God’s promise of a son. They did it their own way and used Hagar to bring about the promise. They could do it. They didn’t need God; they had Hagar.
Paul challenged those who used circumcision to validate their conversion. They were, in theory, Abraham’s children through Sarah, Isaac’s descendants. But in practice, by relying on their own efforts to earn God’s approval, they had placed themselves in Hagar’s position, bound to human effort.
Culturally, they identified with Sarah, but their lifestyle mirrored Hagar’s story, trapped in slavery to performance. This is what happens when people seek to live with their own righteousness through effort, while being blinded to what Christ has done.
Hagar’s story, then, becomes not a story of personal failure but a powerful reminder: What God promises, only God can accomplish. Human effort, no matter how sincere or well-intentioned, cannot substitute for patient faith in God’s timing and provision. Hagar didn’t fail; the system that used her failed. And Paul warned his readers not to return to that same broken system.
Missions Paul 