Why were all the male Israelites to be circumcised? Some Baptists will answer that question by saying that all the male Israelites were to be circumcised because God had made a gracious (though not saving) covenant with Abraham’s natural seed. The idea is that God made two covenants with Abraham: a covenant of saving grace with Abraham’s spiritual children and a covenant of common grace with his natural descendants. Though these Baptists may or may not use the phrase “common grace,” their teaching that God promised “physical blessings” to the natural seed of Abraham amounts to saying that God promised these natural children common grace.

In other words, Baptists who use this argument are teaching common grace. This is important to remember when witnessing to Baptists. If you show a Baptist that Scripture does not teach common grace, and if that person comes to recognize that God’s grace is always saving and particular, then you can apply that truth to God’s covenant, pointing out that there never was a “common-grace” covenant with Abraham’s natural descendants. This may help the person see where Baptists go wrong in their thinking.

We turn now to a passage in Galatians 4 that some Baptists have cited to prove that in addition to the saving-grace covenant with Abraham’s spiritual seed, there was also a common-grace covenant with his natural seed. Let us consider what Scripture says regarding the two covenants mentioned in Galatians 4.

THE TWO COVENANTS

Although it is far more common to read of God’s covenant in the singular, there are three passages in the Bible that speak of God’s covenants in the plural. One of them is Galatians 4:22, which we now consider in its context:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:22-26).

From Scripture we know that God’s covenant refers to an everlasting bond of friendship between God and His people in Christ. God’s people in the days before Christ came were in the same covenant that we are today. The covenant promise in both dispensations is the same, and there is only one covenant people gathered by God in both dispensations.

So why does God speak here of two covenants, two mothers, and two sons?

We know that God’s people have two kinds of children. Some believe in Christ and others do not. The two sons mentioned here in Galatians 4 represent these two seeds. The previous chapter, Galatians 3, taught that it is only those children who belong to Christ who are in God’s everlasting covenant. They alone have been spiritually set free. The others are in bondage.

Galatians 4 speaks not only of two children, but also of two covenants represented by two mothers. Besides the covenant of grace, there is a reference to the covenant “from the mount Sinai” (Gal. 4:24). The covenant from mount Sinai is referred to as a covenant in Exodus 34: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments” (vv. 27, 28).

Paul in Galatians 4 brings up the covenant from mount Sinai when talking about those who want to be “under the law.” The subject of the two covenants is introduced this way:

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar (Gal. 4:21-24).

The law made known the truth by means of types and shadows. The law is said to have “a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things” (Heb. 10:1). Now Christ has come. What was taught to God’s people before by using pictures is now expressed to us more clearly and fully.

This passage in Galatians 4 says that the covenant from Mount Sinai “gendereth” to bondage. The verb translated “gendereth” means “to beget” or “to bring forth” a child. That the covenant from Mount Sinai “gendereth to bondage” means that its children were in bondage. The servant Hagar and her son Ishmael are said to illustrate this idea.

This must not be misunderstood. Free from the bondage of sin were the believing children of Abraham who lived before Christ came. For a time the church in those days is said to have been like a child who was “under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father” (Gal. 4:2). This was true until Christ came, who redeemed “them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:5).

Galatians 4 speaks of those who desire to be under the law. The inspired apostle Paul writes, “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” Those who desire to be under the law are in bondage.

To understand this we must consider how the covenant from Mount Sinai is related to the covenant of grace.

THE RELATION BETWEEN THE TWO COVENANTS

Before God’s people came to Mt. Sinai, God had already established His everlasting covenant with His people in Christ. The covenant that God made with Noah and with Abraham was God’s everlasting covenant of grace. The law was added, but it did not disannul God’s covenant promise. God refers to this in Galatians 3: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect” (vv. 16, 17).

If God had already established with His people His covenant of grace, why was the law added? God explains this a little further in that passage: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made” (Gal. 3:19a).

God says the law was added because of transgressions. The law was added to show God’s people their need for the coming seed (Jesus) to whom the promises were made. The promised seed would come and save His people from their sins. The law is referred to as a schoolmaster that pointed God’s people to the coming Christ (Gal. 3:24).

This means the covenant from Mount Sinai is to be viewed in its relation to God’s everlasting covenant of grace. All the sacrifices, for example, pointed the people to the need for the Mediator of the new covenant.

The children in bondage are those Israelites who rejected the promised Mediator of the new covenant. Such children were raised in the sphere of the covenant, but did not believe in the coming Savior.

John Calvin makes a reference to this in his commentary on Galatians 4. He points out how unbelievers clung to what Calvin calls “the bare law”:

By the children of Sinai, it will afterwards be explained, are meant hypocrites, who are at last expelled from the Church of God and deprived of the inheritance. What then is the bearing of children to bondage, which he is now discussing? It denotes those who wickedly abuse the law by conceiving nothing but slavery from it. Not so the godly fathers who lived under the old testament…. But those who cleave to the bare law and do not know it as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, but rather make it a barrier against coming to Him, are the Ishmaelites born to slavery.1

Such people who cleaved to “the bare law” by itself were held in bondage.

PICTURES AND REALITIES

Before Christ came, God gave His people pictures of spiritual realities. They received illustrations to teach them about the promises of God’s everlasting covenant of grace. For example, that God has one people whom He separates from this world was illustrated by Israel being separated from the other nations as God’s people. That God graciously reveals Himself only to His people was illustrated by God giving His statutes and judgments only to Israel (Ps. 147:19-20). That God’s people would one day receive the heavenly inheritance was pictured by Israel receiving the land of Canaan.

In the days before Christ, there were sacrifices that pointed to the future sacrifice that would atone for sin. Yet those sacrifices themselves could not atone for sin.

Once Jesus, the reality, came, those pictures that pointed to Him and His work went away. Jesus confirmed the new covenant by His one perfect sacrifice. Those who rejected the coming Messiah, the Mediator of the new covenant, had only the pictures. They were not believing in God who promises His people the realities.

Those children who have only the pictures, and not the realities, are in bondage. That was true in the days before Christ came. It is still true today. In contrast, the elect children who believe God’s promises have the realities to which those pictures point.

The believers who lived before Christ had more than just the pictures. They also had the realities to  which those pictures pointed. They had God’s Word in their heart (Deut. 30:14) and were members of the body of Christ. We understand these things more clearly now that Christ has come and has poured out His Spirit. Yet it is important to understand that our brothers and sisters who lived before Christ had more than just the pictures; they had the realities themselves.

BLESSINGS ENJOYED ONLY IN CHRIST

This now brings us back to the original question. Does Galatians 4 speak of God making two covenants with two seeds, promising two different inheritances? Does it teach that God promised a heavenly inheritance to the spiritual seed of Abraham and an earthly inheritance to the natural seed of Abraham? There are Baptists who say that it did:

The Baptists saw two posterities in Abraham, two inheritances, and consequently two covenants.2

Galatians 4 does not speak of the unbelieving natural children of Abraham being promised an inheritance. Rather, it speaks of them being in bondage. There were no blessings promised to them. Rather, the text says they were in bondage to their sin. Reading through Galatians 4 makes that quite clear.

During the days of all those pictures, those who had their mind on the spiritual realities to which they pointed were blessed. Those who rejected the coming Savior were in bondage. Both in the past and still today, it has always been only those in Christ who are promised an inheritance.

1 Calvin’s commentary on Gal. 4:22.
2 Pascal Denault, The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism, Revised ed. (Birmingham, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2017), 120.

You can access the Spanish version of this article, translated by Jorge Carbajal, by clicking the following link: “Los Dos Pacios”