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| Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael Away Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org |
Sometimes it is easy to forget that Abraham had two sons.
We recall the promise God gave to Abraham to give him a son and make him a father of a multitude of nations.
We retell to our children the story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice Isaac atop an alter until God stops him and provides a ram to kill instead.
But Abraham's other son, Ishmael, born of Hagar, his wife's maidservant, has much to teach us Christ followers as well. In fact, Ishmael represents something that we struggle with everyday--our flesh. Paul speaks at length about the flesh in his New Testament epistles; in short, it is the sinful nature that resides in regenerated believers and is at war with the Spirit. In fact, Paul speaks as though a daily battle were going on inside the believer between the flesh and the spirit (see Romans 7).
In many ways, Ishmael represents the flesh, the human nature, born under the law. Paul states he was born "the ordinary way" (Gal 4:29) from a lineage of slavery--in the line of Adam. Ishmael was not the child of the promise, born supernaturally to an older, barren woman, like Isaac was to his mother, Sarah. Instead, Ishmael had been born out of Abraham and Sarah's lack of dependence upon God. His birth was manufactured from human scheming and fleshly reasoning; the promised son was so long coming, that Sarah had the idea that her husband ought to lay with her maidservant to bear his heir. And so, Ishmael was the fruit of Abraham's efforts to provide for himself, thank you very much.
So finally, when Ishmael was approximately 15 years old, Isaac, the promised, long-awaited son was born at last. But Ishmael had a fleshly response to this child--perhaps he was jealous of how Isaac was doted upon--but at any rate, the Scriptures state that Ishmael "mocked" (literally, "laughed at") Isaac (Gen 21:9). So, Sarah told Abraham:
"'Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.' And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, 'Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.'" (Gen 21:10-11)
Other Bible translations state Abraham was "distressed"--either way, the Hebrew word translated "displeased" or "distressed" means "to destroy by breaking into pieces; to make good for nothing." In other words, it absolutely crushed Abraham to send his son Ishmael away.
And yet, we see him doing just that the following morning. He didn't do it because Sarah had asked him to. Abraham did it to obey what God had commanded him to do.
You see, Abraham had to deal mercilessly with his flesh, and all that it had produced, in order to receive all the blessings which God had promised him through his true heir, Isaac. Abraham couldn't have it both ways. His flesh--aka Ishmael--had no part in his inheritance and, therefore, must be cut off forever. Even though Abraham loved this son--ultimately, he had to send him packing. From that time on, Ishmael was considered dead to Abraham and Isaac was his son, his only son, whom he loved.
And we must do this too, dear one. We must give NO room for the flesh in our lives. We must send it packing, ultimately divorce it, and turn from it to receive all the goodness and blessing that rests in God's promise for us as believers. The flesh will only serve to mock the Spirit, just as Ishmael mocked Isaac. It will only cause our loyalties to be divided, becoming a snare and draining our spirit. Therefore, let each one of us ask ourselves: In what areas of my life does my flesh still rule over me? And when God is faithful to reveal those things to each of us, let us be quick to ask the Lord how we might, by His strength and enabling, send our flesh packing today!
(Note: For a more thorough discussion on this topic, I highly recommend Jennifer Kennedy Dean's study Power in the Name of Jesus and her book Altar'd)
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