This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 23, 1997.
About this sermon
Paul’s own allegorical reading of Hagar and Sarah in Galatians licenses a similar reading here: Peninnah stands for the old covenant, Hannah for the new. Barrenness throughout the Old Testament turns out to prophesy redemption rather than merely lament its absence. Hannah’s own barrenness, read this way, already points toward Christ.
Sermon transcript
We begin our Scripture reading in Galatians chapter 4, Galatians 4 verse 21. I give you attention to God’s Word. 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, one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by the promise.” which things are an allegory. For these are the two covenants, one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar 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.” For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” 1 Samuel 1 verse 4, And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Paninah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters portions, but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, for he loved Hannah.
But the Lord had shut up her womb, and her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. as he did so year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her. Therefore she wept and did not eat. Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou, and why eatest thou not? Why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk.
Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by the post of the temple of the Lord, and she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life. and there shall no razor come upon his head. And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spake in her heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken?
Put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord. I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and did eat and her countenance was no more sad. Father, you have heard us, we know, and even before we ask of you, you grant our petitions. Father, you are answering us even when it seems as if you are silent.
Today we would pray for Mr. Ammons and his struggles in his health. May you grant him renewed strength, O God, and help from above. May you be merciful to his family as they wait upon him to recover and upon you to answer. And father, we would ask that you would be gracious to your church in the world, preserving her from affliction, saving those who are oppressed. But we ask you to father, that your word would be preached with power and that your elect would be gathered. And we would see the full compliment of your people brought in under your church, beneath your wing. Lord, May we rejoice together, and may our praises be heard even throughout all the world. In Jesus name, Amen. At the end of Galatians 4, Paul bears his exegetical soul. At the end of Galatians 4, Paul bears his exegetical soul. He presents you here, through the Holy Spirit, his interpretation of an Old Testament story, the story of Sarah and Hagin.
You remember the story. she supposes one gained for her through her maid will at least provide her some consolation. So she gives her maid Hagar to Abraham, and Hagar concedes. But Hagar, in her pregnancy, becomes contemptuous of her mistress. She despises But after the birth of Hagar’s son Ishmael, Sarah receives the child of promise in her old age. Isaac is born by the miraculous provision of God, but then he becomes the object of Ishmael’s scorn, just as his mother had become the object of Cagar’s scorn. Sarah then demands that Abraham drive Cagar and her child away. Abraham agonizes over this, but then, with assurances from the Lord, he complies. You will find the story in Genesis 16-21. And it is this story which Paul picks up on in Galatians 4 verses 21-31.
Now, he tells us in verse 24 of that fourth chapter of Galatians that the Genesis story is an allegory. may be taken back by Paul’s choice of words here. Because when you hear the word allegory, you immediately think of a highly figurative form of expression, a form of storytelling in which fictional personalities and actions symbolize the human condition and call us to some sort of higher meaning. Two famous allegories in the English world are Edmund Spencer’s The Fairy Queen and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. One or both of them you might be familiar with.
But neither of these grand English allegories Paul’s use of the word. For Paul, in no sense, suggests that Cagar and Sarah, together with their sons, are fictional. That is, that they are anything less than fully historical, and what he says of them actually happened in the fullest historical sense. To put it simply, There is no person named Christian, nor is there a city called Vanity Fair about which Bunyan writes in Children’s Progress.
There are, however, a true Hagar and a true Isaac, a true Mount Sinai and Arabia, and an earthly Jerusalem about which Paul writes. At the same time, we must admit that the people and places Paul tells us of do have figurative, what we may call symbolic meaning. Thus, he speaks about Jerusalem which is above, verse 26 in that fourth chapter.
But even here, we must not allow Paul’s intentions to be lost. His figurative, his symbolic reading of the Old Testament story of Sarah and Hagar serves no mere principles of abstract spiritual life, but the concrete development of the story of salvation and its ultimate destiny in that heavenly city. In other words, the story of Sarah and Hagar tells in miniature form, in a way peculiar to itself, in a most concentrated fashion, and from a definite angle, the history of redemption. And it is this history of redemption to which Paul now directs his readers’ attention, to which he sees them intimately bound.
Now, you make a grave mistake if you approach those latter verses in Galatians 4 as if they were something odd, as if they were an exception to Paul’s ordinary, sensible approach to the Scriptures. Now, what we have here is no momentary lapse. on the part of the Apostle, no wild, speculative, uncharacteristic flight into exegetical fancy. Whereas this approach to Scripture, this sort of thing, meant only for Apostles, those directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, in which they dabble occasionally. Or, if they’re the writers, for the book of Hebrews and Revelation seem to overdose on.
It may well be that here in Galatians 4 we have served up for us the concentrated, the most compressed, the most startling, the rawest red-meat version of Paul’s interpretive commitment But, my dear friends, at this very point, you are staring straight on, as I suggested to you at the beginning, you are staring straight on into nothing less than Paul’s exegetical soul. In other words, Paul knows every small Bible story means something only in relation to the whole. of the Bible. According to Paul, the small Bible story about Sarah and Hagar carries within it the movement from the old covenant to the new covenant, from Sinai to the heavenly Jerusalem, from the law to the gospel promise, from flesh to spirit, from bondage to freedom. And you must understand further that Paul’s approach here is not meant to be exclusive, as if it were intended exclusively for this one story. out of all the stories that appear in the Old Testament in Scripture, or exclusively for him, or for other inspired persons like him.
Rather, his approach is meant to be suggestive, programmatic, a pattern and an example for all preachers to follow, and for you to appreciate and to appropriate in all your dealings with the Bible. Here it is. You are being taught how to read your Bible. And according to the Apostle Paul, this is the only way to read your Bible.
This should be clear to us. at least as far as those stories are concerned, in which we find close parallels to the story used by the Apostles. I mean, if there are other stories in the Bible that sound like this story about Sarah and Hagar, they’re the marks of this story. Wouldn’t you expect that these other stories also would be saying similar things? The Sarah Hagar story is programmatic. It is paradigmatic. It is the first of such stories in Scripture. You could say Playing on the imagery a bit, it is the mother of such stories, and it sets the tone for all other stories that bear the marks of it. In terms of the theme of barrenness, the theme of barrenness, we have after this story, so as to reinforce it, the story of Rebecca.
Later on, Judges 13, we have the story of Manoah’s wife, the mother of Samson. And reaching into the New Testament, we have the story of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. All stories about barrenness, and God’s intervention, His action to resolve that condition. But here, in the Sarah Hagar story, we have barrenness plus rivalry. So we move from this story that matches barrenness with rivalry, from the story of Sarah and Hagar, into the story of Rachel and Leah.
And from there we move into yet another story, a story that has been preoccupying us recently, the story of Hannah and Penelope. All of these stories tell in miniature form, in ways peculiar to themselves, in a most concentrated fashion, a form given to us from a definite angle, the history of redemption. Indeed, they all preach the story of redemption, the very gospel itself. When we come to the story about Hannah and Penina, we mark the similarities between it and the mother story, that of Sarah and Hagar.
Two women, one man. one woman fruitful, the other barren. Hostility from the fruitful one against the barren one. A helpless, powerless, and in some ways pitiful husband. The intention of God in granting a child thus saving the barren woman from her shame and furthering the cause of his great redemptive plan. Common elements. But taking now our cue from the Apostle, we are not misreading the story.
We are not misreading even this story of Hannah and Penina, when we see in the hostility of Penina against Hannah something more than just a personality clash and difficulty on the home front. In this hostility, we see something of the hostility that is about to arise within Israel itself. But this hostility is no simple matter, for it is not merely reflective of the coming political battles between the houses of Saul and David, or the impending wars between the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. But neither is it a simple matter of perceiving in this hostility within Alcanna’s household the enmity that rises because of the age-old warfare between the seed of the serpent and the line of promise, taking us back to the original story of the Fall and humanity’s corruption.
As weighty and as profound as these connections are, and as properly as they might be pursued in their own right, they do not open up for us the precise line of explanation which the scriptures has in mind upon which the Apostle plays. You see, he zeroes in on the two women in his story as if they were two covenants. We’re starting to get nervous. as if they were two covenants. It’s not that these other things aren’t there, that you cannot pick up the note of enmity from Genesis chapter 3, or the hostility and the wars that erupt later between Saul and David, and the kingdoms as they erupt, North and South. But the thing, you see, that the Apostles were to focus upon is the conflict between covenants. This always makes Presbyterians nervous. This is difficult language. It’s hard for us, admittedly. It’s meant to be hard for us. It’s meant to provoke us. It’s meant to force us to do very, very hard spiritual and theological thinking.
No theological slouches need apply. At the same time, the Apostle, in his reading of such stories, fully expects his interpretation and his approach to be within your grasp, and even within the grasp of the children of the Church. Well, not just Sarah and Fagar then, but Hannah and Penina, are two covenants, and the hostility between them is meant to speak about the proper—yes, I say proper—antithesis between the old and the new. It is of such radical nature. This is not to discount the continuity—we are present periods, after all—this is not to discount the continuity. between the covenants, but it is meant to bring to light, to emphasize, to capitalize upon the antithesis between the old and the new, the old covenant and the new.
For there is a certain form of vanity, there is a boast of the flesh that takes advantage of that old order. and exploits that old order in the interests of its own privileged position. I will say it again for you. There is that form of vanity, there is that boast in the flesh that takes advantage of the old order, the old covenant, and exploits that old covenant in the interests of its own privileged position. and even hides behind its sanctions and its ordinances. Hides behind the law. The law is on my side, and I am therefore justified in my voting.
All of this is seen in Penina. Look at her again. All of this is seen in Penina. Her name reinforces her significance. Her name means coral. Pearl. Ruby. A name that memorializes external beauty and value. Her personality complements the meaning of her name. Very clearly, she’s doing very well, thank you. She may not be the best loved by her husband, but she is the most bountifully blessed. If you want proof of blessing, here it is, sitting at the table in front of you.
And she taunts Hannah with boasts about her superiority, her advantage. She expresses her contempt for her rivals, and her assault is constant. It never lets up. This woman lives for this world consistently and persistently. You are now cataloging this woman’s soul. She seeks advantage in this world and lives for it. her treasure is here, valued for her through her children, who are the offspring of the natural power of the flesh. If she and Hannah are two covenants, Panina belongs to Sinai and the earthly city in which the interest is worldly wealth and advantage secured through the flesh, even aided, abetted, and protected by the law.”
She is about as secure as you can get. And she can claim God on her side. She has the blessing. Hannah’s name. Hannah’s name. means grace. I know I said that rather dramatically, and I meant to. Because I want you to feel the sense of it over against Miss Ruby. Her name means grace.
And this as a memorial also, not of an inherent, natural, external power, much less a natural, external beauty or wealth, but evidence of that which is internal an endowment and a gift which she herself symbolizes. Hannah’s life fulfills her name, as she, in contrast to Penina, must now awake, through her suffering, through her suffering, the gracious provision of God’s mercy. and she fulfills her name as she, through faith, is finally quieted, with the confidence that the Lord of hosts himself will conclusively act for her. If she and Penina are two covenants, Hannah belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem, which is above, in which The interest, finally, is deliverance from reproach and shame into God’s glory. The interest not this world’s wealth or advantage, but the power of the flesh for the glory of a life in the earth.
And Hannah underscores this and proves it when, from her heart, She offers up the son for whom she prays. She will give him away. Beyond the days of Hannah and Canina comes the consummate miracle child. to whom Hannah’s child pointed. He showed himself a conclusive delineation between the Old and the New Covenant.
The hostility and enmity from the Old, in the interest of its own boast in the powers of the flesh, drives it to crucify this greater child. that he, by the perfection of the Spirit’s power, is raised from the dead, the first and quintessential child in his resurrection of his true mother, the Jerusalem above, the mother of us all, who are born not of the flesh or for the flesh, part of God.
Father, in our claim of the inheritance, Lord, we confess that it is all a grace. And you have blessed us with faith. Whereby, we are able to let all things go. even those things that we might think are dearest to us, that we might have the heavenly city and you yourself. Lord, we are children of the promise and not of the flesh. And Lord, perfect in us the freedom into which we have been brought. Father, we ask that you will grant grace to your church that she would not look then longingly toward the old so as to live there. And Father, preserve her from sin lest she boast in the flesh and be secure in herself. Help your church, O God, to live by faith within the embrace of your grace unto the great day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.