Page 44 - The Road from Babylon to Zion

it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one
by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to
the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 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. Now
this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present
Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

Those who want to be under law, who want to be Torah Observant, remove
themselves from a place of standing in faith to receive the promises of God and they
embrace bondage and slavery as they try to keep the Law through the power of the
flesh. What was given at Sinai? Was it not the Law? Do not say that this was the
ceremonial or sacrificial Law only, for it was the moral Law that Moses brought down
from the mountain on tablets of stone. Is not this covenant related to Hagar, slavery
and the flesh? Do the saints really need to go back to this?

The children of faith are equated to Isaac and to being the true offspring of Abraham.
Abraham never tried to keep the Law or be Torah Observant for the Law was given
430 years after Abraham. Why then would the saints today want to place themselves
under the Law?

Many argue that it was just the sacrificial law that was done away with, and some
scriptures mention specifically this portion of the Law having been fulfilled and
having passed away (Hebrews 10:1-9). However, Paul states that it is not just the
ceremonial or sacrificial aspects of the Law of which he is speaking.

The Law was used of God to reveal righteousness and in many places it demanded
that the observant Jew should separate themselves from that which would defile
them and that which was unclean. This was the portion of the Law that Peter and
James and Barnabas stumbled over. The Law said which foods were clean and which
were unclean. The Law said which type of people were clean and which were unclean.
These apostles began to separate themselves from the Gentile believers over matters
of the Law and Paul boldly confronted them over their hypocrisy.

Galatians 2:14-19
But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of
the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew,
live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the
Gentiles to live like Jews? We are Jews by nature and not sinners from
among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the Law but through faith in Yahshua the Messiah, even
we have believed in Yahshua the Messiah, so that we may be justified
by faith in Messiah and not by the works of the Law; since by the works