Is the Church Our Mother?
by Rev. Paul Howden
March 2, 2008
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Galatians 4:21-31

Victor Frankl was a Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps. It was truly remarkable, for nearly everyone around him died. In the last year of his imprisonment the daily ration consisted of water soup given out once daily, and a small piece of bread. He wrote this, “When the last layers of subcutaneous fat had vanished, and we looked like skeletons disguised with skin and rags, we could watch our bodies beginning to devour themselves. The organism digested its own protein, and the muscles disappeared. Then the body had no powers of resistance left. One after another, the members of the little community in our hut died.”

After Victor Frankl was liberated from these death camps he was asked, “Do you hate the Germans?” “No, there are many good Germans. I don’t divide humanity between German and non-German. I divide humanity between the decent and the indecent.”

Well, some people avoid dividing humanity at all. That is hard to do, and unwise. The Bible makes a separation between two kinds of people and two covenants. We see it in our epistle lesson for this 4th Sunday in Lent. Galatians 4 has much to say about grace. Then, we’ll consider this question: Is the Church your mother?

Reading Galatians 4:21-27; Hebrews 12:18, 22.

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.  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.  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.

For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

The text presents two mothers, two mountains, two sons, two families, and two cities, and two Jerusalems, that correspond to the two covenants. The images highlight the contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, the law and gospel. The letter St. Paul writes to the Galatians on this occasion is in fact a challenge to people called the Judaizers. Who were the Judaizers? The Judaizers were Jewish Christians who insisted upon the need for circumcision and other Old Covenant rituals for salvation, the Old Testament Church, minus the gospel. St. Paul wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia before the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem in A.D. 70. It was a time of transition. Jesus had died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven and had sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to empower His church, but still the new people of God were barely distinguishable from the Jews. Some Christians still worshipped at the Temple in Jerusalem. Animals were still being sacrificed (Acts 3:1, 11; 5:12). Often, outsiders regarded Christians as merely a sect of Judaism (Acts 24:14). Jesus was a Jew. Would His ministry and message be absorbed back into Judaism? The Judaizers threatened to bury the Gospel, to fold it back into the Jewish mainstream; and the Jewish mainstream of that time had lost the Gospel. Abraham knew the Gospel. Moses knew the gospel; so did Jonah, Isaiah and others. Hence, the Holy Spirit guided the apostle Paul to address this crisis.

St. Paul defends the Gospel from this Judaizing heresy by making a comparison between Abraham’s wife Sarah, and his concubine Hagar. If you remember the Old Testament story, Hagar, the concubine slave, gave birth to Ishmael, the son of bondage. Abraham was the father. Fourteen years later, Sarah, the barren wife, gave birth to Isaac, the son of promise. Both sons were conceived by Abraham as he had relations with these two wives, but the birth of Isaac was supernatural in that Sarah was eighty years old. So Hagar gave birth according to “the flesh,” in the natural fashion, whereas Sarah gave birth “through promise,” that is, supernaturally.

Isaac is the one who received the promise: his descendents would become more numerous than the sands of the seashore, more glorious than the stars of the sky. The promise to Abraham was the promise of the Gospel, the promise of the coming Christ, the promise of justification by grace alone through faith alone.

According to the apostle, using an allegorical method of interpretation, the children of Hagar follow the earthly Jerusalem, and the children of Sarah answer to the heavenly Jerusalem. The imagery is intended to highlight the superiority of the New Covenant in Christ. The motherhood of Hagar, the slave, corresponds to the law given on Mount Sinai in Arabia, to the city of Jerusalem that was still standing. In contrast, the motherhood of Sarah, the free, corresponds to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). Hagar gives birth to slavery, to offspring like Ishmael; her children are cut off from the promise, enslaved to the law as a means of righteousness, and members of the earthly Jerusalem. This is one family that comes from Abraham. The other family is born of Sarah. She gives birth to emancipated children, offspring like Isaac: children of the promise, recipients of the Holy Spirit, free from bondage, members of the New Covenant under Christ, and heirs of the New Jerusalem. The children of Hagar remain under law and curse; whereas the children of Sarah are under the free grace of God in Christ. Hence, the two motherhoods are incompatible. One will have to give way to the other. Thus, St. Paul says, “Cast out the bondwoman.” Those were the words of Sarah. In other words, get rid of the legalistic way of attaining salvation. Let’s read Galatians 4:28-31.

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 freewoman.  So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Just as the motherhood of Sarah, a motherhood based on God’s grace alone, takes the place of the motherhood of Hagar, and just as the Jerusalem above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, takes the place of the Jerusalem below, so the New Covenant of grace necessarily replaces the Old Covenant of works. The change brought about by Christ’s accomplished work on the cross, the transformation of the Old Covenant to the New, means that sinners are saved by faith alone, through grace alone, on account of Christ alone.

This means that circumcision, the dietary laws, the sacrifices in the Temple, and other Old Covenant ceremonies are abolished in the New Covenant. Gaining a righteous standing before God Almighty does not concern Mt. Sinai, law obedience, which is a kind of legalism. A righteous standing before a Holy God is attained by God’s grace alone, by faith in the cross of Christ.  The Judaizers prided themselves on being the true sons of Abraham. Paul admitted that they were children of Abraham, but he said that they were spiritually illegitimate. He reasoned that since they were giving up the gospel to go back under the law, they must be sons of Hagar rather than children of Sarah. This meant that they were still in spiritual bondage. The same is true of anyone who seeks to be justified by keeping the law. Charles Spurgeon explained it like this:  “The poor sinner trying to be saved by law is like the blind horse going round and round a mill, and never getting a step further, but only being whipped continually; yea, the faster he goes, the more work he does; the more he is tired, so much the worse for him. The better legalist a man is, the more sure he is of being damned…; Hagar was a slave; Ishmael, moral and good as he was, was nothing but a slave, and never could be more. Not all the works he ever rendered to his father could make him a free-born son.” [From Philip Ryken’s Commentary on Galatians, p. 186.]

The Apostle has made a good point, but this does not exhaust the passage. The transformation of the Old Covenant to the New also says something about the Church. The Church, Mount Zion, the Jerusalem above, is now our mother. St. Paul declares in verse 26, “the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” “We are children of promise.” We are adopted into a new family. The Church replaces the synagogue and Temple, the Jerusalem below.

Like Sarah, the Church, though barren in herself, gives birth by the Spirit to children of promise. Her children are free; free from legalism; free from the slavery to sin; free from Hell’s judgment. These truths set up the concept that God is our Father, Jesus is our Elder Brother, the Church is our mother, and Christians are members of the family of God.

Are there other passages that suggest or support the doctrine of the motherhood of the Church? Yes, the Bible hints at it in several places. In Matthew 23:7 our Lord cries, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” The apostle Paul writes to the Thessalonian believers: “But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7). St. John addresses a local church like this: “The Elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth…I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth” (2 John 1). Notice that the apostle John calls this parish the “elect lady.” Also, in Revelation 12, the dragon attacks the woman, “the woman clothed with the sun,” who represents the Church, and the dragon wages “war with the rest of her offspring” (Rev. 12:13-17).

How about Church History? Did the Church endorse this teaching? Yes. Tradition held this doctrine, and it surfaces over and again in the works of the Patristic writers. Origen penned these words, “He who does not have the Church for mother cannot have God for father.” Cyprian says practically the same thing: “The Bride of Christ brings forth spiritual sons for God… He alone can have God as his Father who first has the Church as his mother!” St. Augustine took up the theme in a sermon: “The Church is a mother for us… It is from her that we were born spiritually… No one can find a paternal welcome from God if he scorns his mother, the Church.” Cyril of Jerusalem commented on our Galatians text, saying, “The catholic Church is the proper name of this holy mother of us all; spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, …she bears the seal and likeness of the Jerusalem above, which is free and which is our mother. She began by being barren, but now she has numerous children.”

Besides the Church Fathers and Medievals, the Reformers also annunciated the doctrine; Luther, Calvin and Bucer just to name a few. Motherhood was foundational to Calvin’s theology of the visible Church. He writes in The Institutes: “But because it is now our intention to discuss the visible church, let us learn even from the simple title ‘mother’ how useful, indeed how necessary, it is that we should know her. For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. Furthermore, away from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or salvation… it is disastrous to leave the church.” [Unquote. IV, Ch. 1, 4. A paraphrase.]

The Church as mother is more than a sentimental impulse. According to the Bible she “is the mother of us all.” For each and every believer, family life in the Church is obligatory for spiritual growth, sanctification, and salvation itself.

No doubt, we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone through God’s grace alone. Church membership saves nobody. But a necessary evidence of saving faith is commitment to the Church. A permanent disregard for the life of the Church is a red flag; a sign of spiritual problems; perhaps there is no true faith after all. A century ago every Christian recognized the value of church attendance and membership. Christians of former generations measured a person’s commitment to Christ by his or her commitment to the mission and worship of the church. That is no longer so. Many now hold a very low regard for the Church, both in theory and practice. The title of a book I’m reading is,  “They Like Jesus but Not the Church.” The cover explains, “Ask someone today if he or she likes Jesus, and the answer is usually yes. But ask if that person likes the church, and chances are you will get a far less favorable response.” Maybe the Church promotes legalism. Too many dos and don’ts not supported by Scripture. [by Dan Kimball, Zondervan.] There is thus a low view of the church. On Sunday mornings, apathetic believers can barely get out of bed. An attitude of indifference has taken over. Thoughts go like this: “If Church life makes you feel good, great. But I can do without it. There is always television church, and radio church, and para-church ministries, and a walk in the woods that serve as a valid substitute for the Church.” 

What is the biblical view? The apostles never would have imagined anyone living the Christian life independently of the church. Outside the Church was the “world,” the system still under the dominion of sin and Satan. Only in union with the Body of Christ can one be united to Christ Himself. The sacraments speak to this. Baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection brings about incorporation into the fellowship of believers. At the Lord’s Table the saints participate together in the Savior’s life-giving body and blood. As a mother nurses her new-born babe, and later feeds and nourishes the child with food, so the sacrament of Holy Communion supernaturally feeds and nourishes our souls to everlasting life.

The message for you on this 4th Sunday in Lent points to the centrality of the Church. The epistle passage states, the Church is “the mother of us all.” If you are in Christ, she is your mother. Membership in the Church is normative. If you won’t have the Church for your mother, don’t expect to have God for your Father, and Jesus as your elder Brother. Be committed to the outreach, worship, and mission of the Church. She may be fraught with problems, rent with strife, and hobbling like a cripple. Yet, in Christ, she is a gorgeous and pure Bride. King Jesus loves His bride. Our Lord is coming again for her, and her children. Love and serve Christ with your mother, not without her.

Let us pray.