Cast Out or Carried In? Reclaiming Hagar in Light of Galatians 4

“You are the God who sees me.” — Hagar, Genesis 16:13

“Cast out the slave woman and her son.” — Galatians 4:30

In previous page found in the Preamble and Definitions — Hagar and the Samaritan Woman as Keys to Covenant Renewal, I explored how these two marginalized women became unexpected vessels of divine encounter. Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid, and the Samaritan woman at the well—both represent figures who lived outside the covenantal mainstream, yet were seen, spoken to, and sent by the God of Israel.

But for many readers of Paul, this story hits a wall in Galatians 4.
There, Hagar appears not as the honored outsider, but as an allegorical symbol of bondage, cast out alongside her son, Ishmael. Paul declares, “These women are two covenants”—Hagar linked with Sinai and slavery, Sarah with promise and freedom. And then he quotes the chilling line: “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”

Is Paul reversing the honor we gave Hagar? Is she merely an object lesson now—a discarded vessel of law and coercion?

The answer is more layered. And within that tension lies a mystery worth revisiting:

 Can someone be cast out by man, yet carried in by God?
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The Midrash Behind Paul’s Allegory
First, we need to understand Paul’s method. Galatians 4 is not a Greek-style abstraction but a midrashic contrast, rooted in Second Temple Jewish ways of reading. Paul isn’t denigrating Hagar as a person—he’s constructing a prophetic framework: Sinai as coercion versus Jerusalem above as promise.

“Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia…” (Gal 4:25)

That location—Arabia—is not incidental. It evokes Ishmael’s territory. Paul isn’t choosing Egypt, Hagar’s homeland, but instead the desert of divine encounter—the same wilderness where Moses received the Law and where Elijah heard the still small voice. Arabia is where God speaks outside the camp. Paul is saying: Sinai delivered truth, but its structure was mediated, coercive, and temporary—meant to guard until faith was revealed (Gal 3:19–25).

Paul’s contrast is not between good and evil, or Jew and Gentile, but between bondage-based covenant identity and the freedom of the promise—a promise given before Sinai, in the days of Abraham, when Hagar too walked the land.
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Hagar, the One Who Named God
In Genesis 16, it is not Sarah or Abraham, but Hagar who becomes the first person in Scripture to name God:

“You are El Ro’i—the God who sees me.” (Gen 16:13)

She is also one of the first to receive an angelic visitation. She receives covenantal promises—not unlike Abraham himself:

A son with a name given from heaven

A nation multiplied through his descendants

A destiny forged through suffering and endurance

In Torat Edom terms, Hagar represents a proto-covenantal figure—a ger toshav, one grafted in not by law but by divine election and affliction. She does not climb the hierarchy of Israelite status, but instead becomes a mother of nations through exile, not empire.

So when Paul uses her as a symbol, it’s not a character attack—it’s a prophetic gesture toward two ways of relating to God:

One that operates by inheritance through coercion and institution

One that opens by promise, vision, and freedom
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The Wilderness Woman and the Heavenly City
Paul goes on to say:

“The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” (Gal 4:26)

This is not escapist language. It echoes the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well:

“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… but in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21–24)

Both women—Hagar and the Samaritan—are displaced by religion and yet re-centered by divine voice. Both are met in wilderness settings. Both are theologically commissioned after direct encounters with the divine. And both become, in their own ways, mothers of a new people—not based on bloodlines or boundary-markers, but on vision and response.
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The Cast-Out Becomes the Cornerstone
Paul quotes Genesis 21:10: 

“Cast out the slave woman and her son.” But this must be read in light of another scriptural irony:

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118:22)

Hagar is the stone cast aside by Sarah—but she becomes a cornerstone in the broader story of God’s redemptive mission. She is a precursor to Moses, who is exiled and rejected but encounters God in the wilderness. She is a forerunner to Jesus, who identifies with the outcast and the suffering servant. She is a parallel to Paul himself, the persecutor turned apostle, sent to the nations.

In exile, Hagar becomes a mirror of the Messiah: She is afflicted, rejected, and made to wander—yet she is seen, named, and vindicated.

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Torat Edom and the Vindication of the Outsider
In Torat Edom, the covenant never ends with the insiders. The wound becomes the womb. The cast-out ones are often the ones God chooses to carry the next chapter.

Hagar is not destroyed in Galatians 4—she is transfigured into a signpost. The Sinai covenant, good and true as it was, is not the final vessel of God’s purposes. It was temporary, mediated, and subject to fading. But the Jerusalem above—like Hagar’s El Roi—is immediate, relational, and enduring.

To read Paul properly, we must refuse to collapse typology into theology. Galatians 4 is not a license for Christian supersessionism or spiritual elitism. It’s a liberating call to recognize that divine promise is never chained to human systems—not even the best ones. The promise is always breaking boundaries, lifting the lowly, and choosing the unexpected.
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Conclusion: Gospel through Hagar’s Eyes
So what do we do with Galatians 4?

We honor the typology but resist the flattening of narrative. We allow Hagar to speak, to cry, to name God—not just as a symbol, but as a person encountered. We acknowledge the paradox: that one can be cast out by the covenantal administration, yet seen and carried by the covenantal God.

This is the gospel through the eyes of Hagar. 

Not a gospel of status, but of mercy.

Not a gospel of exclusion, but of encounter.

Not a gospel that forgets the wound, but one that births through it.

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear… for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.” (Galatians 4:27, citing Isaiah 54:1)

That is the old-time religion—the one that begins at wells, in deserts, and among those who are finally seen.

The Mistake of Many Prophetic Frameworks Today

 

Sequel to The True Temple

When Jesus stood in the shadow of Herod’s magnificent Temple and said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), He was speaking of something far more scandalous than many realized. He wasn’t threatening a building—He was revealing a new order. He was telling us that the true meeting place between God and humanity was no longer stone and gold, but flesh and Spirit.

He was the Temple.
And when He rose from the dead, He didn’t just vindicate His claim—He transferred the architecture. The Spirit that once filled a holy house now fills a holy people.

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…” (1 Peter 2:5)

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

The Temple didn’t vanish.

It multiplied.
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The Measured and the Unshaken
In Revelation 11, John is told to measure the temple, the altar, and those who worship there. It’s not a construction blueprint—it’s a spiritual survey. God is identifying the faithful, those who remain within His covenant, even as the outer court is trampled by the nations.

This is not about securing land or reviving old systems. It’s a prophetic sign: what matters is not the visible edifice, but the indwelt people. What is measured is not marble, but mercy. Not religious real estate, but relational fidelity.

In this apocalyptic moment, we see that the true Temple is preserved, even in persecution. Because it’s not external. It’s internal.

And it’s alive.
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The Lamb Is the Temple
Revelation reaches its climax with a city descending—not a rebuilt sanctuary, but the New Jerusalem, radiant with divine glory. And then comes the line that shatters all expectation:

“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:22)

This is the fulfillment of everything the tabernacle, the Temple, and the body of Jesus pointed toward. Not a place set apart from the world—but a world transfigured by  God’s presence.

The whole city becomes the Holy of Holies.

No need for curtain or court. No veil. No priestly caste.

The Lamb is the light, and the people walk in it.
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Becoming, Not Rebuilding
This is the mistake of many prophetic frameworks today: they keep waiting for something to be built that has already begun to be formed.

The Temple is not coming back—it’s becoming us.

Not in political reconstruction, but in covenantal renewal.

Not in a mountain made holy again, but in a people made ready.

When Jesus ascended, He didn’t leave a blueprint for a new sanctuary. He left His Spirit—and a commission.

We are His Body. We are His Temple. We are the place where heaven touches earth, if we will walk in faith, justice, mercy, and 

love.

So look not to scaffolds, but to saints.

Look not to architecture, but to Acts.

The final Temple is not a monument.

It’s a movement.

And it’s becoming.