Beyond “Hagar”: A Torat Edom Correction for Reformed Readers
Doug Wilson’s recent post “Children of Hagar” (Feb. 25, 2026) is his clearest defense yet of the “Hagar” category he’s been using to describe the covenantal status of unbelieving Jews. He frames the issue as an exegetical clarification prompted by Gabe Harder’s Theopolis critique of Wilson’s earlier “covenant with Hagar” proposal.
I’m writing this for Reformed readers—confessional people—who want (1) to reject antisemitism, (2) to resist dispensational prophecy-hype, and (3) to keep covenant theology intact. Torat Edom is my name for the deeper temptation that threatens us right here: Edom is the rivalry instinct that turns covenant into conquest, inheritance into dispossession, and biblical interpretation into a victory story over the brother. That instinct is not only “out there” in the ugly stuff. It can creep into “respectable” systems—especially when we feel we must preserve a tidy identity claim.
Wilson’s “Hagar” move is an attempt to keep multiple impulses in the air at once:
• the Church as “true Israel” (in a strong, possessive sense),
• a future “conversion of the Jews,”
• and a covenantal explanation for Jewish durability.
But Paul’s grammar does not require a third covenant category. In fact, Paul warns Gentile believers against the exact pride that often produces such categories.
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1) Romans 11 gives one tree, not two—and it does not need a “Hagar container”
Start with Romans 11. Paul’s olive tree is not a devotional metaphor; it is an apostolic boundary around Christian arrogance.
There is one cultivated tree with a holy root (the patriarchal promises). Natural branches are broken off through unbelief; wild branches (Gentiles) are grafted in by faith; and natural branches can be grafted back in by mercy. That’s the picture. Paul’s pastoral edge is aimed at Gentiles: do not boast over the branches; you do not support the root, the root supports you.
Wilson, however, introduces an additional mechanism. In earlier material, and echoed by Harder’s summary, he effectively needs some way for severed branches to remain “alive” and “graftable” for millennia—hence talk of a second “tree” logic or a covenantal holding space. Harder’s Theopolis essay highlights this exact move, and why it creates more problems than it solves. Wilson’s Feb. 25 post continues to defend the durability of his category by treating Galatians 4 as an ongoing covenantal description for “conservative Jews today” who “want to be under the law.”
But Paul doesn’t say: “Broken off… therefore transferred into a different covenant class.” Paul says: broken off through unbelief—and God is able to graft in again. The durability question is answered, not by a second covenant, but by God’s fidelity to His own promises and His power to show mercy.
Torat Edom translation: when we feel we must invent a new covenant box to keep Israel meaningful, it usually means we’ve already made “Israel” into a Church-possession. And the moment Israel becomes a Church-possession, the brother becomes a problem to manage. That is Edom’s old instinct wearing covenant vocabulary.
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2) “Works of the law”: the Reformed reflex can accidentally make Galatians an anti-Jewish template
Wilson’s “Rosetta Stone” in “Children of Hagar” is basically: Torah is read in two ways—through faith (seeing Christ) or through flesh (turning Torah into self-justification).
There is a true thing here: Paul does condemn seeking to “establish one’s own righteousness” (Rom 10:3). But Wilson’s framing becomes dangerous when it turns into a stable ethnographic conclusion: “the Jews” as such are characterized covenantally as Ishmael/Hagar—meaning bondage—because they read Torah without seeing Christ.
The crucial corrective is this: in Galatians the presenting controversy is not “Jews are legalists.” The controversy is: must Gentiles undergo Jewish identity conversion to belong to Messiah’s people?
This is where the phrase “works of the law” matters. A significant stream of Pauline scholarship—often called “Paul within Judaism”—argues that Paul’s phrase ἔργα νόμου is frequently about initiation-oriented identity formation, i.e., the boundary rites associated with Gentiles becoming Jews (proselyte conversion), with circumcision functioning as a synecdoche.
Mark Nanos states this plainly in his published work: translating erga nomou as “works of the law” often misdirects readers toward generalized Torah observance rather than the initiation/identity referent Paul is addressing. Nanos also argues (in a more accessible web essay) that Paul’s argument targets the custom of non-Jews undertaking proselyte transformation (including adult male circumcision), rather than Torah itself.
You don’t have to adopt every proposal of that school to concede the key point: Galatians is not a license for Christians to narrate Judaism as “bondage religion” and Christianity as “freedom religion.” It is a defense of Gentile inclusion by faith without requiring Gentiles to become Jews.
Torat Edom insists we stop using Paul to keep the old rivalry story alive. When “works of the law” becomes a generic synonym for “merit religion,” Galatians becomes a cudgel: “the Jews are Hagar.” That is exactly the drift that has historically fueled contempt.
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3) Galatians 4: Paul’s allegory is not a trans-historical covenant status for “modern Jews”
Wilson’s most important claim in “Children of Hagar” is that Harder’s reading flattens the allegory, and that the allegory only “makes sense” if Sarah represents OT covenant faithfulness and Hagar represents OT covenant works-righteousness. He then extends that category forward: Jews today who “want to be under the law” are, in Paul’s terms, children of the bondwoman.
Harder’s critique, however, is not merely a vibe check. It is an exegetical complaint: Paul does not teach “a covenant with Hagar” as a standing covenant class; Paul says “these women are two covenants,” and Hagar corresponds to Sinai and the present Jerusalem in Paul’s own argument.
The Torat Edom correction for Reformed readers:
• Yes, Torah can be twisted into fleshly boasting.
• No, that does not authorize Christians to create an enduring covenant label for Jews as Jews.
• No, it does not authorize a permanent covenant category of slavery that stabilizes a Church-possessive “true Israel” claim.
Even if we grant Wilson’s narrower idea—“Hagar typifies a distorted approach”—what
follows is not “therefore it is a covenant that binds modern Jewry.” What follows is: the fleshly use of Torah is condemned in every age, in every people—including baptized Christians. The New Testament is relentless on this. The flesh can turn anything into a ladder. It can even turn the gospel into “the stench of death” (2 Cor 2:16)—as Wilson himself notes.
But a fleshly misuse is not a covenant administration. It is sin and blindness. Calling it “covenant” may sound Reformed-objective (a “solemn bond with sanctions”), but it smuggles in a fatal implication: this people’s continuing existence is covenantally defined by bondage to blindness. That is not how Paul speaks when he is trying to restrain Gentile boasting.
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4) “Religio licita”
I raise “religio licita,” for the imperial context matters for Galatians (identity conversion is not just “spiritual”). But we should be careful: “religio licita” is widely used today as if it were an official Roman legal category, when it is better understood as a phrase used by Tertullian and later over-systematized by moderns.
Still, the social reality stands: Jewish identity and conversion were publicly legible and communally regulated. That is precisely why “works of the law” can plausibly be tied to initiation/boundary practices rather than generic moral striving nor equating it with Torah. This strengthens (rather than weakens) the Reformed point Paul is making: the nations are not incorporated by taking on Jewish identity conversion. They are incorporated by faith into the Abrahamic promise in Messiah.
Torat Edom frame: Edom loves abstraction—turning covenant into a transferable property—and then narrating Israel as a disposable husk. Paul’s imperial-age argument runs the other way: he protects Israel’s root, forbids Gentile boasting, and opens the door to the nations without requiring the nations to swallow Israel’s identity.
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5) The Reformed alternative: keep Paul’s grammar, refuse Edom’s rivalry
Here is a cleaner Reformed path that does not require “Hagar covenant” language, does not erase Israel, and does not flatter modern political projects:
1. There is one covenantal root—the patriarchal promises—and God’s fidelity to the fathers remains decisive (Romans 11).
2. Unbelief means broken off—real judgment language—not “transferred covenant status.”
3. Gentiles are included without proselyte conversion—Galatians’ controversy makes no sense otherwise, and “works of the law” must not be flattened into “generic merit religion.”
4. The Church does not replace Israel. The Messiah community is multi-ethnic and attached to Israel’s root—Gentiles grafted in, warned not to boast.
5. Hope for Jewish mercy does not require a “Hagar covenant.” It requires God’s faithfulness and power, and it requires Gentile humility.
1. There is one covenantal root—the patriarchal promises—and God’s fidelity to the fathers remains decisive (Romans 11).
2. Unbelief means broken off—real judgment language—not “transferred covenant status.”
3. Gentiles are included without proselyte conversion—Galatians’ controversy makes no sense otherwise, and “works of the law” must not be flattened into “generic merit religion.”
4. The Church does not replace Israel. The Messiah community is multi-ethnic and attached to Israel’s root—Gentiles grafted in, warned not to boast.
5. Hope for Jewish mercy does not require a “Hagar covenant.” It requires God’s faithfulness and power, and it requires Gentile humility.
This is where Torat Edom speaks most directly to Reformed conscience: the chief sin Paul confronts is not “Judaism,” but Gentile boasting—the old rivalry instinct. The Church is never permitted to narrate itself as the new proprietor who now explains Israel as a negative category.
