⁹ Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.

⁸ Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.

²⁷ And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.^{[a] 28} There is no longer Jew or Gentile,^[b] slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children^[c] of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

⁷ Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted,”^[a] though Abraham had other children, too. ⁸ This means that Abraham’s physical descendants are not necessarily children of God. Only the children of the promise are considered to be Abraham’s children.

³³ “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”

²⁶ “Brothers—you sons of Abraham, and also you God-fearing Gentiles—this message of salvation has been sent to us!

The Faith of Abraham

4 Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God?

²² The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife.^{[a] 23} The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God’s own fulfillment of his promise.

²⁴ These two women serve as an illustration of God’s two covenants. The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount Sinai where people received the law that enslaved them. ²⁵ And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia,^[b] because she and her children live in slavery to the law. ²⁶ But the other woman, Sarah, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman, and she is our mother. ²⁷ As Isaiah said,

²⁸ And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. ²⁹ But you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit.

³⁰ But what do the Scriptures say about that? “Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”^{[d] 31} So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the free woman.

⁵³ Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”

³⁹ “Our father is Abraham!” they declared.

“No,” Jesus replied, “for if you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example.^{[a] 40} Instead, you are trying to kill me because I told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing.