But we go onward still in this history, and find it rich in other instructions and illustrations of the life of faith.
Sarah now comes forth for the first time in independent action. Chapters xvi. xvii.
The famine had already, as we saw, tempted Abraham to seek the _land_ of Egypt, and he got the resources of that land, with shame and sorrow, and a wearisome journey back again to Canaan. Sarah now tempts him to seek the _bondmaid_ of Egypt.
We know what this Egyptian bondmaid is, from the divine teaching of the epistle to the Galatians. She is the covenant from mount Sinai, the law, the religion of ordinances; and Sarah, in her suggestions to Abraham, that he should take this Egyptian, represents _nature_, which always finds its relief and its resources in flesh and blood, finds its _religion_ there also, as well as everything else.
The Spirit had not as yet dealt with Sarah’s soul. At least, we have had no manifestation of this. She was an elect one surely; but our election goes long before we become the subject of divine workmanship; and, as yet, spiritual life, the life of faith, the operation of the truth on Sarah through the Holy Ghost, had not been witnessed. She had not as yet been spoken of by the Lord. She had not been the companion of her husband in the exercise of his spirit before God, nor his fellow-disciple in God’s school. She was not called out with Abraham to number the stars, or to watch the sacrifice. She was still, I may say, in the place of _nature_; and accordingly she invites her husband to give her seed by her Egyptian handmaid.
That is her place in this action; and Abraham becomes the saint _betrayed by nature_, led in nature’s path, surprised by a temptation from that quarter now, as he had been before by the pressure of famine.
But all this is unbelief and departure from God. It is the way of man, the way of nature; not of faith or of the Spirit. We naturally resort to the law, the bondwoman, the religion of ordinances, when the _soul_ feels its need; as we naturally go down to Egypt, or seek the world, when our _circumstances_ are needy. It is unbelief and departure from God, as is seen even in Abraham; but to leave God and the restorings of His grace, when the soul has need, is a more grievous offence and wrong against Him, than to seek help as from Egypt, when our circumstances have need. My poverty may tempt me to use shifts and contrivances, which is bad enough; but if my conscience want healing, if breaches within need repairing, that I may walk again in the enjoyed light of His countenance, and I go to mere religion, or to ordinances, or to anything but the provisions of His own sanctuary, this is still worse.