by Gabe Harder
Defining the Covenant
To this point, it should be clear that the “covenant with Hagar” is key to Wilson’s brand of soft supersessionism. What’s equally clear, however, is that this particular covenantal arrangement evades precise definition, and what elements have been made plain at times appear entirely incompatible with a historic Reformed covenant theology.
A historical reading of the “covenant with Hagar” is, of course, impossible. Although God makes prophetic promises to both Abraham and Hagar concerning Ishmael’s future, “nothing is clearer [in Genesis 16-21] than the singularity of the covenant God made with Abraham and the passing down of that covenant through Isaac and not through Ishmael. There is, thus, no Hagar covenant.”1 Paul simply does not teach that “unbelieving Jews are in covenant with Hagar.” The phrase used by both Wilson and Sumpter, “the covenant with Hagar,” appears nowhere in the passage. Paul is clear that his appeal to Genesis is allegorical; the covenant, therefore, is not with Hagar, rather Hagar is the covenant (Gal. 4:24).
