“Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now, we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 4:21-31; 5:1).
The first covenant depended upon the promises of a people, who knew only the birth of the flesh. These promises were that they would keep the Ten Commandments “indeed.” But, knowing only the birth of the flesh, they were, at the time, transgressors of the law of God, and so were in bondage to sin. And knowing only the birth of the flesh, and having only the mind of the flesh, their promise to obey the law of God “indeed,” was worthless, because “the minding of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).
If they had made no promise at all to obey the law, they would have broken it; because they knew only the birth of the flesh, and “they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Therefore, without any promise to keep the law, without the new birth, they would have continued in the bondage of sin. And when they promised to keep the law “indeed,” and then broke their promise (which, having only the mind of the flesh, it was inevitable that they would do), this brought them only yet deeper into bondage, because to “vow a vow unto the Lord,” and then “slack to pay it,” is “sin in thee” (Deut. 23:21).
Therefore, that covenant being entered into by those who were already in bondage, and being a covenant which, by its terms, gendered to bondage, it was only a covenant of bondage—a covenant in which their very efforts to deliver themselves from the bondage in which they already were, brought them only deeper into bondage, the bondage of sin, the bondage of their own works and broken promises, which were only sin.
Consequently, all that was seen, or could be seen, in the first covenant was, and is, the broken law. And that this should be forever so plain that no one could fail to see it, when Moses came down from the mount and saw their idolatry, he, having the tables of the law of God in his hands, “cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount” (Ex. 32:19).