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However, the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother.1
| 1 | The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother: The real, celestial ‘Sarah’. Compare Hebrews 12:22-24 in Nazarene Commentary 2000©. [Isaiah 54:5; Galatians 4:31] |
Dear Friends of the Nazarene,
We choose Galatians 4:26 as the theme of the chapter – “A Liberated Woman.” Having written of the seed or offspring of Abraham, Paul now moves into the subject of the adoption of sons. [1-5] As a corporate people the Jews were held “under the control” of the Law of Moses as a childhood-guide. This would be until “the date previously appointed” by God – the arrival of Christ and the Christian faith. The Jews were “slaves to worldly fundamental principles.” When the “appointed season arrived” God sent his Son who was born of a woman as a Jew under the Law of Moses. The purpose of his coming was to ‘purchase those Jews held captive as slaves to the Law of Moses.’ Thus, having died to the Law, they might gain the divine adoption. As such newly adopted children they could do what Jews did not, cry out “Abba! Father!” [6, 7] Christian Jews were no longer slaves to the Law of Moses.
If the above is the case, Paul asks, “Why do you continue to observe days, months, seasons, and years”? [8-11] The Jews had been held captive by men in the Jewish hierarchy whom Jehovah had called “gods” in Psalm 82:6. Having become adopted children of God how could these Jewish Christians turn back to what was “poor and weak” – the Law of Moses? In defending the Gospel Truth Paul has been treated like an enemy by some of these Christians in Galatia. [12-20] The Judaizers from Judea wanted to cut Paul off from these new Christians. Paul was suffering birth-pangs all over again “until Christ is fully developed within you.”
Paul now challenges those Christian Judaizers who wish to be under the Law of Moses to listen to the Law. [21-26] He draws an analogy between two women and two sons: a] Hagar and Mount Sinai with its Mosaic Law Covenant; and, b] Sarah, as the woman freed from the Law of Moses, as “the Jerusalem above.” The Jews – including Christian-Jews who insist on observance of the Law of Moses – remain enslaved. The true Christians as the Seed of Abraham have a heavenly mother as part of the New Covenant. [27-31] Paul compares Christians to Isaac as children of the promise and not the Law. However, as Ishmael began persecuting Isaac, so also were the Jews – as well as Christians of the Circumcision-Sect – began to persecute the True Seed. Christians are no longer “children of the slave [girl]” under the curse of the Law Covenant, but rather, ‘children of the free woman’ – the celestial Jerusalem above. But, actually how are such Christians “free”? Paul will explain.
Abba the Father bless the children of Celestial Jerusalem.
[28 June 2002]
The freewoman and her free child represent the heavenly Jerusalem, the church of Christ.
