Galatians 4:26. But altogether different from the position of the present Jerusalem is that of the upper Jerusalem, which is free; and this upper Jerusalem is our mother.

δέ] places the ἄνω Ἱερουσ. in contrast with the previous τῇ νῦν Ἱερουσ. The μία μέν of Galatians 4:24 has been left, in consequence of the digression occasioned by the remarks made in Galatians 4:25, without any correlative to follow it (such as ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα),—an omission which is quite in harmony with the rapid movement of Pauline thought. Comp. Romans 7:12, et al.; also Romans 5:12. He leaves it to the reader to form for himself the second part of the allegorical interpretation after the similarity of the first, and only adduces so much of it as is directly suggested by the contrast of the just characterized τῇ νῦν Ἱερουσ. He leaves it, therefore, to the reader to supply the following thought: “But the other covenant, which is allegorically represented in this history, is the covenant instituted by Christ, which brings forth to freedom: this is Sarah, who is of the same nature with the upper Jerusalem; for the latter is, as Sarah was, free with its children, and to this upper Jerusalem we Christians as children belong.”

ἡ δὲ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ] is neither the ancient Jerusalem, the Salem of Melchizedek (Oeder, Michaelis, Paulus), nor Mount Zion, which is called in Josephus ἡ ἄνω πόλις (see the passages in Ottii Spicil. ex Josepho, p. 400 f.), as among the Greeks the Acropolis at Athens was also so named (Vitringa, Elsner, Mill, Wolf, Rambach, Moldenhauer, Zachariae). Both interpretations are opposed to the context, and the former to linguistic usage.[220] The contrast between heaven and earth elsewhere conveyed by ἄνω, as used by Paul (Php 3:14; Colossians 3:2), is found here also, since Ἡ ΝῦΝ ἹΕΡ. is the earthly Jerusalem. It is true that this contrast would have been more accurately expressed if, instead of τῇ νῦν Ἱερουσ., he had written Τῇ ΚΆΤΩ ἹΕΡΟΥΣ. (ירושלים של מטה); but in using the ΝῦΝ he thought of the future Jerusalem as its contrast (Hebrews 13:14), and afterwards changed his mode of representation, by conceiving the future as the upper: for it is the heavenly Jerusalem, called by the Rabbins ירושלים של מעלה, which, according to Jewish teaching, is the archetype in heaven of the earthly Jerusalem, and on the establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom is let down to earth, in order to be the centre and capital of the Messianic theocracy, just as the earthly Jerusalem was the centre and capital of the ancient theocracy. Comp. Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14; Revelation 3:12; Revelation 21:2. See generally Schoettgen, de Hieros. coelest. in his Horae, p. 1205 ff.; Meuschen, N.T. ex Talm. ill. p. 199 ff.; Wetstein, in loc.; Bertholdt, Christol. p. 211 ff.; Ewald, ad Apoc. p. 11, 307. And as previously the present Jerusalem represented the Jewish divine commonwealth, so here the upper Jerusalem represents the Messianic theocracy, which before the παρουσία is the church, and after the ΠΑΡΟΥΣΊΑ is the glorious kingdom of the Messiah. With justice, accordingly, the church on earth (not merely the “ecclesia triumphans”) has at all times been deemed included in the heavenly Jerusalem (see Luther, and especially Calovius, in loc.); for the latter is, in relation to the church, its πολίτευμα, which is in heaven (Php 3:20). The heavenly completion of the church in Christ ensues at the παρουσία, in which Christ who rules in heaven will manifest in glory the life—hitherto hidden with Him in God (see on Colossians 3:3 f.)—of the community, which is the body and πλήρωμα of Him its Head (Ephesians 1:22 f.). Thus the church on earth is already the theocracy of the heavenly Jerusalem, and has its πολίτευμα in heaven; but this its κληρονομία is, until the παρουσία, only an ideal and veiled, although in hope assured, possession, which at the second coming of the Lord at length attains objective and glorious realization. It is, however, by no means to be asserted that Paul entertained the sensuous Rabbinical conceptions of the heavenly Jerusalem (see Eisenmenger, entdeckt. Judenth. II. p. 839 ff.); for he nowhere presents, or even so much as hints, at them, often as he speaks of the παρουσία and the consequences connected with it. In his view, the heavenly Jerusalem was the national setting for the idea—founded on the exalted Christ as its central point—of the kingdom of the Messiah before and after its glorious realization.

ἐλευθέρα ἐστιν] that is, independent of the Mosaic law (opposite of the δουλεύει in Galatians 4:25), in free, moral self-determination, under the higher life-principle of the Spirit (Romans 8:2; 2 Corinthians 3:17).

ἥτις ἐστὶ μήτηρ ἡμῶν] correlative with the above-mentioned μετὰ τῶν τέκν. αὐτῆς; hence, if Paul had wished to lay the stress upon ἡμῶν (Winer, Matthias), he must have made this evident by the marked position ἥτις ἡμῶν μήτ. ἐ. The emphasis lies rather on ἥτις, that is, she who, etc. (comp. on Galatians 4:24), quippe quae libera Hierosol. To this Jerusalem as our ΠΟΛΊΤΕΥΜΑ we Christians belong, as children to their mother (Php 3:20; Ephesians 2:19). In bondage, it would not be our mother. Hofmann interprets differently: “the freedom of this Jerusalem may be seen in her children.” But this would be a correlative retrospective conclusion, since Paul has neither written ὅτι (but ἥτις), nor has he expressed himself participially οὖσα μήτ. ἡμ. μήτηρ without the article is qualitative. That ἩΜῶΝ applies to the Christians generally, including also the Gentile Christians, is obvious of itself from the context, and does not require the addition of πάντων in the Textus receptus, which is defended by Ewald (in opposition to Reiche), to make it evident.

[220] ἄνω always means above. When it appears to mean olim, it denotes the ascending line of ancestry, as e.g. in Plat. Legg. ix. p. 880 B: ἢ πατρὶ ἢ ἔτι ἀνωτέρω. Theact. p. 175 B al.; the earlier time lying behind being regarded as higher (Polyb. v. 6. 1, iv. 2. 3, iv. 50. 3).

Galatians 4:26. ἡ ἄνω Ἱερ. The Psalms and Prophets attest the enthusiastic devotion of Israelites to the city of Jerusalem. Since the temple of God and the palace of the house of David were within its walls, it was at once the holy city round which clustered the religious feelings of Israel, and the city of the great king, of whom the royal house of David were representatives (cf. Psalms 48). The events of the captivity and restoration associated it still more intimately with the national fortunes and aspirations of Israel. Hence both Isaiah and Ezekiel invested it with ideal glory in their prophetic anticipations of the Messianic kingdom. Their visions of its future destiny looked forward to its becoming the centre of a world-wide worship: there the great King of all the earth would manifest His presence, and thither would flow all nations, offering their homage and bearing due tribute of gifts and sacrifices. But the Hebrew ideal scarcely rose above imaginations of an earthly city and a temple on the mountains of Israel. It was the function of Christian inspiration to spiritualise this conception, to eliminate its local association with the typical temple on earth, and to substitute a heavenly for an earthly city. The Apocalypse bears witness to the process of transition. Though it adheres closely to the vision of Ezekiel, and continues to employ material imagery for expressing the dazzling brightness and intense purity of the temple-city, yet the New Jerusalem is now seen coming down from heaven to a new earth; in place of earthly light it is illuminated by the light which emanates from the throne of God and of the Lamb; and material images are interpreted as symbols of moral beauty and spiritual holiness. The Epistle to the Hebrews views the heavenly Jerusalem from another side. Whereas the Apocalypse depicts its buildings, streets and rivers, the Epistle describes the throng of angels, the assembly of the first-born, the spirits of departed saints that are gathered there round the throne of God, and contrasts the awful majesty of the living God with the material terrors of Sinai. This Epistle presents the contrast between the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem, and between the covenants of Sinai and of Christ in a different aspect. For the Apostle embodies in his conception a purely Greek ideal of a city, the mother and home of freemen. A self-governed body of free citizens, subject to no foreign control, but maintaining justice and order in perfect peace by their own sovereign will, furnishes him with an appropriate type of the heavenly commonwealth, whereof Christians are even now citizens, dwelling in peace together in the unity of Christian brotherhood, and independent of all restraints of law because they themselves do the will of God from the heart.

The Hebrew form Ἱερουσαλήμ is naturally preferred to the Greek in all these passages, because Jerusalem is personified as an ideal city. The stress here laid on the freedom of Christ’s disciples recalls the conversation of Christ with the Jews in John 8:32 … but the bondage is there more distinctly associated with actual sin.

26. the mother of us all] Probably we should read with R.V. our mother, where of course ‘our’ is emphatic. Comp. Galatians 4:31.

Galatians 4:26. Ἡ δὲ ἄνω, but she who is above) Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 21—ἐλευθέρα, free) as Sarah was.—ἥτις, who) Jerusalem.—μήτηρ, mother) The ancients said of their own Rome: Rome is our common father-land.—πάντων, of all) as many as there are of us. To this refer the many [children] in the following verse.

Verse 26. - But Jerusalem which is above is free (ἡ δὲ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ ἐλευθέρα ἐστίν); but the Jerusalem that is above is free. The mystic Jerusalem in which Christ reigns, the Son of David, who is at the right hand of God. For the word "above," ἄνω, comp. Colossians 3:1, 2, "Seek the things that are above (τὰ ἄνω) where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God: set your mind on the things that are above; your life is hid with Christ in God;" and Philippians 3:20, "Our citizenship (πολίτευμα) is in heaven." This is identical with the "heavenly Jerusalem" of Hebrews 12:22, which, standing in contrast with the "mount that might be touched and that burned with fire," Sinai with its soul-crushing terrors, appears associated with the pacifying blood of Jesus, and with communion with all that is holiest and most glorious. The essential identity of the contrast in the two passages, which are mutually illustrative, bespeaks a common origin in one and the same mind. The supernal Jerusalem is not chiefly contrasted with the Jerusalem "that now is," in point of time: she is not the future only, though in the future to be manifested - the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down (as St. John writes) from God out of heaven (Revelation 21:2); but she is there now, with God. It would be in harmony with St. Paul's representation to suppose that he conceives of her having been there with God in heaven of old, her citizens upon earth being the true servants of God in all ages. In former ages, however, she was comparatively barren; it needed that the enthronization of the God-Man, "the Mediator of the new covenant" (Hebrews 12:24), on "God's holy hill of Zion," should take place before she could become the prolific mother here shown to us. Commentators refer to rabbinical speculations relative to a Jerusalem which was conceived of as existing in heaven, as illustrated by Schottgen's 'Dissertatio de Hierosol. Caelesti' ('Hor. Hebr.,' vol. 1. diss. 5.), and also by Wetstein both here and on Revelation 21. It would be interesting if we could determine when those rabbinical speculations first arose, and how far it may be judged probable that they or some earlier form of them out of which these sprang suggested anything to St. Paul for the form in which he clothed his own conception of this idea; there may have been such. Meanwhile, we cannot but be struck by the purely ideal and spiritual character in which the apostle here exhibits his conception of it; though something like a terrene manifestation in the future seems indicated in Romans 8:21. "Is free;" the counterpart of Sarah, as mentioned in vers. 22, 23. That this Jerusalem is free, the apostle feels it needless to state; she to his very consciousness is the very home and bosom of God's love, having her very existence, as well as her outward-acting power, in his pervading, actuating Spirit. Bondage, constraint, there cannot be; for all volitions are there harmonized, absorbed, by the Spirit of love uniting her component elements both with each other and with God. Which is the mother of us all (ἥτις ἐστὶ μήτηρ ἡμῶν [Receptus, πάντων ἡμῶν]) which is our mother. Here again, as in ver. 24, ἥτις means "which, being such as she is, is our mother." We look at the Jerusalem that is above, and in her princely freedom we recognize what we her children are. The πάντων, which the Textus Receptus has before ἡμῶν, and which is by the general consent of critics rejected, is with much probability supposed to have come into the text by the copyist's recollection of the similar sentence in Romans 4:16, 17, Ἀβραάμ, ὅς ἐστι πατὴρ πάντων ἡμῶν. But πάντων, which there belongs to the essential thought of the context that God had made Abraham "the father of many nations," is unnecessary here, where the apostle is chiefly concerned with the freedom which characterizes the family of promise. If documentary evidence proved it to be genuine, it would find its justification in the notion of the fruitfulness which now at length, as the apostle presently shows, is given to the supernal Jerusalem. Galatians 4:26Jerusalem which is above (ἡ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλὴμ)

Paul uses the Hebrew form Ἱερουσαλὴμ in preference to the Greek Ἱεροσόλυμα, which occurs Galatians 1:17, Galatians 1:18; Galatians 2:1. The phrase Jerusalem which is above was familiar to the rabbinical teachers, who conceived the heavenly Jerusalem as the archetype of the earthly. On the establishment of Messiah's kingdom, the heavenly archetype would be let down to earth, and would be the capital of the messianic theocracy. Comp. Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14; Revelation 3:12, Revelation 21:2. Paul here means the messianic kingdom of Christ, partially realized in the Christian church, but to be fully realized only at the second coming of the Lord. For ἄνω, comp. Philippians 3:14; Colossians 3:1, Colossians 3:2.

Free (ἐλευθέρα)

Independent of the Mosaic law; in contrast with the earthly Jerusalem, which, like Hagar, is in bondage. The Jerusalem above therefore answers to Sarah.

Which is (ἥτις ἐστὶν)

The double relative refers to the Jerusalem which is above, not to free. That Jerusalem, as that which is our mother, is free.

The mother of us all

Render, our mother. Πάντων all does not belong in the text.

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