Galatians 4:31

31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Galatians 4:31 Meaning and Commentary

Galatians 4:31

So then, brethren
This is the conclusion of the whole allegory, or the mystical interpretation of Agar and Sarah, and their sons:

we are not children of the bondwoman;
the figure of the first covenant, which gendered to bondage, and typified the Jews in a state, and under a spirit of bondage to the law; New Testament saints are not under it, are delivered from it, and are dead unto it:

but of the free;
of Sarah, that was a type of the new and second covenant; and answered to the Gospel church, which is free from the yoke of the law; and whose children believers in Christ are, by whom they are made free from all thraldom and slavery; so the children of the mistress and of the maidservant are opposed to each other by the Jews ^F11. The Vulgate Latin version adds to this verse from the beginning of the next chapter, "with the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free"; and the Ethiopic version, "because Christ hath made us free"; and begin the next chapter thus, "therefore stand, and be not entangled" and so the Alexandrian copy, and three of Stephens's.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 Tzeror Hammor, fol. 152. 1.

Galatians 4:31 In-Context

29 At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now.

30 But what does the Scripture say? “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”

31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.