Galatians 4:31

31 Therefore, brethren, since we are not the children of a slave-girl, 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 Yet just as, at that time, the child born in the common course of nature persecuted the one whose birth was due to the power of the Spirit, so it is now.

30 But what says the Scripture? "Send away the slave-girl and her son, for never shall the slave-girl's son share the inheritance with the son of the free woman."

31 Therefore, brethren, since we are not the children of a slave-girl, but of the free woman--