Galatians 4:26

26. Jerusalem… above Literally, the above, or upper Jerusalem. The same Greek phrase Josephus uses to designate the upper city of Jerusalem; and a parallel phrase, the upper city, was used in Athens to designate the Acropolis. Paul does not, however, mean the upper part of the then present Jerusalem, but a spiritual Jerusalem, higher, not only than the material one, but higher than the conceptual one, the old theocracy; namely, the new theocracy, the Church of the New Testament. This is called in Hebrews 12:22, the heavenly Jerusalem: not because it is heavenly in locality, but heavenly in nature. And in Revelation 21:0, John beholds the glorified counterpart of this earthly-heavenly Jerusalem descend from heaven, and identify itself with the earthly-heavenly Jerusalem, ( the beloved city of Revelation 20:9.) In Paul’s allegory the correspondent item to Sinai is not formally supplied, and, as the above synopsis shows, Zion seems to be needed. Yet St. Paul skips it, really because, though needed to make out a regular programme, it is not needed for the complete exhibition of the truth. Wieseler furnishes in good Greek the apostle’s “missing link” (as quoted by Schmoller) thus: “The second covenant from mount Zion, bearing children unto freedom, which is Sarah. For Zion is a mountain in the Land of Promise, and corresponds to Jerusalem, for she is free with her children.”

Is free Her legal bonds are fallen off. She is like Sarah, whose name meant princess free and queenly.

Mother of us all Not a barren princess, as Sarai was, but a miraculously fertile mother of countless free and princely sons. They are the very progeny predicted by Jehovah, to be as numerous as the stars of heaven.