FREE WOMAN

A woman who is not in slavery. This term is used with reference to Abraham’s wife Sarah and “the Jerusalem above.” From the time that Jehovah God liberated the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and gave them the Law at Mount Sinai till the days when Jesus Christ was on earth, Jehovah treated the nation of Israel as a secondary wife. (Jer. 3:14; 31:31, 32) However, the Law did not give the nation of Israel the status of a free woman, for it showed them up as under subjection to sin, hence slaves. Most appropriately, therefore, Paul compared the enslaved Jerusalem of his day with the servant girl Hagar, Abraham’s concubine, and Jerusalem’s “children” or citizens with Hagar’s son Ishmael. In contrast, God’s original wife, the heavenly Jerusalem, has, like Sarah, always been a free woman and her children are likewise free. To become a free child of the Jerusalem above, having “her freedom,” it is necessary to be set free from the bondage of sin by the Son of God.—Gal. 4:22–5:1 and ftn. on 5:1 (NW, 1950 ed.); John 8:34-36.