Does Galatians 4:26 show that God is our mother?

If you are approached on the street or in the grocery store by young people preaching odd doctrines about God being our mother, then you have come into contact with the so-called World Mission Society Church of God. What probably brought you here is having heard them tell you that God is both male and female, and show you verses they feel proves their point. If they threw you off, that means it is time you got familiar with the verse references they quote, and what they really mean.

But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.

Galatians 4:26

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely.

Revelation 22:17

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion… And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26a, 27

According to their logic, all life has both a mother and father, so for us to be begotten of God as children of God, He must therefore be both male and female. This, of course, is a twisting of the truth, and is not supported by the Bible.

Let us consider the verses they may begin with, in Galatians. In calling the “Jerusalem above” our “mother,” is Paul referring to a female version of God? If you read the section containing this verse, it is clear that Paul is speaking of the two women allegorically (literally, allegorically, in 4:24), one representing the Old Covenant, and the other, the New Covenant. Hagar, the female servant of Sarai, is the mother of those under the Old Covenant, or the law, and her children are in slavery. Sarai, the wife of Abram, and also allegorically the Jerusalem above, was not a servant, but was a free woman. As she represents the New Covenant, we as New Testament believers are her children and are not under the slavery of the law, but are free under grace.

Why does Paul use this kind of wording, referring to Jerusalem as our “mother”? Actually, there are other verses in the Bible that similarly reference a city as a mother:

And after this David struck the Philistines and subdued them. And David took control of the chief city (literally, “the bridle of the mother”) out of the hand of the Philistines.

2 Samuel 8:2

I am of the peacable and faithful of Israel; you are seeking to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why will you swallow up the inheritance of Jehovah?

2 Samuel 20:19

And you will stumble in the day, and the prophet also will stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

Hosea 4:5

Thus, it is clear that it is not a one-off case of referring to a city as a “mother,” while not asserting God is also female.

The point of the entire allegory used by Paul was to contrast being under law with being under grace. This also happens to be a major theme in the entire epistle to the Galatians, and is extremely clear when reading it all in context. There is nothing in the epistle that even remotely alludes to the alleged female god this group of people claims exists.

Who then is the bride in Revelation 22:17? While the group claims it is the female god, this sort of interpretation is not precedented by anything else in the Scriptures. What the does the rest of the Bible reveal about the bride of Christ?

For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:30-31

For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:2

For your Maker is your Husband; Jehovah of hosts is His name. And the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.

Isaiah 54:5

From the rest of the Scriptures it is clear that the bride of Christ is His church, composed of all of His believers. This thought is found in both the Old and New Testaments. Why then in Revelation would God be presented as having a different bride? Does God have two brides, one being the church, and the other, some other god? Again, this thought does not exist anywhere else in the Scriptures.

What about the verse in Genesis? Does the fact that Adam and Eve were made in the image of God mean that there is another, female god? Again, this thought is simply not supported by the entire revelation of the Bible, and is merely a product of someone’s imagination. There is again no evidence in the Bible that God has revealed another, female diety that woman was made in the image of. The Bible does reveal, however, that there is one God, and this God is our Father:

Yet to us there is one God, the Father, out of whom are all things, and we are unto Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are through Him.

1 Corinthians 8:6