Galatians: A Study of Christian Freedom
Lesson 9, Part 2: Who Are We? Galatians 3:19-29
The promised Offspring has come. The The Law has done its twofold work: It has shown us to be sinners and has conducted us to Christ. The coming of Christ has made the difference
25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,
But things are different now. Christ has come. The work of the law has been done. We no longer need the guardian to bring us to Christ; he has been presented to us as if on a placard. At the same time he has freed us from the law’s rigorous control.
26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
This verse is packed with meaning. Although Paul was writing to the Galatians, what he says applies to us. He says something about who we are. We are “all children of God.” That certainly implies we have a new relationship with God. As John Stott wrote, “God is now our Father, who in Christ as accepted and forgiven us. We no longer fear Him, dreading the punishment we deserve; we love Him, with deep filial devotion.”
It implies something about our spiritual status. We are no longer prisoners or children; we are free citizens of the Kingdom, enjoying all the privileges that brings with it. Paul will say more about that in the next chapter but this new status allows us to approach God with a new intimacy and anticipation.
It implies we have a new identity in relation to our fellow believers. Paul says we are “all children of God.” The Judaizers said, “If you want to be a child of God, you have to become a Jew.” Paul said, “Not at all. In Christ Jesus you are already a child of God.”
Let me skip to the last verse to deal with a related point. In verse twenty-nine, Paul says, “You belong to Christ, so you are Abraham’s children. You will inherit all of God’s blessings because of the promise God made to Abraham.” Paul’s words imply something about our identity that would have shocked the Judaizers even further. He is saying that Christ’s People—including the uncircumcised, pork-eating Gentiles among them—are “Abraham’s children.” In the Bible, to be someone’s child means you are like that person; Abraham was justified by faith, his children are justified by faith. Moreover, these people, whom the Judaizers would have thought to be under God’s curse, were going to be the recipients of God’s blessings, not the blessings of land and cattle, but the blessing of salvation and a relationship with God. The relationship with God comes from being “in Christ.”
That, by the way, is the key to all of it—being in Christ. None of what I’ve just said is based on who we are in ourselves or anything we have done. It rests upon being united with Jesus Christ and faith alone “secures the union.” (Stott, p. 99)
In the next few verses, Paul continues to expand on these ideas.
27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
This new identity began with trusting Christ. Paul pointed to an experience they had all had—baptism. Baptism symbolized what had already happened to them spiritually. Baptism implied a transition; from old to new, from death to life, from foul to clean. More important, those baptized have been clothed with Christ. The New Living Bible says those baptized have “put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.”
Stott thinks this might be a reference to the toga virilis, a garment a boy would put on to indicate he had entered manhood and was grown up. That might fit the context but I think the larger idea is that they are identifying themselves with Christ. Their hope rests in him, not in keeping the Law.
28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Old Distinctions Gone: This new identity doesn’t so much transform the old distinctions as eliminate them.
This verses addresses cultural, economic, and gender distinctions. In Paul’s day, as in ours, it challenges how we look at others.
If “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” the Judaizers have been silenced. The fact that someone wasn’t born into a Jewish home, wasn’t circumcised, and enjoys the occasional bacon cheeseburger is irrelevant to their identity as a child of God.
If “there is no longer slave or free,” economic and social arrogance has no place in our lifestyle. One ancient non-Christian writer said a slave was a “living tool.” No Christian could see his brother or sister in that way. While the New Testament does not directly attack the institution of slavery, passages like this and other helped to lay the foundation for the Christian opposition to slavery. No wonder early European and American slave-holders opposed the preaching of the gospel to African slaves. They knew its implications.
If “there is no longer male and female,” we must avoid sexism in all its forms.
This reflects a new way of thinking. While there certainly is a form of sexism that stereotypes men, in the first-century world the impact of the gospel would have been seen most on the way women were regarded. Some Jewish men began the day thanking God they were not born either a Gentile or a woman. Rabbis considered it a waste of time to try to teach a woman. The non-Jewish viewpoint was hardly better. But Jesus set a new standard.
Women could think, contribute, learn, help build the Kingdom. The early church was known for the uniquely positive way it treated women. Without denying obvious differences between men and women, the church held women to be a valuable part of the People of God. Only when the non-Christian culture had an undue influence on the church did sexism creep in.
This verse is sometimes used to argue in favor of ordination for women. By itself, the verse doesn’t necessarily support that argument. But it certainly doesn’t detract from the case, especially if it’s added to other lines of argument in the New Testament.
But exploring that question is not our purpose. Let me just say that while Paul is not necessarily saying that women may perform the same functions as men within the church, he is certainly saying that because of Christ we should call into question the old ways of assessing superiority and inferiority.
One in Christ: Having dealt with the most common divisions found in any culture, Paul states a fundamental principle that governs the relationships of those who are “in Christ.” He says “all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
The false teachers preying on the Galatians wanted to create cliques within the church, divisions that supposedly reflected spiritual superiority and inferiority. In particular, those divisions would be between those who had accepted Christ plus all the rules and taboos promoted by these teachers and those who merely had accepted Christ.
On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus prayed for those who would believe in him. He prayed especially for the unity of his people. He prayed:
Father, I pray that they can be one. As you are in me and I am in you, I pray that they can also be one in us. Then the world will believe that you sent me.
Somehow, in a way that defies easy explanation, the unity of Christ’s People is intended to reflect the unity of Father and Son, reflect the unity at the very heart of the Trinity.
At the same time, that unity is vitally connected to our witness. A divisive, quarrelsome people, can’t expect the watching world to believe they are on a mission for Christ.
Observations:
—Some of the Judaizers may have been facing the prospects of no longer living under the Law and asked, “Who are we…without the Law? We are nothing. The Law makes us special.” Paul changed the question; he asked, “Who are we…with the Law?” As we’ve seen, he said, “We are sinners, we are prisoners, we are immature children.” Then he asked a more significant question, “Who are we…with Christ?” His answer was: “We are God’s children, we are Abraham’s children, we are one People, one as no people have ever been united before in history.”
—Paul’s words about the Law, particularly the Ten Commandments, aren’t meant to suggest the Law no longer has value for the church.
Many Christian thinkers have pointed to a “third use” of the Law. The first use of the Law is showing we are sinners. The second use of the Law is to bring us to Christ. The third use of the Law is to provide a guide for Christian living. Not all Protestants believe there is a third use of the Law; they believe we are no longer obliged to live by its mandates.
But most believe the Law (when properly understood) does offer a goal for living. Generally, most Christians thinkers have said the ceremonial aspects of the Law are not relevant for our ethical decision-making but such elements as the Commandments are one of several sources for ethical and moral insight for Christians. Even these must be understood in light of the New Testament; for example, in the New Testament we can find each of the Ten Commandments repeated in some form, except for the command to keep the Sabbath.
Ultimately, the moral insights that guide our lives must be rooted in the law of love. Later in this letter Paul will tell the Galatians, “…the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” So, the Commandments can help us when we face the question, “What does it mean to love in this situation?”
—The benefits that come from being “in Christ” cannot be confined to one or two words. Occasionally, you see signs on rural roads or on storefront churches that simply say “Jesus Saves.” There is a lot of meaning in that imagery but it doesn’t exhaust what Christ does in us and for us when we trust him. Even in these meaning-packed verses, Paul touches only on the surface of Christ’s work on our behalf. The very term “in Christ,” a favorite one of Paul’s for describing Christians, is packed with meaning. Scottish New Testament scholar A M Hunter said it meant to be “in communion with Christ” and “in the communion of Christ.” Each of those ideas have a wealth of meaning.
As evangelists, bearers of the good news, we need to keep this in mind. We have many ways to present the blessings of trusting Christ. With a little thought, we can find ways to present those blessings to the most diverse audiences.
