Galatians 3:26-29

TEXT 3:26-29

(26) For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. (27) for as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. (28) There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. (29) And if ye are Christ'S, then are ye Abraham's seed heirs according to promise.

PARAPHRASE 3:26-29

26 It is not necessary to your being the sons of God, and heirs of the promise, that ye be under the law: For ye are all the sons of God, through your believing the gospel published by Christ Jesus.
27 Besides, as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have thereby professed that ye have put on the very temper and virtues of Christ, God's greatest Son; and having so done, ye are really, not nominally, the sons of God, and are greatly beloved of your Father.
28 In Christ Jesus there is no distinction of persons, as under the law; under the gospel, no Jew is superior to a Greek, neither are slaves inferior to free men; nor are males preferred to females; for ye are all one, in respect of dignity and privileges, under the gospel dispensation.
29 And if ye be Christ's brethren by possessing his temper of mind, certainly ye are Abraham's seed, more really than those Jews who are related to him only by natural descent, and heirs of the heavenly country according to God's promise to Abraham.

COMMENT 3:26

ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Jesus Christ

1.

You can be a child of God without Jewish blood or submitting to a Jewish rite.

2.

The condition of sonship.

a.

Relationship.

b.

Adoption.

c.

Liberty.

3.

The origin of sonship.

a.

Through faith.

b.

Through union with Christ by baptism.

4.

The consequences of sonship.

a.

Universal brotherhood: social and racial differences cease.

b.

Inheritance or ancient promises.

COMMENT 3:27

as were baptized into Christ

(Catholicwho have been baptized into Christ)

1.

How do we get into Christ? Baptized into.

2.

The verb tense is past, completed action.

3.

There are two classes of prepositions.

a.

One means motion.

b.

One means rest.

c.

The preposition here is motion. We have moved into Christ where there is no condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation. Romans 8:1

did put on Christ

1.

This means to put on or to be clothed with one.

a.

It means to assume the character of the one.

b.

The Christian is to assume the character of Christ.

2.

The old man must be put off first.

a.

our old man was crucified Romans 6:1

b.

That ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit. Ephesians 4:22

c.

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Romans 13:14

3.

He clothes us with righteousness of Christ by means of baptism. Luther

BAPTISM 3:27

I believe that Paul is writing concerning the same baptism that Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. The Pentecostal Assembly asked how to be saved. Peter's reply was repentance and baptism were essential for the remission of their sins.

Those who teach and preach faith only accuse preachers of baptism of making salvation a matter of works (law) and not of faith only. And, it is true that Paul preached the doctrine of justification by faith, without the deeds of the law (Galatians 2:16). But James says, that man is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:24). Paul and James are speaking the same thing; that is, justification through Christ, and what they say is perfectly harmonious.

Paul came up through the ranks of sinners who needed to know what to do to be saved or justified.
Ananias, a servant of the Lord, was sent to tell Paul what he must do. Ananias laid his hands on Paul and restored his sight, and seeing the exact condition of this young convert as a believing penitent, lacking only the knowledge of forgivenessthe remission of his sinshe says, And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Paul arose, was baptized, his gloom and disquiet disappears, food is put before him of which he partakes, and he appears before us as verifying his own statement, Justified by faith and having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This furnishes an apt comment upon the words of James, as to his meaning when speaking of faith without and with works, or faith dead and alive; and at the same time shows, as by the clear shining sun at noonday, that Paul never had such a thought in his mind as faith alone. The only faith that justifies is a living one! Ye see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only.

Galatians 3:27 is not an isolated text.

In the great Roman epistle whose object is to prove that man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law, the apostle twice emphasizes the importance of the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5; Romans 16:26) as the object of the Gospel, for which there can be no room whatever in any system that makes faith itself void.

Therefore, he who seeks forgiveness by being baptized into Christ (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27) because he believes and repents, is not looking to himself, but to Jesus, not -going about to establish his own righteousness,-' but looking for salvation on the feasible condition of trust in his Redeemer.

To say that believing is turning, or coming to God, is accusing the apostles of inconsistency. And to say that sinners are justified when they believe, nothing more and nothing less, without evidence of Scriptural commitment of their having turned to God, is to say that they were justified by faith only. To depend on water baptism only is equally erroneous. I know of no one who believes that water only saves, except those who sprinkle children in infancy. Water baptism then becomes a magical rite. The Word of God does not teach it.

BAPTIZED INTO DEATH 3:27

The subject of baptism is a religious battlefield. Many say that baptism is a work and if it is done for salvation then man depends on works instead of grace.
Paul did not reveal a conflict between grace and baptism. As the greatest exponent of grace the world has ever known he had no concept of an unbaptized person in union with Christ Jesus. The very thought of death to sin as he wrote the sixth chapter of Romans caused his mind immediately to revert to the burial with Christ in which they lay dead, as a prerequisite to being raised with him. No man can be a faithful expositor of the Roman letter who belittles or negates either grace or baptism. Galatians supports this truth.
Baptism is more than obedience. It signifies historical events in the life of the Savior and the saved.

What Jesus did to save all men, all men must do to be saved. The saving features of the Good News are three in numberthat Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) Christ identified with us in a body to die, be buried and rise again. So we must die, be buried and rise again, to be identified with Him in a body. He did so according to the old covenant scriptures. As he died for sin, we must die to sin. As He was buried, we must be buried. As He arose from the dead in glory, we must rise to life on a new level.

Baptism involves so much that we must not ever be guilty of making little of it.

The man who has been baptized had died to sin. He cannot engage in it to promote an increase of grace. He is not his former self. That self was crucified so the tyranny of sin could be broken. For a dead man can safely be said to be immune to the power of sin (Romans 6:6). In the same way look upon yourselves as dead to the appeal and power of sin but alive and sensitive to the call of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:11).

PUT ON CHRIST 3:27

Many teachers cry out against legalism. Any time a Christian tries to bring baptism into a union evangelistic meeting of the churches in a city, he is pushed out as a legalist. Such people emphasize the grace of God to such extremes that they are the real legalists.
Examine this statement, My being born again is not dependent upon what I do; it is dependent upon what He did.
Abraham was called, but he had to move.
Saul of Tarsus was under conviction, but he was told to arise and to be baptized.
The prodigal son had to go back home before the ring could be placed on his finger.
We are baptized to put on Christ. It is a step which we take as did the prodigal.
God gave Abraham grace. He accepted him as perfect when he was not perfect. James took the coin of faith and works, turned it over and said, Yes, but you people who think that a belief in God apart from works is all that is necessary are mistaken. The devils believe. Faith without works is dead, James is telling these people who say, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved that belief alone cannot save.
When we take these two paradoxical opposites and put them together, we find something like thisfaith is made up of belief and commitment. Faith is the acceptance of God in Christ, acceptance to the degree that I am committed to Him. Therefore, my commitment involves my works as well as my belief. It is not only intellectual, but volitional and even emotional. Faith is an event in which the whole of man participates.
Paul's condemnation of law keeping is not the same as an active obedient acceptance of Christ. We must never be condemned for acting upon our faith in Christian baptism.
Law says, Do this and you will live! Grace says, You live, so do this. They are not the same.
Grace is ours when we put on Christ.

ONE IN CHRISTMEN AND WOMEN? 3:27-28

To be one in Christ does not mean equal responsibility in Christ's body. There are special instructions in the word of God for each of the sexes. The Women's Liberation movement is clouding the issues.
The relationship between the sexes is most fully understood in the light of monogamous marriage. God's commands regarding marriage leave no room for speculation as to the special responsibilities of husbands and wives toward each otherself-giving love is required of the former, submission of the latter. To say that submission is synonymous with the stunting of growth, with dullness and colorlessness, spiritlessness, passivity, immaturity, servility, or even the suicide of personality, as one feminist who calls herself an evangelical has suggested, is totally to misconstrue the biblical doctrine of authority. Supreme authority in both Church and home has been divinely vested in the male as the representative of Christ, who is the Head of the Church. It is in willing and glad submission rather than grudging capitulation that the woman in the Church (whether married or single) and the wife in the home find their fulfillment.

Oneness in the kingdom of Christ, as set forth in Galatians 3:28, does not erase, for the politica ecclesiastica, the distinction established from the beginning, the distinction that Paul sought to preserve when he admonished women to be silent, or when praying or prophesying (clearly exceptions to be rule of silence), to cover their heads as a sign of subjection.

In spite of the specified qualifications for elders, named in Timothy and Titus, women are being ordained as elders in some churches.
Subjection of wives to husbands as the Church is subject to Christ is an important aspect of the Church's message. The Church cannot, therefore, negate this truth that it teaches by ordaining women to the office of elder.
Apostolic example and the teaching of Christ must not be disregarded.
It is also a question of appropriateness. The natural order established at creation has not been abrogated either by the Fall or by redemption. Jesus did not choose women for his disciples, nor were women among the Seventy sent out to preach. The Apostle Paul did not allow women to teach or to usurp authority over mennot because women were incompetent, but because the structure of the Church and home, as an image of the relationship between the God of the Old Testament and his covenant people, and between Christ and his Bride, requires subordination. The Church must see such imagery as highly important, not random, accidental, or trivial, and therefore not to be tampered with. The distinction between the sexes is a permanent one so far as this world is concerned.
Oneness in salvation is Paul's point. It has nothing to do with special activity within the church.
A knowledge of what a thing is made for is prerequisite to its proper use. In the vastly harmonious arrangement of the universe, it is not so much a question of whether a creature is higher or better, or lower or worse, but a question of what it's there for. The stars move perfectly in their courses and the morning stars sing together. The archangel goes on the mission to which he is sent, the clam lives out his clamness without sin. Those creatures alone who took issue with the purpose of the Creator forfeited their wholeness.
We will be in a bad way when women forsake the home responsibilities to prove their right to be equal with men.

WORD STUDY 3:27

Baptize is merely a letter-for-letter transliteration of the Greek word baptizo (bahp TID zo). A real translation would render the word as immerse, dip, or submerge. All Greek dictionaries agree on this fact.

Early examples in the papyri include a boat submerged and a person flooded or overwhelmed with calamities.

To put on (enduoen DOO oh) is used commonly of clothing or dressing oneself. In a pagan tale of magic, a goddess is transformed into an old woman and accomplishes a certain service. Afterwards, the god clothes her again with her own beauty which she had lost.

In a much more beautiful sense, the Christian is raised from his fallen estate and is clothed with Christ! We do not just put on a better form of ourselves; we put on something totally newthe nature of Jesus.

COMMENT 3:28

for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus

1.

There can be no difference if faith is the one way.

2.

Circumstances of birth or personal worth, mean nothing.

3.

We become in the individual sense, sons of God; but distionctions are lost in the collective sense, so that race, gender, and castes, are gone.

a.

It would be strange to have one faith, one Lord and one baptism, and two ranks of people.

b.

This oneness will bring the union of God's people.

c.

The Word does not speak of union of denominations, but oneness in Christ.

WORD STUDY 3:28

Neither Jew nor Greek.
The Jewish Book of Prayer contains the following prayer, which Paul himself may have known and recited before his conversion:

O Lord, Ruler of the Universe,

I thank thee that thou didst not

make me a Gentile
or a slave
or a woman.

After the men had recited this prayer in the synagogue, the women responded:

I thank thee that thou didst
make me what I am.

This vividly illustrates the race, class, and sex distinctions which have divided mankind. In Christ, however, every person approaches God on equal footing, and salvation is made available without distinction.

COMMENT 3:29

If ye be Christ'S

1.

Two important things hinge on this.

a.

We are Abraham's seed.

b.

We are heirs.

2.

The relationship to the inheritance hinges on our relationship to Christ.

IN THE COVENANT 3-5

Chapter s three, four and five deal with the covenant relationship. We are children born of the promise. Men are either of Hagar, which is Mt. Sinai, the old covenant, or under the new covenant in Christ.
God chose Isaac because he was a child of His promise. The church is made up of people of choice.

The emphasis here is on the fact of God's sovereignty and initiative; it is God who moves to choose and redeem a people for himself. The Church is the result of God's sovereignty and grace (2 Timothy 1:9). It exists because God has acted graciously in history.

We are a chosen people in the covenant when we choose to be. The relation between God and his people is specific and is morally and ethically based. It is grounded in the covenant and hence there exists the possibility of fidelity or infidelity to the covenant.
A covenant between God and man is most significant.
A major significance of the covenant is that it grounds God's people in real history. The covenant involves a covenant occasion in which the contract between God and man was actually established in time. The Hebrews were deeply conscious of this. Thus, we have the historical giving of the law in the Old Testament and the establishing of the New Covenant in the historical death, resurrection of Jesus Christ. The covenant is established in historical occurrences that can be recorded, commemorated, and renewed.
The Lord's Supper is a constant reminder that we are in a covenant relationship with God. Once a week is not too often to be reminded that we are a covenant people.
The individual believer must be able to feel himself a part of the larger corporate unity of the People of God. This means the Church must meet together in a way that encourages and expresses the fact of peoplehood.

STUDY QUESTIONS 3:26-29

388.

How inclusive is the word all?

389.

Are we included without Jewish blood?

390.

Are we excluded without Jewish rites?

391.

On what does sonship depend?

392.

Define baptism.

393.

Is this water or spirit baptism?

394.

How do we get into Christ?

395.

Does this mean that we change our abode when we come into Christ?

396.

Is a person in Christ without baptism?

397.

Is a man a brother in Christ, who professes Christianity and yet who will not be baptized?

398.

Is a man a brother if he accepts a substitute baptism?

399.

What is meant by putting on Christ?

400.

Do you have to put something off in order to put on Christ?

401.

What will a person be like if he has Christ on him?

402.

Does this verse teach that we are clothed with Christ's righteousness by means of baptism?

403.

Is baptism work or faith?

404.

Do we submit to baptism by faith or do we do it as work?

405.

What barriers are erased by baptism into Christ?

406.

Can we have ranks of people with one faith and one baptism?

407.

What does this verse do to the color line?

408.

Does this verse destroy denominational lines?

409.

In what relationship are we to Abraham?

410.

How does this relationship affect the promise?

411.

What do we belong to in order to be entitled to the promise?

412.

How big is the word if in this verse?