Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 3:26
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
26. Ye are ] The change from the first person ‘we are’ Gal 3:25 to the second ‘ye are’ marks a transition from an argument to an appeal. The converse is found 2Co 6:14 ; 2Co 6:16; 2Co 7:1; 1Th 5:6.
all ] Both Jews and Gentiles an indirect confirmation of the statement that the law is not against the promises of God.
the children ] Better, sons. Comp. Joh 1:12 ‘As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on His name.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
26 29. The selection of the metaphor of Gal 3:24-25 is by no means accidental. It suggests and leads up to the grand revelation of Gospel blessedness contained in the peroration to this chapter. The very fact that we were under tutelage proves that our true relation to God is that of sons, a relationship into which we all, both Jews and Gentiles, entered by believing in Jesus Christ. Of this relationship our Baptism was the sign and pledge and instrument. We therein became clothed with Christ. Our nakedness was covered with the robe of His perfect righteousness. He became the circumambient, enveloping element in which our new life is lived and sustained. And here the external distinctions, of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, nay, even that which has so long separated the sexes, disappears. In Christ all are united who by faith are united to Him. And if we belong to Christ, if we are part of Him, who is the promised Seed, then we are the seed of Abraham, we are heirs according to the promise.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For ye are all the children of God … – All who bear the Christian name – the converts from among the Jews and Gentiles alike; see the note at Joh 1:12. The idea here is, that they are no longer under tutors and governors; they are no longer subject to the direction and will of the paedagogus; they are arrived at age, and are admitted to the privileges of sons; see the note at Gal 4:1. The language here is derived from the fact, that until the son arrived at age, he was in many respects not different from a servant. He was under laws and restraints; and subject to the will of another. When of age, he entered on the privileges of heirship, and was free to act for himself. Thus, under the Law, people were under restraints, and subject to heavy exactions. Under the gospel, they are free, and admitted to the privileges of the sons of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 26. For ye, who have believed the Gospel, are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.] But no man is a child of God by circumcision, nor by any observance of the Mosaic law.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
All you that believe, whether native Jews or Gentiles, are the children of God by adoption, through faith in Jesus Christ, Joh 1:12; so that you need not run back to the law to look for help and salvation from that; but only look unto Christ, to whom the law was but a schoolmaster to lead you; who being fully and clearly revealed, you may have immediate recourse to, by faith; and need not to make use of the Jewish schoolmaster, as hoping for justification from the observances of the law.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
26. childrenGreek,“sons.”
byGreek,“through faith.” “Ye all” (Jews andGentiles alike) are no longer “children” requiring a tutor,but SONS emancipated andwalking at liberty.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For ye are all the children of God,…. Not by nature, as Christ is the Son of God, for he is the only begotten of the Father, and in such sense as neither angels nor men are the sons of God; nor by creation, as Adam and all mankind, and the angels are; but by divine adoption by an act of God’s rich and sovereign grace, putting them among the children in saying this the apostle directs himself to the Gentiles for their comfort, and says this of them all in a judgment of charity, they being under a profession of faith; lest they should think, because they were not Abraham’s seed according to the flesh, nor were ever trained up under the law as a schoolmaster, that they were not the children of God: whereas they were such not by the law, as none indeed are,
but by faith in Christ Jesus; not that faith makes any the children of God, or puts them into such a relation; no, that is God’s own act and deed; of his free rich grace and goodness, God the Father has predestinated his chosen ones to the adoption of children, and has secured and laid up this blessing for them in the covenant of grace; Christ by redemption has made way for their reception and enjoyment of it; the Spirit of God, in consequence of their sonship, as a spirit of adoption bears strong reason and argument, proving that they are not under the law as a schoolmaster, in which light it is here set by the apostle; since they are sons and not servants, and so free from the bondage of the law; they are sons grown up into the faith of Christ, and are led and taught by the Spirit of God, as they are that are the children of God by faith; and as is promised to the saints under the Gospel, that they shall be “all taught of God”; and therefore stood in no need of the law as a schoolmaster, which only was concerned with the Jews, whilst they were children under age; and has nothing to do with such, whether Jews or Gentiles, who believe in Christ, and are growing up into him their head, till they come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
For ye are all sons of God ( ). Both Jews and Gentiles (3:14) and in the same way “through faith in Christ Jesus” ( ). There is no other way to become “sons of God” in the full ethical and spiritual sense that Paul means, not mere physical descendants of Abraham, but “sons of Abraham,” “those by faith” (verse 7). The Jews are called by Jesus “the sons of the Kingdom” (Mt 8:12) in privilege, but not in fact. God is the Father of all men as Creator, but the spiritual Father only of those who by faith in Christ Jesus receive “adoption” () into his family (verse Gal 3:5; Rom 8:15; Rom 8:23). Those led by the Spirit are sons of God (Ro 8:14).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “For ye are all the children of God,” (pantes gar huiois theou este) “For all (you all) are sons of God,” “you all exist, sons of God, heirs of God (now),” all members of churches of Galatia to whom the letter was directed, Gal 1:2. Paul had received evidence, testamentary evidence, and circumstantial evidence, sufficient to witness these brethren of the Galatian churches were children of God, loved God, even though they had fallen into frustration over false teachers and teaching regarding the law of Moses, Gal 1:6-9; Gal 3:1-2.
2) “By faith in Christ Jesus,” (dia tes pisteos en desou Christou) “Though the faith (the gift of faith, 1Co 3:13; Joh 1:12) in Christ Jesus,” by means, instrument, or agency of the gift of faith, and the system of faith, in Christ Jesus, not in the origin or source of the law of Moses, or not by means, instruments, or agency of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Tithing, or any other act of worship or service to Christ or His church. Men are declared to be children of God by faith, not by baptism; Saved by grace thru faith, but not by grace thru baptism; to have a pure heart by faith, but not by baptism; and to be justified and have peace with God by faith, but not by or thru baptism as Protestant-Catholic related traditionalists hold. (See Gal 3:26; Eph 2:8-9; Act 15:9; Rom 3:25; Rom 5:1.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
26. For ye are all the children of God. It would be unjust, and in the highest degree unreasonable, that the law should hold believers in perpetual slavery. This is proved by the additional argument, that they are the children of God. It would not be enough to say that we are no longer children, unless it were added that we are freemen; for in slaves age makes no alteration. The fact of their being the children of God proves their freedom. How? By faith in Christ Jesus; for
“
as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (Joh 1:12.)
Since, then, by faith we have obtained adoption, by faith likewise we have obtained our freedom.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Gal. 3:26. Ye are all the children of God.No longer children requiring a tutor, but sons emancipated and walking at liberty.
Gal. 3:28. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.No class privileged above another, as the Jews under the law had been above the Gentiles. Difference of sex makes no difference in Christian privileges. But under the law the male sex had great privileges.
Gal. 3:29. If ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed and heirs.Christ is Abrahams seed, and all who are baptised into Christ, put on Christ (Gal. 3:27), and are one in Christ (Gal. 3:28), are children entitled to the inheritance of promise.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gal. 3:26-29
The Dignity of Sonship with God
I. Enjoyed by all who believe in Christ.For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26). Faith in Christ emancipates the soul from the trammels and inferior status of the tutorial training, and lifts it to the higher and more perfect relationship of a free son of God. The believer is no longer a pupil, subject to the surveillance and restrictions of the pedagogue; but a son, enjoying immediate and constant intercourse with the Father and all the privileges and dignities of a wider freedom. The higher relation excludes the lower; an advance has been made that leaves the old life for ever behind. The life now entered upon is a life of faith, which is a superior and totally different order of things from the suppressive domination of the law.
II. Is to be invested with the character of Christ.For as many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). For if Christ is Son of God, and thou hast put on Him, having the Son in thyself and being made like to Him, thou wast brought into one kindred and one form of being with Him (Chrysostom). To be baptised into Christ is not the mere mechanical observance of the rite of baptism; the rite is the recognition and public avowal of the exercise of faith in Christ. In the Pauline vocabulary baptised is synonymous with believing. Faith invests the soul with Christ, and joyfully appropriates the estate and endowments of the filial relationship. Baptism by its very formthe normal and most expressive form of primitive baptism, the descent into and rising from the symbolic waterspictured the souls death with Christ, its burial and its resurrection in Him, its separation from the life of sin, and entrance upon the new career of a regenerated child of God (Rom. 6:3-14).
III. Implies such a complete union with Christ as to abolish all secondary distinctions.For there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). All distinctions of nationality, social status, and sexnecessary as they may be in the worldly lifedisappear in the blending of human souls in the loftier relationship of sons of God. The gospel is universal in its range and provisions, and raises all who believe in Christ to a higher level than man could ever reach under the Mosaic regimen. To add circumcision to faith would be not to rise but to sink from the state of sons to that of serfs. Christ is the central bond of unity to the whole human race; faith in Him is the realisation by the individual of the honours and raptures of that unity.
IV. Is to be entitled to the inheritance of joint heirship with Christ.If ye be Christs, then are ye heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29). In Christ the lineal descent from David becomes extinct. He died without posterity. But He lives and reigns over a vaster territory than David ever knew; and all who are of His spiritual seed, Jew or Gentile, share with Him the splendours of the inheritance provided by the Father. Here the soul reaches its supreme glory and joy. In Worcester Cathedral there is a slab with just one doleful word on it as a record of the dead buried beneath. That word is Miserrimus. No name, no date; nothing more of the dead than just this one word to say he who lay there was or is most miserable. Surely he had missed the way home to the Fathers house and the Fathers love, else why this sad record? But in the Catacombs at Rome there is one stone recently found inscribed with the single word Felicissima. No name, no date again, but a word to express that the dead Christian sister was most happy. Most happy; why? Because she had found the Fathers house and love, and that peace which the storms of life, the persecutions of a hostile world, and the light afflictions of time could neither give nor take away.
Lessons.
1. Faith confers higher privileges than the law.
2. Faith in Christ admits the soul into sonship with God.
3. The sons of God share in the fulness of the Christly inheritance.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Gal. 3:26-29. Baptism.
I. The doctrine of Rome.Christs merits are instrumentally applied by baptism; original sin is removed by a change of nature; a new character is imparted to the soul; a germinal principle or seed of life is miraculously given; and all this in virtue, not of any condition in the recipient, nor of any condition except that of the due performance of the rite. The objections to this doctrine are:
1. It assures baptism to be not the testimony to a fact, but the fact itself. Baptism proclaims the child of God; the Romanist says it creates him.
2. It is materialism of the grossest kind.
3. It makes Christian life a struggle for something that is lost, instead of a progress to something that lies before.
II. The doctrine of modern Calvinism.Baptism admits all into the visible Church, but into the invisible Church only a special few. The real benefit of baptism only belongs to the elect. With respect to others, to predicate of them regeneration in the highest sense is at best an ecclesiastical fiction, said in the judgment of charity. You are not Gods child until you become such consciously. On this we remark:
1. This judgment of charity ends at the baptismal font.
2. This view is identical with the Roman one in this respectthat it creates the fact instead of testifying to it.
3. Is pernicious in its results in the matter of education.
III. The doctrine of the Bible.Man is Gods child, and the sin of the man consists in perpetually living as if it were false. To be a son of God is one thing; to know that you are and call Him Father is another. Baptism authoritatively reveals and pledges to the individual that which is true of the race.
1. This view prevents exclusiveness and spiritual pride.
2. Protests against the notion of our being separate units in the divine life.
3. Sanctifies materialism.F. W. Robertson.
Gal. 3:26. The Children of God.
I.
We are all children.
II.
We are all children of God.
III.
We are all children of God through faith.
IV.
We are all children of God in Christ Jesus.Dr. Beet.
Gods Children.
I. If thou be Gods child, surely He will provide all things necessary for soul and body.Our care must be to do the duty that belongs to us; when this is done our care is ended. They who drown themselves in worldly cares live like fatherless children.
II. In that we are children we have liberty to come into the presence of God.
III. Nothing shall hurt those who are the children of God.
IV. Walk worthy of your profession and calling.Be not vassals of sin and Satan; carry yourselves as Kings sons.
V. Our care must be to resemble Christ.
VI. We must have a desire and love to the word of God that we may grow by it.
VII. We must have afflictions, if we be Gods children, for He corrects all His children.Perkins.
Gal. 3:27-28. The Christly Character
I. Acquired by a spiritual union with Christ.Baptised into Christ.
II. Is a complete investiture with Christ.Have put on Christ.
III. Is a union with Christ that absorbs all conventional distinctions (Gal. 3:28).
Gal. 3:27. Profession without Hypocrisy.Hypocrisy is professing without practising. Men profess without feeling and doing, or are hypocrites in nothing so much as in their prayers. Let a man set his heart upon learning to pray and strive to learn, and no failures he may continue to make in his manner of praying are sufficient to cast him from Gods favour. Let him but be in earnest, striving to master his thoughts and to be serious, and all the guilt of his incidental failings will be washed away in his Lords blood. We profess to be saints, to be guided by the highest principles, and to be ruled by the Spirit of God. We have long ago promised to believe and obey. It is true we cannot do these things arightnay, even with Gods help we fall short of duty. Nevertheless we must not cease to profess. There is nothing so distressing to a true Christian as to have to prove himself such to others, both as being conscious of his own numberless failings and from his dislike of display. Christ has anticipated the difficulties of his modesty. He does not allow such a one to speak for himself; He speaks for him. Let us endeavour to enter more and more fully into the meaning of our own prayers and professions; let us humble ourselves for the very little we do and the poor advance we make; let us avoid unnecessary display of religion. Thus we shall, through Gods grace, form within us the glorious mind of Christ.Newman.
Teachings of Baptism.
I. Our baptism must put us in mind that we are admitted and received into the family of God.
II. Our baptism in the name of the Trinity must teach us to know and acknowledge God aright.
III. Our baptism must be unto us a storehouse of comfort in time of need.
IV. Baptism is a putting on of Christ.Alluding to the custom of those who were baptised in the apostles days putting off their garments when they were baptised, and putting on new garments after baptism.
1. In that we are to put on Christ we are reminded of our moral nakedness.
2. To have a special care of the trimming and garnishing of our souls.
3. Though we be clothed with Christ in baptism, we must further desire to be clothed uponclad with immortality.Perkins.
Gal. 3:28. All are One in Christ.
I. People of all nations, all conditions, and all sexes.
II. They who are of great birth and high condition must be put in mind not to be high-minded, nor despise them of low degree, for all are one in Christ.
III. All believers must be of one heart and mind.
IV. We learn not to hate any man, but do good to all.Men turn their swords and spears into mattocks and scythes, because they are one with Christ by the bond of one Spirit.Perkins.
Gal. 3:29. The Promise of Grace.The specific form of the whole gospel is promise, which God gives in the word and causes to be preached. The last period of the world is the reign of grace. Grace reigns in the world only as promise. Grace has nothing to do with law and requisition of law; therefore the word of that grace can be no other than a word of promise. The promise of life in Christ Jesus is the word of the new covenant. The difference between the gospel of the old covenant and that of the new rests alone on the transcendently greater glory of its promise.Harless.
Heirs according to the Promise.
I. The basest person, if he believes in Christ, is in the place of Abraham, and succeeds him in the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.
II. Believers must be content in this world with any estate God may lay upon them, for they are heirs with Abraham of heaven and earth.
III. They that believe in Christ must moderate their worldly cares and not live as drudges of the world, for they are heirs of God, and are entitled to all good things promised in the covenant.
IV. Our special care must be for heaven.The city of God is thy portion, or childs part.Perkins.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
TEXT 3:2629
(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 Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed heirs according to promise.
PARAPHRASE 3:2629
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, Gods 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 Christs brethren by possessing his temper of mind, certainly ye are Abrahams seed, more really than those Jews who are related to him only by natural descent, and heirs of the heavenly country according to Gods 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 . . . Rom. 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 Rom. 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. Eph. 4:22
c.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Rom. 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. Peters 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 (Gal. 2:16). But James says, that man is justified by works and not by faith alone (Jas. 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.
Gal. 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 (Rom. 1:5; Rom. 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 (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 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 (1Co. 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 (Rom. 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 (Rom. 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.
Pauls 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? 3:2728
To be one in Christ does not mean equal responsibility in Christs body. There are special instructions in the word of God for each of the sexes. The Womens Liberation movement is clouding the issues.
The relationship between the sexes is most fully understood in the light of monogamous marriage. Gods 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 Gal. 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 Churchs 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 Pauls 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 its 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 Gods 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 Christs
1.
Two important things hinge on this.
a.
We are Abrahams seed.
b.
We are heirs.
2.
The relationship to the inheritance hinges on our relationship to Christ.
IN THE COVENANT 35
Chapters 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 Gods sovereignty and initiative; it is God who moves to choose and redeem a people for himself. The Church is the result of Gods sovereignty and grace (2Ti. 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 Gods 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 Lords 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 3:2629
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 Christs 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?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(26) Children of God.The translation children here is unfortunate, as the point to be brought out is that the Christian is no longer in the condition of children, but in that of grown-up sons. The pre-Messianic period bears to the Messianic period the same relation that a childhood or minority bears to full age. The Christian, as such, has the privileges of an adult son in his Fathers house. He is released from pupilage, and has received his freedom.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
26. Children Rather, full grown sons. Ye Ye Galatians, so far forth as ye maintain your emancipation from law by faith in Christ Jesus.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.’
For having responded to Christ we are accepted as righteous in God’s sight and are thus adopted as full grown sons, sons who have reached maturity, a sonship received ‘in Christ Jesus’, through faith. This will be expanded on shortly (Gal 4:4-7). We are thus free from all restraint except the restraint of sonship. We are no longer children subjected to rules and regulations, but like Abraham full grown sons who respond to the Father, because we are ‘in Christ’ and through faith have become one with Him. We no longer need restraints. As grown up sons we want to please our Father.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Gal 3:26. For ye are all the children of God, &c. As a further argument to dissuade them from circumcision, St. Paul tells the Galatians, that, by faith, that is, living faith, in Christ, all, whether Jews or Gentiles, are made the children of God; and so they stood in no need of circumcision.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gal 3:26 . The argumentative emphasis is laid first on , and then, not on , which expositors have been wont to understand in the pregnant sense: sons of full age, free , in contrast to the implied in (see, against this view, Wieseler and Matthias), but on , because in this the actually has its express and full definition, and therefore to supply the defining idea is quite unwarrantable. All of you are sons of God by means of faith; [169] but where all without exception and without distinction are sons of God, and are so through faith, none can be, like Israel before the appearance of faith, under the dominion of the law, because the new state of life, that of faith , is something altogether different, namely, fellowship with the of Christ (Gal 3:27 ). To be a son of God through faith , and to be under the old tutorial training , are contradictory relations, one of which excludes the other. The higher, and in fact perfect relation, [170] excludes the lower.
] Paul now speaks in the second person, because what is said in Gal 3:26 f. held good, not of the Jewish Christians alone (of whom he previously spoke in the first person), but of all Christians in general as such , consequently of all his readers whom he now singles out for address; whether they may have previously been Jews or Gentiles, now they are sons of God . Hofmann supposes that Paul meant by the second person his Gentile-Christian readers, and wished to employ what he says of them in proof of his assertion respecting those who had been previously subject to the law. In this case he must, in order to be intelligible, have used some such words as . . . According to the expression in the second person used without any limitation, the Galatian Christians must have considered themselves addressed as a whole without distinction, a view clearly confirmed to them by the (Gal 3:27 ), and the comp. with (Gal 3:28 ). Where, on the other hand, Paul is thinking of the Galatians as Gentile Christians (so far as the majority of them actually were so), this may be simply gathered from the context (Gal 4:8 ).
] belongs to . According to the construction (see Mar 1:15 ; Eph 1:13 ; LXX. Ps. 77:22, Jer 12:6 ; Clem. 1 Cor. 22: , Ignat. ad Philad . 8: ), is fides in Christo reposita , the faith resting in Christ; the words being correctly, in point of grammar, combined so as to form one idea. See Winer, p. 128 [E. T. 169]; Fritzsche, ad Marc . p. 63, ad Rom . I. p. 195 f. Comp. Eph 1:1 ; Eph 1:15 ; Col 1:4 ; 1Ti 3:13 . But Usteri, Schott, Hofmann, Wieseler, Ewald, Matthias, Reithmayr (Estius also pronouncing it allowable), join . . with , of which it is alleged to be the modal definition; specially explaining the sense, either as “ utpote Christo prorsus addicti ” (Schott), or of the “ inclusion in Christ ” (Hofmann), or as assigning the objective ground of the sonship, which has its subjective ground in . . (Wieseler; comp. Hofmann and Buhl). But all these elements are already obviously involved in . . itself, so that . . , as parallel to . ., would be simply superfluous and awkward; whereas, connected with . ., it expresses the emphatic and indeed solemn completeness of this idea (comp. Gal 3:22 ), in accordance with the great thought of the sentence, coming in all the more forcibly at the end, as previously in the case of (Gal 3:23 ) and (Gal 3:25 ) the was mentioned without its object, and the latter was left to be understood as a matter of course.
[169] . . stands third in the order of emphasis, but has not the main stress laid upon it in contradistinction to the (Hofmann), as if it stood immediately after .
[170] Theodoret aptly remarks: ;
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Ver. 26. The children of God ] Gr. The sons of God, grown up at man’s estate; Qui magnum ferulae subduximus, who are no longer under a schoolmaster. How we are the children of God by faith. See Trapp on “ Joh 1:12 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
26 .] Reason of the negation in last verse . For ye all (Jews and Gentiles alike) are SONS (no longer , requiring a ) of God by means of the (or, but not so well, your) faith in Christ Jesus (some (Usteri, Windisch., al.) would join . . with , but most unnaturally, and unmeaningly, for the idea of . . in that case has been already given by . The omission of before will stagger no one: see Col 1:4 , where the same expression occurs).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Christ Jesus. App-98.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
26.] Reason of the negation in last verse. For ye all (Jews and Gentiles alike) are SONS (no longer , requiring a ) of God by means of the (or, but not so well, your) faith in Christ Jesus (some (Usteri, Windisch., al.) would join . . with , but most unnaturally,-and unmeaningly, for the idea of . . in that case has been already given by . The omission of before will stagger no one: see Col 1:4, where the same expression occurs).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Gal 3:26. ) Sons, emancipated, the keeper being removed.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Gal 3:26
Gal 3:26
For ye are all sons of God,-Having come into Christ, they are now the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ, not through the works of the Jewish law. [The ye are all carries the emphasis of the sentence, and is directed against the distinction made by the Judaizing teachers between those believers who had received circumcision and those who had not. The Jews stood in covenant relation with God before Christ came, the Gentiles did not; but whatever their former condition, now all who trusted in Christ had been brought into a relationship with God far superior even to that of Israel before Christ came.]
through faith, in Christ Jesus.-[The point Paul is seeking to establish, and the idea is, sons of God in Christ Jesus, and made such, not by circumcision, but by faith.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Chapter 18
All the Children of God
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Gal 3:26-29)
Under the legal Mosaic dispensation there were many distinctions. The Jews were distinguished above all nation of the world, as Gods chosen people, to whom alone he had given the revelation of his Word. Masters were more highly favored than servants. And men were more greatly honored than women, even in the worship of God. But with the coming of this new, gospel dispensation, all these things were changed.
This change was very difficult for many in the early church to accept, just as it is difficult for many of our day to accept. For many it is very difficult to realize that God no longer blesses the nation of Israel above other nations in the world. They cannot accept the fact that Israel, as a nation, has been forever cast by God because of her unbelief. Many suppose that Israel is still the chosen nation of God.
For others, it is extremely difficult to accept the fact that all of Gods children are equally his sons and daughters. Some suppose that the Christians of the gospel age will have a peculiar advantage over the believers of the Old Testament. Others are of the opinion that some Christians will have greater blessings in heaven than their redeemed brethren.
These erroneous opinions arise because of a failure to understand that all the blessings of God in Christ Jesus are free grace gifts procured for all of the elect by the blood of the Savior. Our standing before God is not one of merit, but of grace. Our rewards are not because of our efforts, but by Christs obedience unto death as our Substitute. They are things earned and bought for us by our Redeemer. This is true of saints in the Old Testament as well as those of the New. The reward of Abrahams faith is Jesus Christ, and he alone is the reward of our faith.
One Church
The church of God is one. All true believers are one body in Christ. We ought always to defend and uphold the local assembly. It is the privilege and duty of Gods people to be a part of a New Testament church. But we must never to exalt any local church on earth to that glorious position of the church universal. All of Gods children of every age and time are members of the church which is his body, the family of God. In Jesus Christ we are one. This is what our Savior prayed for and what he accomplished when he tore down the middle wall of partition between us. If we are one in Christ with all other believing men and women we ought to behave as one.
In this age of political correctness and multiculturalism almost everyone gives lip-service to the notion that all men are one and pretends that he is free of prejudice. But it is nothing more than lip-service. Every nation in the Western world has tried, for the past fifty years, to legislate social oneness, abolishing racial and social barriers between men. But it has not worked. Though most everyone pretends otherwise, the barriers are bigger and the racial and social prejudices in society are worse than ever.
There is only one place in the universe where the color of a persons skin, the measure of his wealth or poverty, the amount of his education or lack of education, is absolutely irrelevant. That place is the church and kingdom of God. Gal 3:26-29 does not tell us that these distinctions cease to exist when a snner is converted by the grace of God. They do. Black people do not cease to be black when God saves them; and white people do not cease to be white. Men do not cease to be males when they are born of God; and women do not cease to be females. What Gal 3:26-29 does teach is this In Christ those things that naturally separate people no longer matter. In Christ we are all one. In Christ all the social, racial, sexual, and even continental lose all significance (Col 3:11).
All Gods elect are one with Christ and one in Christ. All are equal before God in him. All are accepted in the Beloved, only in the Beloved, fully in the Beloved, and equally in the Beloved. And all have an equal inheritance in him, secured by the blood with which he obtained eternal redemption for us.
The Churchs one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From Heaven he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.
Elect from every nation,
Yet one oer all the earth,
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses
With every grace endued.
In this third chapter of Galatians, Paul is showing us the advantages of this gospel dispensation over the Mosaic age. Under the gospel dispensation, we enjoy a clearer revelation of divine grace and mercy than the Jews did under the Old Testament economy. More than this, we are also freed from the state of bondage under the law and the terror it imposed. In the gospel age we are no longer treated as children who are minors, but as full-grown sons. And being sons of full age, we are granted greater freedoms and privileges than those of the old dispensation. In the verses before us this Paul shows us our privileges as the children of God.
Children of God
Ye are all the children of God. All believers are the children of God. We all have one heavenly Father. We are all redeemed by one great Redeemer. We all have one Elder Brother Christ. We are all born again, sealed and indwelt by one Holy Spirit, our blessed Comforter. All who are taught of God live by one faith. We are all married to one Husband the Lord Jesus Christ. All believers make up one singular body of Christ, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.. We are one church universal (Joh 10:16; Eph 5:25; Heb 12:23).
Paul tells us that we are the children of God. We are Gods children by adoption (Gal 4:6-7; Eph 1:5; 1Jn 3:1). Every believer possesses all the rights and privileges of full-grown sons. We were adopted as sons in eternity, in electing love, by the free and sovereign grace of our God, and brought into the enjoyment of adoption when God the Holy Spirit gave us faith in Christ.
We are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Here Pauls emphasis does not lie in the eternal act of God, but in our receiving Gods gracious gift by faith. Faith does not make us Gods children, it simply receives the gift of sonship (Joh 1:12). The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God when he gives us faith in Christ (Gal 4:6). In adoption we receive the title sons of God.
Faith in Christ does not make us the children of God. That is Gods work alone. God the Father predestinated his elect to the adoption of children, giving us all the blessings of adoption in the covenant of grace before the world began. God the Son, our all-glorious Christ made a way for us to receive and enjoy this incalculable boon of grace by redeeming us at Calvary. Because we were adopted in eternity and redeemed at Calvary, God the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of adoption, giving us faith in Christ, declares our sonship and thereby declares our freedom from the law.
Paul compares the Jews of the Mosaic age to children still under a schoolmaster and believers in this gospel age to children who have reached the age of maturity. We are no longer children under the law as our schoolmaster, but full grown children, led and taught by the Spirit of God. Our Lord Jesus said, quoting Isa 54:13, they shall be all taught of God (Joh 6:45; Jer 31:34). Being taught of God, we no longer need the law as our schoolmaster ((Heb 8:10; Heb 10:16).
Baptism
We read in Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Paul is not teaching that we get to be in Christ by the act of water baptism, or that Gods elect are mysteriously baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit. The Word of God nowhere teaches either of those things. The simple meaning of this statement is that all who are rightly baptized, that is baptized as believers, looking to Christ alone for all grace and salvation were baptized into Christ and have put on Christ symbolically, professing themselves to be his. All who are immersed in the waters of baptism as believers thereby publicly confess that they are his and that they are one with him.
Believers baptism is that which our Lord Jesus commands of all his disciples. It is the answer of a good conscience toward God (1Pe 3:21). Baptism is rightly performed and its end properly answered, when a person, being conscious that it is the ordinance of Christ and his duty to submit to it, does do so upon profession of his faith in Christ, in obedience to his command, confessing him as Lord and Savior and symbolically confessing his union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection as our Substitute (Rom 6:3-4; Col 2:11-12). By this public confession of faith, all who are baptized are united in one body the body of Christ, in one cause the glory of Christ, and to one another. It is this union of faith in the body of Christ by this one baptism that Paul uses in Eph 4:3-6 as a reason why we should ever endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
No Social Distinctions
There are certain duties to be performed in the body of Christ. Because of this there are some distinctions in performance. Pastors are given to be spiritual teachers and rulers in the church (Eph 4:11; Heb 13:7; Heb 13:17). Deacons are given to serve the carnal, material needs of the church. Each member Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white) has his proper function in his own realm of responsibility. Yet, there are no class distinctions to be permitted in the body of Christ. In Christ the old, worldly lines of separation are all blotted out. All who are in Christ are one in Christ and equal before God, possessed of one character; accepted in one way; belonging to one family; under one head Christ; and equally entitled to all the blessings of grace and privileges of sonship through him. All Gods church is one person, as it were, one new man (Eph 2:15) of which Christ is the head. All, without regard to race, blended into one whole. That is the meaning of Pauls words in Gal 3:28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Abrahams Seed
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:29). Since we are Christs, the Fathers gift to him, the purchase of his own blood, his by the power of his grace, making us willing to give up ourselves to him, since Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, all who are born of God are Abrahams seed. Obviously, faith in Christ does not make us Abrahams natural seed. Rather, we are Abrahams spiritual seed, the seed that should come, to whom the promises were made, (Gal 3:16; Gal 3:19). All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ make up that one holy nation and royal priesthood (1Pe 2:5-9) called, the Israel of God (Gal 6:16). Throughout the whole world God owns no other nation as his own.
Being Abrahams seed, we are heirs according to the promise. All who are born of God are the children of the promise, which are counted for the seed. All who are born of God are the promised seed, the redeemed seed (Psa 22:30; Isa 53:10-11; Heb 2:10), and the righteous seed (Rom 9:7-8). They are all, according to the promise made to Abraham and his spiritual Seed, heirs of the blessings of the grace of life, and of the eternal inheritance, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. All the blessings of God bestowed upon Christ as our Mediator and covenant Head when he ascended to glory after his resurrection belong to all are in him. In Christ, by his blood atonement and the imputation of his righteousness we are made worthy of this great honor. Yes, our great God has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints (Col 1:12).
The foundation of this union of believers is the blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 3; Ephesians 2). If we are one in reality, let us demonstrate oneness in Spirit (Php 2:1-4). May God our Father give us grace to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith (we) are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph 4:1-6).
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love!
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Before our Fathers throne
We pour our ardent payers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
Our comforts and our cares.
We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.
John Fawcett
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
the children
(Greek – = sons). (See Scofield “Eph 1:5”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Gal 4:5, Gal 4:6, Joh 1:12, Joh 1:13, Joh 20:17, Rom 8:14-17, 2Co 6:18, Eph 1:5, Eph 5:1, Phi 2:15, Heb 2:10-15, 1Jo 3:1, 1Jo 3:2, Rev 21:7
Reciprocal: Deu 14:1 – the children Deu 32:6 – thy father Psa 22:30 – it shall Psa 87:5 – of Zion Isa 11:6 – General Isa 43:6 – bring Isa 45:11 – concerning my sons Isa 60:9 – thy sons Isa 64:8 – thou art Jer 3:19 – put thee Act 11:18 – hath Act 16:31 – Believe Rom 4:9 – Cometh Rom 9:8 – are counted Rom 9:26 – there shall 1Co 10:17 – we being Gal 3:7 – they Gal 3:18 – if Gal 4:7 – but Eph 2:19 – but Eph 3:6 – the Gentiles Eph 4:5 – one baptism Eph 4:6 – God Col 2:10 – complete 1Ti 6:2 – because they are brethren
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Gal 3:26. -For ye all are sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus. You all, Jews and Gentiles also, spoken to in the second person, the previous clause being in the first person-himself and the Jewish believers who were once under the law. 1Th 5:5. Usteri and Hofmann wrongly on this account take the address in to be, you believing Gentiles, the former interpolating thus: though we are no longer under a paedagogue, how much less you who were never under him! The sons of God are sons in maturity, enjoying the freedom of sons, and beyond the need and care of a rigorous paedagogue. The has the stress upon it in tacit contrast to ,- being John’s favourite term, with a different ethical allusion. See under Gal 4:6-7; Rom 8:14. Theodore of Mopsuest. connects the sonship with . It was by the instrumentality of faith that they were sons of God; and that faith-the faith already referred to-was X. I.; and there being no article after to specialize it, the clause represents one idea. See under Eph 1:15.
Some would join the words X. I. to , as Usteri, Schott, Windischmann, Wieseler, Ewald, Jowett, Hofmann, Riccaltoun, and Lightfoot. But this construction is against the natural order of the words, and would be a repetition of as expressing mode. stands alone in the two previous verses, as in direct contrast to , and now its fulness of power is indicated by the adjunct in Christ Jesus. The construction with is warranted, though Riccaltoun denies it. Eph 1:15; Col 1:4; 1Ti 3:13; 2Ti 3:15; Sept. Psa 78:22; Jer 12:6. See p. 168. Sons of God-not ye will be (Grotius), but ye are sons. Sons as His creatures, for Adam was the son of God; and the prodigal son did not cease to be a son, though he was a lost and wandered one, nay, the father recognised the unbroken link. We are also His offspring, said the apostle on Mars Hill, sustaining a filial relation to Him, and still bearing His image, though many of its brightest features have been effaced. But now we are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus-by that faith forgiven, accepted, regenerated, adopted-born of God, and reflecting the paternal likeness-loved, blessed, and disciplined by Him-trained to do His will and to submit to it-enjoying the free spirit which cries Abba, Father, and prepared in all ways for His house of many mansions.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Gal 3:26. I again remind the reader that the main object of this epistle is to show that the old law is replaced by the Gospel as a rule of conduct for salvation. In order to be an heir to the estate of God, it is necessary to be a child of His. Paul declares that such a relationship is possible for these Galatians (who were Gentiles) only by faith in Christ Jesus.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Gal 3:26. For ye all are sons of God. All, Jews and Gentiles alike (comp. Gal 3:27-28). Sons (not children, E. V.), implies here the idea of age and freedom, as distinct from the state of childhood and pupilage under the training of the pdagogue. Comp. Gal 4:6-7; Rom 8:14-15. Paul uses the term sons and children of God mostly in opposition to slaves (Gal 4:7). John uses the term children of God with reference to their new birth (Joh 1:12; 1Jn 3:1-2; 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 5:2).
By the faith, which is the act of a freeman, in Christ Jesus (the dative in Greek) i.e., reposing in Christ, or (if we prefer connecting the words with sons) by virtue of your life-union with Christ, being grounded and rooted in Him.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. A glorious gospel privilege discovered, namely, adoption; Ye are the children of God. The church of God, under the New Testament, is in a special state of sonship and adoption, to whom the privileges and immunities of sons and heirs grown up to maturity do belong.
Observe, 2. The universality of this privilege, Ye are all children of God; that is, all, both Jews and Gentiles, all, both weak and strong, believers; substantial relations do not recipere majus et minus; he that is a father in reality, cannot be more a father to one child than to another: the young one in the cradle may call the parent father, as well as he that is grown to man’s estate; Ye are all the children of God.
Observe, 3. The instrumental cause of this blessed privilege, Faith in Christ Jesus; Christ invests every believer, weak as well as strong, in this glorious privilege of adoption; faith in Christ to come, did entitle believers under the Old Testament, to the dignity of sons and daughters; and faith in Christ now already come, doth add some peculiar dignity of sonship to believers under the New Testament: They with us, and we with them, are all the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus; Christ of a Son became a servant, that we of slaves might become sons.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. [Faith, announcing justification from sin, is like a messenger of the father’s announcing maturity and liberty to the son so long under the care of a tutor. From the time of this announcement the son ceases to be a minor, shut off from the father, and becomes the companion of the father. Paul plainly declares the literal meaning of his figurative language in Gal 3:26 . Fausset draws attention to the analogy between the illustration here and that formed by the history of Moses and Joshua. Moses, as a representative of the law, brought the people to the border of the land of liberty; but it was the privilege of Joshua, as a type of faith, to lead the people into the full enjoyment of that liberty.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
I say uuuuupppps. Faith brings us to Christ – baptism allows us to put on Christ. Hummm. I think we have a topic to discuss here.
Is baptism a requirement for salvation? We have covered this as false doctrine before, so of course baptism is not contingent on salvation. It is an important act of obedience, but it is post salvation – if it was part of salvation, it couldn’t be an outward sign of inward change. Simple isn’t it when you apply a little logic.
However, I doubt a baptismal regenerist would buy that simple logical explanation.
In verse twenty-six “ye are” is a present tense – something that is ongoing. In twenty-seven “baptized” and “have put on” are aorist tense – point in time. This does not seem to point out anything in particular other than once you are saved it is a continued classification/condition.
The question that needs to be answered is which baptism is being considered here? Is this speaking of water baptism, or is it speaking of Spirit baptism, or is it maybe – read that as “this is” – the baptism of the believer into the body of Christ.
The only time we are baptized “into” Christ is when we are baptized into the body of Christ. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many misconstrue the baptism of the Holy Spirit as your baptism with the Spirit when you speak in tongues, but this is not a teaching that is in keeping with Scripture. This passage itself speaks directly to “into” Christ – nothing about the gifts in the context, nothing about salvation in mind, and nothing but the body of Christ can fit the context. (John the Baptist foretold this baptism – see the following for further study Mat 3:11; Mar 1:8; Lu. 3:16; Joh 1:33.)
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
3:26 {27} For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
(27) Because age does not change the condition of servants, he adds that we are free by condition, and therefore, seeing we are out of our childhood, we have no more need of a keeper and schoolmaster.