BIG IDEA:
THE COMING OF CHRIST ELEVATED OUR RELATIONSHIP TO GOD TO THAT OF PRIVILEGED SONS AND HEIRS
INTRODUCTION:
David deSilva: Paul continues to advance the view of salvation history articulated in 3:15–22, with the period of Torah’s authority yielding to the period of the Spirit’s guidance in Christ, by formulating an argument from analogy based on the common experience of children growing up in households of more-than-moderate means, that is, households that could afford to own several slaves (3:23–25). Such children moved through several stages of care—first nannies or wet nurses, then pedagogues, then (while still being ushered about by the pedagogue) teachers—before reaching maturity, the age at which they become adult sons and daughters within the household and participants in the life of the city. Paul likens the period of the Torah’s authority over human action and interaction to the period of the pedagogue’s authority over the minor children in a household, and the coming of faith to the children’s coming of age in the household, at which time they pass into a new status and a very new set of conditions and circumstances. The stereotype of the pedagogue as a despot-disciplinarian would reinforce Paul’s earlier descriptions of life “under law” as life “under a curse” (3:10–14), as well as the intrinsically temporary nature of such conditions in God’s larger plan for humankind (3:15–22).
John MacArthur: Continuing his discussion of works of the law as opposed to faith in the promise, Paul now contrasts the personal effects those two approaches have on people. After showing the historical relationship between the covenant of promise to Abraham and the covenant of works through Moses and then showing the redemptive superiority of the former over the latter (vv. 6-22), he now introduces the personal application of the two covenants. In doing so, he describes the before and the after of conversion, the character and orientation of a person’s life before he trusts in God for salvation and after God grants him righteousness because of that trust. Before conversion a person is under the law and suffers the bondage that relationship brings; after conversion he is in Christ and enjoys the freedom that relationship brings.
I. (3:23-24) BEFORE SNAPSHOT –
BEFORE JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH IN CHRIST CAME –
RESTRICTIONS / PREPARATION
Van Parunak: Vv. 23-24 describes our situation in the past, using two metaphors: prisoners in jail and children under a guardian. In both cases, the law is the power that holds us in until the purpose for our restraint arrives.
A. Timeframe
“But before faith came“
Is Paul talking about Jews in OT times (probably) or anybody in their pre-conversion days (more of an application)?
Douglas Moo: Verses 23–25 form a unit, framed by references to the “coming” of faith (Mussner 1988: 254). . . Faith has always been the means by which humans relate to God. The object of that faith has now been revealed as the God who has decisively revealed himself in the Son: and this, for Paul, is the key point to be made in response to the agitators.
Ronald Fung: The coming of faith is therefore identical with the coming of Christ, who is the object of faith; it is the coming of Christ, making possible the coming of faith, which is the decisive point in salvation history.
Bruce Barton: Faith, as spoken of in the Scriptures, does not refer to some innate human power that, when used to its greatest capacity, gives us merit with God no matter what the actual content or object of that faith. The central point of the gospel is not belief, but who we believe and how we believe in him. Paul did not hesitate to display the vulnerability of Christianity in the claims about Jesus Christ. The system proves true or false in its foundational statement: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17 NIV). Abraham was justified by his faith and, along with other Old Testament believers, had to trust in God’s grace without knowing much of God’s plan; but “this faith” was faith in what should be revealed — Jesus Christ.
Van Parunak: The principle of trusting in the finished work of Christ. “The” calls us back to v.22, and the faith there defined. Before the coming of Christ, no one could exercise faith in Jesus the Messiah, only an anticipatory faith in an unknown messiah.
B. Restrictions — Only a Schoolmaster
- Function of Guarding — but not Delivering
“we were kept in custody under the law“
Robert Gromacki: Under constant surveillance. They were in the prison house of sin with no way of escape. The law was like a jailor or a sentry, watching every act of moral disobedience. They were being guarded at all times.
Philip Ryken: The law kept the Jews under its protective custody. It watched over them, keeping them safe until it could lead them to Christ. An old commentary by G. G. Findlay describes the situation like this:
“The law was all the while standing guard over its subjects, watching and checking every attempt to escape, but intending to hand them over in due time to the charge of faith. The law posts its ordinances, like so many sentinels, round the prisoner’s cell. The cordon is complete. He tries again and again to break out; the iron circle will not yield. The deliverance will yet be his. The day of faith approaches. It dawned long ago in Abraham’s promise. Even now its light shines into his dungeon, and he hears the word of Jesus, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.’ Law, the stern jailor, has after all been a good friend, if it has reserved him for this. It prevents the sinner escaping to a futile and illusive freedom.”
The law is a guardian, refusing to let go until it hands us directly over to Christ. . .
These two illustrations—the prison and the pedagogue—show that the law had the legitimate purpose of keeping us safe until Christ came to save us. God used the law “to shut us up in prison until Christ should set us free, or to put us under tutors until Christ should make us sons.”
David Guzik: Before we were saved by faith; before we lived our lives by faith, we were kept under guard by the law. Here, Paul uses a different word and a different idea than when he wrote the Scripture has confined all under sin in the previous verse.
The idea behind confined is imprisonment; the idea behind under guard is protective custody. There is a sense in which we were imprisoned by our own sin under the law; but there is also another sense in which it guarded us in protective custody.
How does the law protect us?
- It protects us by showing us God’s heart.
- It protects us by showing us the best way to live.
- It protects us by showing what should be approved and disapproved among men.
- It protects us by providing a foundation for civil law.
In these ways and more, we were kept under guard by the law.
John MacArthur: After using the third person for most of the chapter (vv. 6-22), Paul reverts to the first person (we). In using we, he first of all identifies himself with the Jewish people, to whom both covenants were given. But in a broader and more comprehensive sense he is also identifying himself with all of mankind, Jew and Gentile. Even the most pagan Gentile who has never heard of the true God is under obligation to keep His moral and spiritual standards and, if he disregards those standards, to face the judgment of God.
Paul uses two figures to represent God’s law and its effect on unbelievers,
- first that of a prison
- and then that of a guardian.
In custody under the law, which he violates continually, sinful man is imprisoned. He is, as it were, on death row, sentenced to execution for his sin, the wages of which is death (Rom. 6:23).
- Looking Forward to the Coming Faith
“being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed“
C. Preparation — Purpose of the Law = to Lead us to Christ
“Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ,
that we may be justified by faith.”
Max Anders: In the Jewish culture a slave was assigned to each child to escort them to school and to assist in their supervision. This nanny was not a thirteen-year-old, sweet, little baby-sitter. This supervising nanny was more like a stern sergeant who had the bark of a German shepherd and the bite of a Doberman pincher. Every time the child took liberties without permission on the path to school (children like to play) or did something wrong, this authoritarian nanny pointed her finger at the child and in no uncertain terms told the child what it had done wrong and delivered the punishment. By correlating the law with this nanny image, we learn that the law was given to point out sin and to threaten a great punishment if God’s people didn’t straighten up. Man’s very inability to obey this law perfectly, and thus earn God’s approval, caused men and women to long for a better way to salvation and a relationship with God—by grace.
Richard Longenecker: The focus here is on the supervisory function of the law, the inferior status of one under such supervision, and the temporary nature of such a situation in the course of salvation history.
David deSilva: The confining, guarding, strict supervisory function of the Torah suggested to Paul that the pedagogue set over young children in a household was an apt metaphor. Though no doubt his charges often chafed against his guardianship, and though popularly lampooned as a despotic disciplinarian over the same, the pedagogue nevertheless serves a positive purpose in the lives of underage children in the household—though, notably, only up to a certain point in the child’s life. Paul’s identification of the Torah as pedagogue (as opposed to taskmaster, slave driver, or warden) suggests that 3:23–25 offers, among other things, a positive continuation of the answer to the question raised in 3:19: “Why, then, the law?”
Timothy George: In a proper sense the law does lead us to Christ not by weaning us from our sins but rather revealing them clearly and even causing them to be multiplied and increased to the point where we stand before God utterly void of any hope of self-reclamation. Yet this convicting, condemning, killing function of the law is not an end in itself but rather, as A. Schlatter once put it, “the silent preparation for the revelation of faith.”
II. (3:25-29) AFTER SNAPSHOT –
AFTER JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH IN CHRIST HAS COME –
FULFILLMENT / ENJOYMENT OF PRIVILEGES
Max Anders: Grace appropriated through faith makes us adult children of God and unites us as brothers and sisters. The law never brought this vertical and horizontal oneness. Therefore, grace is superior to the law.
A. (:25a) Timeframe
“But now that faith has come“
B. (:25b) Fulfillment — Graduated to a Higher Level
“we are no longer under a tutor“
Richard Longenecker: To be a Jewish believer in Jesus did not mean turning one’s back on one’s own culture or nation. Yet no longer could it be argued that circumcision, Jewish dietary laws, following distinctly Jewish ethical precepts, or any other matter having to do with a Jewish lifestyle were requisite for the life of faith. Certainly not for Gentile Christians in any sense, though Paul and the Jerusalem apostles for cultural, national, and/or pragmatic reasons allowed Jewish believers in Jesus to live a Jewish lifestyle, but not as required spiritually.
John MacArthur: The law was never intended to be anything more than a temporary means of showing men their sin and of leading them to the Savior. Its internal, moral demands left men ridden with guilt; its external ceremonies (circumcision, offerings, washings, sabbaths, feasts, etc.) symbolized the need for cleansing from that guilt. Now that faith in Jesus Christ has come, a person is no longer under the law as a tutor. He is now out from under the law’s symbolism, the law’s bondage, and the law’s discipline. The law’s purpose has been fulfilled, and the person is no longer “under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). God’s moral standards, however, do not change, and the New Testament reiterates them, and the power of the resident Holy Spirit in the believer enables obedience to them (see Eph. 2:10).
As he unfolds the result of being rightly related to God through faith in Christ Jesus, Paul shows three aspects of the freedom of that relationship. Those who believe in Him and thereby become one with Him are
- sons of God,
- are one with every other believer,
- and are heirs of the promise.
C. (:26-29) Enjoyment of Privileges
Scot McKnight: Paul’s main thesis is that the Galatians are sons of God and heirs by faith in Christ (v. 26). He then restates his point by saying that all who were baptized have put on Christ (v. 27). That Paul was most concerned with the word all in both verses 26 and 27 becomes obvious by his explanation in verse 28: in Christ there are no racial, social, or sexual distinctions, because all are one. The implication of the “allness” of verses 26–28 is brought out in verse 29: those who belong to Christ are both the seed of Abraham and heirs.
David Croteau: These four verses are the central point to the entire letter. Paul summarizes his argument in verse 26 (which recalls 3:7): through faith, believers (whether Jew or Gentile) have been united to Christ and are the true people of God. Every person is united to Christ in the same way: through faith. Ethnicity, social status, and gender do not change the terms of how someone is united to Christ. These distinctions still exist, but everyone is united to Christ in the same way (1Co 12:13; Col 3:11).
- Full Sonship
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus“
David deSilva: The word “all” is emphatic by virtue of its position at the beginning of the Greek sentence, speaking in the first instance to the whole company of the Galatian Christians, whatever the ethnic derivation of any particular individual within the assemblies.
Van Parunak: We are now sons of God, no longer just children. We have grown up, and neither jail nor a babysitter is now appropriate.
Bruce Barton: The phrase “in Christ Jesus” strikes a dominant responsive chord for those who are trusting him as Savior and Lord. In this context, the phrase expresses the alternative to being “under the supervision of the law” (3:25 NIV). Just as the use of a life instructor in the ancient Greek world assumed a distance between the slave and the child under his care, the alternate arrangement “in Christ Jesus” assumes a personal relationship. Paul made this clear by reminding the Galatians that their relationship with Christ means that they are “children of God.”
Philip Ryken: Liberal theology used to teach “the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” The idea was that since every single human being is a son or a daughter of God, we are all brothers and sisters. In one sense this is true. God exercises his care over all his creatures, and we all belong to a common humanity. Yet sonship is a privilege granted specifically to those who come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Although God is Creator of all, Ruler of all, and Judge of all, he is the Father only of his Son Jesus Christ and of those who are in Christ by faith.
- (:27-28) Fully United with Christ without Distinction
a. (:27) Same Identity in God’s Eyes
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
Robert Gromacki: This change of spiritual clothing was taken from a cultural custom. In ancient times a Roman lad wore the toa praetexta, a toga with an elaborately embroidered purple hem. When the boy reached manhood he put off this sign of immaturity and put on the white toga. Thus, under law, a person could never merit the clothing of spiritual sonship.
Bruce Barton: The expression enedusasthe (put on, clothed yourselves) recalls a specific ancient rite of passage. In Roman society, a youth coming of age laid aside the robe of childhood and put on a new toga. This represented his move into adult citizenship with full rights and responsibilities. Likewise, being “in Christ” leads to our ongoing experience of clothing ourselves with Christ. Paul combined this cultural understanding with the concept of baptism. By becoming Christians and being baptized, the Galatian believers were becoming spiritually grown up and ready to take on the privileges and responsibilities of the more mature. Paul was saying that they had laid aside the old clothes of the law and had put on Christ—that is, Christ’s robe of righteousness (see 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 4:23-24). The person who did so became a “new” person, with a new lifestyle and new aspirations. Clothing ourselves with Christ is not passive; it is an action we must take. Have you put on the attitudes, characteristics, and intentions of Jesus Christ?
George Brunk: Here in Galatians 3:27, Paul confirms the close tie between conversion and ethics that we also found in 2:17-20. This is the basis for Paul’s confidence that life in Christ is complete. It has no need of the Law for ethical direction or motivation. But the real point is that the genuine child of God has so deeply encountered the person of Jesus Christ that the personality of that One, in all of his humanity, has been taken on by the believer. In using the image of clothing, Paul is clearly not suggesting that conversion is an external thing, put on, as it were, to cover up the real person underneath. Paul uses the metaphor to speak about actual change in the person.
Robert Fung: Baptism is here regarded as the rite of initiation into Christ, that is, into union with Christ, or, what amounts to the same thing, of incorporation into Christ as the Head of the new humanity. This sense of the expression “baptized into” as “baptized so as to become a member of” is required by the context “on each of the three occasions which are decisive for its meaning”: here, 1 Cor. 12:13, and Rom. 6:3.
Baptism is also regarded as “putting on” Christ, who is thought of as a garment enveloping the believer and symbolizing his new spiritual existence24 (cf. Rom. 13:14, where the ethical aspect is primarily in view). The metaphor is probably derived from Hebrew tradition where the figure of changing clothes to represent an inward and spiritual change was common (cf. Isa. 61:10; Zech. 3:3f.).
The baptism in view in Gal. 3:27 is almost certainly water baptism; this being the case, its juxtaposition with faith, especially the fact that union with Christ is ascribed both to faith (v. 26) and to baptism (v. 27), raises the question of the exact relationship between the two. An extreme, mechanistic view of baptism would have us believe that it was, “for Paul and his readers, universally and unquestionably accepted as a `mystery’ or sacrament which works ex opere operato,” that the moment the believer receives baptism, union with Christ “takes place in him without any cooperation, or exercise of will or thought, on his part.” Such a view simply ignores the close connection between faith and baptism in the present instance; the fact that in this chapter faith is mentioned fifteen times and baptism only once would even by itself compel agreement with the dictum that Paul “by no means unconditionally attributes magic influence to baptism, as if receiving it guaranteed salvation.”
A more satisfactory view of the logical relationship between faith and baptism is represented by the statement that “St. Paul saw in Baptism the normal but not necessary, the helpful but not indispensable sign and seal put upon the act of faith appropriating the gift of God in Christ.” On this understanding, baptism is the “outward and visible sign of [an] inward and spiritual grace” (Book of Common Prayer), and the apparent equation of faith and baptism in vv. 26f. may be explained as a natural transference of terms whereby the symbol (baptism) is said to effect that which it symbolizes or as a form of metonymy whereby what is strictly true of faith is predicated of baptism. Probably Paul mentions baptism here because he is about to emphasize the oneness of those who are in Christ (v. 28, where the “all” of v. 26 recurs): the visible sign of this oneness is not faith but baptism; the oneness with Christ that is symbolized in baptism is the basis for the oneness in Christ (cf. Eph. 4:5, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”). Here, as in Rom. 6, “there is an appeal in the presence of those who were in danger of forgetting spiritual facts, to the external sign which no one could forget.”
Timothy George: For Paul the baptismal rite, with its evocation of, and association with, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, models justification although it can never mediate it in an automatic way apart from faith and repentance. In the NT, believers’ baptism with (or “in” or “by”; cf. 1 Cor 12:13) the Holy Spirit is antecedent to baptism with water, the latter being a confession and public witness to the former. We have no record of the baptism of the Galatians, but we may assume that many of them were baptized by Paul and Barnabas or the elders they appointed to care for the churches soon after the initial evangelization of that area (cf. Acts 14:21–23). However, in the opening verses of Gal 3, when Paul reminded the Galatians of the beginning of their Christian experience, he did not say, “Were you baptized?” but rather, “Did you receive the Spirit?” (3:2–3). The objective basis of faith is not the ordinance of baptism but rather that to which baptism bears witness, namely, the whole Christological – soteriological “event” summarized in the phrase “God sent his Son” (4:4), together with the gift of the Holy Spirit who through the preaching of the gospel has awakened faith in the elect.
With all this in mind, the question naturally arises: If one has already received the gift of the Spirit and has trusted Christ for salvation, then why be baptized with water at all? Certain Christian groups, notably Quakers and the Salvation Army, having drawn such a radical conclusion from these premises, have dispensed with baptism altogether. However, the nonpractice of baptism can in no way be justified on the basis of the NT, which attaches great importance to this crucial event. Why be baptized? The most basic answer, of course, is that the Lord Jesus Christ ordained (hence the Baptist preference for “ordinance” as opposed to “sacrament”) and commanded it. Just as Jesus identified himself with our wretched sinful condition in his own baptism, thereby proclaiming in advance his death, burial, and resurrection, so too we are identified with Christ by our baptism, declaring the salvation Christ has wrought in three tenses—the drama of redemption accomplished once and for all, our own deliverance from the bondage of sin, and the consummation and final resurrection that is yet to come.
Scot McKnight: Some will no doubt have problems with the observation that faith and baptism are parallel expressions for Paul. Among many free churches in the world, baptism has taken on a secondary importance and is too often confined to “nothing more than an entrance rite” into the church. While it is clear that Paul makes a fundamental difference between external rites and internal reality (cf. Rom. 2:25–29; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11; cf. Gal. 5:6), and can even suggest that baptizing was not his purpose (1 Cor. 1:13–17), baptism was in the early church the initial and necessary response of faith. To be sure, their world was more ritual-oriented than ours and consequently got more out of rituals than we probably do. Nonetheless, we dare not make baptism “nothing more than a ritual of entrance,” for it was for the earliest Christians their first moment of faith, and we know of no such thing as an “unbaptized believer.” Baptism was not necessary for salvation, but faith without baptism was not faith for the early church. The Galatians knew this, and so Paul appealed to their experience.
b. (:28) No Distinction in God’s Eyes
“There is neither Jew no Greek,
there is neither slave nor free man,
there is neither male nor female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The law created all types of differences — between Jews and Gentiles; between clean and unclean animals; etc.
Bruce Barton: The barriers broken down in this verse may not seem so radical to our day, but they were astounding in ancient Roman culture. This made Christianity unique and attractive—it valued each individual, yet it provided a unified body. All believers are one in Christ Jesus. All are equally valuable to God. Differences arise in gifts, in function, in abilities, but all are one in Christ (Ephesians 2:15).
David deSilva: Here he explains how the believers have become God’s “sons and daughters” by virtue of being joined to the Son in baptism and how this new status affects personal identity and social relationships within the Christian assembly.
John MacArthur: It is not, of course, that among Christians there is no such thing as a Jew, Gentile, slave, free person, man, or woman. There are obvious racial, social, and sexual differences among people. Paul, however, was speaking of spiritual differences—differences in standing before the Lord, spiritual value, privilege, and worthiness. Consequently, prejudice based on race, social status, sex, or any other such superficial and temporary differences has no place in the fellowship of Christ’s church. All believers, without exception, are all one in Christ Jesus. All spiritual blessings, resources, and promises are equally given to all who believe unto salvation (cf. Rom. 10:12).
Ronald Fung: The three antitheses, which represent the most far-reaching distinctions of ancient society, seem to have been deliberately chosen with an eye to the threefold privilege for which a pious male Jew daily thanked God: that he was not made a Gentile, a slave or a woman—categories of people debarred from certain religious privileges. It is noteworthy that in the third antithesis the words used are not the customary terms for man and woman but the more technical terms denoting male and female, thus indicating that what is in view is the general relationship between the sexes and not the specific relationship between husband and wife. The statement that there is no “male and female” in Christ does not mean, as was believed in later Gnosticism, that in the new era mankind is restored to the pristine androgynous state; nor does it mean that all male-female distinctions have been obliterated in Christ, any more than that there is no racial difference between the Christian Jew and the Christian Gentile.
Scot McKnight: Scholars have often observed that a Jewish blessing that was prayed daily by some Jews is reversed here: “Blessed be God that he did not make me a Gentile; blessed be God that he did not make me ignorant [or a slave]; blessed be God that he did not make me a woman” (Tosefta Berakoth 7:18). This is possibly a first-century prayer; the distinctions behind it were certainly made at times by Jews and by others. In any case, Paul is surely responding to such a demeaning classification of humans.
Timothy George: The three pairs of opposites Paul listed stand for the fundamental cleavages of human existence: ethnicity, economic capacity, and sexuality. Race, money, and sex are primal powers in human life. No one of them is inherently evil; rather, they are the stuff of which life itself is made. The propagation of the human race is based on the distinction between male and female. And, while slavery is a gross perversion of God’s material blessing, the ability to work hard, invest wisely, and plan carefully is essential to the well-being of any economic order. Likewise, the rich cultural and ethnic diversity of the human family has inspired some of the greatest music, some of the finest art, and some of the best literature of the ages. Yet each of these spheres of human creativity has become degraded and soiled through the perversity of sin.
Nationality and ethnicity have been corrupted by pride, material blessings by greed, and sexuality by lust. This has led to the chaotic pattern of exploitation and self-destruction that marks the human story from the tower of Babel to the destruction of the Twin Towers. Indeed, outside of Christ the primal forces represented by these three polarities are controlled and manipulated by the elemental spirits of the universe (stoicheia tou kosmou; Gal 4:3, 9). However, all of those who have become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ have been liberated from enslavement to these evil powers. A new standard and pattern of life now distinguishes the baptized community that is still in the world but not of it. Here, as nowhere else, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2 ESV). The boundaries of baptism define “the existence of a place in the world where things are different: Jews and Gentiles share the same table; slaves and free citizens are treated equally as brothers and sisters; women are accorded a respect that is more substantial than a merely outward and sometimes two-edged ‘equality.’”
Nijay Gupta: Esau McCaulley examines verse 28 from a different angle, that of Jewish inheritance rights. While most interpreters see the categories and pairings in this verse as generically aimed at neutralizing social status, McCaulley connects these categories specifically to the privileges of the heir in antiquity. Jewish inheritance laws, for example, excluded slaves and gentiles. And women could only inherit if the father did not produce a male heir. From this perspective, Paul was radically redefining heir status in Christ. There are no haves and have-nots in Christ’s family. All receive equally and participate fully in the life of the family.
- (:29) Full Heirs
“And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,
heirs according to promise.”
Richard Longenecker: The sentence is a first class conditional sentence, which assumes the truth of what is stated in the protasis. The protasis itself focuses on only one fact: relationship with Christ (ὑμεῖς Χριστοῦ, “you belong to Christ”; cf. οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, “those who belong to Christ Jesus,” of 5:24), which has been affirmed earlier in the phrase “in Christ Jesus” of vv 26 and 28. In Paul’s later letters this relationship will be spelled out more fully in the interplay between being “in Christ” and members of “the body of Christ” (see references cited at v 26; also Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:12, 27; Colossians and Ephesians passim). The apodosis of the sentence highlights the results of relationship with Christ: status as Abraham’s “seed” (τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ σπέρμα ἐστέ, “you are Abraham’s seed,” which picks up ideas earlier expressed in 3:7, 9 and 16) and heirs of God’s covenantal promise (κατ᾽ ἐπαγγελίαν κληρονόμοι, “heirs according to the promise,” which picks up ideas variously expressed in 3:14, 16–18, 19, 21–22).
Timothy George: Earlier in this chapter Paul showed how Jesus Christ alone is the true seed (singular) of Abraham (3:16). Through our union with Christ, we have now inherited this privileged status. This has happened not through procreation but through regeneration, not by our goodness but by God’s grace, not by works of the law but through faith alone. Paul will now show what it means for those who have been liberated from the curse of the law and the bondage of sin to enter into their new estate as “heirs according to the promise” (3:29).
David deSilva: A major goal for Paul in Galatians is to demonstrate that the social lines of division created by the distinctions made between Jew and gentile and enforced by the regulations of Torah for keeping the two groups separate are transcended in the new community formed in Christ, with the result that the regulatory principles of the “old creation” (even those once given by God!) no longer have authority over relationships in the community of the “new creation” (Gal 6:15). Paul’s vision continues to challenge the global Christian community wherever Christians allow longstanding ethnic and racial divisions, prejudices, and hostilities to guide their interactions with one another ahead of our unity in Christ.