Gal.
3:23-29
The conditions of people under Law
and faith 3:23-29
"Continuing the perspective of salvation history introduced in vv.
13f. and developed in vv. 15-22, Paul gives further consideration to the place
of the law in the divine economy by showing the relation between law and faith
as two distinct dispensations." 1
3:23-27
Paul pictured Israel before the advent of Christ as a child. The coming of
faith (v. 23) is synonymous with the coming of
Christ in Paul's view of salvation history.
In Paul's day it was common for children between age six and puberty to
be under the care of a pedagogue (tutor). The pedagogue protected them from
evil influences and demanded their obedience.
"No doubt there were many pedagogues who were known for their
kindness and held in affection by their wards, but the dominant image was that
of a harsh disciplinarian who frequently resorted to physical force and
corporal punishment as a way of keeping his children in line." 2
The Law did just that for Israel. 3 However the need for that kind of assistance
ended when Christ came.
"Christ is the real teacher, who takes us in hand and shows us the
way of God in terms of grace." 4
Now all who trust in Christ are adult sons (Gr. huioi), no
longer children. It is faith in Christ Jesus that makes one a son of God (v. 25).
"Now the focus shifts from the historical to the personal, from
the institutional to the individual. Paul has discussed the inheritance
promised to the children of Abraham; now he zooms in on the heir who claimed
his bequest."
5
George suggested that verse 26 is the
center of a chiasm.
6 The first half of the chiasm has a Jewish emphasis
whereas the second half has a Gentile emphasis.
A
Promise (Abraham) 3:6-14
B Law (Moses) 3:15-22
C Faith (Christ) 3:23-25
D
"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." 3:26
C' Faith (Spirit) 3:27—4:7
B' Law (stoicheia tou
kosmou) 4:8-11
A'
Promise (Sarah) 4:21-31
What unites us to Christ is the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit that
takes place at the moment of salvation (1 Cor. 12:13).
Paul's original readers may have taken his reference to baptism as being water baptism,
but water baptism dramatized what happened to them when the Spirit baptized
them. When Roman children reached son status their fathers gave them a special
toga that identified their status. Paul compared that toga to Christ (v. 27).
God has dealt with humanity as a father deals with his children. When
children are young, having limited information and experience, a good father
makes allowances for their immaturity, but when they become mature, he deals
with them as adults. The differences in the house rules that Paul spoke of here
reflect different dispensations (i.e., economies, Gr. oikonomos, lit.
house law). 7
3:28
Another difference is that under faith all believers share the same privilege
and position. Paul was not saying that all distinctions between people have
ceased. Obviously people are still either Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free, and
male or female. His point was that within the body of Christ all have the same
relationship to God. All are of equal value. 8
"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." 9
Most of the evangelical feminists regard this verse as the major
passage that teaches the abolition of male leadership in Christianity. Paul
Jewett, for example, believed that Paul's teaching that woman is subordinate to
man, for whose sake God created her, came from rabbinism rather than
revelation. 10
Daniel Fuller reflected the same conclusion but for a slightly different
reason.
". . . he [Paul] supported, by way of accommodation, a
Christianized slavery and patriarchalism, but with regard to both he left
sufficient clues for the church to have understood that these teachings no
longer applied after the 'neither Jew nor Greek' issue had been settled." 11
Bruce took a more biblically defensible position on this verse.
"The first stipulation here . . . is that in Christ there is
neither Jew nor Greek . . .; the breaking down of the middle wall of
partition between these two was fundamental to Paul's gospel (Eph. 2:14f.). By similarly excluding the religious
distinction between slaves and the freeborn, and between male and female, Paul
makes a threefold affirmation which corresponds to a number of Jewish formulas
in which the threefold distinction is maintained, as in the morning prayer in
which the male Jew thanks God that he is not a Gentile, a slave or a
woman. . . .
"The reason for the threefold thanksgiving was not any
disparagement of Gentiles, slaves or women as persons but the fact that they
were disqualified from several religious privileges which were open to free
Jewish males."
12
Gentiles, slaves, and women did not enjoy the same access to God in
Israel's formal worship as did Jews, free men, and males. They could trust God
for their personal salvation, however. The priests in Israel had to be Jews,
free, and males. Now in the church every Christian is a priest (1 Pet. 2:9-10). Paul's emphasis, however, was on
believers' unity in Christ, not their equality with one another.
"Galatians 3:28 says nothing
explicitly whatsoever about how male/female relationships should be conducted
in daily life. Even the feminists acknowledge that the context of Galatians 3 is theological, not practical. 13 Paul is
here making a theological statement about the fundamental equality of both men
and women in their standing before God. Thus any ideas about how this truth
should work itself out in social relationships cannot be drawn from Galatians 3:28, but must be brought to it from one's
broader understanding of the nature of things." 14
The statement does not 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." 15
3:29
A third change is that those joined to Christ by faith become spiritual descendants
of Abraham and beneficiaries of some of God's promises to him. This does not
mean Christians become Jews. Christians are Christians; we are in Christ, the
Seed of Abraham (cf. v. 16). God promised some
things to all the physical descendants of Abraham (e.g., Gen. 12:1-3, 7). He
promised other things to the believers within that group (e.g., Rom. 9:6, 8). He
promised still other things to the spiritual seed of Abraham who are not Jews
(e.g., Gal. 3:6-9). 16 Failure to distinguish these groups and the
promises given to each has resulted in much confusion. 17 Note one example of this error.
"Throughout the whole vast earth the Lord recognizes one,
and only one, nation as His own, namely, the nation of believers (1 Peter 2:9)." 18
Why can the amillennialist position represented above not be correct?
The reason is that Scripture speaks of the church as a nation distinct from
Israel (Eph. 2:11-22). 19 Jews, and Gentiles who had to become Jews to
enter Israel, made up Israel. The church consists of Jews and Gentiles who
enter it as Jews or Gentiles (Eph. 2:16; cf. 1 Cor. 10:32). Furthermore Paul called Jewish Gentile
equality in the church a "mystery," something unique, not previously
revealed in Scripture (Eph. 3:5). The church
began on the day of Pentecost, not in the Old Testament (Acts 1:5; 11:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:13; Col. 1:18).
Believers of all ages are all the people of God. Nevertheless God has dealt
with different groups of them and has had different purposes for them as groups
in various periods of human history.
Does the church inherit the promises to Abraham? It only inherits some
of them. The Jews will inherit those promises given to the physical descendants
of Abraham. All believers will inherit those given to the spiritual descendants
of Abraham. Saved Jews will inherit those given to the physical descendants who
are also spiritual descendants.
Footnotes
3See Michael J. Smith, "The
Role of the Pedagogue in Galatians," Bibliotheca Sacra 163:650 (April-June
2006):197-214.
7It is interesting that even
non-dispensational commentators admit that the coming of Christ, as Paul spoke of
it here, inaugurated a new dispensation in God's dealing with humanity.
8This may have been a fragment of
an early Christian hymn (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12-13; Col. 3:9-11).
9George, p. 284. See his excursus
"Was Paul a Feminist?" pp. 286-93, which also relates this passage to
liberation theology.
10P. Jewett, Man as Male and
Female, p. 112.
11D. Fuller, "Paul and Galatians 3:28," Theological Students
Fellowship Bulletin 9:2 (November-December 1985):12-13.
13Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty,
All We're Meant to Be, pp. 18-19.
14A. Duane Litfin, "Evangelical
Feminism: Why Traditionalists Reject It," Bibliotheca Sacra 136:543
(July-September 1979):264. For a good evaluation of the feminists' arguments,
see ibid.; and Roger Oldham, "Positional and Functional Equality: An
Appraisal of the Major Arguments for the Ordination of Women," Mid-America
Theological Journal (Fall 1985):1-29. See also Kenneth Gangel,
"Biblical Feminism and Church Leadership," Bibliotheca Sacra
140:557 (January-March 1983):55-63; and H. Wayne House, "'Neither
. . . Male nor Female . . . in Christ Jesus'," Bibliotheca
Sacra 145:577 (January-March 1988):47-56.
16Refer again to the chart "The
Four Seeds of Abraham in Scripture" above.
17E.g., amillennialists conclude
that Gentile believers inherit the promises of the believing remnant within
Israel, thus eliminating any future for Israel as a nation.
18William Hendriksen, New
Testament Commentary: Exposition of Galatians, p. 151; cf. Ridderbos, The
Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, p. 150.
19See Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum,
"Israel and the Church," in Issues in Dispensationalism, pp.
113-30, especially pp. 126-27.