Title: Sons of God through Faith

Text: Gal 3:26-29

Gal 3:26-29

26      For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

27      For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

28      There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

29      And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

(NAS)

Through this letter Paul has been debating in absentia with the false teachers in Galatia. In the previous verses he debated the purpose of the law and works righteousness over against the truth of faith based righteousness.

Having shown the shortcomings of the law, he makes a bold statement in v 26 about what faith brings to the individual. For explanatory or sermon purposes, we might think of salvation as a gift in a box, a newbirth-day present as it were. You place your faith in Jesus Christ, trusting Him as Lord of your life, and God gives you this gift called salvation. Like any other gift we need to open the gift called salvation and see what it contains for us. What do we get for our faith?

First Paul says for your faith you become sons of God. Sons of God in this context in inclusive, you all are sons of God, not only Jews and Gentiles, but also men and women. We’re very gender conscious today and we want to change that phrase to read children of God because it does include men and women, and to say you all become children of God wouldn’t be wrong. As a matter of fact Paul does use that kind of wording in both Rom 8:16 where he wrote: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”(NAS) and in 2 Cor 6:18: "And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me," says the Lord Almighty.” (NAS)

John also used that kind of language in I Jn 3:1: “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and {such} we are.” (NAS)

However, we might miss some of the impact of what Paul is saying if we change that term here to children. If you read the article I wrote for the Winter 2002-03 Biblical Illustrator on the status of children in Jesus’ day you already know what I’m talking about. Women and girls were not given the same status as men and boys. Daughters were not thought of in the same way as sons. Sons were special, they were the heirs of the family, even among the Jews, who gave a higher status to daughters that the cultures around them, daughters were not the same as sons in status or importance. So when Paul says you all become sons of God. He’s not only talking about the passing from the reign of the law to the reign of grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Believers become fully justified persons we move into a new and right relationship to God through faith, before we were under the curse now we are under God’s grace. God’s moral law is not discarded, Paul will write later concerning our liberty and freedom, but we must never confuse liberty with license. Now, however, we have a paternal relationship with God, an elevated spiritual relationship with God, and that elevated spiritual relationship Paul says is comparable, in strictly human terms, with the human relationship of the father and son, so that men and women as well as Jew and Gentile are sons of God.

Paul is not speaking of The Fatherhood of God and the sonship of men and women as being something natural in this world. The Fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of men is not a biblical teaching. The Bible teaches God is related to all mankind as creator, we are related to all humanity as beings intentionally and purposefully created by God in His image, but He is related to men and women as Father only to those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. This also again affirms what he has said before about being Abrahams descendants. Sonship is the result of faith, not birth or works.

So, looking into this gift from God the first thing we see as a result of our salvation is a new relationship with God. Second Paul writes there is a personal transformation that takes place. He again uses physical imagery to explain a spiritual reality. Verse 27: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” The first image is that of baptism. Physical baptism is an initiatory rite. Certainly in context in this passage where Paul has been so vigorously opposing works salvation and obedience to the law he is not now referring to a sacramental ritual, that in any way bestows the blessing of God on individuals nor is he suggesting baptismal regeneration. He has been clear on the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement as the method of salvation and the Spirit as the agent of salvation.

Paul isn’t talking about ceremonial water baptism, he is talking about spiritual identification with Jesus Christ, and immersion into the life of Christ. Paul explains it this way in Rom 6:3-5:

3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with {Him} in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also {in the likeness} of His resurrection, (NAS) In verse 20 of chapter 2 Paul wrote:

Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the {life} which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. (NAS) Paul has been crucified with Christ and baptized into Christ so that he is now clothed with Christ, and it is the resurrected living Christ who lives in and through Paul, and all those who are sons by faith. In Eph chapter 4 he wrote about taking off the old nature and putting on the new, like changing clothes. I think you can see the Old Testament ritual of cleansing where a person would take off their old clothes, bath themselves and the put on new clothes to represent cleansing. Paul gives that ritual a new dimension in the spiritual cleansing that comes from Christ Jesus.

A third thing as a result of salvation is found in 28, spiritual equality before God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul isn’t saying that there are no differences between men and women. He’s not saying social distinctions don’t exist, nor is he’s saying vocational or ecclesiastical distinctions don’t exist within the body of Christ. Paul is talking about spiritual differences, differences in standing before the Lord and spiritual worth. There are no spiritual distinctions based on gender and in this case Christianity elevated women to a status they had never before known in the ancient world. In matters of the home and in the church, the Bible is clear God has ordain and established the headship and leadership of men, however, in the dimension fo spiritual possessions and privilege there is no difference. (John MacArthur, TMNTC: Galatians, p. 100). Likewise there are no spiritual distinctions based on race, class, social or economic distinctions. Everyone who has placed faith in Christ is clothed with Christ and baptized in Christ and stands before him on equal footing without distinction.

Finally in verse29 Paul links it to the promise God made to Abraham. The spiritual promise of eternal salvation and blessing belongs to all of those who belong to Christ. All believers, then whether Jew or Greek, slave or free male or female are heirs according to the promise of God and all become Abraham’s offspring not by birth but by faith. The Old Testament promise made to Abraham is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Are you truly a Son of God? Have you been immersed in Christ so that all of Him is in all of you?