Galatians 3:26–29

Context

This passage is part of the letter that Paul sent to the churches in the region of Galatia. At the time, certain teachers were claiming that Gentile believers had to be circumcised and keep the law in order to become full members of God's people. In chapter 3, Paul refutes this teaching by pointing out that Abraham was justified by faith. In the immediately preceding verses, he compares the law to a guardian who looks after a child until Christ comes (rendered "schoolmaster" in the KJV). This section is the conclusion of that analogy: believers are no longer children under a guardian but sons of God, that is, heirs who will receive an inheritance. The inheritance analogy continues into the opening verses of chapter 4.

Interpretation

• Justification-centered reading: The Lutheran and Reformed traditions read verse 26 as the conclusion of the argument for justification. The status of being a child of God is given not through works of the law but through faith.
• Reading centered on baptism and union: The expression in verse 27, "have put on Christ," is widely understood to mean that believers are united with Christ through baptism. Anglicans and Lutherans emphasize baptism as a means of grace through which this union is actually conferred. Presbyterians and others in the Reformed tradition describe baptism as a sign and seal (confirmation) of the union received by faith. Baptists regard it as an act by which a person who has professed faith publicly displays an inward union that has already taken place.
• Communal reading: Verse 28 is read as a declaration that, in Christ, distinctions based on ethnicity, social status, and sex lose their significance. In the original Greek, only the third pair changes its connecting word, reading "male and female" rather than "neither… nor." For this reason, some interpreters see the phrase as an echo of Genesis 1:27.
• Promise-and-inheritance reading: Verse 29 connects with the argument of 3:16, which identifies Abraham's "seed" as Christ. The conclusion is that anyone who belongs to Christ becomes Abraham's seed.

Debates and Issues

• Ordination of women: Supporters of the ordination of women cite verse 28 as grounds for making no distinction based on sex in church offices as well. Opponents hold that the verse speaks only of equality in salvation and does not address the order of church offices, and they point to passages such as 1 Timothy 2. Korean denominations are likewise divided over the scope of the verse's application.
• Objection that the verse is quoted out of context: Some argue that because verse 28 is the conclusion of an argument about justification, applying it directly to debates about social institutions goes beyond its context. Others respond that Paul himself applied this principle in chapter 2 to the question of table fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers.
• Proper subjects of baptism: Baptists point to the fact that baptism (v. 27) immediately follows faith (v. 26) as support for believer's baptism. Denominations that practice infant baptism respond by appealing to the continuity between circumcision and baptism and to the concept of the covenant community. This issue is treated in detail in the article Infant Baptism Controversy.
• The church and Israel: Covenant theology reads verse 29 as grounds for regarding the church as the heir of the promises given to Abraham. Dispensationalism acknowledges that believers are Abraham's spiritual seed but holds that the promises given to ethnic Israel remain distinct.
• Translation: Some modern translations render "sons" in verse 26 as "children," a choice that brings out the fact that the term refers to both men and women. Others maintain that the nuance of "sons," which in ancient society denoted those with the right of inheritance, should be preserved.

Related Passages

• 1 Corinthians 12:13
• Colossians 3:11
• Romans 6:3–6
• Galatians 3:6–9
• Ephesians 2:14–17