CHILDREN OF GOD

“For you are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  (Gal. 3:26-27). Paul’s view of the law and how the Christian is freed from the law by Christ is the point of this section. It is a prelude to 5:18 about being led by the Spirit and, therefore, not being under the law.  

According to verse 25, since faith in Christ has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. And according to verse 29, if you belong to Christ, then you are a true descendant of Abraham to whom the promises were made. That is the point of this section of Galatians.  

Law and promise are mutually exclusive. If we are saved by trusting the promises of God, then we aren’t saved by our efforts at law-keeping, and that is Paul’s emphasis in this letter. Verse 25 and verse 29 are Paul’s main point, and verses 26-28 are a parenthesis to affirm It more emphatically.  

“For you are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (v. 26). That is the gospel in a nutshell and a summary of the Book of Galatians. We are saved by trusting in Christ (John 1:12-13; Heb. 2:10-15). When Paul writes that we are children of God through faith in Christ, he is saying that the reason we can be adopted into the family of God is because Christ became human and paved the way for our adoption.

Following His death and resurrection, Jesus said to Mary, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17). One of the marks of the New Testament, according to God, is “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (1 Cor. 6:18). When we read Galatians 3:27, we cannot help but be mindful of John’s words:  “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”  ( I Jn. 3:1-2)

Galatians 3:27 is continued in 4:5-6: Christ came “to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father!”  God has “predestined us to adoption as children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph 1:5).

 Dewayne Dunaway