Gal 3:25–29 — Sons of God in Union with Christ

Review

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian, that is the supervision of the law. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. I have titled the sermon, Sons of God in Union with Christ. That is the point that Paul is making here. We see that in verse 26. In Christ Jesus, in union with Christ, we are all sons of God through faith.

Exposition

From Law to Faith

Rather, verse 26, by contrast, in Christ Jesus, we are sons of God by faith. This verse, verse 25, and including verse 26 as the other side of that, being free from the law but now in union with Christ. This verse, though, is a key theological conclusion in Paul’s entire argument in the doctrinal section of the letter. The doctrinal section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians is this section right here, Galatians 3 and 4, but he is making a key point to his audience.

That they need to also be circumcised and thereby place themselves under the Mosaic law as their way of being right with God. They are not true members, they are not full members of the people of God and of the Abrahamic covenant community until and unless they take upon them that mark of circumcision which is necessary according to the Judaizers necessary for salvation. We know that because in Acts chapter 15, verse 1, just before the Council of Jerusalem, Luke tells us that this was the big controversy going on at this time in the first century of the church. That some Jewish believers in Jesus believed that you had to be circumcised to be saved. That circumcision and being committed to keeping the Mosaic Law is necessary for salvation. Of course, the Judaizers were not representing the true teaching of the apostles, or even of the Jerusalem leadership, like James, the brother of our Lord, who was the leader of the Jerusalem congregation. They were distorting their teaching, and they were saying that the law was necessary for salvation. And so Paul writes to these Gentile Christians in the churches of Galatia, and he says to them, No, you do not need to be under the supervision of the Mosaic law to be saved.

All Sons through Faith

For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God, through faith. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, simply through faith in Christ. This is an amazing statement. This is a key theological conclusion in Paul’s argument in the doctrinal section of the letter. He is going to repeat this same point again in chapter four, where he says that now that Christ has come, Galatians 4 verse four, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Notice that same contrast from being under the law to now being sons of God in Christ.

The same redemptive historical transition from the old covenant to the new. Paul has an interesting view of redemptive history, of the unfolding plan of God. He essentially sees three main covenants, three main movements in this history. Now we could go all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden. We could talk about creation and the fall. But after that, he sees three major movements in redemptive history. That is what he terms these three key banner statements.

Promise, Law, and Faith. Promise, Law, and Faith. These are the three major epics of redemptive history. Promise, meaning the period of time before the coming of the law, during the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is the time characterized by promise. Law is the next major epic of redemptive history and that takes up the, it occupies the bulk of the Old Testament from the book of Exodus all the way to the end until Christ comes. And that era of redemptive history he calls Law.

And then now he speaks of the new covenant age with the coming of Christ using this banner word faith. Notice how he uses this word faith here in this redemptive historical sense. Verse 23, before faith came, we were held captive under the law. And then verse 25, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under the custodianship of the law, under the supervision of the law. Faith here, in Paul’s language, is a synecdoche.

It is the New Covenant. Now the term New Covenant is not used anywhere in this passage. And yet, every single thing that he is saying presupposes that? The very fact that he says, now that faith has come? Now that faith has come, in contrast with the old covenant under the law, now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. For in Christ, we are all sons of God through faith.

It is the chief identifying characteristic of the new covenant. Faith, faith in Christ. Paul is referring to these three major epics of redemptive history using these synecdoches. Promise is synecdoche for the Abrahamic Covenant. That is what the Abrahamic Covenant was all about. It was about God’s promise and how Abraham simply believed in the promise. It was not focusing upon works. It was not focusing upon doing good deeds. It was simply a promise of God. God Himself passed between the pieces of the sacrificial animals. God Himself took the curse and said, may I become a curse like those sacrificial animals if I fail to keep my word.

And even though Abraham did not have any basis to believe that it was going to be fulfilled in his own strength, he was old, his wife was barren, yet he trusted in the promise of God. And so Paul uses the term promise as his synecdoche for the entire Abrahamic covenant. Then, moving to the next second major epic of redemptive history, he uses the word law as his synecdoche, as his term to describe the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant does not deny, it does not reject, it does not cancel the Abrahamic Covenant and its promise, but it does focus on law. It does focus on doing all these things, especially for Israel as a nation, in order for national Israel to be able to live in the land and receive the blessings of the covenant in the land, and to avoid the curses of the covenant, they have to be obedient to the law. And so law then becomes Paul’s synecdoche, Paul’s term for that entire covenant and that era of redemptive history that was characterized by the Mosaic covenant or the law. So then, when we come to Christ, when we come to the coming of Christ in the New Covenant age, he uses the term faith. To be the chief identifying characteristic of the New Covenant age.

He is not denying that faith existed before? He is clearly made that point earlier in the passage. In Galatians chapter three, if you look earlier, we did not read this part, but in verses six through nine, he says that Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

We are no longer under the custodianship of the law, meaning we are no longer spiritual minors. When somebody is a minor, they are not yet able to fully enjoy all of the rights of citizens. They cannot vote, they cannot enjoy all the fullness of the privileges they have until they pass out of their minority into adulthood. Paul is saying we are no longer spiritual minors living under the supervision of the Mosaic Law with its endless demands and with its constant threat of a curse if we fail to keep it. The custodial role of the law was a temporary thing in redemptive history.

And now that Christ has come, now that faith has come, now that the new covenant has come, We are free from the supervision of the law. We have gospel liberty. That is the whole point of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, is gospel liberty. He is teaching them the doctrine of gospel liberty, that they are free from the custodial role of the law as a covenant of works, which threatens a curse for disobedience, and that we are now enjoying our sonship in union with Christ. Verse 25, then, is a clear and decisive rebuke to all kinds of Judaizing tendencies in the Church.

Throughout Church history, there have been movements within Christians, Christian movements, that have tried to bring back the Mosaic Law with all of its demands in some form for the Christian life. And this can happen in different degrees? Some would say it is necessary to keep the Mosaic Law in all of its detail for justification, to be saved. You have to do this. That is what the Judaizers were teaching.

There are even some throughout Church history that have repeated that same error. The term we use for that when you say that Christians are supposed to be under the Mosaic Law in all of its rigor and detail, as necessary for salvation, the term we use for that is legalism. That is flat-out legalism. It is a denial of the Gospel, and it is a denial of grace. But there are different degrees in which this Judaizing tendency can happen in the church. Some will soften it and say it is not necessary for justification, but it is for sanctification.

We need to keep the law to help us to grow in maturity and godliness. Some who hold to that would be those who hold to what is called theonomy. Theonomy is the view that all of the Mosaic civil laws still are binding today, and that a proper nation that is in obedience to God will enforce all of those laws even today, including even the laws against idolatry and blasphemy.

All of these different types of Judaizing, whether it is the hard form that the Judaizers were doing, saying you have to do this to be saved, or whether it is the softer form that says these things are good for helping us to grow in sanctification, whether personal or societal. All of these fail to recognize Paul’s clear teaching here in verse 25. Now that faith has come, now that the new covenant has come, we are no longer under the custodianship of the law. All of these views, all of these different types of Judaizing, whether the hard form of legalism or the soft form for sanctification. The term we could use for that would be gnomism. Legalism is the hard form. You have to do it to be saved. Gnomism is the softer form that says you still need to have a law-centered piety to grow in maturity and godliness. All of these forms of Judaizing, whether the hard form of legalism or the soft form of gnomism, fail to recognize the epical shift in redemptive history from the old covenant to the new, from the law to faith.

And notice how Paul goes on to say, in verse 26, in contrast with that life under the law, under the custodianship of the Mosaic law, in Christ Jesus, we are now sons of God through faith. Being a custodian, being under a custodian is for minors. But we are not minors, we are not immature, we are sons. We are heirs of God.

Notice how Paul uses this word all in verse 26. He says, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. In fact, in Greek, the word all is the first word in the sentence. And so it is clearly being emphasized. It could be translated this way, verse 26, just switching the word order around. Verse 26 could be, for all of you are sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Not through faith in Christ, but through faith, comma, in union with Christ.

But the emphasis is on the word all. That is all who are professing believers. All, as Paul will go on to say in the next verse, all who are baptized. All who are baptized, all who are professing Christians, all who are part of the new covenant community, they are included in this reality.

It does not matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile. It does not matter which particular rank of society you come from. He is going to go on in verse 28 to say that. That there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ. All of those statements in verses 27 and 28 are explaining the word all in verse 26. For all of you, whether Jew or Gentile, all of you who have been baptized, whether slave or free, whether male or female, are sons of God in union with Christ.

Sons and Heirs

For if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. When he says in verse 29, if you are Christ’s, he is simply he is refreshing our mind about everything that he has said in the previous few verses. Verses 26, 27, and 28 are all focusing upon the reality of our union with Christ. Verse 26, we are sons of God in union with Christ. In verse 27, we are baptized into Christ. Verse 28, there is no distinctions in Christ. We are all one in union with Christ. And so then in verse 29, he says, if that is true, if you belong to Christ, if you are in union with Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

He does not use the word sons in verse 29, but is not that what he is talking about? He is using the word Abraham’s offspring and heirs, but he is simply unpacking what it means that we are sons of God, as he had said in verse 26. That is, in Christ Jesus, we are all sons of God. Sons of God is the more familiar terminology that we are used to in Christian language, that we are sons of God. But here, in verse 29, he simply uses the Abrahamic version of that New Covenant language.

From an Abrahamic perspective, what does it mean to be a son of God? It means to be Abraham’s offspring. And what does that mean? It means that you are one who is going to inherit the inheritance that was promised to Abraham. That is a helpful thing to keep in mind because it helps us to see that when the Bible talks about our sonship, that we are sons of God, the focus is on what is the key thing that sons have and experience.

It is that they are the heirs of the inheritance, that they will inherit all that God has promised for his people. That is heaven itself, the new creation. The land that was promised to Abraham’s offspring was simply a picture of heaven. Simply a picture of life with God in the new creation, a land flowing with milk and honey where there is no sin and sorrow. The curse has been removed and we have the blessings of fellowship with God forever in heaven.

That is what it means to be a son. Contemporary Christians concerned about gender language might ask whether we should say “sons and daughters” to make clear that the women of the church are included in this wonderful reality. That language can be appropriate; in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul speaks of sons and daughters. Most of the time, however, Paul calls all believers sons, applying that designation even to the women of the church. It is important to retain this language because “sons” signifies heirs.

And that is why Paul speaks to all of the people in the church. That is why he says, you are all sons. Whether you are male or female, whether you are Jew or Gentile, whether you are slave or free, you are all sons. That means you are all heirs. You have the inheritance in Christ. And so to the ladies of the church, do not feel excluded when you hear the fact that you are a son of God. Actually, that is a wonderful inclusive thing because it means that you are also heirs of God with Christ.

Sonship in Christ

This passage clearly emphasizes, and of course we have that parenthetical section in verse 27 about baptism, and in verse 28 about neither male nor female, and we will get to those in future sermons to really dig into what Paul is teaching there about baptism and about men and women in Christ. But if we keep the big picture in mind, as Paul is coming now to the wrap-up, coming now to the big conclusion of his whole theological argument, the emphasis here is on the doctrine of sonship. We are no longer minors under the custodianship of the law, but now in Christ Jesus, in union with Christ, we are sons of God. What does that mean? What does it mean that we are sons of God? The main thing that it means is that we are heirs, as I just explained. We are heirs of God.

That is why Paul loves to use the language of the Abrahamic metaphors for the gospel. Because the Abrahamic emphasis, the Abrahamic covenant is focusing upon the inheritance that was promised to Abraham’s offspring. And he clearly said that the offspring that was in view when God said to Abraham, your offspring will inherit the land, the offspring in view was ultimately Christ. Yes, in the historical outworking of that promise, at the first level, it was referring to the nation of Israel, which was a large number of individual descendants, and Paul’s not denying that collective aspect, but he wants to focus on the individual offspring, as he says there in verse 16. The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

It does not say into offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. And so you have to tie verse 16 into verse 29 where he then says, so then if you belong to Christ, if you belong to that individual offspring, if you are in union with the individual offspring, then you also are Abraham’s offspring in the collective sense. And what does that mean? It means that you are heirs according to the promise. Christ is the offspring, capital O, and in union with Him, we are the offspring in the collective sense. And therefore, we are heirs.

Heirs with Christ

What a wonderful reality that we, in union with Christ, have this honor, this privilege of not only belonging to Christ, but of also receiving everything that He has inherited. Because of His perfect obedience to the Father, because He perfectly kept God’s law, because He obediently went to the cross and offered Himself as the final sacrifice for sin.

He has been rewarded. He was raised from the dead. He was given exaltation and glory. He received that eternal kingdom, heaven itself. He is the ultimate heir of all things. But because we are in Christ, because we belong to Christ, we have this wonderful honor and privilege of also inheriting everything that Christ has inherited. What a blessing that is. What a wonderful privilege that is. It seems, so spiritual, so heavenly-minded, so future-oriented?

The Greater Inheritance

We want help now in this life. We want the Lord to help us with our need for dealing with all the problems of this present age. We struggle with sin, we struggle with discouragement, we need employment, we need money, we need help, we need, for those of you who are single and looking for a spouse, we need all these earthly things? We desire all these earthly things.

And yet, the greatest privilege is none of those things, even though the Lord does provide for our daily needs, but the ultimate privilege of sonship is that we have a heavenly inheritance. And that is the very thing that carries us through in the midst of our earthly struggles and needs in this present age. We can persevere through the trials, we can persevere through the struggles and the difficulties if we know and if we are assured and confident that we, in union with Christ, are sons of God, that we are heirs of the eternal inheritance that Christ has purchased for us. Let that blessing, let that privilege, let that honor encourage you and sustain you through your trials and tribulations and through your difficulties.

Let it help you to know that yes, the Lord will provide for your earthly needs. He will provide for your daily bread as you pilgrim on the way to that heavenly city. But that heavenly city is where it is at. That is where your hope is. That is where your longing is. Your longing is not that anything in this world would be fulfilled or get better. The Lord does promise to help us as his servants. He will provide for our daily needs. But he is not giving us these earthly things as our inheritance. He is giving us heaven as our inheritance.

The Canaanites were in the land? They were the ones who were running things in this promised land, and Abraham only had one little plot of ground that he paid for to bury his wife in? That was it. But, meanwhile, he looked at the world around him that God had promised him as this glorious inheritance, and it was in the control of the Canaanites. And he struggled. He had difficulties. There was famine in the land. He had to go down to Egypt for a time. And, of course, he doubted God’s promises, too, in the midst of that.

The Lord helped him through that and helped him to come back to a fuller sense of confidence and trust in the promises of God and to not rely upon his own fleshly efforts to fulfill the promises. But Abraham was living a life of faith, living as an heir of this wonderful inheritance that God had given him that he only had a claim to by faith, but not yet by sight. And that is exactly the way it is for us as Christians. We are living Christian lives just like Abraham, lived in tents, moving around from place to place, enduring famines and difficulties and struggles and temptations and sin, but his eyes were ultimately fixed upon the heavenly hope that was laid before him.

And even when he came to the end of his life, did he die discouraged? Did he die thinking, “It never happened; I never saw the day”? No, he died in faith because his eyes were set upon heaven and upon that heavenly hope as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 11. All these died in faith, not having received the promises because their hope was in the heavenly inheritance that God had promised for them when Christ would come and fulfill all of the promises for his people.

Living as Sons

The first and most important thing we need to consider, the first and most important element of this doctrine of sonship is that we are heirs of God in union with Christ. But there is a second element here that is very important. Because Paul makes the contrast, does he not? You see it right here in our text. He makes the contrast between what it means to live as a son in union with Christ versus the old way of being under the supervision of the Mosaic law. This is the contrast that he makes in our text, verses 25 and 26.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the custodian. For in Christ, you are all sons of God through faith. Part of what it means to enjoy your sonship is not only to live that Abrahamic life of setting your hope upon heaven and knowing that you are an heir of all that God has given you in Christ that will be fulfilled one day when Christ returns.

Another part of it is also in saying no to the modern day Judaizers who are trying to bring you back under the old covenant. Do not listen to them, Paul says. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the custodian. So stop listening to the Judaizers who are trying to bring you back under the custodianship of the law. Because to do so is to reject, is to turn away from the reality of your sonship. It is to go back to minority.

You have already transferred over into adulthood. You have already become a son of God in Christ, an heir of all things in Christ. And now if you go back to the law, you are putting yourself back under the old way. You are putting yourself back under the previous epoch of redemptive history that has been transitioned into the new covenant in Christ. Going back to the law dishonors Christ. It fails to recognize where we are in redemptive history. It fails to appreciate that as sons of God, in union with Christ, we have gospel liberty.

Living under the law has the appearance of promoting godliness. It seems like a good thing. After all, God did give it. And maybe if we keep all those laws and all the distinctions between clean and unclean and the dietary laws and all the different Jewish festivals and the Sabbath on the seventh day, maybe if we do all those things, that will promote godliness. And at first, it may seem that way, but actually, according to Paul, it promotes a spirit of bondage. Trying to relate to God, whether in the hard legalism of saying you have to do it to be saved, or even in the softer form of gnomism, and saying that these things will help you in your sanctification.

Living in the freedom of union with Christ is the true engine of sanctification. Living in the freedom, relishing the reality that we are sons of God, that the eternal inheritance has already been secured for us, and we do not need to try to earn it ourselves by our own vain attempts to keep the law. Living in the freedom of union with Christ, it does not lead to license. It does not lead to this feeling of, oh, I can just live as I please and sin as much as I want. Just the opposite, it fills us with a heart of gratitude and love for the Lord, having our minds set upon heavenly things as we desire to serve Him and to love Him in the power of our union with Christ.

Do not listen to the modern-day Judaizers, whether they are theonomists, or Seventh-day Sabbatarians, or the Hebrew Roots Movement, which maybe you have heard of. The Hebrew Roots Movement is Gentile Christians, not referring to Messianic Jews, but Gentile Christians who are trying to restore the Jewish roots of the Christian faith.

They say that Jesus did not abolish the Torah, but he confirmed its validity in Matthew 5.17. And therefore, followers of Jesus should continue to observe all of the commandments of the Mosaic law, including the dietary laws, the seventh-day Sabbath from Friday night to Saturday night, the celebration of the Jewish festivals like Passover, Shavuot, Pentecost, Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, and Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. Just as a footnote, this Hebrew Roots movement also tends to fall into the era of Biblicism.

Do you know what Biblicism is? Biblicism is where you say, I do not need to listen to church tradition. I do not need to listen to Augustine and the creeds. I do not need to care about the Nicene Creed. I just need to go back to the Bible and just live authentic New Testament Christianity the way it was before everything got messed up by the church councils and by Constantine becoming a Christian.

And so they read the Bible through a Hebrew lens and they question traditional Christian ideas such as the doctrine of the Trinity. And they say that we should go back to genuine Hebrew Christianity. Which ultimately leads to what they call Unitarianism, because in their mind, Hebrew Christianity is not Trinitarian, but Unitarian. Only God the Father is God. Jesus is the Messiah, but only God the Father is God. This biblicalistic impulse and this desire to go back to what they considered to be the original form of Christianity which was Hebraic in its outlook and which was conforming to the Torah in all of its details, this is a form of Judaizing. And this is exactly what Paul himself is warning against here in our text.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the custodianship with all of the dietary laws and the seventh day Sabbath and the Jewish festivals. Rather, in Christ Jesus, we are all sons of God in union with Christ. Of course, Paul is not rejecting the moral law, the moral law which is summarized in the Ten Commandments. Even the Fourth Commandment, which speaks of the Sabbath, The New Covenant understands as containing an abiding moral principle that is fulfilled in the Lord’s Day on the first day of the week. But notice that there is a shift. There is a shift in redemptive history from the seventh day Sabbath to the Lord’s Day on the first day of the week because that is the day that Christ rose again from the dead.

We are no longer under the custodianship of the law. We are sons of God and we enjoy that sonship and the reality of it by resting in our union with Christ, living in the freedom of that union and that high and lofty privilege of being a son of God. And that is the true engine of sanctification. The law itself, it has the appearance of promoting godliness. But if you put yourself back under the law as a custodian, it will actually promote a spirit of bondage. Living in the freedom of our union with Christ is what Paul is calling us to here. It is what he is calling the Galatian Christians to, and it applies even to us today, to live as Christ has called us to live, in union with him.

It is so easy to forget that. It is so easy to forget that we are united to Christ. But that is the most powerful truth that there is in the universe. Think of it, brothers and sisters. We are united to Christ. We belong to him. We are in him. Our true identity is located in him. All the other fleshly distinctions, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, are irrelevant in light of this reality of who we are in Christ.

That should be the thing that dominates your thinking, that dominates your own self-understanding, that helps you then to live the Christian life in the right way as sons in Christ.