Friday, January 13, 2012

Verse for Today - Galatians 3:26-28 (click to read mini-blog)

"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Read all of Galatians 3

These verses are found in the middle of the Apostle Paul's epistle to the churches or Christians in the region of Galatia (central modern day Turkey).  As a whole the epistle addresses the fact that some had tried to unite the free grace of God in Christ to the requirement of formal religious acts of obedience to the law.  In today's verses we're actually reading the conclusion to his argument that no one was ever saved by keeping the law or acts of religious service.  

All who will be saved are saved by the promise of God's grace in Christ whereby they find acceptance in and through His completed work on the cross.  We're saved by grace not works; by adoption not merit.  This is stated succinctly in verse 24: "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."  

The Galatian churches were composed of both Gentile believers and Jewish converts.  This makes his statement almost remarkable.  He says that those who "were baptized" have become sons of God through faith in Christ.... such that the former distinctions (Jew, Greek, male, female, bond, free) are overshadowed by their greater unity in the Gospel of God's Grace. 

If you're a genuine believer, you are in Christ; AND if you are in Christ then you the true offspring of God's promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:4), as the last verse of the chapter concludes:

29 "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

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