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Galatians 3:23-29

Welcome back to Galatia! I continue to be your host with the most delving into the life and ministry of one of the early church communities and the life of the apostle who planted to seeds of the Gospel in those ancient places. They are seeds that continue to inspire, motivate, stimulate and rouse each one of us two thousand years later.

Recall with me the road we’ve travelled bringing us to this point in time: the Apostle Paul is responding in defense of the message he had proclaimed to the churches of Galatia. The Gospel was under attack by groups of people who believed in the law of God rather than the grace of God; that preaching to the Gentiles was a waste of time. Paul’s response is that we are saved by the grace of God alone. We can’t earn it or buy it. We only have to trust in Him and accept it. Paul builds upon this in chapter two. There is no amount of observance of the Law of God that can make a person right with God. We are not justified before God by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul argues eloquently that he had been crucified with Christ, so that the man he used to be was dead and the living power now within him was Christ Jesus himself. Jesus Christ had done for him what Paul could never have done for himself. Jesus promises the same for each one of us.

Today we’re moving ahead into the latter part of chapter three. Paul continues to put forth his argument seeking to demonstrate the superiority of the way of grace and faith over the way of law. The consequence of the law of God is to drive everyone to seek grace, because the law has proven our inability to help, that is, to save ourselves. Listen to Paul’s words as he continues to make his plea to the churches of Galatia. I will read verses 23-29. Listen for and hear the word of God. (Read Galatians 3:23-29) This is the Word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)

It is only when we acknowledge and serve God that we discover our rightful place in the order of creation. Immediately my thoughts take me to the Disney movie, the Lion King, and the underlying theme of the movie: we must all take our place in the circle of life. In the movie, the circle of life is mainly about biology: every living creature depends on another for their survival; our bodies will return to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. To find our rightful place in the order of creation threatens the way in which the rest of the world generally conducts its business. It’s to live in the world and not be of the world, as we read in John’s gospel. We are liberated from the boundaries, the limits, the unwritten and unspoken expectations the world imposes upon its citizens. In God’s creation order, there is no race to divide us, no socio-economic classes to separate us, no gender differences to pin one sex against the other. The glory and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings us freedom, a freedom that is threatening and costly to a law-abiding world.

Before Paul put pen to papyrus, people were "imprisoned and guarded under the law" (v. 23). The religious laws of the Bible restrained and protected people, preventing them from hurting themselves and others. "The law was our disciplinarian," says Paul (v. 24), using a word that had a very specific meaning in the first-century Greco-Roman world, one that the Galatians would certainly have known. The disciplinarian (paidagogos) was a slave who supervised and guarded children, taking them to school and back while keeping them safe, and overseeing their behavior. A nanny, as it were.

The protective custody of the slave was important but temporary since the slave's services would no longer be needed once the children grew up. In terms of the history of faith, Paul says that we were guarded under the law "until faith would be revealed" (v. 23) -- in particular, until the faith of Jesus Christ would be revealed. People certainly had faith in Almighty God for many hundreds of years, but history really changed when Christ faithfully suffered death and then rose to new life.

That's why Paul wrote his letter when he did. He insists that "the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith" (v. 24). Once Christ came, no more nanny. Once Christ died and rose from the tomb, no human action was required except that we put our complete trust in him.

We are "justified by faith," says Paul, made right with God by faith. The faith of Christ is critically important here because it is Christ's faithful death and resurrection that bring God's love into the very center of human life. But our own faith has a role to play as well, as we say yes to what God has done by putting our trust in Jesus. Earlier in Galatians, Paul says, "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (2:20). Paul has put his trust in Jesus, as he certainly should. But this line can also be translated, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Personal faith. Christ's faith. Together, they form the Christian faith. And now that we're in a state of faith, we no longer live in a nanny state. "Faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian" (3:25). Christ’s arrival has rendered all previous allegiances and commitments pointless, useless and fruitless.

Believers are profoundly connected now with the Living God through Christ. With the law no longer in charge, we have moved into a new sphere where faith is now the boss. All the divisions, things that separated us from one another are no longer valid under Jesus Christ. The ethnic-religious lines of Jew and Greek are now passé; the socio-economic lines of slave and free are now defunct; the gender lines of our birth of male and female are now insignificant. Identity in Christ Jesus is the only identity that matters. It’s the only identity that matters now that the old distinctions have ceased to exist.

So what does all of this mean for you and me? When we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are incorporated into the body of Christ. As such we qualify to be descendants of Abraham. Since Christ is of the ancestral heritage of Abraham, it is identification with him rather than with the law that assures our inclusion in God’s promise. It reminds the church we are rooted in an event in history which changed the course of that history. We are united with Christ through our baptism. This is the source of our salvation.

One of my favorite authors since seminary is Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at Duke Law School and a native-born Texan, says, “Salvation isn’t what liberals or conservatives in this country think it is. It’s about getting my life straight. It’s not about ultimate significance. Salvation is about an adventure that was made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, through which I am made part of a community who will tell me who I am. You are not free to make up your life as a Christian. Your life is not like a gift; your life IS a gift.” Hauerwas goes on to say, “Until you learn to receive your life gift, you are lost. And people are lost.” We have something to share with them.

And that is we are all followers of Christ are now "children of God" (v. 26). Until he wrote to the Galatians, the term "children of God" had been reserved for God's chosen people, the Jews, and it naturally applied also to the first Jewish followers of Jesus.

But now, says Paul, "in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith" (v. 26). The circumcised as well as the uncircumcised. The keepers of the law as well as those who know nothing of the law. The Jews as well as the Greeks -- all children of God through faith.

For Christians today, this letter speaks of the power of faith to create a new family called "children of God." It doesn't matter if you have both a mother and a father. It doesn't matter if you are from a good neighborhood. It doesn't matter if you are a U.S. citizen. It doesn't matter if English is your first language. It doesn't matter if you have a police record. It doesn't matter if you have a high school diploma or a college education. It doesn't matter if you have a job or a spouse or a car or a house or a 401(k). None of this matters.

What matters is faith. The faith of Christ, and our faith as well. That's what makes us children of God.

Paul's letter changes the world by giving us a whole new identity. He writes, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (v. 27). When we clothe ourselves with Christ, we take on his characteristics and do our best to present him to the world. This means showing his grace and his love, speaking his truth, and serving others with his generosity and compassion. Although we may look odd when we go out into the world wearing the clothes of Christ, we cannot help but have an impact.

In the late 1860s, a young poet wrote a letter to an editor named Thomas Higginson and asked if she could meet with him. She wanted to thank him personally for some encouragement he had offered her. When Higginson went to her house, he saw a plain woman with reddish hair, and she greeted him by putting two day lilies into his hand "in a sort of childlike way."

When he got home, Higginson's wife said, "Oh, why do the insane so cling to you?" This plain young woman was none other than Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest poets in American history. She refused to be published during her lifetime, but after her death, Thomas Higginson was able to guide her insightful poems into print. Dickinson knew the power of faith, as she demonstrated when she wrote:

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

When we clothe ourselves with Christ, we might look insane to some. But we understand, along with the apostle Paul, that through our faith all of us "are one in Christ Jesus" (v. 28). Says Frank Matera, professor of New Testament at Catholic University, "God has destroyed the barriers that divide Gentile and Jew, slave and free, male and female, from each other" (3:28).

Our greatest contribution to history might be the creation of a community in which barriers fall and people are no longer separated by religion, culture, nationality, economics, or gender. If we are truly "one in Christ Jesus," we should be able to overcome the divisions that have fractured our community and driven us apart. There is more to unite us than divide us if we "belong to Christ" and "are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise" (v. 29).

Paul's letter changes our history by giving us a new identity as children of God, one that is based on being one in Jesus and one in faith. In God's eyes, unity does not mean uniformity. As Christians, we can show the world a new kind of unity, one that includes people of diverse backgrounds, conditions and genders. [i]

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Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).

Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976).

Kaylor Bob, Senior Writer homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.

Cousar, Charles B. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Galatians.  (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1982).