Gal 3:23-4:20

Sons of God: What else if not a question of identity?

Context: Sonship here is about freedom from the law as a school master. Whether Christian’s are sons of God was not a question among the Galatians. They also didn’t question that sonship is about inheriting what God promised. On this, they all agreed. The question that divides mankind and which Paul tackled here to preserve the unity among believers was how we can become God’s children: by faith alone in Jesus, not by observing the law; and who: no one is admitted or excluded based on their race, gender, or social status. Those who instead regard this passage in Galatians as a manifesto about our supposed new “identity” in Christ do so in defiance of its context, and at the cost of diverting the attention away from its central doctrine that we are saved by faith alone, and what this really means.

Paul didn’t advocate a narcissistic introspection preoccupied with meditating about who we were, or that those identities (race, gender, social status) supposedly were somehow abolished or replaced “in Christ” by a new “self“*. The misguided “Matrix” narrative that such identities are man-made shackles that we must shake off to discover our “true” self is not a biblical concept. Paul didn’t tell the Galatians that the gospel changes our “identities“, it changes our character. And it does not change our character by deleting any of our old DNA, but despite of it, because that DNA no longer excludes anyone from the right to inherit what God promised to Abraham, regardless of our race, gender or status: All are sons of God by faith alone in Jesus, and therefore co-heirs. The former division along racial lines that was imposed by the law, is contrasted here to Christian unity among believers that has only become possible through faith in Christ thanks to its new virtues of love, despite our differing identities.

Warm-up: How much are you worried or concerned that you or other people do not know their ‘true identity’? Why?

Read: Galatians 3:23-4:20

1) 3:23-29 After the law had been a schoolmaster, how did Jesus Christ change this?

  • Hint: What word occurs six times in vv22-26?
  • How did such faith accomplish this, vv26-27?
  • v27 explains with a metaphor what the expression “in Christ” means: Which one? cf Ro 13:14
    • Can clothing change anyone’s identity? Why not? What does it change instead? cf Col 3:12*
  • v26 “…you are all sons (gr. huios) of God by faith”: Why didn’t Paul say “children (gr. tekna) of God”, like NIV and several other modern translations make him say, and as Jn 1:12 has it?
    • i.e. if the text were about identity, why make it not only hard but even impossible (!) for women to identify themselves as sons?
    • By contrast, if it is about inheritance (of eternal life), how did it help women to be counted equal to sons? [Unlike the Romans, Moses ruled that daughters inherit only after the sons, Num 27:8]
  • Is the emphasis of v26 on “…all…by faith“, or on “sons of God…”? Hints:
    • Did the circumcision party dare question that Jesus calls us his brothers and therefore sons and co-heirs of God? Why not?
    • They didn’t quarrel about identity (a brain child of modernity’s extreme individualism). What did the circumcisers question in reality instead? => To whom did they reserve the right to be sons and thus heirs?
    • Since their way was the wrong way, who else can obtain this right, and how? […all…by faith]
  • v28 “…you are all one in Christ Jesus”: What is the thrust here, identity or unity?
    • What happens to genuine unity when individuals derive from a group their identity? Can such new group identities overcome boundaries? Or do they in reality only further divide and segregate people into additional new sects of “identity groups”?
    • If our sonship were to be understood as a new identity in our individualistic modern sense , what would Paul have achieved by adding the word “all” when he wrote “…in Jesus you all are sons…”? Is he saying: Each of you is now somebody else, the awsome individuals you were truly meant to be by God, your ‘true self’ which formerly you didn’t even know; or: You in all shapes and colors that we inherited with the DNA of Adam have now equal rights and status ? Does Paul’s emphasis on inclusiveness abolish diverse identities? Or does it uphold and even dignify them by granting us all equal status and privileges merited by Jesus alone on our behalf?

2) v29 “…if you are… then you are…”: What is the condition for what?

  • Did the circumcision party doubt that they were heirs, or feel in any other way insecure about their ‘identity’?**
  • If not, what else was their true problem? cf Gal 4:30; 5:4
3) 4:1-7 In what sense is life under the law like slavery and opposed to the Christian life? vv1-3
  • v3 “…we also…”: What could be the world’s ‘elementary principles’ if these made even upright Israelites into ‘slaves’?*** Gal 4:25; cf Jn 8:33-34
  • In what sense are the laws from Mount Sinai ‘elementary’ and holding all mankind enslaved to and imprisoned in sin? Ex 21:24; Gal 3:22
  • vv4-5: How could this be changed by God becoming human in the person of Jesus?
  • vv6-7: Why was this new life unavailable previously, even for Old Testament saints who all put their faith in Messiah, Heb 11:39-40?
4) 4:8-11 How did it become visible that some in Galatia were drifting from the faith?
  • vv10-11: Why does lack of faith preach more rules and ‘values’, not less, and what is the consequence?
  • The Galatians suspected no harm from observing circumcision and their religious calendar. Why not? What makes their way look as if it were the safe road?
5) 4:12-20 How does such theological drifting affect relationships?
  • Which relationships remained apparently intact, and which one(s) suffered?
  • v17 “…they desire to isolate you from us,…” (e.g. Berean Literal Bible has it right): Why did it bother these teachers that the Galatians still had an ear for Paul?
  • How did they (and in the name of Mosaic law) frame Paul? What must have been their charge against him?
6) v17 “They make much of you, but…”: How do you picture what happened there?
  • In which ways do these teachers “make much” of their followers? cf Ro 16:17-18
  • How does contemporary talk e.g. about ‘identities’ flatter our egos?
  • Why did Paul question the purpose of the flattery employed by these false teachers who came disguised by appearing as defenders of morality?
7) Personal & application
  • In your own experience, do you find that everybody agrees what is the good news (gospel) from the Bible?
  • Or do you see this same controversy play out in every generation? How does it affect yours?
  • Why did you find the gospel liberating when you became a Christian?
  • Volumes of contemporary books about counselling claim that it is vital for Christians to believe that they have a new “identity”. Since we have seen why this cannot be the idea of Gal 4, are there other texts that you want to study whether the concept comes from the Bible?

* lit. “having put on the new” (Col 3:10) was previously translated as the new man (KJV) or new nature (ISV). Many modern versions now translate new self, which then tends to be read as new ‘identity‘. Instead, the context defines the newness as a tangibly Christ-like character, v12, like every other parallel passage (Ro 13:14; Eph 4:24-25)

** If you are Christ’s, (only) then you are Abraham’s offspring: That was the controversial point. The Judaizers never doubted that they were heirs. Their problem was not insecurity about ‘identity’. They took great pride in their identity, and even in the right identity – heirs of Abraham. It is impossible, therefore, that Paul’s argument was about identity. He did not make the gospel (and justification) a message about identity. Instead, Paul told them that their hope to be sons and heirs was built on sand. Their assurance is declared false because by mixing grace with works of the law, they no longer put their whole trust in God’s promise alone.

*** World (gr. kosmos; genitive, not in the sense of from the world, but for the world, cf 1Tim 1:9)