Galatians 3:28

Gal_3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free.

The unity of true believers

The Christian scheme is a uniting scheme, and all real saints are one in their glorious Head.

I. There is a sense in which the saints are too much one, viz., in that which is evil. They spring from the same depraved original, and are partakers of the same corrupt nature. Though sin does not reign in them, it remains; and too frequently led away captive by it, they act in a manner displeasing to God.

II. There are many respects in which the saints are not one.

1. Natural capacity.

2. Temper and disposition.

3. External advantages.

III. Yet they are really one in Christ Jesus. They are so by virtue of their union with Him, being thereby incorporated into one body, and animated by one spirit, also by virtue of their participation of Him.

1. They are equally objects of the Divine love and favour. One saint may love God more than another; the same saint may love God more at one time than another; but God always loves all His people with the same everlasting, ardent, unalterable affection. Infinite love admits of no degrees.

2. They have the same spiritual privileges. The same gospel is preached, the same Spirit poured on them; they have one Lord, faith, baptism; justified by the same blood, adopted into the same family, regenerated by the same grace, and preserved by the same power.

3. They all hold the Head, Christ Jesus. Differing in circumstantials, they are united in essentials. Inwardly determined for God, they are outwardly obedient to Him. On the other hand, every unconverted man has more hearts than one, and more ways than one.

4. They have the same well-grounded hopes and expectations. As one Father begot them, so one heaven shall receive them. There they shall be one in those senses in which now they are not so, for they shall see eye to eye. (B. Beddome, M. A.)

Unity and union

If there be any truth in revelation, any efficacy to follow the Saviours prayer, any power in the Word of God accompanied by the Divine Spirit, an age must come when the Church will both be and appear to be one.

I. There is an essential unity in the church, independent of the purpose, will, schemes, and devices of man. Sincere and intelligent faith brings souls, without the medium of an ecclesiastical organization, into union with Christ, and therefore with all the members of His spiritual Body which is the Church. There can no more be two Churches than there can be two suns in the solar system. All believers are one, but their unity ought to be visible.

II. Notwithstanding this essential unity, divisions exist in the church. To turn from the ideal Church to that which appears to view is like looking off from a peaceful and tranquil lake to an ocean tossed with tempest. These divisions are in themselves injurious, for by splitting up the forces they take away that combined strength which the Church ought to present to the world; and they also show that bitterness of feeling exists. The clouds that are exhaled from the waters of strife hang, like a thick veil, over the bright orb of religion; religion is seen through them, no doubt, but like the sun seen through a mist--shorn of its beams, diminished in its effulgence. Religion suffers in consequence. Divide and destroy is the watchword of Satan, net of God.

III. What kind of manifestation of this unity should we seek? Our differences of opinion are not trifles; they are serious matters. If one body of believers is right, then the others must be wrong. If all are wrong in some particulars, they should renounce their errors, and unite on the ground of the common truth. How is such a unity to be brought about?

1. By cultivating personal godliness to a much greater extent. Errors of judgment arise, in great measure, out of the corruption of the heart, and soul, and mind, not yet brought into subjection to the mind of Jesus.

2. Unity of affection. External union will never be brought about until mens hearts are knit together as thread is interwoven with thread.

3. Unity of persons. Every Christian grace must be seen. Not sectarian love.

4. Unity of action. Working together as labourers in the same vineyard. The oxen must be yoked quietly together (to use a familiar illustration) before they san draw together; the horses must be harnessed, and stand quiet without kicking each other, before they can draw together; we must be harnessed and yoked in love before we can unite externally.

IV. The means to be used to bring about this desirable union.

1. We shall never obtain it unless we really do desire it. All must long and pray together for the healing of our unhappy divisions.

2. There must be a conviction abroad, that it is everybodys business to do what they can towards accomplishing it. Not ministers only, but lay people as well. The Church is made up of units; let all help.

3. The cultivation of personal religion. The olive branch can never flourish but in the rich soil of personal piety; let that soil be impaired, and the bitter aloe of contention, the thorn, the bramble, the briar, and the nettle of angry controversy will flourish luxuriantly. Man departs from his brother by departing from God; closeness to God will bring each one closer to his brother man. Only the constraining love of Christ can compress and concentrate the Church into a closer union.

4. Let each do what he can in his own narrow circle. Not necessary to wait for the working out of a huge scheme of general union. Heal up the little sores.

5. Be careful about controversy. Dont elevate secondary matters into primary. Study the unity of heaven, and try to realize it on earth. Pray for the Spirits guidance. (J. Angell James.)

Christ and the Church one

I. The oneness of Christ and the Church. The Church is:

(1) many;

(2) manifold; and yet

(3) from this very multitudinousness and manifoldness arises oneness.

II. The truth of the unity and manifoldness of the Church is the basis of new testament morality. (Homilist.)

Grounds of unity

Here are the grounds and reasons for Christian unity.

I. The great end of the gospel is not only to save, but to make one. One great fruit of sin is separation; the great object of the gospel is to bring about unity. Sin is extinguished by the cross; and Christ, the binding element, fills up the chasm between offended God and offending man--of twain making one new man, and so making peace.

II. Our relationship to each other. All are sheep of the same fold.

III. Christs own command. Love one another. That they all may be one.

IV. The safety of the whole body demands it. To be insuperable, Christians must be inseparable. The strength of the Christian Church, like that of Napoleons army, lies in consolidation, presenting a united front.

V. Necessary for the extension of Christs kingdom. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Union with Christ and its results

I. The fundamental fact.

1. In Christ, as the stone is in the building.

2. As the fugitive is in the city of refuge.

3. As in a seed.

II. The great consequences of this fundamental fact.

1. Distinction of nations ceases.

2. Distinction between man and man ceases.

3. Distinction between strong and weak ceases.

The native consequence of a fallen state is the mastery of the strong over the weak. Might makes right. And to the everlasting disgrace of the male sex the woman became the bond slave of the stronger man. The only shield of womans natural rights is the principle here stated. Thus with one stroke of the pen St. Paul settles the national, personal, and sexual rights of men. By one short sentence he solves the three greatest problems of human society--peace, liberty, fraternity. When all men ate one in Christ, earth will once more be a province of heaven. (J. G. Murphy, LL. D.)

Unity not necessarily uniformity

Look around on all creation, and you will find what metaphysicians have called the monad, that is, the ultimate principle of unity, pervading all, but diversity its continual development, characteristic of all. The cloud takes its multifarious shapes from the wind, its varied splendours from the sunbeam, but its substance remains continually the same. The fable varies in the incident and the story, but the moral is essentially the same; the music has many variations, but the old air, the original air or melody may be detected like a chord in the midst of all these variations. Animal life,. from the humblest zoophyte up to man, the very perfection of physical life, presents every variety of organization, and yet its essential characteristics are the same in the dog, the cat, the horse, and the man. Human life, again, has general characteristics of unity, but you will find the utmost diversity of development. It is to me one of the most extraordinary and inexplicable and mysterious phenomena of the world, that while in this assembly there may be 1,000 or 1,100 faces, with the same characteristic features in all, yet not one is the least like any of the others. The principle of unity pervades the whole; each face has the great, essential, elemental characteristics of a face; yet no two faces, for reasons we cannot explain, are so alike that one might be mistaken for the other. If, again, we take spiritual intelligence, we shall find the same characteristic unity with the same developed variety. For instance, man seems to me to be the lowest link in spiritual intelligence. He is the basis where soul or spirit is united to matter; the next grade is the angel, the next the archangel, then the cherub, and after that the seraph. Here are ascending-grades or diversities in heaven itself, and yet the fundamental characteristics of spiritual life are the same. If, again, I refer to the botanical kingdom, I find that every plant, tree, and flower, have each certain essential and elemental characteristics, and yet the utmost possible variety of development. The fragrance of a violet is perfectly distinct from that of a rose; the colour of a dahlia is totally different from the colour of a daisy. One flower differs from another in its shape, fragrance, appearance, stem, calyx, leaves, and yet all flowers have certain elemental and essential characteristics which distinguish the whole botanical kingdom. If I refer to the mineral kingdom, I find that all minerals are originated and guided by the same law; but one throws off its crystals in the shape of hexagons, another in the shape of pentagons; that is to say, the great law of crystallization in the mineral kingdom is the same, but the development of that law is as varied as variety can possibly be. The snowdrop, the raindrop, the snowflake, the buds of trees, and the blossoms of flowers--all things in the botanical kingdom, all things in the mineral, all in the animal kingdom, and all in nature, have each their own essential elemental characteristic unity, and yet in their developments we find the utmost possible varieties of that unity. And so, I would argue, there may be in the Church, where, I cannot but think, uniformity would be a blemish rather than a beauty. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Near Christ, near Christians

Observing in a large circle a number of lines called by mathematicians radii, we perceive that in proportion as each radius approaches the centre, it approaches the radius that is next to it; just in proportion to its nearness to the centre is its nearness to the others; and so it is with the Christian Church. It is one vast circumference, and just as we approach to Christ, in life and character, in the same proportion we draw near each other. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

One in Christ

There lies, deep down in the heart of mankind, not always read aright by the spirit of man which is in him, but always read aright by Him who has all hearts in his hand, a craving, yearning, thirsting desire for this reversal of the curse of Babel--for this re-gathering and re-uniting which is to be found only in Christ. We speak of rest as mans want. But what rest? Not a rest of dreamy or dreamless slumber; not a rest of indolent self-indulgence; not a rest of undisturbed self-contained isolation: this cannot satisfy the want of a spirit come from and returning to God; this cannot fill the capacities of a heaven-born, everlasting existence. Underneath the longing for rest lies another longing--and that is for union, unity, oneness; for a voice to recall Gods scattered ones from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea, and make for them one blessed home, not by building upon earth a tower whose top shall reach heaven, but by bringing down out of heaven that holy city of which God, God in Christ, shall be at once the Light, and the Presence, and the Temple. The heart craves union: till it finds union it cannot know rest. And this craving for union is often ignorant, often impatient, often perverse, often sinful. It does not, all at once, even when it hears the gospel, submit itself to Gods will, to Christs direction, as to the end to be sought, or the manner of the seeking. One man, his heart all athirst for that rest which is union, will look out for himself some earthly object, which he may deck with every fancied perfection, and then bow before it as his idol. Another, of a less refined mould and making, will even find a gross, base, and perishing union in some companionship in sinning. For the moment he finds himself less alone; for the moment he has slaked the thirst of his soul at a muddy and a broken cistern--even in a counterfeit union, to be followed by a more aching loneliness than the former. And if men happen to have a different conception of the natural dispersion--either because their affections are less lively, or their ideas wider and more philosophical--then they frame projects, larger or smaller, of combination and fellowship; they will unite men in leagues, societies, associations, which are to reform nations or remodel Churches: disappointed of unity here, they will seek it there: a new sect shall give them that sense of perfect harmony which older creeds and communions have failed to inspire: even an excluding process has been tried, where schemes of comprehension have been found vain: still beyond, a little beyond, has lain the goal of absolute oneness, and still a weary and foot-sore multitude have plodded and tramped after it--in vain! And then, all at once, there enters this world of dispersion and disunion--enters it, as by a small wicket-gate, in remote, insignificant Palestine--One who represents Himself as possessing, for all mankind, for all time, not only the secret of rest, but the very rest itself--One who cries aloud in the temple-court, crowded for a great festival, in words absolutely unique, probably, in philosophy or in religion, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink--drink, as He explains Himself, a water which is absolutely satisfying, because it brings into the soul that kind of rest which is union, union with God, and so union with itself and with its brother. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus. In Him the dispersion is regathered. All things, St. Paul says, in heaven and in earth are gathered together in Him. It seems as though even angels who never fell are in some manner interested and concerned in that regathering. Certainly the dead, equally with the living, are so. And I desire to say to you, this last night, how alone you and I can ever henceforward be at one. Each separately must enter into, must put on, must invest himself with Jesus Christ. Are the words ambiguous? You know what they say. They bid you to cast all your burden of guilt--is it not heavy? too heavy for you?--upon Christ as your atonement. They bid you to cast all your burden of sin and sorrow and conscious weakness--is it not heavy? too heavy for you?--upon Christ as your friend. Then are you inside Him. He includes, He contains you--and in the dread day of days, when the Avenger of blood looks for you, he shall find only Christ--only Jesus Christ and Him crucified, Him risen I In the exercise of that incorporation, of that union, of that oneness, will our true fellowship henceforth be found. You might detain me, you might pursue me, and yet we might not be one--not one person certainly! But if you and I are all inside Christ, then we must be at one. Then all minor differences, of place and intercourse, sink at once into nothing. Place and sight may make the difference of pleasure, of comfort, of expressed communion, of conscious unity. But they make no difference whatever, as to the reality, as to the essence of union. You may worship here, and I there--you may kneel at these rails, I at others--what then? We are all one person in Christ. In the face of such union, let us learn--it is a hard lesson--let us learn to despise and trample under foot all other. What is neighbourhood? What is co-existence? Men live next door to each other, and never meet--meet, and never commune--commune, and never are one. At last a call comes--one goes forth, at the summons of business, of necessity, of the gospel, to a distant shore--seas roll between--they never see, they never hear of each other more--yet, for the first time, they may be one--one person--in Christ. The communion of saints is between them--and therefore the life of life--the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting. Now first they are one. Days may pass, months, years, quarters of centuries--but that bond is fastened between them which cannot be broken. Now life is seen to be death, and death life. Now they know, or they shall know, that the Babel-dispersion is a Christ-gathering. They may have loved each other here, and trembled at the great parting. Now they know that that parting is the groat, the first, the final reunion. Or, it may be, here they have not loved equally, not happily, not without doubting. One loved more than the other--the lavished love seemed to be wasted. There was no felt reciprocity--it was all on one side. O, look forward! Spend all your thoughts upon the union in Christ! Make your friend love Him, then he will at last love you! (Dean Vaughan.)

Oneness in Christ

I. This is a doctrine insisted on throughout the New Testament.

II. The ancient world did not recognize the oneness of the race.

1. Savage tribes preyed on each other as they do now.

2. Jew and Greek were at irreconcilable enmity.

3. Philosophers taught that there was an immutable distinction between freeman and slave, male and female.

III. Christianity came to change all that and--

1. To teach the vivifying doctrines of the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man.

2. To die that all might be gathered into His fold.

IV. This unity in Christ makes us feel at one with the great and good;

(1) of all ages;

(2) of all climes;

(3) of all denominations;

(4) of all sorts of society. (Archbishop Taft.)

Believers one in Christ

On a sweet summer evening a traveller looked along the valley on this peaceful scene, when a shower of rain was falling. Suddenly the sun broke out, and flung a bright bow on the cloud, that, like that of mercy, discharged its showers on all. The rainbow encircled within its arms suburb and city, lofty church and humble meetinghouse. And was it not a true and happy fancy that saw in this heavenly bow an emblem of that covenant which, irrespective of minor differences, embraces all believers within the same arms of mercy? (Dr. Guthrie.)

The oneness of believers

Souls have no sexes and Christ is no respecter of persons. The servant paid the half-shekel as well as the master (Exo_30:1-38). (Trapp.)

All one in Christ

There are two distinct thoughts in these most wonderful words. St. Paul affirms, first, that the greatest natural differences between men are, as we see them, only temporary, provisional, preparatory.

2. This transformation of the circumstances of human existence has found already a pledge of its accomplishment. Deeper than all which divides you, stronger than all which comes from trine, and place, and circumstance, is this bond of one underlying life which has now been made known in the Son of Man, the Son of God.

3. We are to regard believers not as a family inspired by common affections and with common aims, but as one man, one body quickened by one Spirit, through which the one Lord is manifested to the world. But this doctrine that we men are one man, this doctrine, as it is called, of the solidarity of humanity, is no novelty to the Christian teacher. He finds in it part of the truth which the Incarnation proclaims. Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. This truth, as we reflect upon it, reveals to us the fulness of life, the promise of life, the motive of life.

I. The fulness of life. When St. Paul declared the impossibility of distinctions between peoples and classes, he did not look to their destruction, but to their perfect use--to their consecration. Again and again it has happened in times of great conflict or peril that the thought of education, and rank, and sex, has passed away, and each one who has had to face the struggle has remembered only that he is an Englishman, or a man. All that he had, all that he was before, remained unchanged; every gift and every power was made to serve the immediate end; but larger interests asserted their supremacy, and the soul acknowledged the claim. So it is with the nobler conflict to which we are called as believers in Christ. We all bring to it the fullest offering of individual service; we keep back nothing, and we rest in nothing. Whatsoever we have that is special is the sign whereby God has revealed His purpose for us. But this is the common thought which hallows every effort, which nerves us for concentrated labour, which bears us beyond the narrow limits of personal aim, which binds together with the strength of their manifold energies the scholar, and the artist, and the craftsman, I am a Christian. By that confession we know the vastness, the fulness of life in its unity in Christ.

II. The promise of life. The unseen life is greater than we know; now and then the veil is lifted from some dark scene, and-through sordid and repulsive surroundings, light and tenderness and self-sacrifice flash out; revealed, not created, by the circumstances through which it is seen. A time of wide distress shows us what the heart of the vast masses of the people is--beating with the one life, and loyal beyond hope to truth and righteousness. Then, when the deep foundations are being laid open; then, when we remember how the Son of Man has fulfilled mans destiny--we are sure that there shall never be one lost virtue, sure that the one life with its purifying energy will not fail, sure that it is life and not death which is the seal of humanity.

III. The motive of life. To work for ourselves is a necessity. If then, we can be enabled to feel that our true self is in Christ, who has taken humanity to Himself, the whole aspect of the world is changed. Can we imagine any motive for labour more inexhaustible or more inspiring than this conviction that the well-being of the whole is imperilled in the least member; that subtle influences pass ever over each one of us at every moment which must work for all time; that at every moment we are all entering on the inheritance of the one life, marred or made richer, as it may be, by the action of our fellows? Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. It is through us that Christ works. He is the vine, we are the branches; but where, without the branches, is the manifold fertility of the vine? He is the head, we are the members; but where without the members is the prevailing energy of the body? Ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. As we ponder the words and follow them beyond this region of conflict and succession, they disclose a prospect in which our souls can rest. (Canon Westcott.)

Unity in diversity

There are three classes of obstacles to all union, and therefore to Christian union, and to the realization of the wondrous prayer of the Lord Jesus. These difficulties arise out of a threefold distinction that may be made among human beings. The Apostle Paul, in my text, does in three different ways divide mankind. He makes a threefold separation of the human race into two dissimilar classes, which, though here and there correspondent with one another, are by no means parallel the one to the other. This classification is governed by

(1) the great intellectual differences and antagonisms among men;

(2) the chief emotional and constitutional differences of character; and

(3) the prodigious distinctions effected by external circumstances. It is true that St. Paul presents these three antitheses in a pictorial fashion, in a vivid and concrete form, before our consideration, but it is none the less obvious that he is thinking of more than the literal meaning of his own words.

I. The first of these divisions was based on that great antagonism which was so admirably expressed in the apostles day by the intellectual differences obtaining between the Jew and the Greek. The Jew, strictly speaking, was the member of the holy family, the descendant of Abraham and Israel, a representative of that well-known nationality which had better reasons: than any other Oriental people possessed, to believe that it was the special object of Divine care, and providence, and government. Thus the Jew became the type of all who, in every age of the Church, are, by their education, their mental habits, their strong dispositions, disposed to lay violent stress on the external sign, on the old tradition, even to the exclusion of the realities which are indicated by them. Now let us look at the other great type of intellectual character--the Greek. The term, even in the Acts of the Apostles and elsewhere in the--New Testament, meant more than a Gentile proselyte to the faith of Christ; and the word Grecian or Hellenist meant more than a Greek-speaking Jew. It is capable of proof that there was in Judaism a Grecized party even before the time of our Lord, and it is quite clear that the Grecian converts to the faith of Jesus were rather characterized by the freshness of their ideas, the freedom of their speculations, the liberty which they claimed from oppressive rite and ceremonial, than by their mother-tongue. No classes of mind could be more directly opposed and dissimilar in their modes of working than those of the pure Jew and pure Greek. To Jewish conservatism the Greek opposed an incessant love of change; to the Jewish love of tradition and dependence upon the wisdom of the ancients the Greek offered endless speculation and elaborate guesses after truth; instead of the Jewish dogma the Greek luxuriated in the last logical puzzle. By the side of the stern exclusiveness of the Jewish Monotheism, the Greek prided himself in a Pantheon of deities, who were admitted on equal and easy terms to the reverence of the Hellenes. The mind of the Jew was hampered in its philosophical researches by a language of great metrical power, but of comparative rigidity of movement and excessive externality and objectivity; the Greek used the most flexible and delicate instrument of thought which human minds had ever fashioned. The Jew accepted the supernatural with child-like simplicity, and asked eagerly for more; the Greek sought after the causes of things, the meaning of words, the essence of government, the unseen and intangible realities. It is not a wonderful thing that St. Paul should have said, The Jew requires a sign, the Greek seeks after wisdom. The unrestrained liberty of the Greek was not without its serious dangers when it was brought by Divine grace within the limit of the true Church. If the two types of mental character of which I have spoken be found within the Church of Christ, we may expect sharp and sustained antagonism. Even regeneration will not change these grave and fundamental differences of mental constitution. How difficult must it ever prove for these two kinds of men to feel the deep-hidden unity which is possible between them! To put the matter in a concrete form, how difficult for one who imagines religious life to be inseparably associated with form, ceremonial, priesthood, sacraments, liturgies, elaborate dogmatic creeds and transcendental propositions, even to believe in the Christianity of another, whose only notion of it is a holy life, free from all these restraints; who thinks, speculates, philosophizes, and tries to prove all things, and only to hold fast that which is good! Verily, if these tendencies are left to themselves unchecked and unchastised, very distant will be the day when Jew and Greek shall be one.

II. The second of them is the great constitutional and emotional difference of character expressed by the antithesis of male and female. It is not merely the difference of sex of which the apostle is speaking, but rather of the great types of character, which, though not confined to either sex, are best expressed by the terms masculine and feminine. By masculine character, we mean the predominance over the passions of reason and conscience, the energy of will, the submission to law, the conscious pride of independence, strength, self-sufficiency, robust and vigorous life. By feminine character, whether seen in woman or man, we mean the predominance of the affections, the delight of dependence, the unreasoning consciousness of right, the strength of submission, the power of suffering, self-sacrifice, and waiting. In the one there is more power to act, in the other to endure. The strength of the one is energy, and of the other is rest. Both may be led to do what is good; but the one because it is right, and the other because it is lovely. The one looks at religion as a system of principles, the other as the expression of deep feelings. The one sees no religion in mere states of mind, devotional postures, strong sentiments; and the other cannot understand the religion of mere principle and energy. How shall these two types of character be harmonized?

III. The third great decision is that due to differences arising out of external circumstances. The bond and the free are the terms which Paul used to describe this great contrast. But though formal slavery be abolished, the distinction between different classes of men is not obliterated. Caste still prevails in India; the difference between the black negro and the Southern planter or Northern merchant will still abide in America. The struggle between capital and labour, and the contrast between rank and wealth and power on the one hand, poverty, dependence, and obscurity on the other, are as vigorous and obvious as they ever were. How hard it is to bridge the gulf between the lordly owner of a county and the half-clad, unclean, besotted, diseased inmate of some hovel within sight of his palace! How difficult to make even Christian people lay down their pride, and their caste, and love one another with a pure heart fervently! Legislation, common griefs and joys, healthful literature, and free press, are bringing these separate classes into one anothers view, and some of the reserve and mutual antipathy may be overcome in the foremost of the nations; but still within the Church, as well as outside its pale, there are the bond and the free. In the person of Jesus Christ is found the true point of contact for them all.

1. That the intellectual antagonism between Jew and Greek, of every age and Church, finds in Christ its true counteraction. The modern representative of the Jew within the Church, when he looks through the form and the letter, and the medium and the visible sign, to the reality which makes him Christian, heartily confesses that it is Christ crucified who satisfies his search. The Jew and Greek of St. Pauls day meet before the cross. Come, says the Hebrew of Hebrews to the sinner of the Gentiles, come, brother; thou who weft afar off art made nigh by the blood of Jesus. He is our peace, who has made both of us one, and hath broken down the wall of partition between us: Let thee and me clasp hands before the cross, for we two have access by one Spirit unto the Father. And the Greek responds, I verily am no more stranger or foreigner, but a fellow-heir and of the same body, and partaker of Divine promise. There is now neither Jew nor Greek; they are both one in Christ Jesus.

2. Christ Jesus is the mediating power between the masculine and feminine mind. Christ is the well-spring of the strong motives to right action and of the deepest passions of holy love. As the mountain torrent may leap with wild pomp and energy from the same water-shed from which, by a quieter transit, other and a gentle stream may wind its way to the great ocean, reflecting far and fairy-like from high the immortal lights which live along the sky, so too from the same fountain of deep emotions and great purposes varied lives may flow. As the two streams of water mingle at length, to do ever after a united work, so the two classes of mind, when they learn the lesson that from the one Christ they both derive their life and hope, then, like friends once parted, grown single-hearted, their love begins to abound. (H. R. Reynolds, B. A.)

In Christ

I. All distinctions are lost.

II. All differences harmonized.

III. All hearts united.

IV. All personal accomplishments ignored.

Christian unity

I. Its foundation.

II. Completeness.

III. End.

In Christ we have--

I. One foundation of hope.

II. One pattern of imitation.

III. One motive of action.

IV. One object of triumph.

Observe--

I. The test--if ye are Christs, by faith--redeeming grace--holy consecration.

II. The privilege--then are ye Abrahams seed included in the covenant--heirs of God, of every blessing, of heaven.

III. The foundation of it--the free--unmerited--unchangeable promise of God. (J. Lyth.)

Christ the centre of Christian union

I. The great central truth of Christian union is the central truth of Christianity itself, which is Christ crucified. Destroy the centre of any system, you have destroyed the system itself. Now, beloved, a great and essential doctrine is placed before you here. All believers are one in Christ Jesus. They have a vital union with Jesus. That includes, too, this great and precious truth--accepted and justified in Christ Jesus. Again, this being in Christ involves our preservation. The child of God is kept not by any power of his own.

II. The consequent unity of all believers in the Lord. The unity of the Church of Christ does not spring out of anything in that Church, but out of the oneness of that Church in Christ. Unity pervades all Gods works and operations--unity, not uniformity. You will find a marvellous richness of diversity in all the works of God. There is unity and there is diversity. The family of God is essentially one, and yet constituted into different households. Now I would remind you, in the first place, beloved, that the unity of the Church of God grows out of the unity of all believers in Christ the one Head. All true believers hold Christ the one Head of the Church. Then, brethren, the essential unity of the Church consists in the indwelling of the self-same Spirit. Every believer is a temple of the Holy Ghost. All believers in Christ then are essentially one. And, brother, how much is there in the circumstances of a child of God to unfold the essential unity of the Church of God? We have the same trials, afflictions, temptations; we take, oftentimes, the same dreary, lonely, tiresome path. O, how much is there in Gods providential dealings with us in our trials, our sorrows, our temptations, to knit the saints of God more closely to their Head!

III. And now, in conclusion, let me remind you that there grows out of this great and precious truth some solemn obligations and precious blessings. I will, in the briefest manner, refer to this point; and, first, with regard to obligations set forth in the Scriptures. If we are in Christ, and Christ is the centre of our union, then we are bound to recognize the unity of Gods dear ones. We are to recognize it. We are to hail a brother in Christ as a brother wherever we find him. My beloved hearers, the world is a keen observer of the Church of God. The world cares not one iota how we differ on points of Church government, or of doctrine, but the world looks at the Church of God in its union. It expects to find oneness, brotherly love, sympathy, co-operation. Therefore, I earnestly implore you, first to recognize the unity of all Gods dear saints with one another, and then to express and manifest a loving spirit. Brethren, shall I advert for a moment to the blessings that will accrue from your recognition and manifestation of this great and glorious truth, the essential unity of the Church? Let me remind you that your happiness will be promoted by it. And not only your happiness, but your holiness will be promoted by your recognition of brotherly love. I will only add that usefulness is another blessing that springs from the recognition and manifestation of union. Beloved, we are useful, not as we stand out in our individual isolated condition. We are useful for Christ in combination--combination of judgment, of heart, of purpose. (Octavius Winslow, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:28 There is no longer: Everyone comes to Christ and receives God’s promises in exactly the same way (cp. 1 Cor 12:12-13; Eph 2:14; Col 3:11). • male and female: Cp. Gen 1:27. • you are all one: The community of believers is one body, the body of Christ (see Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 12:27; Eph 2:15-16, 19-22). • in Christ Jesus: See Col 2:6–3:11.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal 3:28. Οὐκ ἔνι, there is not) These were formerly differences, now they are at an end, along with their causes and signs: ἔνι for ἔνεστι, with the preposition to which ἐν presently corresponds.—Ἰουδαῖος, κ.τ.λ, the Jew, etc.) Col 3:11, note.—ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ, male and female) In the circumcision there was the male: for the weaker sex, by which the transgression began, was without it.—εἷς, one) A new man, who has put on Christ, Eph 2:15.—ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, in Christ Jesus) construed with one.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal_3:28. After ye have thus put on Christ, the distinctions of your various relations of life apart from Christianity have vanished; from the standpoint of this new condition they have no further validity, any more than if they were not in existence.

ἔνι] is an abbreviated form for ἔνεστι (1Co_6:5; Col_3:11; Jam_1:17), not the adverbially used preposition (Hom. Od. vii. 96; Schaefer, ad Bos. p. 51; Kühner, II. § 618), as Winer, Usteri, Wieseler, and others assume, with the accent thrown back. Against this view it is decisive, that very frequently ἔνι and ἐν are used together (1Co_6:5, and frequently in Greek authors, as Xen. Anab. v. 3. 11; Herod, vii. 112), and yet there is no ἐστί added, whereby the ἔνι shows that it stands independently as a compound word = ἔνεστι or ἔνεισι. Comp. Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 591. Translate: there is not, namely, in this state of things when ye have all put on Christ, a Jew, etc. The ὑμεῖς in Gal_3:28-29 shows that the individualizing form of statement, applying to the readers, is still continued; therefore Hofmann is wrong, although consistent with his erroneous interpretation of the second person in Gal_3:26 f., in taking ἔνι as general: in Christ, or now since faith has come, on the ground that ἐν ὑμῖν is not added (which was obvious of itself from the context). As to the idea generally, comp. Col_3:11; Rom_10:12; 1Co_12:13.

ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ] Comp. Mat_19:4. The relation here is conceived otherwise than in the previous οὐκ … οὐδὲ, namely: there are not male and female, two sexes; so that the negative is not to be supplied after καὶ (Bornemann, ad Act. xv. 1).

πάντες γὰρ κ.τ.λ.] Proof from the relation cancelling these distinctions, which is now constituted: For ye all are one, ye form a single moral person; so that now those distinctions of individuals outside of Christianity appear as non-existent, completely merged in that higher unity to which ye are all raised in virtue of your fellowship of life with Christ. This is the εἷς καινὸς ἄνθρωπος, Eph_2:15. Observe the emphatic πάντες as in Gal_3:26, and ὅσοι in Gal_3:27.

ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ] Definition of εἷς ἐστε. They are one, namely, not absolutely, but in the definite sense of their relation as Christians, inasmuch as this unity is causally dependent on Christ, to whom they all belong and live (Gal_2:20; 2Co_5:15 f.; Rom_14:8). See Col_3:11.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 3:28 . Having now established the temporary and subordinate function of the Law, the Apostle finally repudiates every claim, whether on that or any other ground, on behalf of any distinct class to superior sanctity in Christ. All Christians, whatever their antecedents, are one in Christ. οὐκ ἔνι . Distinctions of creed or race are incompatible with true membership of Christ: the legal barriers and social cleft which severed freeman from slave, even natural divisions as deep-seated as those of sex, disappear in presence of the all-absorbing unity of the body of Christ. ἔνι is a strengthened form of ἐν used for ἔνεστιν , as πάρα , πέρι , μέτα are for πάρεστιν , περιέστιν , μέτεστιν . ὑμεῖς . Special stress is laid on this pronoun by its insertion with πάντες : the Galatians were themselves a signal instance of the power of the Gospel to make men one in Christ: for their Churches were gathered out of the most diverse elements: Jew and Gentile, slave and freeman, male and female, had all contributed to their composition.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

You are all as one: and so in this great knot and conjunction signified.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

There is in this sonship by faith in Christ, no class privileged above another, as the Jews under the law had been above the Gentiles (Rom 10:12; Co1 12:13; Col 3:11).

bond nor free--Christ alike belongs to both by faith; whence he puts "bond" before "free." Compare Note, see on Co1 7:21-22; Eph 6:8.

neither male nor female--rather, as Greek, "there is not male and female." There is no distinction into male and female. Difference of sex makes no difference in Christian privileges. But under the law the male sex had great privileges. Males alone had in their body circumcision, the sign of the covenant (contrast baptism applied to male and female alike); they alone were capable of being kings and priests, whereas all of either sex are now "kings and priests unto God" (Rev 1:6); they had prior right to inheritances. In the resurrection the relation of the sexes shall cease (Luk 20:35).

one--Greek, "one man"; masculine, not neuter, namely "one new man" in Christ (Eph 2:15).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek] ελλην, Greek, is put here for εθνικος, heathen. Under the Gospel all distinctions are done away, as either helping or hindering; all are equally welcome to Christ, and all have an equal need of him; all persons of all sects, and conditions, and sexes, who believe in him, become one family through him; they are one body, of which he is the head.

Neither male nor female] With great reason the apostle introduces this. Between the privileges of men and women there was a great disparity among the Jews. A man might shave his head, and rend his clothes in the time of mourning; a woman was not permitted to do so. A man might impose the vow of nasirate upon his son; a woman could not do this on her daughter. A man might be shorn on account of the nasirate of his father; a woman could not. A man might betroth his daughter; a woman had no such power. A man might sell his daughter; a woman could not. In many cases they were treated more like children than adults; and to this day are not permitted to assemble with the men in the synagogues, but are put up in galleries, where they can scarcely see, nor can they be seen. Under the blessed spirit of Christianity, they have equal rights, equal privileges, and equal blessings; and, let me add, they are equally useful.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. There is neither Jew nor Greek. The meaning is, that there is no distinction of persons here, and therefore it is of no consequence to what nation or condition any one may belong: nor is circumcision any more regarded than sex or civil rank. And why? Because Christ makes them all one. Whatever may have been their former differences, Christ alone is able to unite them all. Ye are one: the distinction is now removed. The apostle’s object is to shew that the grace of adoption, and the hope of salvation, do not depend on the law, but are contained in Christ alone, who therefore is all. Greek is here put, as usual, for Gentile, and one department for the whole class.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(28) This verse continues the proof that all Christians are, in the fullest sense, “sons of God.” Gal_3:27 showed why this was so; the present verse shows that there are no exceptions, no inequalities. All Christians alike, no matter what their race, status, or sex, stand on the same footing of sonship before God. There is a unity or solidarity in the Christian body. What is true of one is true of all.

Greek.—The spread of the Greek race through the conquests of Alexander, their ubiquitous presence, and the use of the Greek language as a universal medium of communication, led to the name “Greek” being applied to all who were not Jews. “Jew and Greek” is intended to be an exhaustive division of the human race, just as “bond or free,” “male and female.”

This verse marks the immense stride made by Christianity in sweeping away the artificial distinctions which had been the bane of the ancient world, and prevented any true feeling of brotherhood springing up in it. Christianity, at one stroke, established the brotherhood and abolished the distinctions.

One.—The word “one” is masculine—“one man,” “a single person”—as explained in the paraphrase above.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. The unity here predicated results from the putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ. Comp. Col_3:10-11, where the train of thought is the same and the language very similar.

male nor female] Lit. ‘male and female’, possibly with reference to Gen_1:27. The rite of circumcision was limited to male children; the Sacrament of Baptism is administered to both male and female. There are here no injunctions as to slavery and the treatment of women. But the principle laid down has by its application abolished the one and ameliorated the other. The Talmud everywhere assumes and often states the recognised inferiority of women to men.

ye are all one] ‘ye’ is emphatic, pointing to those who are ‘sons of God’, Gal_3:26. ‘One person’, or ‘one man’. Comp. Eph_2:15; Rom_12:5; 1Co_12:12-13.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There is neither Jew nor Greek,.... Not but that there were such in being; and in the churches of Christ, for the primitive churches consisted of both; but the meaning is, that there is no difference between them, the middle wall of partition being broken down, and that, in the business of justification and salvation, it signified nothing whether a man was a Jew or a Greek; he was never the better for being a circumcised Jew, nor never the worse for being an uncircumcised Gentile; both by nature are equally sinners, and stand in need of the justifying righteousness of Christ, and the regenerating grace of the Spirit. The Gospel was equally preached to both, and was made useful to some of the one and of the other; and who, believing in Christ, had a right to the same ordinances and privileges of the Gospel, and shared in the same blessings of grace.

There is neither bond nor free. There were such persons in the world then, and in the churches too; nor does the Gospel dissolve the civil and natural relations and obligations men are in and under to one another, it confirms and secures them; but the sense is, that God, in calling, justifying, and saving men, is no respecter of persons, as being high and low, rich and poor, bond or free, servants or masters: he calls, justifies, and saves men of every station and condition of life; and bond slaves and servants called by grace are Christ's free men, and have an equal right as those that are free to all the immunities of the Gospel: in some Heathen nations bond slaves and servants were not admitted, only freemen, to be present at the sacred service, and worship of their deities (r); but the Gospel makes no such distinction of men in its doctrine, worship, and ordinances, which lie open to all ranks and orders of men:

there is neither male nor female; among the Heathens (s) also females were not admitted to some of their sacred rites and ceremonies; and among the Jews the males only were concerned in many things both of a civil and religious nature; no female might be heir to an inheritance with a male (t); females had no share in the civil government, nor in the priesthood; males were to appear three times a year before the Lord, and, according to their oral law, women and servants were exempted (u); the mark of circumcision, the sign of the covenant made with Abraham and his natural seed, was only upon the males; but now under the Gospel dispensation there is no distinction made between male and female as to divine things; as they are alike called by the grace of God, they have the same right to Gospel ordinances, baptism and the Lord's supper, and to every spiritual privilege. The apostle's design is to show the common right of believers, of every nation, condition, and sex, and to encourage the Gentiles, and demolish the pride, vanity, and boasting of the Jews, their men especially, who valued themselves upon these "three" very things which the apostle here makes no account of; as that they were Israelites and not Gentiles, freemen and not servants, men and not women; and in their public prayers they give thanks to God in this form,

"blessed be the Lord our God, the King of the world, that he hath made me an Israelite; blessed be the Lord, &c. who hath not made me a Gentile; blessed be the Lord, &c. who hath not made me a "servant"; blessed be the Lord, &c. who hath not made me a "woman";''

instead of which last the woman say,

"blessed be the Lord, &c. who hath made me as he pleased (w):''

for ye are all one in Christ Jesus; being alike chosen in him, united to him, redeemed by his blood, justified by his righteousness, regenerated by his Spirit, the children of God by faith in him, and heirs of the same grace and glory, they make, both Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, male and female, as it were but one new man in him; one body, of which he is the head, one spiritual seed of Abraham and of Christ.

(r) Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dierum, l. 2. c. 14. Aurel. Victor. de orig. Gent. Rom. c. 8. Aristophanis Thesmophor, & Bourdin in ib. p. 782. (s) Alex. ab Alex. ib. Aurel. Victor, c. 6. (t) Maimon. Nechalot, c. 1. sect. 1, 2. (u) Misn. Chagiga, c. 1. sect. 1. (w) Sedor Tephillot, fol. 2. 2. Ed. Basil. fol. 4. 1. Ed. Amst. T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 13. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

Ver. 28. Ye are all one in Christ] Souls have no sexes, and Christ is no respecter of persons. The servant paid the half shekel, as well as the master, Exo 30:12-16

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There is neither Jew nor Greek - All are on a level; all are saved in the same way; all are entitled to the same privileges. There is no favoritism on account of birth, beauty, or blood. All confess that they are sinners; all are saved by the merits of the same Saviour; all are admitted to the same privileges as children of God. The word “Greek” here is used to denote the Gentiles generally; since the whole world was divided by the Jews into “Jews and Greeks” - the Greeks being the foreign nation best known to them. The Syriac renders it here “Aramean,” using the word to denote the Gentiles generally. The meaning is, that whatever was the birth, or rank, or nation, or color, or complexion, all under the gospel were on a level. They were admitted to the same privileges, and endowed with the same hopes of eternal life. This does not mean that all the civil distinctions among people are to be disregarded.

It does not mean that no respect is to be shown to those in office, or to people in elevated rank. It does not mean that all are on a level in regard to talents, comforts, or wealth; but it means only that all people are on a level “in regard to religion.” This is the sole point under discussion; and the interpretation should be limited to this. It is not a fact that people are on a level in all things, nor is it a fact that the gospel designs to break down all the distinctions of society. Paul means to teach that no man has any preference or advantage in the kingdom of God because he is a rich man, or because he is of elevated rank; no one is under any disadvantage because he is poor, or because he is ignorant, or a slave. All at the foot of the cross are sinners; all at the communion table are saved by the same grace; all who enter into heaven, will enter clothed in the same robes of salvation, and arranged, not as princes and nobles, and rich men and poor men, in separate orders and ranks, but mingling together as redeemed by the same blood, and arranged in ranks according to their eminence in holiness; compare my notes at Isa 56:8.

There is neither bond nor free - The condition of a free man does not give him any special claims or advantages in regard to religion; and the condition of a slave does not exclude him from the hope of heaven, or from being regarded as a child of God, on the same terms, and entitled to the same privileges as his master. In regard to religion, they are on the same level. They are alike sinners, and are alike saved by grace. They sit down at the same communion table; and they look forward to the same heaven. Christianity does not admit the one to favor because he is free, or exclude the other because he is a slave. Nor, when they are admitted to favor, does it give the one a right to lord it over the other, or to feel that he is of any more value in the eye of the Redeemer, or any nearer to his heart. The essential idea is, that they are on a level, and that they are admitted to the favor of God without respect to their external condition in society. I do not see any evidence in this passage that the Christian religion designed to abolish slavery, any more than I do in the following phrase, “there is neither male nor female,” that it was intended to abolish the distinction of the sexes; nor do I see in this passage any evidence that there should not be proper respect shown by the servant to his master, though both of them are Christians, any more than there is in the following phrase, that suitable respect should not be shown in the contact with the sexes; compare 1Ti 6:1-5. But the proof is explicit, that masters and slaves may alike become Christians on the same terms, and are, in regard to their religious privileges and hopes, on a level. No special favor is shown to the one, in the matter of salvation, because he is free, nor is the other excluded because he is a slave. And from this it follows:

(1) That they should sit down to the same communion table. There should be no invidious and odious distinctions there.

(2) They should be regarded alike as Christian brethren in the house of God, and should be addressed and treated accordingly.

(3) The slave should excite the interest, and receive the watchful care of the pastor, as well as his master. Indeed, he may need it more; and from his ignorance, and the fewness of his opportunities, it may be proper that special attention should be bestowed on him.

In regard to this doctrine of Christianity, that there is neither “bond nor free” among those who are saved, or that all are on a level in regard to salvation, we may remark further:

(1) That it is unique to Christianity. All other systems of religion and philosophy make different ranks, and endeavor to promote the distinctions of caste among people. They teach that certain people are the favorites of heaven, in virtue of their birth or their rank in life, or that they have special facilities for salvation. Thus, in India the Brahmin is regarded as, by his birth, the favorite of heaven, and all others are supposed to be of a degraded rank. The great effort of people, in their systems of religion and philosophy, has been to show that there are favored ranks and classes, and to make permanent distinctions on account of birth and blood. Christianity regards all people as made of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth (see the note at Act 17:26), and esteems them all to be equal in the matter of salvation; and whatever notions of equality prevail in the world are to be traced to the influence of the Christian religion.

(2) If people are regarded as equal before God, and as entitled to the same privileges of salvation; if there is in the great work of redemption “neither bond nor free,” and those who are in the Church are on a level, then such a view will induce a master to treat his slave with kindness, when that relation exists. The master who has any right feelings, will regard his servant as a Christian brother, redeemed by the same blood as himself, and destined to the same heaven. He will esteem him not as “a chattel” or “a thing,” or as a piece “of property,” but he will regard him as an immortal being, destined with himself to the same heaven, and about to sit down with him in the realms of glory. How can he treat such a brother with unkindness or severity? How can he rise from the same communion table with him, and give way to violent feelings against him, and regard him and treat him as if he were a brute? And Christianity, by the same principle that “the slave is a brother in the Lord,” will do more to mitigate the horrors of slavery, than all the enactments that people can make, and all the other views and doctrines which can be made to prevail in society; see Phm 1:16.

(3) This doctrine would lead to universal emancipation. All are on a level before God. In the kingdom of Jesus there is neither bond nor free. One is as much an object of favor as another. With this feeling, how can a Christian hold his fellow Christian in bondage? How can he regard as “a chattel” or “a thing,” one who, like himself, is an heir of glory? How can he sell him on whom the blood of Jesus has been sprinkled? Let him feel that his slave is his equal in the sight of God; that with himself he is an heir of glory; that together they are soon to stand on Mount Zion above; that the slave is an immortal being, and has been redeemed by the blood of Calvary, and how can he hold such a being in bondage, and how can he transfer him from place to place and from hand to hand for gold? If all masters and all slaves were to become Christians, slavery would at once cease; and the prevalence of the single principle before us would put an end to all the ways in which man oppresses his fellow-man. Accordingly, it is well known that in about three centuries the influence of Christianity banished slavery from the Roman empire.

There is neither male nor female - Neither the male nor the female have any special advantages for salvation. There are no favors shown on account of sex. Both sexes are, in this respect, on a level. This does not mean, of course, that the sexes are to be regarded as in all respects equal; nor can it mean that the two sexes may not have special duties and privileges in other respects. It does not prove that one of the sexes may not perform important offices in the church, which would not be proper for the other. It does not prove that the duties of the ministry are to be performed by the female sex, nor that the various duties of domestic life, nor the various offices of society, should be performed without any reference to the distinction of sex. The interpretation should be confined to the matter under consideration; and the passage proves only that in regard to salvation they are on a level.

One sex is not to be regarded as the special favorite of heaven, and the other to be excluded. Christianity thus elevates the female sex to an equality with the male, on the most important of all interests; and it has in this way made most important changes in the world wherever it has prevailed. Everywhere but in connection with the Christian religion, woman has been degraded. She has been kept in ignorance. She has been treated as an inferior in all respects. She has been doomed to unpitied drudgery, and ignorance, and toil. So she was among the ancient Greeks and Romans; so she is among the savages of America; so she is in China, and India, and in the islands of the sea; so she is regarded in the Koran, and in all Muslim countries. It is Christianity alone which has elevated her; and nowhere on earth does man regard the mother of his children as an intelligent companion and friend, except where the influence of the Christian religion has been felt. At the communion table, at the foot of the cross, and in the hopes of heaven, she is on a level with man; and this fact diffuses a mild, and purifying, and elevating influence over all the relations of life. Woman has been raised from deep degradation by the influence of Christianity; and, let me add, she has everywhere acknowledged the debt of gratitude, and devoted herself, as under a deep sense of obligation, to lessening the burdens of humanity, and to the work of elevating the degraded, instructing the ignorant, and comforting the afflicted, all over the world. Never has a debt been better repaid, or the advantages of elevating one portion of the race been more apparent.

For ye are all one in Christ Jesus - You are all equally accepted through the Lord Jesus Christ; or you are all on the same level, and entitled to the same privileges in your Christian profession. Bond and free, male and female, Jew and Greek, are admitted to equal privileges, and are equally acceptable before God. And the church of God, no matter what may be the complexion, the country, the habits, or the rank of its members, is one. Every man, on whom is the image and the blood of Christ, is a brother to every other one who bears that image, and should be treated accordingly. What an influence would be excited in the breaking up of the distinctions of rank and caste among people; what an effect in abolishing the prejudice on account of color and country, if this were universally believed and felt!

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Neither Jew, &c. That is, no distinction of Jew, &c. (Challoner)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

There is neither Jew nor Greek; in the business or justification, the case of Jews and Greeks is the same. This he saith, that the Galatians might not think themselves disadvantaged from their not being under the law, as the schoolmaster that should lead them unto Christ.

There is neither bond nor free; neither doth Christ consider the qualities and circumstances of persons, whether they be servants or free men; for though they be servants, Christ hath made them free, 1Co 7:22; Eph 6:8; Col 3:11.

There is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus: neither hath Christ any respect to sexes: the male children under the law had many privileges; but it is all a case under the gospel, whether persons be males or females, Jews or Gentiles, rich or poor, servants or masters, bond-men or free-men.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. Neither Jew nor Greek—In the offer of salvation by Christ all are on a level; in the salvation received all are one. The Jew loses his pre-eminence, and sits at the same communion with the Greek.

Greek—A representative name for all Gentiles.

Bond nor free—Though ranks are not at once overthrown, yet the terms of salvation, and the enjoyment of its gift, are as free to slave as to master, to one colour as to another.

Male nor female—The terms and privileges of salvation know no sex.

All one— One gospel, one Church of the justified, one final heaven.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female (oujk eni jIoudaiov oujk eni arsen kai qhlu); there is no dew here nor Gentile (literally, Greek), there is no bond man here nor freeman, there is not here male and female. The word eni, occurring also in 1Co_6:5 (according to the now accepted reading); Jam_1:17; Ecc 37:2; and very noticeably in Col_3:11, is probably (see Winer"s "Gram. N. T., 2, "Anm.") an adverbialized form of the preposition ejn, of the same description as the thus accented para and epi. The prepositional element implies a somewhat indefinite indication of a sphere in which the statement of the clause holds good. The Revised Version renders, "there can be," and Bishop Lightfoot, "there is no room for;" but Ecc 37:2 and 1Co_6:5 do not much favour this particular modification. Inmenoi Col_3:11 we have a very similar passage; there, after describing Christians as "having put on (ejndusa) the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him," the apostle adds, "Where there is not Gentile Greek, "Greek" and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all literally, "all things" and in all." We may group with them, 1Co_12:12, 1Co_12:13, "So also is Christ; for in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews, whether Gentiles literally, "Greeks" whether bondmen, whether freemen." In all three of these passages we see the reference both to "Jew and Gentile" and to "bondman and freeman." The particular mention of these two forms of outward classification was suggested by the circumstances of the Christian Church generally at that time. Wherever the apostles went, they were sure to be confronted by questions and difficulties arising both from the one and from the other. In the kingdom of God were Jew and Gentile, were circumcised and uncircumcised, to stand on the same footing? Should believers as such be concerned to vary their treatment of one another or to modify their own condition from regard to these circumstances? Questionings of this description were being agitated everywhere, and most especially just now in the Galatian Churches. And, on the other point, the universal existence of slavery more or less throughout the civilized world would necessarily give occasion to a variety of questions relative to the position which bondmen should hold in the Christian community; how a bondman on becoming a Christian should stand, or what he should do, in respect to obedience to his owner or to seeking a change in his condition. St. Paul, in his Epistles, has briefly discussed some of these points, as in 1Co_7:20-24; Eph_6:5-9. So often had the apostle occasion to affirm the perfect identity of Christian privilege possessed by all believers in Christ, that the statement would naturally mould itself into a sort of formula. In Colossians he varies the form by inserting "barbarian, Scythian;" degrees of national civilization made no difference. In place of this, he here adds the particular, that diversity of sex made no difference. We cannot tell what especial reason he had for introducing these modifications in writing to the Colossians and the Galatians respectively. Possibly he had none beyond the pleasure which he felt in dilating on the large catholicity of the Divine grace. In the clause, oujk e) arsen kai qhlu, "there is here no male and female," the neuter is used (remarks Alford) as being the only gender which will express both. The change of form, "male and female," from no Jew nor Gentile," no bondman nor freeman," was perhaps suggested by the passage inrsen Gen_1:27 (a kai qhlu), male and female created he them," which is quoted Mat_19:4; Mar_10:6. If so, the clause may be regarded (as Bishop Lightfoot says) as forming a climax: even the primeval distinction of male and female." But perhaps the change is simply made for the sake of variety; as in the way in which several of the classes are introduced in the Colossians. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus (pantev gar uJmeiv ei=v ejste ejn Cristw jIhsou); for all ye are one and the same man in Christ Jesus. The pronoun uJmeiv, ye, is inserted to recite emphatically the qualification already expressed; as if it were, "ye being what ye are, believers baptized into Christ." The apostle"s object here is not, as in 1Co_12:13; Col_3:11-15, to exhort to the performance of certain mutual duties on the ground of the unity which in Christ is established among all believers, but to enforce the view that each individual"s title to the inheritance is altogether irrespective of external distinctions, and is based entirely, in one case as well as in another, upon his being clothed with Christ. The word ei=v is "one and the same," as in to en fronountev, of one mind"; (Php_2:2) and in eiv Qeov, eiv mesithv, One and the same God, one and the same Mediator". (1Ti_2:5) So Chrysostom: That is, we have all one form and one mould, even Christ"s. What," he adds, "can be more awful than these words? He that was a Greek, or Jew, or bondman yesterday, carries about with him the form, not of an angel or archangel, but of the Lord of all, yea, displays in his own person the Christ." The distribution of the universal quality to each individual, so far as the grammar of the sentence is concerned, is imperfectly expressed. But the grammatical inadequacy of the verbal exposition is not greater than in 1Co_6:5, "Decide (ajnason tou ajdelfou aujtou) between his brethren," literally, between his brother;" and in vers. 19, 20 of the same chapter, swma uJmwn, your body;" not "thy body," nor "your bodies." The apostle has in view the subjective application only of the principle here stated; each was to feel that, having the qualification which he has explained, he himself is a son of God and full inheritor, without casting about for any further qualification, as, for example, from ceremonial Judaism. The principle plainly is pregnant with an objective application also; namely, as to the manner in which they were to estimate and treat each other and every baptized believer, notwithstanding any circumstances of extrinsic diversity whatever.

The unity of believers.

is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is not male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

I IT IS AN ORGANIC UNITY. Believers are "one body in Christ"; (Rom_12:4, Rom_12:5) "one man;" "one new man". (Eph_2:15) The unity in question is no ecclesiastical unity; for it joins together those who are ecclesiastically separated, and it connects together the believers of all generations.

1. It has a sevenfold relationship. "There is one body, and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope of your calling, one God and Father of all". (Eph_4:4-6)

2. It is created in Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is Christ, not the Spirit, who "hath made both one"; (Eph_2:14) and we, "being many, are made one body in Christ". (Rom_12:5) But wherever the Spirit is there is union with Christ. The indwelling of the Spirit is therefore the bond of unity in the Church.

II IT IS A UNITY WHICH OBLITERATES OR IGNORES MANY WORLDLY OR NATURAL DISTINCTIONS. All distinctions, whether of condition, or nature, or sex, are in Christ lost sight of or forgotten.

1. National distinctions. "There is neither Jew nor Greek." This distinction meant much in pre-Christian ages. The Jews were God"s peculiar people, blessed with great privileges and prepared for great destinies. The Greeks, representing the Gentile world, stood apart from the Jews from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise". (Eph_2:12) But Jew and Greek stand on exactly the same footing in the kingdom of God, possessed of equal privilege, equally sons of God, and equally heirs of God. Christ broke down the middle wall of partition that severed them for ages, and made them one commonwealth.

1. Distinctions of human station. "There is neither bond nor free." Slaves were excluded from certain rites of heathen worship. But Christ takes the slave by the hand and places him in his kingdom side by side with the free man. The largest body of practical counsel in the apostolic Epistles is directed to slaves.

2. The distinction of sex. There is not male and female." The apostle does not touch the original subordination of the woman to the man, which is a still existing fact, (1Ti_2:11-14) but shows how, religiously regarded, men and women are equal. Their relation to Christ does not destroy the old fact, but causes it to be lost sight of. How true it is that Christianity alone has elevated women, has created the sentiment which destroys slavery everywhere, and creates a better understanding among the nations of the world!

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There is neither Jew nor Greek - That is, there is no difference between them; they are equally accepted through faith. There is neither male nor female - Circumcision being laid aside, which was peculiar to males, and was designed to put a difference, during that dispensation, between Jews and gentiles.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

VERSE 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

The list might be extended indefinitely: There is neither preacher nor hearer, neither teacher nor scholar, neither master nor servant, etc. In the matter of salvation, rank, learning, righteousness, influence count for nothing.

With this statement Paul deals a death blow to the Law. When a person has put on Christ nothing else matters. Whether a person is a Jew, a punctilious and circumcised observer of the Law of Moses, or whether a person is a noble and wise Greek does not matter. Circumstances, personal worth, character, achievements have no bearing upon justification. Before God they count for nothing. What counts is that we put on Christ.

Whether a servant performs his duties well; whether those who are in authority govern wisely; whether a man marries, provides for his family, and is an honest citizen; whether a woman is chaste, obedient to her husband, and a good mother: all these advantages do not qualify a person for salvation. These virtues are commendable, of course; but they do not count points for justification. All the best laws, ceremonies, religions, and deeds of the world cannot take away sin guilt, cannot dispatch death, cannot purchase life.

There is much disparity among men in the world, but there is no such disparity before God. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Rom 3:23.) Let the Jews, let the Greeks, let the whole world keep silent in the presence of God. Those who are justified are justified by Christ. Without faith in Christ the Jew with his laws, the monk with his holy orders, the Greek with his wisdom, the servant with his obedience, shall perish forever.

VERSE 28. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

There is much imparity among men in the world. And it is a good thing. If the woman would change places with the man, if the son would change places with the father, the servant with the master, nothing but confusion would result. In Christ, however, all are equal. We all have one and the same Gospel, "one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all," one Christ and Savior of all. The Christ of Peter, Paul, and all the saints is our Christ. Paul can always be depended on to add the conditional clause, "In Christ Jesus." If we lose sight of Christ, we lose out.

Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.

As if the apostle had said, "Now, since the coming of Christ, there is no difference of discrimination between one nation and another, no regard to any national privilege, either of Jew or Gentile, no distinction of conditions, either bond or free; or of sexes, either male or female; but circumcised or uncircumcised, we are all one as good as another, in respect of outward privileges, or external advantages; but being sincere believers, we are all equally accepted of God in Christ."

Learn hence, that no external privilege or prerogative whatsoever, without faith in Christ, is any whit available to salvation; none are debarred from Christ, nor more nor better accepted with him for any of these things: Both the circumcised and uncircumcised are his, if believing in Christ.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus . [Having declared that faith, that is to say, the gospel, brings us into sonship to God, Paul describes the particular step by which this is accomplished. That step is baptism, for by baptism we become part of the mystical body of Christ. We put on the personality of Christ in the sight of God, and so become, in an individual sense, sons of God, but the individual sense is almost wholly lost in the collective, so that all those racial distinctions and all the fictitious distinctions of caste, and even the distinction of gender, which made a man look upon a woman with contempt, are lost sight of. Not only are all men and women new creatures in Christ Jesus, so that old things are passed away, but they are all part of one new organism, which in glory and importance obscures all former differences.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. There is neither Jew nor Greek. In Christ the old, worldly lines of separation are all blotted out. All one. One person, as it were, “one new man” (Eph. 2:15), of which Christ is the head. All, without regard to race, blended into one whole.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

28. εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ אBCD syrHarcl. ἔν ἐστὲ ἐν Χ. Ἰ. G 17 only. ἐστὲ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א*A (cf. Gal 3:29) though א* originally had an ἐν before Χ. Ἰ.

28. οὐκ ἔνι, “there cannot be,” see Hort on Jas 1:17, p. 30. St Paul mentions differences of nation, social standing, and sex.

Ἰονδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην. In Col 3:11 καί, i.e. the peculiarities of both remain but are not reckoned; here peculiarities disappear in Christ.

οὐκ ἔνι, not repeated in Col.

δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος. These form a more marked division than in Col., where δοῦλος, ἐλεύθερος occur only at the end of a list.

οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ, not in Col. He does not say οὐδέ, for these peculiarities must remain, but they are not regarded as forming separate entities, two of a series, when in relation to Christ. St Paul’s words strike at the root of that belief in the superiority of the male sex in religious privileges and powers which marks the lower types of religion, even Mohammadanism and popular Judaism down to our own day, included as it doubtless is under the well-known daily prayer of the Jew, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman” (Authorised Daily Prayer Book, ed. Singer, p. 6), where, as here, it follows the mention of heathen and slaves. This makes it unlikely that St Paul had in his mind the sayings current in the Greek schools, of gratitude for being a man rather than a woman. For there the mention of a dumb animal had come first. See quotations in C. Taylor’s Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, 2nd edit. pp. 26, 137 sqq.

Ramsay (pp. 389 sqq.) adduces these words in support of the South Galatian theory, stating that in that district the position of woman was unusually high, and that therefore St Paul could make this statement in writing to them, for his “allusion to the equality of the sexes in the perfect form which the Church must ultimately attain would not seem to the people of these Graeco-Phrygian cities to be so entirely revolutionary and destructive of existing social conditions as it must have seemed to the Greeks,” e.g. at Corinth. This seems fanciful, especially as it does not appear that there is any reason for thinking it would have been disliked at Colossae (see above).

πάντες γὰρ, emphatic repetition from Gal 3:26.

ὑμεῖς, even you Galatians in all your various national, social, and even family relations.

εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. Apparently St Paul means “one man” as expressly in Eph 2:15, on which Dean Arm. Robinson writes (p. 65): “Henceforth God deals with man as a whole, as a single individual, in Christ. Not as Two Men, the privileged and unprivileged—Two, parted one from the other by a barrier in the most sacred of all the relations of life: but as One Man, united iu a peace, which is no mere alliance of elements naturally distinct, but a con-corporation, the common life of a single organism.” Wetstein has a remarkable quotation from Lucian, Toxaris 46 (§ 53), showing how others ought to treat us as though they formed one man with us, not professing gratitude to us any more than our left hand should profess gratitude to our right etc.

Chrysostom understands by it only that all believers have μίαν μορφήν, ἔνα τύπου, τὸν τοῦ Χριστοῦ; each, whether Jew or Gentile etc., walking with the form not of an angel or archangel, but of the Lord of all, showing Christ in himself. But, beautiful as this thought is, it comes short of St Paul’s meaning.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28.] The absolute equality of all in this sonship, to the obliteration of all differences of earthly extraction or position. See Col 3:11; Rom 10:12; 1Co 12:13. οὐκ ἔνι = οὐκ ἔνεστιν—‘il n’y a pas:’ De Wette quotes Plato, Gorg. 507, ὅτῳ δὲ μὴ ἔνι κοινωνία, φιλία οὐκ ἂν εἴη. Buttmann (ii. 299), Kühner (i. 671), Winer (§ 14. 2, remark), maintain ἔνι to be a form of the preposition ἐν, and the same of ἔπι, πάρα, &c. But Meyer replies, that all those passages are against this view, where ἔνι and ἐν occur together, as 1Co 6:5; Xen. Anab. v. 3. 11. Observe, Ἰουδ. οὐδὲ Ἕλλ., δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθ.,—but ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ: the two former being accidental distinctions which may be entirely put off in falling back on our humanity,—but the latter a necessary distinction, absorbed however in the higher category: q. d. “there is no distinction into male and female.” ἄρσεν κ. θῆλυ, generalized by the neuter, as being the only gender which will express both.

γάρ, reason why there is neither, &c.—viz. our unity in Christ. On the unavoidable inference from an assertion like this, that Christianity did alter the condition of women and slaves, see Jowett’s note.

εἷς, more forcible and more strict than ἕν: for we are one, in Him, εἷς καινὸς ἄνθρωπος, as he says in Eph 2:15, speaking on this very subject.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ· “There is no Jew nor Greek, no slave nor free, no male and female.” Following the previous sentence without connective either causal or illative, these words do not demand to be closely joined in thought to any specific element of what immediately precedes. With the thought of the basis of acceptance with God in mind, expressed in v. 26 in the form that through faith men become sons of God, and in v. 27 in a different form, the sweep of his thought carries him beyond the strict limits of the question at issue in Galatia to affirm that all distinctions are abolished, and to present an inspiring picture of the world under one universal religion. ἐν Χριστῷ, expressed in the similar passage 5:6, and implied in Col 3:11, is doubtless to be mentally supplied here also. It is only in the religion of Christ that Paul conceives that men can thus be brought together. That he is speaking of these distinctions from the point of view of religion is evident from the context in general, but especially from his inclusion of the ineradicable distinction of sex. The passage has nothing to do directly with the merging of nationalities or the abolition of slavery. Cf. 1Co 7:17-24. Nor are the passages from ancient writers, quoted, e. g., by Zahn ad loc. (p. 187), in which these distinctions are emphasised, directly antithetical to this affirmation of the apostle. Yet that the principle had its indirect social significance is shown in the implications of the Antioch incident 2:11-14, and in Phm 1:15, Phm 1:16, Col 4:1.

On Ἕλλην, meaning Gentile, not specifically Greek, see on 2:4. ἔνι, not a contracted form of ἔνεστι, but a lengthened form of ἐν, ἐνί with recessive accent, but having the force of ἔνεστι or ἔνεισι, as παρά and ἐπί are used with the force of ἔπεστι and πάρεστι, may, like the form ἔνεστι itself, mean either “it is present,” “there is,” or “it is possible.” See W. § XIV 1 (older Exo_2); Bl.-D. 98; Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik, 207, and the examples of both meanings given in L.&S. Ltft., without assigning reasons, maintains that οὐκ ἔνι must here negative “not the fact only but the possibility,” and RV. adopts this interpretation in all the N. T. instances: Jas 1:17, 1Co 6:5, Col 3:11, and the present passage. But in none of these passages does the context demand this meaning, and in 1Co 6:5 it is a distinctly difficult meaning. In 4 Mac. 4:22 the meaning is clearly “it is possible,” but in Sir. 37:2 as clearly “there is (in it).” It seems necessary therefore to make choice between the two meanings for the present passage solely by the context. And this favours the meaning “there is” (so Sief. Bous.) rather than “there can be.” There is nothing in the sentence to suggest that Paul has passed from the statement of fact to that of possibilities. On the other hand, it is apparently true that the word never quite loses the force derived from ἐν as a preposition of place, and that one must mentally supply after it a prepositional phrase introduced by ἐν, or the like: in this case not ἐν ὑμῖν, for which the context furnishes no basis, but ἐν Χριστῷ, as suggested by Χριστὸν ἐνεδύνασθε and 5:6.

πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. “for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” These words confirm, by repeating it in another form, the thought of the preceding sentence. εἷς may be taken distributively and qualitatively, or inclusively and numerically. In the former case the meaning is: once in Christ Jesus, whether you be Jew or Gentile, slave or master, man or woman, all these distinctions vanish (there is no respect of persons with God); it is as if it were always the same person reappearing before him. Cf. 1Co 3:8. In the latter case the thought is that all those in Jesus Christ merge into one personality. Cf. 1Co 10:17, 1Co 10:12:12, 1Co 10:13, Rom 12:4, Rom 12:5, Col 3:15. There is little ground for a choice between the two ideas. Both are equally Pauline and equally suitable to the immediate context. Only in the fact that the second interpretation furnishes a sort of middle term between the assertion of v. 16b that Christ is the seed, and that of v. 29 that those who are Christ’s are seed of Abraham is there a ground of preference for the second interpretation, and this only in case 16b is from Paul. ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ is doubtless to be understood substantially as in v. 26, describing Jesus Christ as the one in whom they live, by whom their lives are controlled, with the added suggestion that by this fact their standing before God is also determined.

εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ: so אeBCDKLP al. pler. Syr. (psh.) Boh. (but some mss. omit Ἰησοῦ) Clem. Athan. Chrys. Euthal. Thdrt. al.; ἓν ἐστέ: FG 33, d e f g Vg. Or. Athan Bas. al.; ἐστὲ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, omitting εἰς: אA, but A has ἐν deleted after ἐστέ. א is thus a witness to ἐν X. I. as well as to the genitive. With practically all the witnesses, except A, attesting ἐν X. I. against אA for the genitive there can be no doubt that the reading of the latter is derivative, due to assimilation to v. 29. Before ἐστέ, εἷς is clearly the original reading, changed by Western authorities to ἕν, as in 3:16 ὅς is changed to ὅ by a part of the Western documents.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.