Galatians 3:26Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore Paul says: "But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." Thus we are no longer under a tutor. "For you are all sons of God." See the power of faith, and how he gradually reveals it. First he showed that faith made them sons of Abraham: "Know then," he says, "that those who are of faith are sons of Abraham." But now he declares that they are also sons of God. "For you are all sons of God," he says, "through faith in Christ Jesus," through faith and not through the law. Then, because he has said something great and marvelous, he also shows the manner of adoption.

Therefore the Law was our tutor in Christ, that we might be justified through faith. But when faith came, we were no longer under the tutor. For you are all children of God through the faith that is in Christ Jesus. A tutor is appointed for children to restrain the liveliness of their childish age and curb the inclination of their heart toward vices. Thus childhood, receptive to studies, is formed, and through the effect of fear of punishment is prepared for higher human wisdom and the governance of the state.

Nevertheless, the tutor is not the teacher or the father, and the one being educated expects from him neither inheritance nor knowledge. The tutor guards another's son, being destined to leave him after the lawful time has come for receiving the inheritance. The very name of tutor has this meaning in its Greek form: pedagogue is composed of words meaning to lead and children, because he guides them.

In the same way, the Law of Moses was given to a people in a childish state, as a strict tutor, to guard them and prepare them for the future faith. After this faith came, and after we believed in Christ, we are no longer under the tutor. The defender and steward have withdrawn from us. Entering the lawful age, we are now called true children of God. We have been born to Him not by the abolished Law, but by Mother Faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, if someone wishes to live under the tutor when he is already called heir, free, and son, let him know that he can no longer live according to the laws of childhood. Indeed, where can the commandment be fulfilled which says, "Three times in the year every male of yours shall appear before the face of the Lord your God" (Ex 23:17), after Jerusalem has been destroyed and even the ashes of the temple scattered? Where are sacrifices of salvation and sacrifices for sin offered? Where does the fire of whole burnt offerings burn like the stars of heaven, when the altar is utterly destroyed? What punishment can now be assigned to transgressors according to the word of Scripture, "Remove the evil one from among you" (Deut 13:5), when the Jews are in servitude and the Romans rule?

Thus it will be that they live neither under the father's authority nor under the tutor's guidance. For the Law cannot be fulfilled after the coming of faith, and faith is not preserved when guidance is sought in the Law.

Although the Apostle here gives his discourse another turn, addressing only the Galatians, "you are sons of God," and "you who were baptized into Christ," while placing himself aside, he continues to speak of the same subject. He explains his preceding words, namely why we are no longer under the guidance of the tutor. This is because we have already become grown children, and, as such, sons of God. We no longer need the law's guardianship or instruction.

Faith in Christ Jesus makes a man a child of God, who fulfills the law from filial love alone. It returns men to that beautiful period of innocent childhood which the Lord Himself sets forth as an example for all adults who wish to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18:2-3). The truly believing man, like a good son, wholly surrenders himself to the will of his heavenly Father. For such a man there is no longer any need to humble the unruly spirit of His children by strict discipline.

"A tutor," says Blessed Jerome, "is not the teacher or the father, and the one being educated expects from him neither inheritance nor higher knowledge. The tutor guards another's son and leaves him as soon as he reaches the lawful age for receiving the inheritance. Thus the law was given through Moses to an unsettled people, like a tutor, to guard them and prepare them for the future faith. When that faith came, and we believed in Christ, we were no longer under the tutor. The overseer and steward withdrew from us, and we entered lawful age. We are called true sons of God, for Whom we are born not by the abolished law, but by mother faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Who, having reached mature age and having already become heir, free, and son, would wish to be under a tutor? And now this is impossible, since the temple has been destroyed and the sacrifices have ceased. Whoever does this is neither under the father nor under the tutor, since the law cannot be fulfilled after the coming of faith, nor can faith be maintained while the tutelage of the law is still desired."

Deepening the meaning of our sonship to God, the Apostle shows its intimacy in the words: "You have put on Christ." "This expression," according to John Chrysostom. "is strong and majestic." "If Christ is the Son of God, and you have put Him on and become like Him, then through this you have been brought into one kinship with Him and into the same form."

"Birth from God, which in essence is the same as creation, necessarily brings the one born near to God, as one created. But the one who has put on Christ, the Son of God, cannot be far from God. Becoming one with Christ, he is essentially united with God. The baptized person receives a new life. Or, what is the same thing, new life is the reception of Christ's life, the ordering of our inner constitution according to the image of Christ the Lord" (Bishop Theophan).

To see it, one must insert several explanatory thoughts. Having clarified the significance of the law, the holy Apostle said just before this: we Jews are no longer under the tutor now that faith has come, the New Covenant dispensation of salvation.

The tutor did his work. He brought us to faith, by which we were justified. We became inwardly upright by the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in Whom lies the power of the promise to Abraham.

The Gentiles, apart from the law, cleaved directly to the Lord by faith and were counted worthy of the same promised good. I now turn to you, Galatians, who have received my preaching of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Do you not see that all of you, both Jews and Gentiles, have equally become sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus? All of you have equally become Christ’s.

If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. That is, you are Abraham’s heirs, or heirs of the blessings promised to Abraham, according to the spirit of the promise itself.

From this it followed of itself that you already have everything through faith alone. There is no reason for you to bind yourselves any longer to the law, or to bind yourselves by it without any benefit.

Such is the content of this concluding section (Gal 3:26-29). The discourse itself presents no difficulties for understanding. But since it touches the most essential side of the work of ordering our salvation, it is by no means superfluous to interpret it.

“All of you are sons of God,” says the Apostle. According to the form of the ordering of our salvation, sonship to God is so essential in the work of salvation that it cannot fail to be present.

For the chief thing here is birth from God according to the image of the One Who created, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore the Evangelist John writes: “As many as received Him,” the Word made flesh, “to them He gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. They were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (cf. Jn 1:12-13).

Without this new birth there is no salvation. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (cf. Jn 3:5). Those born of God in this way are, of course, by that very fact sons of God.

This is accomplished by the grace of the Holy Spirit, under the condition of faith in Christ Jesus. Therefore the Apostle says: you are sons of God by faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

Appearing among communities that did not know Christ the Lord, the Apostles instructed them with the good tidings. They said: we all sinned in our forefather and came under God’s wrath.

God showed His mercy to us by arranging salvation for us in His Only-begotten Son. He, having become incarnate, blotted out our sins by His death. Having ascended into heaven, He sent down the Holy Spirit.

When He is received in the mysteries by believers, He puts sin itself to death in them and gives them new life.

When those who heard inclined toward faith in the good tidings, it was said to them by the word of the Apostle Peter: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Acts 2:38).

Those who did this were born from God into new life. And behold, they are sons of God. Saint Paul, explaining how those to whom he wrote are all sons of God, says: