Reflections Of Grace - Galatians 3:29

“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (ESV) — Galatians 3:29

Every Christian loves the Bible, but many struggle to understand exactly how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament. What is evident is that the gospel did change things. As a result, the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 6:14 that we are no longer under the Law but under grace. Yet at the same time, the New Testament quotes the Old Testament in abundance, showing that it is still quite relevant to the Christian.

Galatians 3:29 does not answer all the questions that may be posed in this regard, but it does teach us something about how to think of the Old Testament. It teaches us plainly that the Church (those who belong to Christ) is one with true Israel (Abraham’s offspring). That means every believer can read the Old Testament with regard to all the wonderful promises made to Abraham and his offspring (see Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 15:5-6; Genesis 17:1-14) and know that they have been brought to share in the fulfillment of all of those promises.

It is for this very reason that when the Apostle Peter preached the gospel on the day of Pentecost and the people cried out in earnest, “What shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38-40)  The promise he speaks of is the same that Paul speaks of in Galatians 3—the salvation God promised to Israel through Abraham.

Some would reply that Peter was speaking only to Jews in Acts 2, and that is mostly true.  I imagine then that Paul had this objection in mind when he wrote in the verse previous to Galatians 3:29, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…all are one in Christ Jesus.” As he explains in Romans 11, all Gentile believers have been “grafted in” to the tree that is true Israel.  

And the importance of this is that there are not two peoples of God, but one. There are not two ways of salvation, but one. There are not two sets of promises, but one.  So then in the Old Testament, through Israel, we find the foreshadowing and the promise of this one way of salvation to the one people of God. Then in the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of this promise to the people of God through Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh.  He was “delivered over to death for our sins, and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25) Amen.