Gal 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Gal 3:28 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.
Gal 3:29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
While we are picking and choosing lets not pick the above passage
Gal 3:28 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.
Then that would render all other scripture which places man as the head null and void. You are taking that verse out of context. Poor exegesis.
Scripture does not contradict itself, if there appears at first to be a contradiction, search the scriptures, The Truth is always in The Word.
It is also important, not to take a small number of verses but consider the context of the full chapter or chapters the subject relates to, as well as considering
the time and place and the Jewish/Christian connection. Paul was constantly explaining
Allow me to share this introduction to Galations chapter 3 taken from the Tyndale commentary, there is some interesting reading here. I have included an introduction from the commentary and the commentary on the verses you have listed. Note the initial argument Paul was making ran through Chapters 1 & 2, but he felt he had not covered everything so continued for a further 2 chapter.
The Argument from Theology Galations 3:1 - 5:1
Paul could well have closed his letter at the end of chapter 2. The storm has passed into a calm and his point has already been made. But, as he thinks of what has happened in Galatia, his feelings overwhelm him just as they did in Gal 1:6, and he returns to the charge for the second time. So, instead of the letter ending at Gal 2:21, chapter 3, introduces a whole new section of his argument, that from theology or, more exactly, from Scripture. This may simply be because it was natural to a Jew, particularly one with Paul’s rabbinic training, to turn to the Scriptures for proof in an argument. But it may also be because Paul knows that his Judaizing opponents will already have made great play of the Scriptures to prove their case. Whatever the reason, it should not surprise us if Paul’s use of the Old Testament Scriptures is, at times, more ‘rabbinic’ than we would find natural. The nature of his opponents’ training make this inevitable: he is meeting them on their ground, and using language which they can understand and must admit. But such a ‘rabbinic approach’ extends only to the manner of citing and treating the Scriptures, not to the Scriptures themselves. The great theological principles to which Paul appeals are as valid today as in first-century Galatia, although we might express them in different terminology. Much study has recently been devoted to Paul’s own rabbinic background, and its possible influence on his exegesis, if not on his theology. Those who have dealt with this Jewish background (Davies, Daube, Schoeps and Munck) are particularly helpful here, although we must beware of over-emphasizing this aspect of Pauline thought: whatever his background, he is not a first-century rabbi, but a first-century Christian.
Hitherto, Paul has argued from his own spiritual experience, and the facts of Christian history. Now he will show that such experience is not subjective and illusory, but grounded upon the eternal purposes of God as revealed in his Word. But before he does that, in a short opening section, he will appeal briefly to the spiritual experience of the very Galatians to whom he writes and link it to the similar experience of Abraham. This has a twofold object. First, Paul wishes to show the Galatians that their present attitude is a contradiction not only of his spiritual history, but also of their own. Paul’s spiritual pilgrimage is not therefore seen as reserved for great saints; it is and should be normative for every Christian, however humble. Secondly, he wants to show them that this common pilgrimage, both his and theirs, had been also that of Abraham; otherwise, to quote to the Galatians the example of Abraham would be utterly irrelevant. As it is, we find with a shock that Abraham’s problems are our problems, even though the outward circumstances are so dissimilar. From that, Paul moves to the point where we see that Abraham’s solution to the problem can also be our solution, since Abraham’s God is still our God.
Paul has yet another crowning argument which he will use later. Abraham himself is, after all, a Gentile, as the Galatians are. He is no Jew, though he may have become the ancestor of the Jews. He knew nothing of the law of Moses (although later rabbis might claim that he kept it), nothing of the temple, nothing of later food laws, nothing even of circumcision in his early days, for he had been accepted by God long before he was circumcised, Rom 4:11 - decades earlier, in fact. He was not ancestor of the Jews alone: all the Gentile desert peoples of the Negev, the ‘Southland’, also traced their ancestry to him. Moreover, in God’s gracious promise to Abraham, Gentiles found special mention. Judaizers might quote Moses to prove their point; Paul will quote Abraham to prove his. Let Judaizers quote law; Paul will quote promise. If they appeal to centuries of tradition and the proud history of the law and covenant of Moses, he will appeal to the tradition of the even grander ‘covenant with Abraham’, older by centuries still.
While Paul will pursue these arguments at greater length in Romans, they are present in outline and essence in Galatians. Indeed, one of the most striking proofs that Paul was correct when he said in earlier chapters that his gospel was independent of outside influence (especially from Jerusalem) is not only that his gospel is so distinctive in its Old Testament setting, but also that this aspect of his gospel shows little sign of ‘development’ over the years. No doubt this was the way in which Paul had come to terms with the gospel and with its Old Testament context during those early days in Arabia: the broad pattern was set then and it would not change.
Tyndale Commentaries - Galatians.
It is important, in most cases, to read the full chapter or all chapters relating to a specific message, if we don't we can easy mis interpret the text and read out of context.
Verse 26. It is uncertain whether we should translate this with RSV and NIV as
sons of God,
through faith (
in Christ Jesus), or ‘faith-children of God in the corporate whole that is the Body of Christ’. NEB favours the latter, with ‘sons of God in union with Christ Jesus’. The grammar would favour the first, but the subsequent train of thought would favour the second.
Strictly, this choice is more a matter of theological interpretation than linguistics; it hinges on the meaning of the great Pauline phrase en Christō,
in Christ; the phrase is discussed in BAGD, with relevant literature quoted there. Briefly, this is the Pauline (and Johannine) expression to denote the closeness of the relation of the individual to Christ. The phrase implies a closeness of communion which is neither absorption nor complete identification, while human personality may be changed by the new relationship, it is not obliterated. Thereafter, the collective whole of all Christians can be called ‘the body of Christ’, not just the individual who is
in Christ, part of his body. John describes this continual and total dependence on Christ as ‘remaining’ in Christ (see John 15:4).
Paul now develops this thought of our sonship of God, through faith in Christ.
‘For all those of you who have been baptized into Jesus Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. In him, there is no such distinction as Jew and non-Jew, slave and freeman, male and female. You are all an entity in Christ Jesus. But if you are joined to Christ (lit. “if you are Christ’s”), then you are collectively the “posterity of Abraham” already mentioned; you are the beneficiaries of the promise in the will.’
Verse 27. It is presumably the relationship summed up in the words ‘in Christ’ (see note on verse 26) to which Paul here refers in the phrase
baptized into Christ. Baptism, with its picture of death and new life symbolized by the passing of the ‘waters of judgment’ over the sinner, visibly and outwardly seals the ending of an old relationship and the beginning of a new. Ideally, baptism should coincide with, and correspond to, the dawn of new life in the heart of the believer. But even in the pages of the New Testament, we find the Spirit coming sometimes before baptism, sometimes during baptism, sometimes after baptism, and sometimes not coming at all (see the accounts of the baptized Ananias and Simon Magus, Acts 5:1-11;8:9-24). Not only does baptism fitly express visibly the establishment of a new personal relationship with Christ; it is also the outward means by which we enter that collective whole which is the church, the body of Christ. So closely does Paul associate the outward sign with the inward grace that there are times when he uses expressions in connection with the outward symbol which are, theologically speaking, more properly applied to the spiritual reality. But this is a common phenomenon in the Bible and does not necessarily mean that he identified the two. Here Paul juxtaposes two verbs, the one strictly descriptive of a physical experience, the other of a spiritual experience, without any consciousness of incongruity. We who were baptized
have put on Christ, like a garment. The word enedysasthe,
put on, is discussed in BAGD. The metaphor probably comes from the Old Testament where, for instance, the Spirit ‘clothes himself’ with Gideon, and so ‘puts on’ Gideon, as it were (
Judg. 6:34). The word has a rich metaphorical use both in and outside the New Testament, especially in connection with moral qualities. Bold though this figure is, it can be paralleled almost exactly in pagan literature in the sense of ‘assume the role of’, although the Christian usage means far more than this. The use of ‘stripping’ and ‘putting on’ may derive, in Christian circles, from the undressing before baptism, and the subsequent dressing in clean white clothing. But the metaphor is peculiarly appropriate as describing a situation where certain habits and qualities have to be laid aside for ever, and a new set assumed. It is interesting that this is the only reference to baptism in the whole letter, and that even here it is introduced almost casually.
Verse 28.
In the New Testament eni stands for enesti, there is; but it seems always to be used with the negative. In the collective whole which is ‘the body of Christ’, there is no longer any place for the traditional distinctions that divide mankind—cultural, linguistic, religious (for Greek, opposed to Jew, conveys all of these) or even sexual. Some have seen here another thrust at the Judaizers. The Jewish male gave regular thanks to God in the liturgy that he was not born a Gentile or a woman. Paul would then be pointing out that, in Christ, all the old ‘dividing walls’ that were accepted and even extolled in Judaism had been broken down (Eph 2:14). But it may simply be that these were types of human division familiar to his hearers, and that he uses them to symbolize all such human divisions.
Paul bases his strong position (the total transcending of such distinctions) on the grounds that all are now heis, one (or ‘an entity’), in Christ Jesus. (The NEB actually translates as ‘one person’, thus making the meaning doubly clear.) Here again is the concept of the collective whole of the Christian church. It is a short step from this to the use of the ‘body concept’ which sees the totality of believers as the body of Christ.
Verse 29. That the use of the heis (‘one person’) in verse 28 rather than the neuter
hen (‘one thing’) is no accident is shown by this verse. Grammatically, it says
if you are Christ’s, but the meaning is stronger than this. We might almost paraphrase ‘if you are part of Christ’s body’. Paul is going to apply to the collective whole of the Christian church that which he has previously predicated of Christ in person, that is, the inheritance of the Abrahamic promise. Those who in this way are Christ’s are (collectively) the ‘offspring’ (singular again) mentioned in the famous passage in Genesis, and so the ‘heirs’ (plural, for we severally enjoy the benefits) in fulfilment of God’s promise. This in itself will show that Paul’s insistence on the use of the singular in
3:16 is more an exegetic device than anything else. Once we see that the primary reference is to Christ, Paul is prepared to allow that there is a secondary and collective reference to all Christians, as being ‘in Christ’.
Tyndale Commentaries - Galatians.
