The book of Galatians largely revolves around how gentiles can be saved, addressing specific issues around circumcision, food, etc. The church was rapidly becoming significantly more diverse as it spread through Asia and into Southern Europe.
In chapter 3, Paul is explaining the role of the law, in that it reveals sin, versus the role of Christ, who redeems is from sin. That redemption is offered to all, no matter their ethnic background, and the gentiles baptized into Christ are just as saved and sanctified as the Jews.
The term used here is “put on Christ,” using the metaphors of a piece of clothing, for as we take the person of Christ as our savior, we both wrap him around us as our warmth and protection, and show and demonstrate him to those around us.
The church of Galatia would have been primarily gentiles, which is why he emphasizes so strongly the unimportance of that particular distinction. But Paul goes above and beyond that – not only is the distinction that most of the Galatians are thinking about unimportant, but so are other distinctions that they may have taken more seriously. Slaves and free – that distinction also goes by the wayside. Even the very basic, biological, social and political division between men and women – that, too, is meaningless when looked at from the perspective of salvation.
This is in some ways a radical statement, but in other ways it calls back to the oldest Jewish teaching. All are created by God, and all who God saves are children of Abraham.
There is a clear way that we as Christians are called to live this out today in America. The Black Lives Matter movement presents us with the undeniable fact that there is a group of people in our country whose lives are treated as less important than others. Briona Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmad Arbury, Philando Castile, Elijah McClain – all of these people should still be alive. That they are not presents a stark challenge to the church.
Overt racism, belief that one race is superior to another, is clearly evil and against Paul’s teaching here. But the more subtle racism that nags at so many of us is also evil, and systemic racism is as well. As Conservative Christian writer David French writes:
This is how we live in a world where a white person can say of racism, “Where is it?” and a black person can say, “How can you not see?”
So now I sit in a different place. But where do I stand? I believe the following things to be true:
- Slavery was legal and defended morally and (ultimately) militarily from 1619 to 1865.
- After slavery, racial discrimination was lawful and defended morally (and often violently) from 1865 to 1964.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not end illegal discrimination or racism, it mainly gave black Americans the legal tools to fight back against legal injustices.
- It is unreasonable to believe that social structures and cultural attitudes that were constructed over a period of 345 years will disappear in 56.
- Moreover, the consequences of 345 years of legal and cultural discrimination, are going to be dire, deep-seated, complex, and extraordinarily difficult to comprehensively ameliorate.
But there is an important point to understand – the solution to any form of racism, whether overt or subtle, whether individual or corporate, whether personal or systemic is the unity that Christ offers.
So where do we start? As ever, we must start with repentance, both for ourselves and for the groups and organizations we are a part of, for our actions, words and thoughts that have minimized, discriminated against otherwise made life more difficult for people of color. Second, we must listen openly and honestly, without putting up the guards that we so easily put up. We can put political pressure on our leaders and representatives to take on this issue, whatever ideological methods we see as the best way to address our. We can protest, we can consume media and art from minority perspectives.
– Sermon Notes, Dave Lester, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, July 5, 2020