What does it mean that there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28)?

Verse 28. "There is in [Him, and consequently among you] neither Jew nor Greek," etc. (ouk eni). The force of these words and their bearing on the state of the Galatians is evident. The effect of their Judaizing, had been to revive national distinctions, and even to create others of which they were before unconscious. For the essence of legalism is to insist on the difference between the Jew and the Gentile, and to assert the superiority of the former. Then again, the Jew was bound by law; the Gentile free, though in a false and evil liberty of natural wilfulness. But both these conditions are forgotten in their new standing as in Christ. The Jew's bonds are undone by the dying of the Lord, and the Gentile is no more an alien dog, but has a portion with the children in the blessing of their common God (Rom. 3:20, 30). In the law, too, the women had a lower place, religiously, than the men. The males were the appointed worshippers at the great national conventions, and the doers of the service of God's sanctuary; the women merely echoing in their subordinate place what men only might originally speak or do. But now males go not up alone to keep God's feasts. Believers of either sex are "heirs together of the grace of life." The presence of the Father, and the throne of grace on which He sits, are accessible to both alike in the same prevailing Name, and by the one indwelling Spirit. "Ye are all one [man] in Christ Jesus," says the apostle. It is a description of their common participation and membership in the mystic unity of Christ's body, the Church. They stand in Him according to the truth and glory of His title as the last Adam; even as they were, though of common origin and nature, diverse and mutually hateful as the children of the first Adam. As a common sin produced all manner of social and moral inequalities, so a common righteousness, and that of God, fills each vessel of His grace out of the exhaustless fulness' that is in Christ. If the generation of God's children be a numerous one, yet the life which they have, as His own free and ever blessed gift, is "in His Son" (1 John 5:11).

In Christ all fleshly distinctions disappear. "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). All these differences pertain to the old creation. All are brought into equal blessing and privilege in the risen Christ. It is a question of our place and portion in Him. Let us be careful to confine the passage thus. Ere this, it has been used to set aside or slight the relationships of life; and it has been brought forward as justifying the woman in taking the man's place in the services of God. But this is to utterly pervert the plain words of the apostle. All the relationships of life are sanctioned by God in Christianity as previously, and are all regulated in the Epistles of the New Testament. And it must not be forgotten that the woman's place was ordered and settled before the fall, and has not been touched by it, save that bitterness and sorrow have come in, as solemn results.

Here, however, we are considering, not our relative places on earth, but our position now before God in Christ. We have His place, through grace. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise" (ver. 29). The apostle has been reasoning earlier that Christ is the true seed of Abraham. Here He brings us into the same place. We share it. All that is true of Him, as the risen and accepted Man is true of every one that believes. He has given us His standing and portion, and we are to inherit all things with Him in the coming day. Let us not lose sight of it, nor look to the things behind, as the Galatians to their hurt and sorrow.

Every true believer is clothed with Christ. When God looks at me, He sees me in Christ, clothed with Christ. And when I have been baptized, and man looks at me, he says, That man has been baptized; he is a Christian; he bears the name of Christ; he has put on Christ: he has clothed himself with Christ. And this is true of every believer, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. We all have put on Christ. When God looks at us, He sees Christ. So the Apostle exclaims: "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." All is Christ and only Christ. It is not an old creation, but a new creation. In the old creation there were all these differences, but this is something entirely new. We are all one in Christ: and if you are Christ's, what need to be circumcised? You do not want to become the children of Abraham — Jews in that sense: the fleshly sense. The Apostle now closes this part of the argument saying, "But if you are of Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." Of Christ: you are part of Christ: you are members of Christ: not merely the property of Christ, but you are identified with Christ. See Gal. 5:24: "But the ones of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh." These Galatian believers are already Abraham's seed, entirely apart from any question of circumcision or the law; and more than that they are "heirs according to promise." The Apostle has shown that Christ is the one true Seed; so if we are a part of that one true Seed, then we are Abraham's seed, Abraham's children, heirs according to promise, and all without law or circumcision.

The believer then is a son in immediate connection with his Father, with God (God Himself being manifested). He is a son, because all who have been baptised to have part in the privileges that are in Christ have put on Christ. They are not before God as Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, male or female; they are before God according to their position in Christ, all one thing in Him, Christ being for all the common and only measure of their relationship with God. But this Christ was, as we have seen, the one Seed of Abraham: and if the Gentiles were in Christ, they entered consequently into this privileged position; they were, in Christ, the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise made to that seed.

And this is shown by the fact of the new place into which God has put His people now, "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" the school of law is not the proper place for us. That does not mean that we are not to profit by the lessons which the law taught, of course. We may profit by the lessons which we learn in school without being under the schoolmaster; but under the schoolmaster, no one says "Father." The place of sons as such is manifestly somewhere else than at school. This, then, has come for us, for "as many of us as have been baptized to Christ have put on Christ." Christ is, according to the truth announced in baptism itself, the One in whom we are, therefore, before God. It is His perfection, His beauty that is seen upon us. Nothing else is seen, no earthly condition, no place of privilege beside. "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." Manifestly, if each one of us is in Christ, Christ must be the same for each and all of us. There can be no distinction here. For distinction, we must look away from Christ; but if then we "are Christ's," then "are we Abraham's seed," in the fullest way identified with the very One in whom the blessing was to be, identified with the very Heir of blessing, and therefore heirs according to the promise, "in thy Seed:" that is Christ, in whom we are.

By faith in Christ Jesus we have been introduced into the favoured place of "sons of God." The word in verse 26 is "sons," and not "children." The saints under the law were like children in a state of infancy; under age, and hence under the schoolmaster. The believer of the present age is like a child who has reached his majority, and hence, leaving the state of tutelage behind, he takes his place as a son in his father's house. This great thought, which is the controlling thought of the epistle, is more largely developed in the early verses of chapter 4. Before reaching them however, we have three important facts stated in the three closing verses of chapter 3.

By our baptism we have, as a matter of profession, put on Christ. Had we submitted to circumcision we should have put on Judaism, and thereby committed ourselves to the fulfilling of the law for justification. Had we been baptised to John's baptism we should have put on the robe of professed repentance and committed ourselves to believe on the One that should come after him. As it is we have, if baptised to Christ, put on Christ and committed ourselves to that practical expression of the life of Christ which in the next chapter is spoken of as "the fruit of the Spirit." As sons of God, having now the liberty of the house, we put on Christ as our fitness to be there.

Further, we are "in Christ Jesus," and consequently we are "all one," with all distinctions obliterated, whether national, social, or natural. When we get to the last chapter we shall find that in Christ Jesus there is new creation, which accounts for the removal of all the distinctions belonging to the old creation. This new creation work has reached us as to our souls already, though not yet as to our bodies. Hence we cannot as yet take up these things in an absolute way. For that we must wait until we are clothed upon with our bodies of glory at the coming of the Lord. Still even now we are in Christ Jesus, and hence can learn to view each other apart from and as lifted above these distinctions.

Let us take note that what is taught here is the abolition of these distinctions in Christ Jesus, and not in the assembly. We say this to safeguard the point and preserve from misconceptions. In the assembly, for instance, the distinction between male and female is very definitely maintained, as is shown in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

Now this supposes a meeting for prayer, directions for which Timothy received from Paul. For, what the order of such a meeting should be, it is not left to man to devise. How various in that case the arrangements would surely be! God, however, has given us by the apostle His regulations in connection with it. And such were needed; for since Christianity restores woman to her proper place in connection with man, which amongst the heathen was lost, and Judaism did not teach (Matt. 19:8), though she is still subject to God's governmental dealings, the consequence of the fall; and since too the saints were taught that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28), there was a danger — and the state of matters shows it had already risen — lest they should confound the condition in Christ with the relative position of the sexes in the assembly. In Christ we are all one; in the assembly we are not. The grace shown to us in Christ does not override God's order in creation. This the Corinthians had to be taught (1 Cor. 11:1-9), and of this Timothy is reminded.

The second characteristic of this unity was that there were no social differences. There may have been social differences in their worldly positions, but that did not count in connection with the unity in the assembly, they were still there, just as the differences between Jew and Greek will still be here as long as we are on this earth, but in Christ they no longer exist. This is the point, in Christ there is not even a difference between male and female, but as long as we are on earth there is still a difference so we have to be very careful how to apply this. There have been people who have said, ‘Well, there is no difference between male and female anymore,’and so they have come to all kinds of conclusions. But this new position is “in Christ.”As long as we are on earth these differences still play a role but they should not interfere with the position we together have “in Christ.”For instance, Peter interfered with this truth when he did not eat with Gentile believers at Antioch.

"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 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. 3:26-28). From this passage many sincere persons have concluded that the new dispensation has obliterated all the distinctions hitherto existing: that now all believers occupy exactly the same position before God and are equally free to exercise all the functions of the entire Body. In a very important sense all this is true. The passage before us shows that all believers are alike children of God: that in Christ the old distinctions of Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female (as under the law), have been set aside. The believer's standing is indeed no longer in the flesh, but in Christ. In this sense, unquestionably, there is no distinction. But when this is transferred from our standing before God, and applied to the various responsibilities of Christian life in this world, the very foundations of God's order are unintentionally overturned.

One would thankfully acknowledge that the godly who give to woman the same service in the Church as man, shrink with horror from carrying the principle to its full extent. Let the reader understand, therefore, that we are not referring to the practice of pious persons, but to interpretation of Scripture. What would become of the home-life — of the man's responsibility to nourish and cherish his wife, to give all honor unto her? What of the mother, to guide the house, to lead her children, and all the loving ministry which is associated with the name of woman? We therefore unhesitatingly say that there is a distinction between man and woman, a distinction which originates in creation itself, and never to be ignored so long as the present order obtains. To this every right-minded person instantly assents, and we pass on therefore to show from Scripture that woman's place in creation fixes her place in the Church as well.

In the new creation there is neither Jew nor Greek [no national or religious distinction], there is neither bond nor free [no social distinction], there is neither male nor female [no natural distinction].