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Gal_3:26. The argumentative emphasis is laid first on πάντες , and then, not on υἱοί ,—which expositors have been wont to understand in the pregnant sense: sons of full age, free, in contrast to the παισί implied in παιδαγωγός (see, against this view, Wieseler and Matthias),—but on υἱοὶ Θεοῦ , because in this Θεοῦ the υἱοί actually has its express and full definition, and therefore to supply the defining idea is quite unwarrantable. All of you are sons of God by means of faith;[169] but where all without exception and without distinction are sons of God, and are so through faith, none can be, like Israel before the appearance of faith, under the dominion of the law, because the new state of life, that of faith, is something altogether different,—namely, fellowship with the υἱότης of Christ (Gal_3:27). To be a son of God through faith, and to be under the old tutorial training, are contradictory relations, one of which excludes the other. The higher, and in fact perfect relation,[170] excludes the lower.
ΠΆΝΤΕς ] Paul now speaks in the second person, because what is said in Gal_3:26 f. held good, not of the Jewish Christians alone (of whom he previously spoke in the first person), but of all Christians in general as such, consequently of all his readers whom he now singles out for address; whether they may have previously been Jews or Gentiles, now they are sons of God. Hofmann supposes that Paul meant by the second person his Gentile-Christian readers, and wished to employ what he says of them in proof of his assertion respecting those who had been previously subject to the law. In this case he must, in order to be intelligible, have used some such words as καὶ γὰρ ὑμεῖς ἔθνη πάντες κ . τ . λ . According to the expression in the second person used without any limitation, the Galatian Christians must have considered themselves addressed as a whole without distinction,—a view clearly confirmed to them by the ὅσοι (Gal_3:27), and the ἸΟΥΔΑῖΟς ΟὐΔῈ ἝΛΛΗΝ comp. with ΠΆΝΤΕς ὙΜΕῖς (Gal_3:28). Where, on the other hand, Paul is thinking of the Galatians as Gentile Christians (so far as the majority of them actually were so), this may be simply gathered from the context (Gal_4:8).
ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ] belongs to ΠΊΣΤΕΩς . According to the construction ΠΙΣΤΕΎΕΙΝ ἜΝ ΤΙΝΙ (see Mar_1:15; Eph_1:13; LXX. Ps. 77:22, Jer_12:6; Clem. 1 Cor. 22: Ἡ ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ ΠΊΣΤΙς , Ignat. ad Philad. 8: ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ οὐ πιστεύω ), Ἡ ΠΊΣΤΙς ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ is fides in Christo reposita, the faith resting in Christ; the words being correctly, in point of grammar, combined so as to form one idea. See Winer, p. 128 [E. T. 169]; Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 63, ad Rom. I. p. 195 f. Comp. Eph_1:1; Eph_1:15; Col_1:4; 1Ti_3:13. But Usteri, Schott, Hofmann, Wieseler, Ewald, Matthias, Reithmayr (Estius also pronouncing it allowable), join ἐν Χρ . Ἰ . with ΥἹΟῚ ΘΕΟῦ ἘΣΤΕ , of which it is alleged to be the modal definition; specially explaining the sense, either as “utpote Christo prorsus addicti” (Schott), or of the “inclusion in Christ” (Hofmann), or as assigning the objective ground of the sonship, which has its subjective ground in διὰ τ . πίστ . (Wieseler; comp. Hofmann and Buhl). But all these elements are already obviously involved in ΔΙᾺ Τ . ΠΊΣΤ . itself, so that ἘΝ Χ . Ἰ ., as parallel to ΔΙᾺ Τ . Π ., would be simply superfluous and awkward; whereas, connected with ΔΙᾺ Τ . Π ., it expresses the emphatic and indeed solemn completeness of this idea (comp. Gal_3:22), in accordance with the great thought of the sentence, coming in all the more forcibly at the end, as previously in the case of ἐλθεῖν (Gal_3:23) and ἘΛΘΟΎΣΗς (Gal_3:25) the ΠΊΣΤΙς was mentioned without its object, and the latter was left to be understood as a matter of course.
[169] διὰ τ . πίστ . stands third in the order of emphasis, but has not the main stress laid upon it in contradistinction to the πάντες (Hofmann), as if it stood immediately after πάντες γάρ .
[170] Theodoret aptly remarks: ἔδειξε τῶν πεπιστευκότων τὸ τέλειον · τί γὰρ τελειότερον τῶν υἱῶν χρηματιζόντων Θεοῦ ;