The gospels tell the story of a new and better covenant, instituted by Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross, and this new covenant radically changed the status and place of women in God’s Kingdom. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. This new creation brings a new identity. Women are no longer daughters of Eve any more than men are sons of Adam; women are no more bound to the ball and chains of Eve’s deception than men are still bound to Adam’s disobedience.
New Credentials
The new covenant established a new credential system. “The Levitical priesthood qualifications were ancestral and physical; the New Covenant ministry qualifications are spiritual and moral” (1). When Christ uttered the words, “It is finished” the temple veil was torn from top to bottom. Now everyone has access to Him regardless of any earthly differences or labels.
Peter speaks of this in his first letter. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession…” (1 Pet 2:9a, NIV). Earlier in the letter he told them that “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5, NIV). This language of “chosen people,” “royal priesthood,” “holy nation,” “God’s special possession,” “house,” and “offering sacrifices” all echo the words in Exodus at Mt Sinai when God instituted the first part of his covenant with Israel. But, in that covenant, only Jewish men could serve as priests and offer sacrifices. In this new covenant, all of those in Christ are part of a priesthood, a house of God; all of those in Christ, men and women, can offer sacrifices and serve Him at the altar or elsewhere.
The Magna Charta of Christianity
Perhaps no other verse presents the changed status of all members of humanity as succinctly as Galatians 3:26-29.
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:26-29, NIV)
Called the “Magna Charta of Humanity,” this passage, and verse 28 in particular, affirms equality in Christ that transcends the three major social groups that often divide us: ethno-religious, socio-economic, and gender. In this polemic letter to the Galatians, Paul makes the daring, even provocative, announcement regarding who was a son, and an heir, of Abraham. He uses different language than Peter, the language of “son” and “heir,” but the message is the same: what was once only available through the covenant rite of circumcision was now available through another covenant rite: baptism.
In the first two pairs, Jew/Gentile and slave/free, Paul uses the conjunction, ‘oude,’ which usually combines two terms to convey a single idea (1 Timothy 2:12). He is not saying there is no Jews in Christ, no Gentiles in Christ, no slaves in Christ, or no free men in Christ. He is using these pairs to convey that there is no division between these two sets of groups that are normally, in his day, completely separated. For the third pair, male and female, Paul uses another conjunction, kai, or ‘and,’ but is continuing his list of contrasting pairs. Substituting kai for oude still conveys a single idea: there is no male-female division in Christ. The barriers that had existed in Paul’s world no longer existed in the reality of being “one in Christ.” Payne writes,
“Paul’s point is that gender, just as race and social rank, is irrelevant to status in Christ. Just as gentiles should have the same opportunities for service in the church as Jews, and slaves should have the same opportunities for service in the church as free persons, women should also have the same opportunities for service in the church as men” (2).
Paul is using specific pairs that had power differences in his day, and still do to a large extent. But in the church and the Christian community, because we are “in Christ,” things should be different. “The various identifications of people in broader society have no significance in the church because the identification of being baptized and clothed in Christ, and of being heirs of Abraham, overrides other identities” (3). Being in Christ means each of us is a completely new creation; the old identity is gone! It completely changes who we are and our place in His Kingdom. We are now known by who we are in Christ. And, in Christ, we are all sons! We all receive the full inheritance of the heirs of Abraham.
Galatians 3:28 also challenges a common Jewish prayer, although it is uncertain if it was as common in the 1st century as in later Jewish history. Every morning, a devout Jewish man would repeat the prayer, “Blessed are you God of the universe who has not made me a Gentile, who has not made me a slave, who has not made me a woman.” Furthermore, Gentiles, slaves and women were excluded from the study of the Scriptures. In his recent book, “How God Sees Women” Terran Williams suggests, “without denying the social differences, [Paul] seeks to dissolve the hierarchy as far as possible, by applying the uniting and equalizing power of the gospel” (4).
We all receive the inheritance of firstborn sons
There are those who believe the order of creation reveals God’s design for a hierarchy of gender roles; men are created to lead because God created them first, and women are to be subordinate to men. The most problematic and bothersome aspect about connecting the order of creation to the subordination of women is that it robs women of part of their inheritance of Christ; it denies women the full reality of the new creation. Women are confined to their status “in Adam” rather than “in Christ, stripping their inheritance of its anthropological and cosmic significance, leaving only its soteriological significance.
John Templeton Bristow, in his book “What Paul Really Said About Women,” proposes that in both Galatians and Colossians, “Paul envisioned a world in which Jews and Greeks, educated and barbarian, slaves and free, men and women would be equal citizens in a kingdom that was not political but spiritual” (5). Forever expunged was the man-made notion that sons were the only ones to receive an inheritance or have authority in the name of the father. Christ is the firstborn of all creation(Col.1:15) therefore anyone who is in Christ, male or female, receives the full inheritance and rights of the firstborn son.
Being in Christ means each of us is a completely new creation; the old identity is gone! There is no male and female! It completely changes who we are and our place in His Kingdom. We are now known by who we are in Christ. And, in Christ, we are all sons! We all receive the inheritance of the firstborn son.
Footnotes:
- Mowczko, M. (2011, May 1). Old Testament Priests & New Covenant Ministers. https://margmowczko.com/old-testament-priests-new-testament-ministers/
- Payne, P. B. (2023). The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality. Zondervan. Kindle Edition, p. 104.
- Mowczko, M. (2013, Dec. 12). Galatians 3:28: Our Identity in Christ & in the Church. https://margmowczko.com/galatians-3_28-identity/
- Williams, Terran. (2023). How god sees women. The Spiritual Bakery Publications, p. 95
- Bristow, J. T. (2011). What Paul really said about women: An Apostle’s Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love. Harper Collins, p. 31