Harold Attridge and John Hare discuss gender identity, ethnic dynamics, and changes of the heart in Galatians 3:23-29. The text is appointed for Proper 7, in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Everything You Are and Everything You Do (Second Sunday after Pentecost)
Voiceover Voice:
We have to be able to see that sin, not just in others but in ourselves.
Helena Martin:
Welcome back to Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. I’m your host, Helena Martin. Join us each week as two Yale Divinity School professors look at an upcoming text from the Revised Common Lectionary.
This episode, we have Harry Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity, and John Hare, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology. They’re discussing Galatians 3:23-29, which is appointed for Proper 7 in Year C: the Second Sunday after Pentecost. Here’s the text.
[Galatians 3:23-29]
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Harold Attridge:
So, John, Galatians 3 has Paul talking about our relationship to Christ in faith, and putting on Christ, and there being neither male, female, et cetera, but all being one in Christ. They’re really interesting texts. What do you make of it?
John Hare:
Yes, the major theme here is justification by faith. We put on Christ and then, as you say, in Christ, there is neither… then there’s a difference: it’s slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male and female. And we should ask, why is it that Paul changes there from the nor to the and? Why is it not male and [nor] female? And my own thought about that is, he’s thinking back to Genesis, where God created “male and female.” And he’s saying that somehow, in Christ, there’s a change to that. What kind of change would that be?
I should tell you that my oldest child was assigned female at birth, and is now male, and has had reconstructive surgery. And my wife and I have had to come to understand this and to understand it as Christians. And there’s been a good deal of pain involved in that process. But my own conviction after going through this is, it’s the same person all the way through. And I want to say being male and female are not essential to our identities. We could put that eschatologically. And in terms of heaven, we could say we’re not going to be male and female. We’re not going to be married or given in marriage in heaven, and that you could be the same person assigned one gender and then another, so that there isn’t an essential change. And I think something like that is in Paul’s mind, that as Christ sees us, in our relationship to Christ, the difference between male and female is not essential, but I’m just speaking from my own experience.
Harold Attridge:
No, that’s moving testimony and what I’m sure was a very difficult experience. I think one of the things that Paul is wrestling with here is another binary that has come to dominate our environment these days. And we express it in terms of race. Paul expresses it here in terms of “Jew” and “Greek,” which we tend to think of in terms of religious categories. But I think in antiquity it might’ve had a slightly different. And then the “slave and free”: we tend to pay homage to notions of equality, whereas in our real social relations, there still is a lot of inequality. And it’s easier in the abstract to say it doesn’t matter where we are on the social hierarchy, but it does matter in terms of our day-to-day existence.
And I think what Paul is doing here, inciting what probably is a baptismal formula, is trying to make his congregation aware not only of what the issue on the table is, that is that the division between Jew and Greek no longer obtains in this new realm created by the Christ event, but also some other things that have divided us–racial divisions, gender divisions, et cetera–ought not, cannot, should not, and won’t divide us if we are truly in Christ. And I think that’s a profound message and one that is somewhat easier to articulate verbally. It’s often difficult to live out, practically, in relationship to other people. And you’ve had that experience. I can see that in a major way.
John Hare:
These three distinctions—Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female–are all, in the ancient world, power relations, and what’s being subverted here, I think, is the power structure. And to recognize Jesus as Lord is then not to give ultimate authority to anything else, any of these structures in which we live in a society; they all have to be transformed. And most of them are corrupt and sinful, and we have to be able to see that sin not just in others but in ourselves, and allow Christ’s Lordship to prevail.
Harold Attridge:
You can see the Paul wrestles with this too. And I don’t think he was always as successful as we’d like him to have been. There are the passages where he talks about the relationship between men and women, where the power relationships are still on the table. Some of those passages might well be Deutero-Pauline, written by Paul’s successors. But some of them are probably written by himself. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 11, where he’s dealing with the issue of how men and women should behave, especially women, should behave in worship assemblies, and he wants them to behave decently and in order. He establishes a kind of hierarchical relationship between God, Christ, man, and woman that reinforces the kind of power relationships you’re talking about in gender categories at least. But immediately after that, he recognizes he’s made a bad move!
John Hare:
[Laughs]
Harold Attridge:
And he says, “No, but in Christ, men and women are equal!” Right? So, it’s interesting how we could admit some fundamental theological principle, as he does here, and then have difficulties working it out, in the light of the fact that we have these power relationships surrounding us all the time. And Paul is a good example of someone who tries to do so.
John Hare:
The Jew and Gentile reference in Galatians also tells us something important, I think, about Paul’s relation to his own people. He doesn’t say here, “Christians replaced Jews.” And I think that’s not his view. (And that is disputed.) I don’t think he’s a supersessionist. So, I think he thinks that the Jews have a salvation history that continues, and they will, in fact, I think he thinks, be related to Christians in the same sort of way as Christians are related to Jews. So, there will be a kind of reversal, but it’s not a replacement.
Harold Attridge:
I’d agree on that. He’s not a supersessionist, and he wrestles with this in Romans, Romans 11 in particular. And he believes that all Israel will be saved in God’s good time, and that God somehow will resolve the difficulty that has presented itself to him, that his own people don’t accept his message, his interpretation of scripture. But yeah, God will resolve this in good time. And he tells the Gentiles in that passage, “you are grafted into Israel. Don’t lord it over them. You owe everything you have to Israel.” And I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind in having conversations with our Jewish brothers and sisters: that whatever we are, whatever we have, comes from them.
So, yes, a very important passage. The one other thing that I like about this passage: the baptismal reference and the overcoming of differences, yes, that’s definitely there; the language of putting on Christ, I think is very expressive language. And it probably is also related to the fact that Paul is alluding to baptismal ritual here. And we know that within a century or so, people were donning new garments when they got baptized, and they were probably doing it already in Paul’s day. And I think what he’s saying here is, “Remember that ritual experience that you had. You put on something new, and that newness needs to be expressed in everything you are and everything you do. So be in Christ,” he says.
John Hare:
So, I think that’s right. But there’s a difficulty, that some people think putting on Christ is like putting on a new set of clothes without any change in your body, as though putting on Christ is something merely external, as though you were selling a house just by white-washing it and not–it’s still unsound in the foundations. And I don’t think that’s what Paul has in mind. I don’t think that the clothes are merely external. I think that justification by faith is a change in the heart, and these new clothes express that change. They’re not, as it were, deceptive about what is going on inside.
Harold Attridge:
Yes. As in so many other cases that we just take one of Paul’s metaphors or images and run with it alone, we’re going to get a difficulty. Being part of the body of Christ is another image we use that is probably more expressive of that internal dynamic that you’re talking about, that definitely is there in Paul and certainly here in this passage.
Helena Martin:
Thanks for listening to Chapter, Verse, and Season!
For more about this podcast, or for more Bible resources in general, visit YaleBibleStudy.org. And follow us on Twitter: @BibleYale.
Chapter, Verse, and Season is a production of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. It’s produced by: Creator and Managing Editor, Joel Baden; Production Manager, Kelly Morrissey; Associate Producer, Aidan Stoddart; and Host and Executive Producer, me, Helena Martin. Our theme music is Calvin Linderman.
We’ll be back with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.
Book of the Bible:
Galatians
Subjects:
Galatians
Guests
Text
New Revised Standard Version Bible
Copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Credits
Host and Executive Producer: Helena Martin
Production Manager: Kelly Morrissey
Creator and Managing Editor: Joel Baden
Assistant Producer: Aidan Stoddart
Music: Calvin Linderman
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Erika Helgen and Chloe Starr discuss the church universal and love as the basis for the exercise of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a. The text is appointed for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary
Felicity Harley-McGowan and Bruce Gordon discuss recognizing God in the midst of community and the diversity of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. The text is appointed for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Peter Hawkins and Eric Reymond discuss the power of God in Psalm 29. The text is appointed for the First Sunday after Epiphany, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Awet Andemicael and Adam Eitel discuss the mystery, language and lyricism in John 1:1-18. The text is appointed for the Second Sunday after Christmas, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Gregory Sterling and Harold Attridge discuss the humanity of young Jesus and the role of Mary as mother in Luke 2:41-52. The text is appointed for the First Sunday after Christmas, Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Sarah Drummond and Joel Baden discuss birth, kingship and signs of God’s redemption in Isaiah 9:2-7. The text is appointed for Christmas (Proper 1), December 24, Years A, B, and C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Felicity Harley-McGowan and Bruce Gordon discuss the Magnificat and our understanding of Mary through the ages in relation to Luke 1:46b-55. The text is appointed for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent 4), Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Joel Baden and Sarah Drummond discuss hope, apathy, and why the context of prophecy matters in Zephaniah 3:14-20. The text is appointed for the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent 3), Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Peter Hawkins and Eric Reymond discuss disaster and hope, glory, and reversal in Baruch 5:1-9. The text is appointed for the Second Sunday of Advent (Advent 2), Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Joel Baden and Tisa Wenger discuss messianic prophecy, timelessness, and historic context in Jeremiah 33:14-16. The text is appointed for the First Sunday of Advent (Advent 1), Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Chapter, Verse, and Season gives listeners the opportunity to overhear the kinds of conversations that take place in the halls of Yale Divinity School. Each week, professors from different theological disciplines chat about biblical texts from the Revised Common Lectionary. They bring their own interests to the table and hopefully spark new insights into the scripture appointed for each Sunday.