“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor 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.” (Galatians 3:26–29)

I know the trend and expectation in our world today is to use inclusive language. We see it reaching ludicrous extremes. It started with not saying “all men” because that sounded like it was leaving out women. “All people” was considered more appropriate. Now the extreme expectation is that when a child is born, you shouldn’t say “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” You should not identify it as male or female so that the child can decide its own gender.

Over the years people have leveled charges of misogyny against the Apostle Paul because of the way his repeated use of masculine pronouns in his writings. Let think about that in terms of this passage. Paul writes, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” He does this intentionally, because in that society, only male children were the rightful heirs. Females children were not legitimate heirs. But Paul is making the point that anyone who believes in Jesus is a true spiritual descendant of Abraham and therefore “heirs according to the promise.”

Instead of being exclusionary, he is being purposely inclusionary by saying “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” No one is left out. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  There is to be no distinction, no rankings or classifications. By virtue of your baptism and your faith that the Holy Spirit has worked in you, you have been clothed with Christ. He covers you. You belong to him. So you are heirs of the promise made to Abraham, that through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. (Genesis 18:18)

That blessing came in the form of the promised Messiah, born of a virgin, in Bethlehem. Angels announced his birth joyfully: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10–11)  He would live the life of perfection God requires of us. He did that in our place. He would take the punishment our sins deserve, doing that in our place as well. He would then conquer death and the grave for you to have a guaranteed place in heaven. It matters not you gender, race, age, education, nationality or any other descriptor we have here on earth. He did this for the world. Including you.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God.