26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
There are just as decisive implications in the closing verses of the chapter as in 25. We note, firstly, Paul's emphatic assertion in 26 of the primacy of faith, as opposed to works, in our becoming children of God. We note also the sequence in the expressions he uses in 26, 27 - faith in Christ, baptized into Christ, put on Christ. Faith in Christ incorporates us into Him, and also brings Him to us, and the new life we 'put on' is the outshining of the new life which has come to us, namely Christ Himself by His Spirit. The famous words in 28 are so well known and oft-quoted that we may miss their import in relation to Paul's argument here. His point is that in the new order of existence into which we have been brought by Christ, the distinctions that the legalists were seeking to perpetuate by their teaching and their prejudices, were in fact non-existent. In Christ Jesus we are all one; there is but one level at the mercy seat where we find pardon, and Jew and Greek find it on precisely the same terms. We should also note that unity is possible only in Christ, and when men are consciously in enjoyment of their position in Him they do not need to work for unity - it is a glad reality in the fellowship of the Spirit.