For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Parallel translations
- WEB For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus.
- KJV For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
- BSB You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
- NASB For you are all sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
- NLT For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Through faith in Christ Jesus, all believers are sons and daughters of God. This is the heart of the gospel: full family standing comes by faith, not law-keeping.
Overview
Paul concludes his argument that the law was a temporary guardian (3:24-25) by declaring the result of Christ's coming: believers are now full children of God. The phrase 'through faith' underscores that sonship rests on union with Christ, not on works or ethnic descent. This sweeping 'you are all' anticipates verse 28's unity and grounds the believer's identity entirely in Christ rather than in the law.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Eph 1:5having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,
- 2 Cor 6:18I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
- John 1:12–13But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name:
- Gal 4:5–6that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of children.
- 1 Jn 3:1–2See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.
- Rom 8:14–17For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.
- Phil 2:15that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world,
- Rev 21:7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son.
- Eph 5:1Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.
- John 20:17Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
- Heb 2:10–15For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 3:26 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.