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prove his point that these Galatian believers had "begun" in the realm of faith, whether he
uses the ministering to them of the "Spirit" or whether he dwells upon the place that faith
occupies in evangelical justification is all one. He is eliciting from them the answer to
his question "the hearing of faith"; he is forcing them to perceive that any claim upon
Abraham and the clinging to works of law were mutually destructive, for if they were
really children of Abraham, they must be children of faith.
"Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same (`these' emphatic `these and
these only', see Rom. 8: 14) are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3: 7).
Among the services rendered to the truth by the R.V. is the observance of the two
words translated "children" and "son". In many passages the A.V. has rendered the word
huios by the word "child", and has rendered the word teknon by the word "son". In
practically every case the R.V. consistently reads "son" for huios, except in the phrase
"the children of Israel", which it was found impossible to change owing to the power of
its long associations.
"There is the position of `sonship' (characteristic of the teaching of St. Paul), which
suggests the thoughts of privilege, of inheritance, of dignity; and there is also the
position of `childship' (characteristic of the teaching of St. John), which suggests the
thought of community of nature, of dependence, of tender relationship. Sons may be
adopted; children can only be born" (Some lessons of the R.V. of the N.T. by
Bishop Westcott).
The sequel Gal. 3: 15 - 4: 12 with its insistence upon the "adoption" demands the
recognition here in Gal. 3: 7 that the apostle intentionally used huios and not teknon
"sons" (not "children") thereby intensifying the correlated thoughts of dignity,
inheritance, and liberty, each of which were endangered by the retrograde steps that the
Galatians had taken.
"By faith" they had been justified. "By faith" they had become sons. No wonder the
apostle should exclaim:
"O thoughtless Galatians who hath bewitched you?"