Children of God
by Faith

Paul, as an extremely good teacher of the faith, always has these words on his lips: “through faith,” “in faith,” “by faith in Christ Jesus.” He doesn’t say here, “You are God’s children because you are circumcised, have listened to the law, and have obeyed it.” This is what the Jews imagined and the false apostles taught.

Instead, he says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” The law, much less human laws, doesn’t make us children of God. It can’t create a new creature or produce a new birth. But it places before our eyes the old birth by which we are born into the kingdom of the devil. By doing so, the law prepares us for the new birth, which takes place through faith in Jesus Christ, not through the law. Paul testifies to this in the clearest way: “You are all sons of God through faith.” It’s as if he were saying, “Although you are tormented, humiliated, and killed by the law, it still has not made you righteous. But faith has made you righteous. Which faith? Faith in Christ.” It’s faith in Christ, not the law, that creates children of God.

The book of John testifies to this: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Source: Quoted in Faith Alone: A Daily Devotional, p. 136.  James C. Galvin. Zondervan (2009).