Since he called us children of
God in a splendid way, he also speaks of the manner in which we became so. But
it is fitting to say regarding the preceding sense, “All who were baptized
into Christ have become children of God”; for this is the consequence. Yet
now he has said the same thing in another way, more appropriately expressing
it. For if we have put on the Son of God, and as it were have clothed ourselves
with his image, it is clear that we are also sharers in his sonship. Even if he
possesses it by nature, we have it by adoption.
“for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.” To be clothed with the one form and one likeness of Christ, and to
have him as one head, and to bring all together into one body. He says, “in
Christ Jesus.” For through him we have been, through his cross, and his
death, and his grace.
“if you belong to Christ, then.”
If then you are the form and body of Christ, he says, it is fittingly that you
are the seed of Abraham. For since previously he said that Christ is the seed
of Abraham according to the flesh (and to that seed of Abraham the promises
were given, that is, to Christ), now the same thing is summed up. If you are,
he says, the body of Christ, you are also the seed of Abraham and heirs of the
promise given to his seed; Christ is, he says, the author of these things for
us, having made us his body; and therefore also introducing us into the seed of
Abraham, not, however, the law. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
by Oecumenius: Also Known as the Pseudo-Oecumenian Catena on the Epistle to the
Galatians [trans. John Litteral; 2026], 46-47)
