Galatians 6:16—The Israel of the Deity

With reference to Galatians 6:16—And again likewise, addressing the Gentile element of the Ecclesia in Ephesus, Paul calls upon them to remember that in time past they were uncircumcised Gentiles in the flesh, and consequently, "without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and atheists (atheoi) in the world." But now, all this was reversed when they came to be sealed, and to be constituents of the New Man -- "THE ISRAEL OF THE DEITY" (Gal. vi. 16): "the One Body." They were now "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, and familiars of the Deity" (ii. 11-19). They had become the adopted citizens of Israel’s Commonwealth or polity. They were Jews inwardly, "walking in the steps of that faith of their father Abraham which he had before he was circumcised." They differed from common Jews in not being of the same fleshly descent, which was a matter of no profit; and they differed from them also in being men of faith like Abraham. But the only difference between them and those noblest of all Jews, the prophets and their class, was the accident of birth. Ezekiel, Daniel, Cornelius, Crispus, Gaius, Erastus, and such like, though Jews and Greeks, were yet all "Israelites indeed" through faith -- the Jews inwardly, living under the law before the faith came by Jesus, being justified "by faith" in the promises (ek pisteos); and the Jews inwardly, living after the faith came, being justified by one and the same Deity, "through the faith" dia tes pisteos, in the promises, or "the truth as it is in Jesus" (Gal. iii. 23-25; Rom. iii. 30; iv. 12-16).