Surprisingly, v 28 leads to the field of political and social ideals and practices. The first part (v 28a-c) contains three parallel statements in the present tense, which define the religious, cultural, and social consequences of the Christian baptismal intiation... It is significant that Paul makes these statements not as utopian ideals or as ethical demands, but as accomplished facts... There can be no doubt that Paul's statements have social and political implications of even a revolutionary dimension. The claim is made that very old and decisive ideals and hopes of the ancient world have come true in the Christian community. These ideals include the abolition of the religious and social distinctions between Jews and Greeks, slaves and freemen, men and women. These social changes are claimed as part of the process of redemption and as the result and as the result of ecstatic experiences which the Galatians as well as other Christians have had. Being rescued from the present evil aeon (Gal 1:4) and being changed to a "new creation" implies these radical social and political changes... The Christian is now "dead" to the social, religious, and cultural distrinctions characteristic of the old world-order (cf. Gal 2:19)... Characteristic of Paul is that the unity has been accomplished through Christ and the gift of the Spirit... It is, moreover, important to take into consideration that the abolition of the differences in all three statements of Gal 3:28 is tied to the "unity in Christ." (pages 190, 191, 192, 197)

In later Christianity, it was the gnostics who put Paul's words into practice. The gnostic work "On Righteousness, " which Clement of Alexandria attributes to the gnostic Epiphanes, affirms the old dream: "God ... does not make any distrinction between rich or poor, people or ruler, fools and wise, female, male, freemen, slaves." H. Bellen has called attention to the monastic movement, where Gal 3:28 was taken literally. (page 194)