Who is the Seed of Galatians 3:16?

Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.


Galatians 3:16 is one of the least understood verses of all of Paul’s writings, yet it might be one of the most important. The traditional understanding is that the seed of Abraham is Jesus/Yeshua and from most translations, that is understandable. However, this understanding of the verse has some problems.

Some of the questions that arise are as follows:

1. The verse says the promises were made to the seed of Abraham and that the seed is Christ. So what do the scriptures say were the promises that were made to Christ?

2. If the promises were made to Abraham and to Christ only, then does that mean that no one else can share in them?

3. The word seed, which is the Greek word sperma from which we get sperm, is usually used to reference literal descendants. Can this apply to Jesus/Yeshua since he did not come from a man’s seed, but from God?


If you take the time to think about it, the traditional way of reading this does not make sense. One alternate view states that the mistake is made in translating the Greek word Christos as the pronoun Christ. Christ is simply the transliteration of Christos and has therefore lost some of its meaning. The Greek word Christos literally means “the anointed one or ones”. That is why some people say Jesus the Christ because literally Jesus Christ could be translated Jesus the anointed one. We see the same thing with the Greek word baptizō which means immersion, being transliterated baptism which can mean sprinkled to someone.


The biggest issue with losing the “anointed” meaning is that being anointed has a definite meaning in the Old Testament, especially when referencing the High Priest or the future Messiah. This is why one translator does Gal 3:16 this way:

'To Abraham and his seed were the promises announced. He saith not, And to the seeds, as to many, but as to one, And to thy seed which is anointed.'

Alternatively the last clause could be rendered, 'And to thy seed which is an anointed people.'

So this translator takes the anointing from Jesus and places it on the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I personally do not agree with this view either. I instead think that the confusion comes from the way Paul’s idea is laid out in the Greek. Because the Greek did not have punctuation and capitalization, it is usually up to the reader to decide which nouns the pronouns, adjectives and adverbs reference. This is done by understanding the context of the sentence. So if you think it is all about Jesus, then he is “the promise” and “the seed”. If however, you think it is all about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then they are “the promise” and “the seed”.

There is another solution that falls between these two views, however. If we rearrange the verse, to make it easier for us to understand it, then a different way of looking at it appears:

Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. which is Christ. He saith not And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed,

If the verse is read this way, then the seed is clearly the single line of Abraham through Isaac and Christ is the promise. This overcomes the various problems with the traditional reading, yet does not remove Christ from the picture like the alternate reading does. For those who might think this is manipulating the verse to get a desired outcome, let’s look at the next verse:


Gal 3:17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.


Paul does the same thing in this verse. It is better read this way:

Gal 3:17 And this I say, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, the covenant, that it should make the promise of none effect. which was confirmed before of God in Christ,

So in a more straightforward way of saying it: The Law could not undo the Abrahamic covenant that happened 430 years before. Nor was it ever intended to.

Most commentators do not have a problem with this understanding even though it is laid out the exact same way as the prior verse. The problem with the prior verse is the bias that the commentators bring. Most Christian scholars see the Church as having replaced the physical line of Abraham, so in verse 3:16 the seed cannot be about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the opposite extreme, most Jewish leaning scholars always try to err on the more Orthodox way of looking at something. But in Galatians, Paul is writing to a group of non-Jewish, recent converts to following the Messiah of Yahweh and it makes sense that his letters would include some of both.

This becomes more obvious when this verse is not read separately.

Gal 3:14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Gal 3:15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. which is Christ. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed,
Gal 3:17 And this I say, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, the covenant, that it should make the promise of none effect. which was confirmed before of God in Christ,
Gal 3:18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.


Reading Galatians properly also helps or is helped by the following verses from Romans:

Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Rom 9:8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.


So by reading Paul correctly, we should understand that the promise of a messiah was always the result of having a faith like Abraham had and not of some actions on our part. The Law/Torah was to help us with our relationship.