One seed

NT Wright has argued for some time, beginning with The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology , that the “one seed” who is Christ (Galatians 3:16) refers to a corporate reality, the single family of Abraham who are collectively called Christ. He points out that “seed” in Genesis is a collective term, and argues that Paul’s point is to emphasize that the one God always intended to have a single, unified family, rather than a two-tier Jew/Gentile family.

I’m convinced by Wright’s exegesis, but it can seem strained. A few students recently pointed out something later in Galatians 3 that supports the point. He plays with the plural-singular in the last verse of the chapter: “If you all (pl) of Christ, then you all (pl) are Abraham’s seed (sing), according to the gospel heirs” (v. 29). The many Galatians, be they Jew, Gentile, male, female, slave, free (v. 28) are made a single seed of Abraham. Their plurality is closed into unity, and that because they are “of Christ.”

Reading verse 29 back into verse 16, we get this: The promise of inheritance is not made to “seeds” but to “one seed,” the one seed made up of those many who are of Christ.