Justification through Faith
1 You foolish q Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? r 2 I only want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh? 4 Did you experience ,s so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing? 5 So then, does God give you the Spirit and work miracles t among you by your doing the works of the law? Or is it by believing what you heard— 6 just like Abraham who believed God, u and it was credited to him for righteousness? ,v
7 You know, then, that those who have faith, these are Abraham’s sons. w 8 Now the Scripture saw in advance that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham, x saying, All the nations will be blessed through you. ,y 9 Consequently those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, z who had faith.
Law and Promise
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, a because it is written, b Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed. ,c 11 Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live d by faith. ,e 12 But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. ,f 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, g because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. ,h 14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith. i
15 Brothers and sisters, I’m using a human illustration. No one sets aside or makes additions to a validated human will. 16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say “and to seeds,” as though referring to many, but referring to one, and to your seed, ,j who is Christ. 17 My point is this: The law, which came 430 years later, k does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise; but God has graciously given it to Abraham through the promise.
The Purpose of the Law
19 Why then was the law given? l It was added for the sake of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come. The law was put into effect through angels m by means of a mediator. n 20 Now a mediator is not just for one person alone, but God is one. o 21 Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! For if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power, ,p so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith q in Jesus Christ to those who believe. r 23 Before this faith s came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. t 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, u so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith v has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
Sons and Heirs
27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. w 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, x male and female; y since you are all one z in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs a according to the promise. b
A. The argument from experience (3:1–5). 3:1. The next section proceeds from the logical conclusion of the opponents’ “gospel”: “Christ died for nothing” (2:21). Paul refers to his audience as “you foolish Galatians” (3:1), since the very idea of being attracted to a viewpoint that had as its ultimate result the utter rejection of the necessity of Christ’s death must be ridiculed as sheer folly.
3:2–3. The second rhetorical question of this section is a key to understanding Paul’s definition of authentic Christian experience. As to whether they have really attained the goal of being in Christ (see 2:20), Paul wants to hear from the Galatians just one thing—whether they received the Spirit by works or by faith (3:2). Receiving the Spirit (i.e., the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit) was the fundamental mark of authentic inclusion in the body of Christ. The reception of the Holy Spirit was an eschatological promise associated with the unique ministry of Jesus himself and a fulfillment of the covenantal promises of God made throughout the OT.
3:4–5. Paul appears to refer to some experiences otherwise unknown to us. Asking if they have “experience[d] so much for nothing” (3:4) may well relate to the common opposition that believers in Christ received from their fellow countrymen and from non-Christian Jewish zealots. Paul’s hopeful addition to this question indicates that under the present series of questions lies a questioner who would not even allow the possibility of failure to be the result of his work in Galatia (see 1:7).
3:6–7. On the basis of the proposition in 3:6, Paul concludes that, contrary to the opponents’ views, the true children of Abraham must be those who enter into peace with God in the same way as Abraham (3:7). Abraham becomes the prime example of the effectiveness of faith, since his justification occurred prior to the ceremonial rite of circumcision and centuries before the revealing of the law (see 3:17). In the old covenant as well as the new, it is faith in the promise of God that is the operative element (see Rm 4:14, 16, 18–25). The implication for the Galatians is obvious: whoever is not among “those who have faith” (3:7; as opposed to those who rely on “the works of the law,” 3:2, 5) is neither a child of Abraham nor a child of God.
3:8–9. Finishing these thoughts, Paul uses an unusual expression, which personifies Scripture as being able to foresee the future when it spoke concerning Abraham (3:8). For Paul, the good news of Jesus (his life, death, burial, resurrection, and future return) is a fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham to bless the nations through him (Gn 12:3). The foregoing section is summarized in 3:9, showing that faith, not ethnic background, is humanity’s only way to appropriate the same covenantal blessings announced to Abraham.
3:10–14. Paul indicates that the law (the Mosaic covenant) was not “based on faith” (i.e., not given to Abraham before God made his promises) and therefore should not be viewed as binding on Gentile Christians as the circumcision party contended (3:12). Thus, contrary to the opponents’ beliefs, Paul shows that obedience to the law is not required for justification. Paul does not elaborate here as he does in Rm 7 that the law, though a good gift from God, cannot bring life from death. It seems likely this is what he references by the curse of the law (3:10). Jesus’s death and resurrection did what the law could not do (3:13–14; cf. Rm 8:1–4). It dealt with sin and death once and for all to free humanity from their power, even the power they exercised over God’s good law (cf. Rm 7:7–12).
3:15–18. Now Paul attempts to show that one subsequent covenant cannot violate the provisions of a previous covenant (3:15). Specifically, another agreement, made some 430 years later (3:17), cannot alter the provisions of the covenant made earlier with Abraham. Covenantal agreements were made under the most sober circumstances, calling for a life-and-death commitment from the participants. They were not easily entered into or easily altered. Simply put, Paul is arguing that the promises made to Abraham are not constrained by the Mosaic covenant. The promise was for all the nations (including Israel), while the law was for Israel alone. Paul is adamant that the latter does not constrain the former.
3:19–20. Paul points out the purpose of the law (3:19). The law was given to Israel as a means of teaching them how to live as God’s people. Its purpose was to mitigate transgressions until the inheritor of Abraham’s promises (Christ) came. Now Paul makes a distinction between the covenant of God with Abraham and the acceptance of the law by the people of Israel through the agency of angels (Ac 7:53) and Moses. While Abraham entered into a full covenant with God, Israel ratified an existing legal code accepted by their representative head, Moses. Thus, the superiority of the promise over the law may be in view as well as an additional support to the assertion of 3:17 that the law could not negate the promise.
3:21–25. Paul places the law in a position secondary to the promise, awaiting its fulfillment through that promise, with the rhetorical question of 3:21. The grammar expects a negative answer. Paul places the law in right perspective as God’s thoroughly good gift. However, as Paul argued in Romans, the law was not able to give life and to defeat sin and death. Jesus’s faithful life and death and subsequent vindication by resurrection were necessary to deal with sin and death completely (3:22). Now that faith has come (3:23), the need and the appropriateness of the guardian’s task had ended (3:25). The guardian’s whole task was to point the way to faith in Christ (3:24; as in Rm 10:4, where the goal of the law is Christ).
D. The results of faith (3:26–29). 3:26. In the cultural and religious context of first-century Galatia, where distinctions of national origin, gender, and economic status were the defining tools for human interaction, Paul declares the inauguration of a new paradigm of human value. Paul switches back to the second-person plural from the first-person singular (3:15–25) to state his conclusion.
3:27–29. Paul’s elaboration of this fact in the context of a first-century Gentile church being pressured by Judaizers would make a far greater impact than we may imagine. Paul specifies the accompanying full rights of this new intimate relationship, showing that Gentiles in Christ are also “heirs according to the promise” (3:29). In 3:28, Paul’s elaboration on the oneness found in Christ leaves no room for any prejudicial treatment of fellow believers in light of ethnicity, status, or gender. We should also note that the couplets Jew/Greek and slave/free are not exactly like male/female. While the two former couplets eradicate any distinction whatsoever, the latter one, linked by the conjunction “and,” indicates that while gender differences remain, such differences no longer represent any barrier to full participation in the newness of life found in Christ.