GALATIANS 3 [†]O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? z It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly a portrayed as crucified. 2[†]Let me ask you only this: b Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by c hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? d Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 e Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5[†]Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and f works miracles among you do so g by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6[†]just as h Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
7[†]Know then that it is i those of faith who are j the sons of Abraham. 8And the Scripture, foreseeing that k God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, l “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10[†]For all who rely on works of the law are m under a curse; for it is written, n “Cursed be everyone who does not o abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11[†]Now it is evident that p no one is justified before God by the law, for q “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12[†]But the law is not of faith, rather r “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13[†]Christ s redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, t “Cursed is everyone who is hanged u on a tree”— 14[†]so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might v come to the Gentiles, so that w we might receive x the promised Spirit through faith.
15[†] y To give a human example, brothers: z even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16[†]Now a the promises were made b to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, c “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17[†]This is what I mean: the law, which came d 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as e to make the promise void. 18[†]For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but f God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19[†]Why then the law? g It was added because of transgressions, h until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was i put in place through angels j by an intermediary. 20[†]Now k an intermediary implies more than one, but l God is one.
21[†]Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For m if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22[†]But the Scripture n imprisoned everything under sin, so that o the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given p to those who believe.
23[†]Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, q imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24[†]So then, r the law was our s guardian until Christ came, t in order that we might be justified by faith. 25[†]But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26[†]for in Christ Jesus u you are all sons of God, through faith. 27[†]For as many of you as v were baptized w into Christ have x put on Christ. 28[†] y There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, z there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29[†]And a if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, b heirs according to promise.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:13 The divine curse is the result of disobedience (v. 10). But the burden of the curse has been lifted by Christ’s work on the cross. Paul talked in 2:20 of Christ’s death for him personally; now he focuses on Christ’s substitutionary work for others.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:27 In addition to sonship (v. 26), Paul adds two more pictures of what is involved in this new age. Being baptized, believers have gone down into death, dying to the old era of law, sin, and death (Rom. 6:3–4; Gal. 2:19; 6:14) and have come up out of the water as participants in the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). put on Christ. The language of “putting on,” as used of clothing, suggests taking on a new life and purpose through being spiritually united to Christ.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:29 Abraham’s offspring. Paul states the main point of his argument: those who belong to Christ are part of Abraham’s family, and hence they do not need to be circumcised to become part of God’s people.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:24 The law, as guardian, had the positive functions of highlighting and restraining transgressions and also of foretelling the coming of Christ.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:1 Who has bewitched you. Paul uses the language of pagan magic to characterize the pernicious activity of the false teachers and the perilous situation of the Galatians. publicly portrayed. Paul believes that his proclamation of the gospel was so vivid in the Galatians’ presence that it was as if they had been eyewitnesses of the crucifixion.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:1–5 The Galatians’ Experience of Conversion. Paul interrogates the Galatians, with five questions in as many verses. He despairs that they have come under the spell of the false teachers, and so he returns to their experience of how they first came to know Christ.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:20 There was more than one party involved in the presentation of the law to Israel, which involved an intermediary, Moses. Because God is one, his ultimate revelation comes not through an intermediary but from him alone (this assumes that whatever comes from Christ comes from the one true God, for Christ is fully God). This lies behind Paul’s protest in ch. 1 about the gospel coming to him not from or through a human being but directly from God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1:1).
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:2 Let me ask. Using rhetorical questions, Paul shows how illogical it is for the Galatians to seek a fuller Christian life through observance of the law. Did God give them the Spirit and work miracles in their midst (v. 5) because they observed the law? No, it was the result of their hearing the gospel and believing it. Receive the Spirit refers to the new covenant work of the Holy Spirit that comes after saving faith, at the beginning of the Christian life, to sanctify and to empower the believer in life and various kinds of ministry. Paul knew this experience was so real for the Galatians that they would remember it.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:11 The OT itself points out that righteousness cannot be achieved through the law, as Hab. 2:4 illustrates.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:12 Paul uses Lev. 18:5 to show that the law is not of faith. It is likely that Paul means the same thing here that he meant in Rom. 10:5, where Lev. 18:5 is equated with “the righteousness that is based on the law” (cf. Phil. 3:9) in contrast to the “righteousness based on faith” (Rom. 10:6). Some interpreters argue that the one who does them shall live by them (cf. Lev. 18:5) in its original context had to do with the temporal blessing and fullness of life that would come to the one who “does” the law. But it also seems to be a conditional promise within the law indicating that obedience would lead to righteousness (cf. Deut. 6:25); this promise, however, remains unfulfilled because it relies on the fulfilling of a condition that could never happen: i.e., it relies on a human “doing of the law” in a complete and sufficient way. Others argue the original context of Lev. 18:5 (see note) mainly concerns the means of enjoying life under God’s pleasure by keeping God’s statutes and rules. Because some think the meaning of Lev. 18:5 in the original context is incompatible with the negative way in which Paul is using the verse here, they believe Paul is citing it as a misused slogan of the Judaizers. It seems better, however, to understand Paul as reading Lev. 18:5 typologically—that is, as seeing life in the land of Israel as a typological reference to eternal life. In the Mosaic covenant, salvation was through faith in God’s promise and his atonement, culminating in the Messiah. But now that the new covenant has come, those who insist on the entrance requirements of the old covenant do not have the benefit of sacrifices, so they must “do” all that the Mosaic law requires in order to “live” eternally (cf. Gal. 5:3).
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:18 In 2:21 Paul said that if righteousness comes through the law, Christ died for nothing. Here he says similarly, if the inheritance comes by the law, the promise is not the basis for it.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:28 neither Jew nor Greek. The fact that the Mosaic law has been left behind in the old age means that, in the new creation, the distinction between Jew and Gentile is broken down (see Eph. 2:11–22). Certainly these Galatians do not have to become Jews in order to be Christians (cf. Gal. 3:14). There is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female does not imply that there are no distinctions in how these groups should act, for Paul elsewhere commands slaves (“bondservants,” esv footnote) and masters differently (Eph. 6:5–9), and husbands and wives differently (Eph. 5:22–33). Paul clearly is not advocating the elimination of all distinctions nor the acceptability of same-sex marriage or homosexual relations (see Rom. 1:26–27). Rather, he teaches that old divisions and wrongful attitudes of superiority and inferiority are abolished, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. He does not take away the distinction between men and women but says they are “united,” joined together in “one” body, the church. The verse teaches unity within diversity but not sameness.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:22 The law (the Scripture), instead of giving “life” (v. 21) with God, imprisoned everything under sin (cf. Rom. 3:9–20). So rather than enabling all Israelites to have access to what was promised, the law was given so that the single “offspring,” Christ, would receive the blessing. The blessing is obtained by faith, not by their own obedience. God was certainly not surprised by the fact that the Israelites were unable to obey the law. In fact, at the end of the giving of the law, Moses foretold that the Israelites would not obey it (Deut. 31:24–29). Thus the law confirmed the promise to Abraham, that justification would come only by faith (Gal. 3:6–9, 14, 18).
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:14 Christ hanging on a tree (v. 13) not only brought blessing to Israel but took place so that … the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. The coming of the Spirit in new power is one of the central benefits of the new age brought in by Christ (see Isa. 44:3). Believers not only have forgiveness of sins, but also the living presence of God with them. Paul explains more of what it means to have the gift of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and 6.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:16 God spoke promises to Abraham on several occasions, but probably Gen. 13:15 and 17:8 are particularly in view. And to your offspring. Paul knows that the singular (Hb. zera‘) can be used as a collective singular that has a plural sense (he interprets it in a plural sense in Rom. 4:18). But it also can have a singular meaning, and here Paul, knowing that only in Christ would the promised blessings come to the Gentiles, sees that the most true and ultimate fulfillment of these OT promises comes to one “offspring,” namely, Christ. Paul’s willingness to make an argument using a singular noun in distinction from its plural form (which occurs in other OT verses) indicates a high level of confidence in the trustworthiness of the small details of the OT text.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:17 came 430 years afterward. Paul is apparently referring to the Septuagint translation of Ex. 12:40, “The dwelling of the children of Israel … in Egypt and in Canaan was 430 years,” which would mean 430 years from Abraham to the exodus (the Hb. text does not include “and in Canaan”). Another explanation is that Paul is not counting the time from the first statement of the promise to Abraham but from the last affirmation of that promise to Jacob before he went to Egypt in Gen. 46:3–4. This method would then count the entire time in Egypt as the time from the “promise” to the “law.” If this is so, then Paul is relying on the Hebrew text of Ex. 12:40 to affirm a 430-year stay in Egypt.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:6–9 The Gospel in the OT (1): Abraham. Paul issues a second direct appeal to the Galatians: it is not just their own experience of receiving the gospel by faith that should teach them that salvation is not by the law but by grace. Rather, the OT example of Abraham also teaches that it is through genuine faith, not the law, that one is counted righteous (see Gen. 15:6).
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:25 faith has come. See note on v. 23.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:5 supplies the Spirit … works miracles. In v. 2 Paul mentioned the Holy Spirit’s work at the beginning of the Galatians’ Christian lives; here he mentions an ongoing, day-by-day work of the Spirit. Though Paul had left these churches, and there were no other apostles present, the Holy Spirit was still present and was still working miracles in their midst. By hearing with faith is not only the way to start the Christian life but is also the way to continue it day by day.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:1–5:12 Direct Appeals to the Galatians. Paul offers a variety of reasons why the Galatians should resist the seductive teaching of the people troubling them.
GALATIANS—NOTE ON 3:26 you are all sons of God. This is the crucial difference between old covenant and new covenant believers: life under the law was slavery; life in Christ is marked by the freedom that comes from being God’s “sons.” Both men and women are here characterized as having the rights of “sons,” because with sonship comes the right of inheritance. The Greek word huioi (“sons”) is a legal term used in the adoption and inheritance laws of first-century Rome. As used by Paul here and elsewhere in his letters (cf. 4:5–7; Rom. 8:14–16, 23), this term refers to the status of all Christians, both men and women, who, having been adopted into God’s family, now enjoy all the privileges, obligations, and inheritance rights of God’s children.