Galatians 3

Galatians 3:1

II. DOCTRINAL: PAUL DEFENDS JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH (3:1-5:1) A. The Great Truth of the Gospel (3:1-9) 3:1 Their actions exhibited a lack of understanding and reason. To turn to law from grace is to be bewitched. It is to be lulled as by a magic spell and unwarily to accept falsehood for truth. When Paul asks: Who has bewitched you?, the who is singular (Greek, tis), not plural, perhaps suggesting that the devil was the author of this false teaching. Paul himself had preached Jesus Christ to the Galatians as crucified, emphasizing that the cross was to separate them forever from the curse and bondage of the law. How could they return to the law and thus disregard the cross? Had not the truth laid hold of them practically? 3:2 One question should be sufficient to settle the whole matter. Let them go back to the time of their conversionthe time when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in their bodies. How did they receive the Spirit? By doing, or by believing? Obviously it was by believing. No one ever received the Spirit by keeping the law.3:3 If they could not obtain salvation by works, could they expect to grow in holiness or Christian maturity by the law? If the power of the Spirit was necessary to save them, could they complete the process by fleshly efforts? 3:4 When the Galatians first trusted in Christ, they exposed themselves to bitter persecution, perhaps partly at the hands of Jewish zealots who hated the gospel of grace. Was all that suffering in vain? In going back to the law were they not saying that the persecutors were right after all? If indeed it was in vain. Paul expresses continued hope that they will return to the gospel for which they once suffered. 3:5 There is a question whether He (or he) in verse 5 refers to God, to Paul, or to someone else who was ministering to the Galatians at the time he was writing the Letter. Ultimately, it must apply to God, since only He can supply the Holy Spirit. However, in a secondary sense, it could apply to a Christian worker as the instrument through whom God performs His will. This would give a very exalted view of the Christian ministry. Someone has said: Real Christian work of any sort is conveying the Holy Spirit to others; it is actually the dispensing of the Spirit.If the apostle is speaking of himself, he is probably thinking of the miracles which accompanied his preaching and their reception of Christ (Heb_2:4). However, the tense of the verb indicates not something that happened in the past, but something going on at the time of writing. Paul is probably referring to the miraculous gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit on believers after their conversion, as described in 1Co_12:8-11. Does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? The answer is: By the hearing of faith. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit and His subsequent work in the believer are never earned nor merited, but are always given by grace and received by faith. Thus the Galatians should have realized from their own experiences that blessing comes by faith and not by law-keeping. For his second proof, Paul now turns to the very Scriptures which the false teachers were using to show the necessity of circumcision! What did the OT really say? 3:6 Paul had demonstrated that God’s dealings with the Galatians were entirely on the basis of faith. Now he shows that men were saved in the same way even in OT times. The question in verse 5 was: Does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? The answer was: By the hearing of faith. With that answer in mind, verse 6 opens, just as Abraham … . He was justified in the same wayby the hearing of faith. Perhaps the Jewish teachers were using Abraham as their hero and example, basing their argument for the necessity of circumcision on his experience (Gen_17:24, Gen_17:26). If so, Paul will fight them on their own ground. How then was Abraham saved? Abraham believed God. It was not by any meritorious act at all. He simply believed God. There is no merit attached to that; in fact, a man is a fool not to believe God. Believing God is the only thing man can do in connection with salvation, which leaves him no ground for boasting. It is not a good work, involving human effort. It gives no place to the flesh. What is more right than for a creature to trust his Creator or a child his Father? Justification is an act of God by which He declares righteous all who believe on Him. God can properly deal with sinners in this way because Christ died as a substitute for sinners on Calvary’s cross, paying the debt of their sins. Justification does not mean that God makes the believer righteous and sinless in himself. He reckons him to be righteous on the basis of the work of the Savior. God gives the trusting sinner a righteous standing which makes him fit for heaven, then expects him to live righteously in gratitude for what He has done for him. The important thing to note here is that justification has nothing to do with law-keeping. It is entirely on the principle of faith. 3:7 Doubtless the Jewish teachers were maintaining that in order to be real sons of Abraham, the Galatians had to be circumcised. Paul refutes this. The real sons of Abraham are not those who are born Jews, or those who become Jewish converts, but those who are saved by faith. In Rom_4:10-11, Paul shows that Abraham was reckoned righteous before he was circumcised. In other words, he was justified while he was still on Gentile ground. 3:8 The OT is depicted as a prophet, looking down the centuries and foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles as well as Jews on the principle of faith. The blessing of the Gentiles by faith was not only foreseen by the OT, but was actually announced to Abraham in Gen_12:3 In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.When we first read this quotation from Genesis, we find it difficult to see how Paul found such a meaning in it. Yet the Holy Spirit, who wrote that verse in the OT, knew that it contained the gospel of salvation by faith to all nations. Since Paul was writing by inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, he was enabled to explain to us the underlying meaning: In youthat is, along with Abraham, in the same way as Abraham. All the nationsthe Gentiles as well as the Jews. Shall be blessedbe saved.

How was Abraham saved? By faith. How will the nations be saved? In the same way as Abrahamby faith. Moreover, they will be saved as Gentiles, not by becoming Jews. 3:9 All those who exercise faith in God are justified with believing Abraham, according to the testimony of the Jewish Scriptures.

Galatians 3:10

B. Law Versus Promise (3:10-18) 3:10 Paul shows from the Sacred Writings that, far from conferring a blessing, the law can only curse. This verse does not say As many as have broken the law, but: As many as are of the works of the law, that is, all who seek to obtain favor with God on the basis of obeying the law. They are under the curse, that is, condemned to death. For it is written (in Deu_27:26) Cursed is everyone who does not continue. . . . It is not enough to keep the law for a day, or a month, or a year. One must continue to keep it. Obedience must be complete. It is not enough to keep just the Ten Commandments. All six hundred and some laws in the five books of Moses must be obeyed! 3:11 The false teachers are once again refuted from the OT. Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk to show that God has always justified men by faith and not by law. The quotation in the original Greek word order reads: The just (or righteous) by faith shall live. In other words, those who have been reckoned righteous by faith, not by works, shall have eternal life. The justified-by-faith-ones shall live.3:12 The law does not ask men to believe. It does not even ask men to try to keep the commandments.

It calls for strict, complete, and perfect obedience, as was so clearly taught in Leviticus. It is a contrary principle to faith. The law says: Do and live. Faith says: Believe and live. Paul’s argument then is this: The just person shall live by faith. A person under law does not live by faith.

Therefore, he is not just before God. When Paul says: The man who does them shall live by them, he is stating a theoretical axiom or ideal but one that is impossible to attain. 3:13 To redeem is to buy back, or to deliver by paying the price. The curse of the law is deaththe penalty for breaking its commandments. Christ has delivered those under law from paying the penalty of death demanded by the law. (Paul is undoubtedly speaking primarily of believing Jews when he uses the pronoun us, although the Jews were representatives of the entire human race.) Cynddylan Jones says: The Galatians imagined that Christ only half purchased them, and that they had to purchase the rest by their submission to circumcision and other Jewish rites and ceremonies. Hence their readiness to be led away by false teachers and to mix up Christianity and Judaism. Paul says here: (according to the Welsh translation) Christ hath wholly purchased us from the curse of the law.Christ redeemed men by dying in their place, enduring the dreadful wrath of God against sins. The curse of God fell on Him as man’s Substitute. He did not become sinful in Himself, but man’s sins were placed upon Him. Christ did not redeem men from the curse of the law by keeping the Ten Commandments perfectly during His lifetime. Scripture does not teach that His perfect obedience to the law is reckoned to us. Rather He delivered men from the law by bearing its dreadful curse in death. Apart from His death there could be no salvation. The law taught that when condemned criminals were hanged on a tree, it was a sign of their being under the curse of God (Deu_21:23). Here the Holy Spirit sees in that passage a prophecy of the manner in which the Savior would die to bear the curse for His creatures. He was hung between heaven and earth as though unworthy of either. In His death by crucifixion, He is said to have been hanged on a tree (Act_5:30; 1Pe_2:24). 3:14 God had promised to bless Abraham and to bless all the world through him. The blessing of Abraham is really salvation by grace through faith. The penalty of death required by God must first be paid. So the Lord Jesus was made a curse in order that God might reach out to both Jews and Gentiles in grace. Now in Christ (a descendant of Abraham), the nations are blessed. God’s promise to Abraham in Gen_12:3 does not mention the Holy Spirit. But Paul tells us here, by inspiration of God, that the gift of the Holy Spirit was included in God’s unconditional covenant of salvation with Abraham. It was there in embryo. The Holy Spirit could not come as long as the law was in the way. Christ had to die and be glorified before the Spirit could be given (Joh_16:7). The apostle has demonstrated that salvation is by faith, not law, by (1) the experience of the Galatians, and (2) the witness of the OT Scriptures. He now turns to an illustration from everyday life. Paul’s argument in this section may be summarized as follows: In Gen_12:3, God promised to bless all families of the earth in Abram. This promise of salvation included Gentiles as well as Jews. In Gen_22:18, God also promised: In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. He said seed (singular), not seeds (plural). God was referring to One Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a direct descendant of Abraham (Luk_3:34). In other words, God promised to bless all nations, Gentile as well as Jewish, through Christ. The promise was unconditional; it required neither good works nor legal obedience. It was a simple promise meant to be received in simple faith. Now the law, given to Israel 430 years later, could not add conditions to the promise nor alter it in any way. In human affairs this would be unrighteous; in divine matters it would be unthinkable. The conclusion therefore is that God’s promise of blessing to the Gentiles is through Christ, by faith and not by law-keeping. 3:15 In human affairs, when a covenant or will is signed and sealed, no one would think of changing the document or adding to it. If human testaments cannot be broken, how much less can God’s! 3:16 No doubt the Judaizers had argued that although the promises were originally made to Abraham and to his seed (the people of Israel) by faith, yet these same people of Israel were subsequently put under the law. Therefore, the Galatians, though originally saved by faith, must now observe the Ten Commandments. Paul answers: The promises were made to Abraham and his Seed (singular). Seed may sometimes denote a multitude, yet here it denotes one Person, namely Christ. (We ourselves would probably never see this in reading the OT, but the Spirit of God enlightens us.) 3:17 God’s promise to Abraham was unconditional; it did not depend on works at all. God simply agreed to give Abraham a Seed (Christ). Though he had no child, Abraham believed God, thus believing also in the Christ to come, and he was justified. The coming of the lawfour hundred and thirty years later could not affect the promise of salvation in any way. It could neither revoke the promise nor add conditions to it. Perhaps the Judaizers were suggesting that the law, coming 430 years after the promise, had the effect of annulling it. Not at all! Paul says, in effect: The promise was like a will, and had been ratified by a death (the covenant sacrifice, Gen_15:7-11; see also Heb_9:15-22). It could not be revoked.The 430 years are reckoned from the time that God confirmed the Abrahamic Covenant to Jacob, just as Jacob was preparing to enter Egypt (Gen_46:1-4), and they extend to the giving of the law about three months after the exodus. 3:18 The inheritance must be either by faith or by works. It cannot be by both. Scripture makes it clear that it was given to Abraham by unconditional promise. So it is with salvation. It is offered as an unconditional gift. Any thought of working for it is excluded.

Galatians 3:19

C. The Purpose of the Law (3:19-29) 3:19 What purpose then does the law serve? If, as Paul contended, the law did not annul or add conditions to the promise God made to Abraham, what was the purpose of the law? The law was intended to reveal sin in its true character as transgression. Sin existed before the law, but man did not recognize it as transgression until the law came. Transgression is the violation of a known law. The law was given to a nation of sinners. They could never obtain righteousness by keeping it because they did not have the power to obey it. The law was meant to show men what hopeless sinners they were, so they would cry out to God to save them by His grace. God’s covenant with Abraham was an unconditional promise of blessing; the law resulted only in cursing. The law demonstrated the unworthiness of man to receive free and unconditional blessing. If man is to be blessed, it must be by the grace of God. The Seed is Christ. Therefore, the law was given as a temporary measure until the coming of Christ. The promised Abrahamic blessing was to come through Him. A contract between two parties involves a mediator, a go-between. The law involved two contracting partiesGod and Israel. Moses served as go-between (Deu_5:5). The angels were God’s messengers in delivering the law to Moses (Deu_33:2; Psa_68:17; Act_7:53; Heb_2:2). The participation of Moses and the angels spoke of distance between God and His people, of a people unfit for His presence. 3:20 If there was only one contracting party, and he made an unconditional promise, requiring nothing from the other party, there would be no need of a mediator. The fact that the law required a mediator implied that man must keep his part of the agreement. This was the weakness of the law; it called for obedience from those who did not have the power to give it. When God made His promise to Abraham, He was the sole contracting Party. This was the strength of the promise: everything depended on God and nothing on man. No mediator was involved, because none was needed. 3:21 Did the law set aside the promises or take their place? Certainly not! If it were possible to give a law by which sinners could achieve the perfection required by God, then certainly salvation would have been by law-keeping. God would not have sent the Son of His love to die for sinners if He could have achieved the same result in some less costly way. But the law had plenty of both time and people to demonstrate that it could not save sinners. In this sense it was weak through the flesh (Rom_8:3). All the law could do was show men their hopelessness and impress on them that salvation could only be by the free grace of God. 3:22 The OT showed that all men are sinners, including those under the law. It was necessary that man should be thus thoroughly convinced of sin, in order that the promise of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. The key words in verse 22 are faith, given, and believe. There is no mention of doing or law-keeping.3:23 Faith here is the Christian faith. It refers to the era ushered in by the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus, and the preaching of the gospel at Pentecost. Before that time, the Jews were kept under guard as if in a prison or in custody.

They were fenced in by the law’s requirements, and since they could not fulfill these, they were restricted to the way of faith for salvation. The people under law were thus confined until the glorious news of deliverance from the bondage of the law was announced in the gospel. 3:24 The law is pictured as a guardian and guide of children, or as a tutor. This emphasizes the thought of teaching; the law taught lessons concerning the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the need for atonement. Here the word is used to describe one who exercises discipline and general supervision over minors, or the immature. The words to bring us are not in the original, but were supplied by the translators of the King James tradition. If we leave them out, the verse teaches that the law was a Jewish guardian up to Christ, that is, until the coming of Christ, or with the coming of Christ in view. There is a sense in which the law preserved the people of Israel as a distinct nation by regulations concerning marriage, property, foods, etc. When the faith came, it was first announced to this nation that had been so miraculously kept in ward through the centuries. Justification by faith was promised on the basis of the finished work of Christ, the Redeemer. 3:25 The law is the tutor, but once the Christian faith has been received, believing Jews are no longer under the law. How much less Gentiles, such as the Galatians, who were never under the tutor! Verse 24 teaches that man is not justified by law; verse 25 teaches that the law is not the rule of life for one who is justified. 3:26 Notice the change in pronouns from we to you. In speaking of the Jews as we, Paul showed that they were kept under law until the coming of Christ. The law maintained them as a separate people to whom justification by faith might be preached. When they were justified, they ceased to be under law, and their distinctive character as Jews ceased. The pronoun you from here to the end of the chapter includes both saved Jews and saved Gentiles. Such people are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 3:27 Union with Christ, which takes place at the time of conversion, is confessed in water baptism. This baptism does not make a person a member of Christ or an inheritor of the kingdom of God. It is a public identification with Christ, which Paul speaks of as a putting on of Christ. Just as a soldier proclaims himself a member of the army by putting on his uniform, so a believer identifies himself as one who belongs to Christ by being baptized in water. By this act he publicly expresses submission to Christ’s leadership and authority. He portrays visibly that he is a son of God. It is certain that the apostle is not suggesting that water baptism unites a person to Christ. That would be a blatant repudiation of his basic thesis that salvation is by faith alone. Nor is Paul likely referring here to Spirit baptism, which places a believer in the body of Christ (1Co_12:13). The baptism of the Holy Spirit is invisible. There is nothing about it that corresponds to a public putting on of Christ. This is a baptism that is unto Christ (JND). Just as the Israelites were baptized unto Moses, identifying themselves with him as their leader, so believers today are baptized unto Christ, signifying their recognition of Him as rightful Lord. By baptism the believer signifies also the burial of the flesh and its efforts to obtain righteousness. He signifies the end of the old way of life and the beginning of the new one. In water baptism the Galatians confessed that they had died with Christ and had been buried with Him. Just as Christ died to the law, so they were dead to the law, and should not therefore desire to be under it as a rule of life. Just as Christ has, by His death, broken down the distinction between Jew and Gentile, so they have died to such national differences. They have put on Christ in the sense that they now live a completely new lifethe life of Christ. 3:28 The law made distinctions between these classes. For instance, the distinction between Jew and Gentile is insisted on in Deu_7:6; Deu_14:1-2. In his morning prayer, a Jewish man thanked God that He had not made him a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. In Christ Jesus these differences disappear, that is, as far as acceptance with God is concerned. A Jew is not preferred over a Gentile, a free man is not more favored than a slave, nor is a man more privileged than a woman. All are on the same level because they are in Christ Jesus. This verse must not be pressed into meaning something it does not say. As far as everyday life is concerned (not to mention public ministry in the church), God does recognize the distinction between male and female. The NT contains instructions addressed to each; it also speaks separately to slaves and masters. But in obtaining blessing from God, these things do not matter. The great thing is to be in Christ Jesus. (This refers to our heavenly position, not to our earthly condition.) Before God the believing Jew is not a bit superior to the converted pagan! Govett says: All the distinctions which the law made are swallowed up in the common grave which God has provided. Therefore, how foolish it is for Christians to seek further holiness by setting up differences which Christ has abolished. 3:29 The Galatians were deluded into thinking that they could become Abraham’s seed by keeping the law. Paul shows otherwise. Christ is the seed of Abraham; the inheritance promised to Abraham was fulfilled in Christ. When sinners believe on Him, they become one with Him. Thus they become Abraham’s seed and, in Christ, they inherit all of God’s blessings.