You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
Paul’s first parry into chapter three is an abrupt one. He calls the Galatians foolish. In the Greek, Paul uses the word Anoetos, which is a very specific word. It doesn’t mean they are stupid, but it does mean they are not using the tools of thought given to them.
He also calls them “bewitched”, which implies that they are under a spell or are equally clouded in their thoughts and reasoning. It doesn’t mean they are forever gone, but someone has swept into their world and confused them.
He then calls them to remember that Christ was crucified and resurrected and the Galatians know this truth. During the time period that this was written, Christ would have been crucified about twenty years prior. So in one generation, the value of knowing the truth is already being challenged and eroded by inside and outside forces
2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?
Paul’s first point is a valuable one: he points to how the spirit works in us. The question is about how the spirit was first received.
The Holy Spirit is received when a person accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Then, upon authentic belief, the spirit is downloaded into the believer. The spirit is a helper, a guide and a a voice for the believer.
When Christ was beginning his ascent into Heaven, He promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to those who believe. This is a promise of Christ (Acts 1:4-5). Furthermore, one of the evidences of belief in Christ is the ready growth of the believer in the ways of Christ. This will produce what is called “fruit”, or good works derived from this faith.
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 says this: 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
What Paul is getting at is the very foundation of what it means to be a follower of Christ. The works of the Law does not have a bearing on those who have the spirit. Those who have the spirit don’t need to follow the law for the law is written in their hearts. It comes out in their actions. It manifests in their waking life. Ceremonies are meaningless to the intent of motive. Love, the greatest motivation of all, is everything.
So Galatians were duped into thinking that they could achieve a deeper connection with God, become more mature and spiritual, if they in fact followed the works of the Law. They may have even believed they could gain the spirit this way.
We can look at this as a form of backsliding. What the Galatians were doing was falling back into the habit of following the Law, the very things Christ rescued them from! The Law was merely a guidepost, a way to adhere to the things that God valued. it never had the power of salvation.
3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? 4 Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?
This is a very human condition. We often forget or malign what God has done for us in the past in the midst of what we believe he isn’t doing for us in the present. We forget His grace and mercy. We forget the many times he pulled us out of the fire. How he strengthened relationships, grew us spiritually through adversity, allowed us to have a career, a friendship, or an opportunity to make a difference.
In the desert, the Jews began to complain days into the journey to the Promised Land. They began to pine for Egypt, for the meat and vegetables they missed, forgetting that they were enslaved and committed to a life of hard labor. They also forgot that and Angel of the Lord was leading them through the desert, regularly talked with the leader (Moses), and was taking them to a land of “milk and honey.” A place where they wouldn’t be enslaved and could commune with God in an intimate way. They forgot all of this in the midst of their immediate needs.
This is what Paul is calling attention to. Was it all in vain? The suffering, the persecution. Acts 14 tells of the trouble Paul experienced in Galatia. These dark memories, interwoven with the bright memories of time’s past, can be forgotten when a mind is clouded and confused.
5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
The spirit was given to them in response to their faith. It was not a product of following the Law. The legalistic viewpoint of following a structure to get to God is counter-intuitive to faith. Miracles are stirred up from he spirit and delivered by the spirit. Faith in Jesus is about believing and receiving the spirit. Following the Law is about earning a way to God, making yourself somehow deserving of God’s graces. Paul also brings up Abraham and the fact that he was deemed righteous, not by works but by faith. This is important, because either of the two prominent false groups of the time, the Judaizers or the Gnostics, would have used Abraham as the spiritual ancestor of anyone Jewish. They would have believed, being a descendent of Abraham, you had the right to God already. But Paul turns it around to show that Abraham’s adherence to the saw had no bearing on his faith. Faith was something Abraham did not earn. He believed, trusted, and therefore was credited with righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
So the children of Abraham are not those who follow the Law to the letter, but those who follow in faith. All the nations (Gentiles) would fall under the covenant God and Abraham had, but not through the adherence to the Law but by faith. Genetics and Legalism are not the most important ways to God. Faith is.
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
Paul’s view on the Law (The Law of Moses) is shaped by Deuteronomy 26-27. The Old Testament passage eludes to the idea that to be approved by God, one must practice the whole law. That means for the one practicing it, that person is obligated to do everything right in order to gain his approval. The curse he speaks of is the penalty for falling short.
11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”
Paul quotes another Old Testament passage, this time from Habakkuk 2:4. The Pharisees, who gained their footing during the 400 years of Godly silence, created a justification for their own holiness. Not only did they create a system of burden on the people, but they pumped themselves up to be the “separated” class amongst their own people. This spiritual class taught and lived and socialized int he vain of holiness, but were far from it. During Jesus’ ministry, Jesus called out the Pharisees for their blatant hypocrisy. The Pharisees themselves lived as thought they followed all of the tenants of the Law of Moses, but even they could not sustain it. So they faked it, put the burden on the people, which gave the ruling spiritual class leverage and self-aggrandizing status while they maligned the truth.
One of their fondest ideas was that the lineage of Abraham marked them as one of God’s. That legacy alone somehow saved them. But as we go back to Genesis 15:6, we see that Abraham’s faith in God was credited as righteousness. He didn’t have to adhere to the law perfectly to achieve the righteousness. He only had to believe and follow.
12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Paul now quotes Leviticus 18:5, showing the distinction between the two ideals.
The Law of Moses is a guidepost for us. It brings us to the realization that we are messy, sinful and unable to save ourself. It is a process of works, of things we must do to gain God’s approval. It has nothing to do with faith.
Faith is trust in God. It is laying everything before him, humbling ourselves and realizing that the way we have been living is not working. It is acknowledging a better way. It is handing over the control of our life and submitting to a higher source. It is abandoning trying to gain acceptance from God and knowing that we are already accepted through our belief. And it is the ability to allow God to mold us into the person that He built us to be. Living by faith, therefore, is the path to understanding God and ultimately following His commands.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
This is the concept of redemption. By Christ’s sacrifice, he took the place of the course that we were all under. Not one can keep the law perfectly. It condemns us if we choose to live that way. But through Christ’s atoning sacrifice, we’ve been given another way. Christ took our place and became the curse we all deserved.
The Law and the Promise
15 Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. Paul first makes the point that a human contract (covenant) does not have addendums attached to it. Once a contract is made and signed by two people, the scope of the contract is set in stone. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. 17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
Paul then makes the point of the context of Genesis 22:18, where God makes a covenant with Abraham. The singular is used in the text, which refers not to the many general descendants of Abraham (the Jewish nation), but to the one atoning descendant (Christ).
Therefore, the covenant (the promise of God) to bring forth a seed can only be rendered null and void by the law, for Abraham, like any other man, was incapable of keeping the full law. He wouldn’t have been able to keep up his side of the covenant, if in fact the covenant was based upon the law. But the word for give is the Greek word Charis, which means grace. So God’s gift to Abraham was a gift of grace, a permanent gift not dependent on the law.
19 Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, implies more than one party; but God is one.
Paul opens up a question that many people grapple with in their faith: why didn’t God just begin with Jesus’ holy atonement for us, instead of waiting centuries? What good was the law at all if it ultimately wasn’t the correct path to God? The law was important for a few reasons:
1. It shows us God’s holy standard: If there was no MPH sign on the highway, what speed would we go? If all restaurants were free, would we over-indulge? If you were given power, is there a guarantee you would use it wisely? The answer is this: without guardrails in our life, we tend to edge further and further away from what is good for us. When God gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai, it was a system of Ten Commandments that showed us how to relate to God and to our fellow man. It was the standard God valued. Without boundaries, we will naturally move further away from God. 2.The law was in place until the Messiah came: Jesus’ mission was always to come to a world that needed him. Once the boundary was in place, now it was a solid choice for people to either respond to God or deny him. Jesus, the savior, came into the world to save us, to show us this better way, the way of peace and redemption. But He couldn’t come into a world that didn’t need saving. That would make the free will choice invalid.
Mediator: Here Paul explains that the Law was given by God, to Moses, through angels, who acted as a mediators between God and Moses. After Jesus, we don’t need a mediator between us and God. We have direct access.
21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. The law is not evil and against God. It doesn’t have the ability to grant salvation. It is that sign on the side of the road, that item that alerts you to what God values. It doesn’t impart life, as Paul puts it.
22 But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
If you look at this verse as though you are in a prison, it may help you understand what Paul is getting at. The Scripture itself, the Law, has put you in a prison. Sin are the bars. The only reason you know you are in this prison is because you know the law. The law itself confines you to the prison of your understanding of God’s standard. But there is a way out. Faith. Faith in Christ lets you out of the prison that the law has put you in.
Children of God
23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
Paul again gives the law another designation: guardian. And this is true in most of our lives as well. Before we understood who Christ was and why it was important to know Him, we lived as we wanted to. We may have known the law, but much of our life was about running away from it. But when we finally hit that moment when we can’t do it anymore and our resources are spent, and when we accept Christ, we don’t need the guardian of the law anymore. The spirit is in us now, an invisible guide to help and grow us. We will naturally follow the spiritual nuance of the law, but the guardian, or caretaker, that sign on the road, is now removed.
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Our kinship with Christ is not through the adherence to the law but through faith in Christ. The seed of Abraham, Christ, is now one with us, and we with Him, and we are heirs to the promise that we belong to God, through Jesus.