Salvation through faith alone
3
📚O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth? Before your eyes Jesus Christ has been clearly portrayed among you as crucified. 3:1 It is foolish to believe that Christ died for no reason. But false teachers were trying to lead these Christians into just such a foolish position. They would never have said that Christ died for nothing. But by teaching the necessity of law-keeping along with Christ’s death they were indirectly teaching that His death was unnecessary. And such teaching was completely contrary to the truth Paul had “clearly portrayed” among them when he preached to them the gospel.⚜
2 📚This one thing I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
3:2 He appeals to their own experience as evidence that he taught the truth. When they believed the gospel he preached, they received God’s Spirit (compare Gal 4:6; Eph 1:13; Acts 10:44; Rom 8:15). God gave His Spirit to live in them not because of their efforts to keep God’s law, but when they trusted in Christ. No one yet ever received God’s Spirit by observing religious rites, rules and regulations. Observe that people do not have God’s Spirit by nature. That Spirit must be received by faith in Christ. See John 14:17.⚜
3 📚Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now going to be made perfect by the flesh?
3:3 When they believed in Christ they experienced what God did by grace. Was it not foolish to think now that self-effort or rules and ceremonies of the law could carry them forward? Would it not be equally foolish for us to think so?⚜
4 📚Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it is in vain.
5 📚The One who grants the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by your works according to the Law, or by your hearing with faith?
3:5 He repeats the question of v 2 in a different form. To resist the false teaching they had heard he wants them to think and use the knowledge of the truth they had.⚜
The illustration of Abraham
6 📚Even as Abraham 📖 believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness 📖. 7 📚Understand, therefore, that those who believe, they are the ones who are the children of Abraham.
8 📚And the Scripture 📖, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith, announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, saying, “In you all nations will be blessed 📖”. 9 📚So those who have faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
3:9 People everywhere think that God’s blessing can be earned by keeping the rules and ceremonies of religion, by attempts to obey the laws they think God has given. The Jews were confident they could gain God’s blessing by observing the law God gave through Moses. Paul shows that God’s blessing comes by faith, not by self-effort. Notes on “blessing” at Gen 12:1-3; Num 6:23-27; Deut 28:3-14; Ps 1:1; 119:1; Matt 5:3-12; Acts 3:26; Eph 1:3.⚜
Trying to be saved through the law brings a curse
10 📚For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the Law”.
3:10 See Deut 27:26. By trying to keep God’s law people do not gain the blessings for which they hope. Instead God’s condemnation comes on them. How can this be? Because the law demands full, perfect, constant obedience to everything in it, and no person is capable of this obedience. See notes at Ex 19:5-6, 8, 21-25. Paul said in Phil 3:6 that his “legalistic righteousness” was faultless. But even he came under the curse the law pronounces on lawbreakers because he could not keep the tenth commandment (Rom 7:7-14). And if a person ever breaks one command of the law of God he is guilty of breaking the whole law (Jam 2:10-11). So condemnation has come on every person who has tried to be right with God by trying to keep God’s law.⚜
11 📚But it is clear that no one is justified by the Law in the sight of God, for, “The righteous will live by faith”.
12 📚And the Law is not of faith; but, “The man who does them will live through them”.
3:12 Lev 18:5. Law and faith are totally different principles. Faith trusts God and receives salvation and eternal life as a gift. The law promises life only to the person who “does them” (the commands of the law), not to the person who merely tries to do them or says he does them. And since no one perfectly, constantly does them, the law brings death and condemnation (v 10; Rom 3:19-20).⚜
Christ has rescued believers from the curse of the law
13 📚Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) 📖,
3:13 See what the Lord Jesus was willing to do for sinful men! He took our place and let the curse of the broken law fall on Him. He paid the penalty for our crimes against it. Compare Rom 5:6-8; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 3:18. See notes on redemption at Ps 78:35; Matt 20:28.⚜
14 📚so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit 📖 through faith.
3:14 In His suffering He thought of our blessing. His desire for our good was greater than His desire to avoid the condemnation and death of the cross. Now all believers in Christ are redeemed from the curse of the law (Rom 8:1). And they are heirs of the blessing God promised through Abraham (see vs 8,9).⚜
God’s promise and God’s law
15 📚Brethren, I speak of man’s ways: no one annuls or adds to a human covenant once it has been confirmed. 16 📚Now the promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings”, meaning many; but, “And to your offspring”, meaning one person, who is Christ.
17 📚And this I say, that the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, cannot set aside the covenant previously confirmed by God in Christ, and so make the promise void.
3:15-17 This is generally true of human contracts and agreements – events which take place after they have been made do not affect them. Paul’s point is that this is certainly true of God’s covenant with Abraham. The law of Moses, coming centuries after it, could have no affect on it.⚜
18 📚For if the inheritance 📖 comes by the Law, it is no longer by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise.
3:18 Just as the law and faith are different principles (v 12), so the law and God’s promise to Abraham are totally different. God’s promise to bless people through Abraham had nothing whatever to do with the law. When God gives a promise men should simply believe it and rejoice, not try to get God to fulfill it by keeping rules and ceremonies.⚜
19 📚What purpose then does the Law serve? It was added because of transgressions, until 📖 the offspring, to whom the promise was made, had come. And it was ordained through angels 📖 by the agency of a mediator.
3:19 The law brought a curse to those under it. Then why did God, who wants to bless men, give the law? See Rom 3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 7:7. God used the law to bring sin out into the open, to reveal its nature and power. By this method He was teaching people their need of Christ. And to learn of one’s need of Christ and to receive Him is the greatest of all possible blessings.⚜
20 📚Now a mediator is not a mediator of one party only; but God is one.
21 📚Is the Law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been granted that could have given life, then surely righteousness would have been by the Law.
3:20-21 Paul deals with a possible objection – since God is “one” (there are many so-called “gods”, but not many Gods) why did He give His promises to Abraham and then give the law which was opposed to His promises? Paul says this is a misunderstanding. The law is not opposed to God’s promises of blessing. But God’s promises cannot be fulfilled as long as people depend on the law for salvation, because the law is unable to give spiritual life or make men righteous (see Rom 7:14; 8:3).⚜
22 📚But the Scripture has included everyone under sin, so that the promise which comes through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 📚But before faith came, we were kept under the Law, confined for the faith that would later be revealed.
3:22-23 Compare Rom 3:19-24. The law can only condemn and lock men up in the prison they have chosen for themselves – the prison of sin. Before Christ came and provided salvation and taught the way of faith, the law was like a jailer. Even the best of men apart from Christ were in this jail. In God’s eyes those who break His law are condemned criminals who are held for punishment. They have no spiritual freedom and no hope of release apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
No one can escape from this prison by self-effort, good works, law-keeping, religious rules and ceremonies, or anything else they can do. Salvation, liberation, spiritual freedom, and God’s eternal blessings come only by the means He has appointed – faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (vs 9,14,26; Gal 2:16; Rom 1:16-17; 3:22, 28; John 3:16, 36; 5:24; Eph 2:8-9).⚜
24 📚Therefore the Law was a tutor in charge of us to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith 📖.
3:24 The law could not save people, but God used it to discipline them until the way of salvation in Christ was revealed. See in Rom 7:7-14 how the Law was a “tutor” to Paul.⚜
25 📚But now that faith has come, we are no longer under this tutor.
3:25 Since Christ revealed the way of faith in Himself, and after people put their trust in Him for salvation, the law of Moses has no more authority over them (Rom 6:14).⚜
We become God’s children through faith
26 📚For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
3:26 Men are not sons of God by nature. Though God is the creator of all men He is not the spiritual father of all men (compare John 8:44). Only by faith in Christ do people become children of God – John 1:12-13.⚜
27 📚For as many of you as were baptized into Christ 📖 have put on Christ 📖. 28 📚There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female – in Christ Jesus you are all one 📖. 29 📚And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, and heirs according to the promise.
3:29 Verses 7,14,18.⚜