Galatians

Direct Appeals to the Galatians. Paul offers a variety of reasons why the Galatians should resist the seductive teaching of the people troubling them.

Passing from Slavery to Sonship. The law was never intended to be in force forever, and now that the promised Messiah has come, those who believe in him are sons of God.

Paul appealed to his apostolic miracles in Galatia that authenticated the gospel (v. 5; Rm 15:18-19; 2Co 12:11-13). The absence of such miracles would have destroyed this section’s argument.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Abraham is the father of God’s people not because he is the biological ancestor of the Jews but because he has a family of spiritual children who follow in his footsteps by believing as he did. God promised Abraham that he would bring life from his dead body (see Romans 4). Thus Abraham is a living OT prophecy of the gospel: he was not an Israelite but a pagan, and God justified him by faith.

The Gospel in the OT (2): Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Habakkuk. Any attempt to be justified by the law leads to a curse, for righteousness comes only by faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. All those indwelt by the Holy Spirit enjoy the blessing of Abraham.

Paul has just spoken in v. 7 about “those of faith”; now he moves to those who rely on works of the law. They are in the situation that Paul talked about in 2:18. Had Paul rebuilt the house of “law,” its demands and condemnation would have confronted and confounded him. Those still attached to law-observance are in exactly this position. They have failed to obey the law, and so they stand under the curse on unfaithful Israel. They stand in contrast to Abraham and all believers, who are blessed (3:8–9). The history of Israel and human experience demonstrates that all fall short of what God demands (cf. Rom. 1:18–3:20; 3:23) and that all are therefore under the “curse,” because no one is able to keep everything commanded in “the law.”

The OT itself points out that righteousness cannot be achieved through the law, as Hab. 2:4 illustrates.

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).

Paul had no reason to invent a crucified Messiah (whom Jews would view as cursed), revealing the humiliating depths to which God is willing to go to rescue humans from sin’s curse.

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.

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.

An Illustration from Human Law. The Sinai covenant was an interim covenant that did not contradict the promises of the Abrahamic covenant.

Paul uses an everyday example to explain the place of the law in God’s scheme. A covenant or a will cannot be changed, and neither can the promises made to Abraham and to his offspring be changed just because a law has come into the picture.

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.

No chronological problem exists between Gn 15:13 (“four hundred years”) and Ex 12:40 (“430 years”). While four hundred could easily be a general, rounded-off time span, the Jewish rabbis’ ancient resolution is that Gn 15:13 speaks of Israel’s captivity in Egypt and Ex 12:40 speaks of the longer gap from Abraham’s entrance into Canaan to Moses’s leading the people out of Egypt. Hence, this latter span includes the additional thirty years.

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.

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.

Why then the law? The question then arises: If the law has no impact on God’s plan rooted in his promise, why was the law ever given? Because of transgressions might mean (1) “to provide a sacrificial system to deal temporarily with transgressions,” (2) “to teach people more clearly what God requires and thereby to restrain transgressions,” (3) “to show that transgressions violated an explicit written law,” or (4) “to reveal people’s sinfulness and need for a savior” (cf. Rom. 3:20: “through the law comes knowledge of sin”). All four senses are theologically true, but the last is probably uppermost in Paul’s mind. put in place through angels by an intermediary. Deuteronomy 33:2 talks about God coming from Sinai, where he gave the law, “from the ten thousands of holy ones,” so the angels were present with God on that occasion (cf. Acts 7:53; Heb. 2:2). Moses was God’s “intermediary” in the gift of the law to Israel (Lev. 26:46; John 1:17). The Mosaic law was part of a temporary covenant never intended to last forever. Now that Jesus has come as the true offspring of Abraham, the Mosaic law is no longer in force. Therefore, circumcision is no longer required, since it is part of the Mosaic covenant.

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).

The law is certainly not contrary to the promises of God: Paul regards the law as “holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12). But because of human sinfulness, the law was never able to give life (see Rom. 8:3).

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).

before faith came. By “faith” Paul means new covenant faith in Christ (cf. v. 22). Thus he is saying, “before Christ came and along with him new covenant faith in him.” Since Paul is using Abraham as an example of justification by faith (vv. 6–9, 14, 18), he cannot mean that there was no saving faith before Christ came (cf. note on John 3:18) but only that there was no new covenant faith resting on the knowledge of Christ’s finished work.

The law, as guardian, had the positive functions of highlighting and restraining transgressions and also of foretelling the coming of Christ.

faith has come. See note on v. 23.

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.

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.

Christianity did not erase ethnic, slavery, and gender distinctions (e.g., Eph 5:22–6:9); it made them irrelevant to entering into a fully privileged covenantal relationship as a child of God and of Abraham. This was radically different from the Greco-Roman culture that emphasized honor and status based upon one’s family or wealth.

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.

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.