Galatians
Chapter 3
The Law and Faith
How foolish you are, Galatians! How could you be deceived after Jesus Christ was presented to you as crucified?
I will ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by obeying the law, or by believing the message?
How can you be such fools: you start with the Spirit and end up with the flesh!
So, you have gone through all this in vain! I wish it were not so!
Did God give you the Spirit and perform miracles among you because of your obedience to the law, or because you believed in his message?
Remember Abraham: he believed God, and because of that, he was considered a righteous man.
Understand, then, that those who follow the way of faith are sons and daughters of Abraham.
The Scriptures predicted that through faith, God would grant true righteousness to the Gentiles. For God’s promise to Abraham was this:
In you, all the nations
shall be blessed.
So now those who walk by faith receive the same blessing as Abraham, who believed;
but those who depend on following the law are under a curse, for it is written:
Cursed is everyone who does not always
fulfill everything written in the law.
It is clearly written that no one becomes righteous in God’s way through the law: by faith, the righteous shall live.
Yet the law does not depend on faith, because according to it: whoever does the works of the law will live by them.
Christ rescued us from the curse of the law by becoming cursed himself, for our sake, as it is written:
Cursed be everyone
who hangs on a tree.
The blessing given to Abraham reached the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
The Law and the Promise
Brothers and sisters, listen to this comparison: when someone makes his will in the proper form, no one can cancel it or add anything to it.
Well, now, what God promised to Abraham was for his descendants. Scripture does not say: for the descendants, as if they were many. It means only one: this will be for your descendant, and that is Christ.
This is what I mean: if God has established a testament in proper form, it cannot be revoked by the law that came four hundred and thirty years later; God’s promise cannot be nullified.
For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise. Yet, that promise was God’s gift to Abraham.
Why then, the law?
It was added because of transgressions, but was only valid until the descendant arrived to whom the promise had been made, and a mediator appointed it through angels.
A mediator signifies that there are multiple parties involved, and that God is alone.
Does the law, then, compete with the promises of God? Not at all! Only if we had been given a law capable of raising life could righteousness be the result of the law.
However, the Scriptures have declared that we are all prisoners of sin. Therefore, the only way to receive God’s promise is by believing in Jesus Christ.
Slaves and Children
Before faith arrived, the law kept us confined and in custody until faith appeared.
The law then served as a guardian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
With faith, we no longer follow this guidance.
Now, in Christ Jesus, all of you are children of God through faith.
All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Here, there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek, or between slave and free, or between man and woman; but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Because you belong to Christ, you are part of Abraham’s lineage and entitled to inherit God’s promise.
Commentaries
The Law and Faith.
In contrast to the experience of living in Christ, Paul finds the Galatians’ attitude confusing. Guided by his rabbinic logic, he seeks to show them how far they can fall if they now accept the Law as a condition for salvation (3). For Paul, the mystery of the Scriptures has been revealed through Jesus’ death and resurrection. From this perspective, he sees Abraham becoming a friend and servant of God because of his act of faith, trusting and placing his destiny in his Creator’s hands (6). Whoever adopts this same attitude of the Patriarch is connected to him, is his descendant, even if from another race or people, because through him “all nations will be blessed” (8). Circumcision and the Law appeared later as a seal and confirmation of the faith response of Abraham and his descendants. But instead of leading them to depend on God for salvation, it made them believe they were self-sufficient. As a result, they fell into the “curse,” instead of the “blessing” promised to Abraham. Yet, Christ, who bears this curse, frees us from it and grants and extends to all the “blessing” promised to Abraham, which is now fulfilled in the gift of the Spirit.
The Law and the Promise.
The coming of Christ also clarifies the meaning and scope of the “promise” and the “Law,” which were key ideas in Judaism at that time. Both originate from God. The problem, however, is that the Jews failed to understand the relationship between the promise made to Abraham and the Law given to Moses. They did not see that the Law was meant to serve the promise until it was fulfilled. They had made the Law absolute, turning it into an end in itself, completely forgetting the promise that gave it meaning and legitimacy. Now, Christ, the “heir” of the promise made to Abraham, has come. With His arrival, the Law has already served its purpose.
Slaves and Children.
Paul describes the pedagogical role of the Law by comparing it to the guardianship of slaves over children. When the age of majority, determined by the father, is reached, the son is emancipated and gains all the rights of a son and heir. The Law served as a “guardian” during the people’s minority. God sets a date in history and sends His Son, the Heir. And we, united with Him, have also become children and heirs.