Galatians

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.