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Galatians 3
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Chapter 3
II.
DOCTRINAL MATTERS
Justification by faith
1
Are you people in Galatia mad? Has someone put a spell on you, in spite of the plain explanation you have had of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?
2
Let me ask you one question: was it because you practised the Law that you received the Spirit, or because you believed what was preached to you?
3
Are you foolish enough to end in outward observances what you began in the Spirit?
4
Have all the favours you received been wasted? And if this were so, they would most certainly have been wasted.
5
Does God give you the Spirit so freely and work miracles among you because you practice Law, or because you believed what was preached to you?
6
Take Abraham for example: he put his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him.[*a]
7
Don’t you see that it is those who rely on faith who are the sons of Abraham?
8
Scripture foresaw that God was going to use faith to justify the pagans, and proclaimed the Good News long ago when Abraham was told: In you all the pagans will be blessed.[*b]
9
Those therefore who rely on faith receive the same blessing as Abraham, the man of faith.
The curse brought by the Law
10
On the other hand, those who rely on the keeping of the Law are under a curse, since scripture says: Cursed be everyone who does not persevere in observing everything prescribed in the book of the Law.[*c]
11
The Law will not justify anyone in the sight of God, because we are told: the righteous man finds life through faith.[*d]
12
The Law is not even based on faith, since we are told: The man who practises these precepts finds life through practising them.[*e]
13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by being cursed for our sake, since scripture says: Cursed be everyone who is hanged on a tree.[*f]
14
This was done so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might include the pagans, and so that through faith we might receive the promised Spirit.
The Law did not cancel the promise
15
Compare this, brothers, with what happens in ordinary life. If a will has been drawn up in due form, no one is allowed to disregard it or add to it.
16
Now the promises were addressed to Abraham and to his descendants – notice, in passing, that scripture does not use a plural word as if there were several descendants, it uses the singular: to his posterity, which is Christ.
17
But my point is this: once God had expressed his will in due form, no law that came four hundred and thirty years later could cancel that and make the promise meaningless.
18
If you inherit something as a legal right, it does not come to you as the result of a promise, and it was precisely in the form of a promise that God made his gift to Abraham.
The purpose of the Law
19
What then was the purpose of adding the Law? This was done to specify crimes, until the posterity came to whom the promise was addressed. The Law was promulgated by angels,[*g] assisted by an intermediary.
20
Now there can only be an intermediary between two parties, yet God is one.
21
Does this mean that there is opposition between the Law and the promises of God? Of course not. We could have been justified by the Law if the Law we were given had been capable of giving life,
22
but it is not: scripture makes no exceptions when it says that sin is master everywhere. In this way the promise can only be given through faith in Jesus Christ and can only be given to those who have this faith.
The coming of faith
23
Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law; we were being looked after till faith was revealed.
24
The Law was to be our guardian until the Christ came and we could be justified by faith.
25
Now that that time has come we are no longer under that guardian,
26
and you are, all of you, sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27
All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ,
28
and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
29
Merely by belonging to Christ you are the posterity of Abraham, the heirs he was promised.
Chapters of Galatians
1
2
3
4
5
6
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