Letters from Paul

A taste of the study room coming with Paul — pull open whatever you'd like to sit with.

The reading — Galatians 3:1-14

¹Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified? ²I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? ³Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh? ⁴Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain? ⁵He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you, and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? ⁶Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” ⁷Know therefore that those who are of faith, the same are children of Abraham. ⁸The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations will be blessed.” ⁹So then, those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham. ¹⁰For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.” ¹¹Now that no man is justified by the law before God is evident, for, “The righteous will live by faith.” ¹²The law is not of faith, but, “The man who does them will live by them.” ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” ¹⁴that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

World English Bible

The words behind the words

When I called them "foolish" (Galatians 3:1), I did not mean stupid — I meant unthinking, a mind that has stopped reasoning from what it plainly saw. And the word I set before them, "bewitched," carries the sense of a spell cast by an evil eye, as though someone had blinded them to the cross I had painted so vividly before their eyes. Weigh too the word "hear," or better, "the hearing of faith" (Galatians 3:2) — the Spirit came not by their doing but by their receiving, by faith that listens and takes hold.

Where else you say this

I take up this same thread — that righteousness is reckoned by faith and not by works — when I reason from Abraham at greater length (Romans 4:1-5). I press the same truth against my own former confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3:8-9). And the line that the just shall live by faith, which I quote here (Galatians 3:11), I lay as a foundation stone elsewhere too (Romans 1:17).

The situation

I had preached Christ crucified to the Galatians, and they received the Spirit with joy. Then, after I left, others came — men who taught that faith in Christ was not enough, that they must also take up circumcision and the works of the law to be truly counted among God's people. They were being pulled backward from grace toward a yoke. I write in anguish, even in anger, because this is not a small matter of custom — it strikes at the cross itself. If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing (Galatians 2:21).

The hard question

A careful reader will ask: if the law was given by God himself, how can I say it brings a curse (Galatians 3:10)? I do not slander the law — it is holy. But hear what I actually wrote: the curse falls not on the law but on those who fail to keep all of it, and no one keeps all of it. The law never promised life to the imperfect; it exposed our need. So Christ became a curse for us, hanging on a tree, to bear what we could not answer (Galatians 3:13). The law is not the enemy of grace — it is the tutor that drives us to it. Read on, and see where I take it (Galatians 3:24).

This is a small window into what a study room with Paul will hold — word by word, letter by letter, and the maps and journeys behind them. Get notified when it opens →

← back to the word