Galatains 3:10-14

INTRODUCTION

That’s precisely how Galatians 3 can make us feel as we try to understand this highly-debated passage. Here we have one of the more complicated chapters in all of Paul’s writings. Needless to say, reading this text can feel like an interpretive marathon, and while it’s not easy, it is worth the effort. But it’s not for the faint of heart. If all we want is a quick and simple, entertaining, give-me-a-practical-tip-on-how-to-live-a-good-life message from the Bible, we’ll skip over texts like Galatians 3. But if we want to know God, we’ll dive in, or even better, we’ll delight in texts like these. (THE REASON THAT EXEGETICAL PREACHING IS THE BEST STYLE OF PREACHING)

I would describe this chapter as three mountain peaks that appear back to back to back. You climb the first two peaks, which takes a lot of effort; then you climb the third and final peak, and it seems like Mount Everest. It’s tall and it requires hard work to scale, but when you get to the top, you look around and think, Yes—this is what I came for.

If your Bible, like mine has headings, it is difficult to view this chapter as 3 mountain peaks. My headings say, “Justification by Faith, Law and Promise, and The Purpose of the Law.” However, in Galatians 3 Paul takes us on a history lesson through the Old Testament. The first peak he talks about deals with Abraham, and the second peak deals with Moses. The third and final peak leads us to Christ. Paul comes back to these peaks, these themes, over and over again, from different angles and in different ways.So, are you ready to climb?

There is a show that my children like to watch called Victorious. The point is that Tori was bound to be the servant of her sister Trina because of something she did 10 years earlier.

Likewise, we are ALL bound to something. Yesterday I officiated a wedding ceremony and the couple entered into a covenant with each other and the Lord which means that Mike and Anna are bound to each other. If you have signed a contract at work or even Marlow Ford, you are bound to them. Even when it comes to your faith, you are either bound to the law or around bound to the one who settled the debt you and I owed because of our sin.

However, we also know what it is like when someone breaks a promise. If you breach your contract with work, you are fired. If you break your contract with Marlow Ford, they will come and take the car back, and so on. We know what it’s like when a promise is broken among people. I know that in this room there are some who still have the scars because someone like a spouse or friend broke their promise. I know that I am careful to use the phrase “I promise” with my family because I know what it’s like to be promised something by friends and family but they are broken. It has happened to all of us and probably all of us can say that we have been the one who broke something. What are you bound to? Are you bound to your past, your present, thoughts of the future OR the one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

EXEGESIS

Galatians 3:10 “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed.”

Deut. 27:26 “‘Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’”

Galatians 3:9 “Consequently, those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith.”

Paul has just spoken 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.

One violation of the law deserves the curse of God. Cf. Dt 27, 28. everything. See Jas 2:10 . No one can keep all the commands of the law—not even strict Pharisees like Saul of Tarsus (Ro 7:7–12).

The true gospel is no new thing; it is as old as the hills. It was heard in Eden, before man was driven from the garden; and it has since been repeated in sundry ways and in many places, even to this day. Oh, that its antiquity would lead men to venerate it and then to listen to its voice! The gospel blessing which was thus preached to Abraham and to his seed came to him by faith. He was justified by his faith. The blessing, which is the soul of Abraham’s gospel, must come to us in the same way as it did to him, namely by faith. And if we expect to find it in any other way, we will be grievously mistaken.

Both Ge 12:3and the blessings of the law in Dt 28 contrast the curses of those who oppose Abraham or those who break the covenant with the blessings of Abraham’s descendants or those who keep the covenant. Reasoning by opposites was a frequent method of interpretation. Paul thus argues that imperfect obedience to the works of the law brings a curse (Dt 27:26, the summary of the curses). According to common Jewish teaching, human obedience was always imperfect, so God could not require perfect obedience as a condition for salvation. Like other ancient Jewish teachers, however, Paul interprets a text (here Dt 27:26) for all that he can get from it—after all, God was in a position to demand perfection.

Lev. 18:5 “Keep my statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the Lord.” (Cross Ref.)

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks: “What does every sin deserve?” Answer: “Every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.”

So Matthew, writing for Jews, quotes it as said or spoken; Mark and Luke, writing for Gentiles, as written (Matt. 1:22; Mark 1:2; Luke 2:22, 23).

The same is true with regard to the Ten Commandments. If you’re going to try to earn God’s favor through keeping them, you’ll have to keep all ten. Exodus 20:1-17 “Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. Do not have other gods besides me. Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands. Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident …”

Galatians 3:11 “Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.” (Positive)

Hab. 2:4 “Look, his ego is inflated; he is without integrity. But the righteous one will live by his faith.”

Paul links with Ge 15:6 (cited in v. 6) the only other text that included both “righteous” and faith together—Hab 2:4.

cf: Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.”

cf: Hebrews 10:38 “But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him.”

Habakkuk 2:4, a verse Paul quotes in Galatians 3:11, says the following: “But the righteous one will live by his faith.” Luther first read Habakkuk 2:4 when he was a monk living in a monastery, but he didn’t understand it at the time. Later he went through a period of illness and depression as he imagined himself under the wrath of God. Lying in a bed in Italy, fearing he was about to die, Luther found himself repeating over and over again, “The righteous will live by faith.” He recovered and went to Rome, where he visited one of the famous churches there. The pope in that day had promised an indulgence forgiving the sins of any pilgrim who mounted the tall staircase in front of the church. Pay your money, climb the staircase, and you can have your sins or someone else’s forgiven. People flocked to climb the staircase on their knees, pausing to pray and kiss the stairs along the way. Luther’s son later wrote the following of that experience for his father: “As he (Luther) repeated his prayers on the Lateran staircase, the words of the Prophet Habakkuk came suddenly to his mind: ‘The just shall live by faith.’ Thereupon he ceased his prayers, returned to Wittenberg, and took this as the chief foundation of all his doctrine” (Boice, Minor Prophets, 91). Luther later said, “Before those words broke upon my mind I hated God and was angry with him.… But when, by the Spirit of God, I understood those words—‘The just shall live by faith!’ ‘The just shall live by faith!’—then I felt born again like a new man; I entered through the open doors into the very Paradise of God” (ibid., 92).

We become righteous before God through faith in Christ, and this faith is expressed in radical obedience.

Jon Courson’s Application Commentary Chapter 3

The words “the just shall live by faith” are first seen in Habakkuk 2:4, when, in response to his complaints concerning the prophesied Babylonian invasion, the Lord told Habakkuk to look to Him rather than at the circumstances.

They are seen again in Romans 1:17, where Paul stresses justification; and in Hebrews 11, where the emphasis is on faith. Here in Galatians, the accent is on live. Want to be happy, fruitful, excited, and set free in your Christian life? The just shall live—really live—by faith.

Martin Luther beat his body, crawled on his knees, and fasted in order to get close to God. But nothing worked. And then one day he read this verse—and he understood that the Christian experience is not “Do, do, do”—it’s “DONE!” Jesus did it all. Dear saints, get rid of the burden of trying to be spiritual. Get rid of the notion that since you had morning devotions ten times in a row, God owes you a blessing. It doesn’t work that way. You are justified by faith alone.

“Then I don’t have to have morning devotions?” you ask.

No, you don’t.

“I can sleep in?”

Yeah, you can.

“I don’t have to pray, or study the Word?”

Nope.

You don’t have to do any of those things. You get to. You get to check in with God morning by morning, moment by moment. You get to spend time late at night or before the sun rises, seeking the face of the Lord. It’s not got to, it’s get to. And that makes all the difference in the world, for once you’re free from the “got to’s,” you invariably do more than you ever did before.

Galatians 3:12 “But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them.” (Negative)

Lev. 18:5 “Keep my statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the Lord.”

Paul argues that, contrary to the intruders’ views, the law was never designed to bring life (v. 21), except perhaps as a way of expressing faith. (Galatians 3:21 “Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! For if the law had been granted with the ability to give life, then righteousness would certainly be on the basis of the law.” )

The law says, “You must do it and keep doing it” (see Leviticus 18:5). Faith says, “He did it. It’s done” (John 19:30).

Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

Deut. 21:23 “you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.”

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.

The Gr. word translated “redeemed” was often used to speak of buying a slave’s or debtor’s freedom. Christ’s death, because it was a death of substitution for sin, satisfied God’s justice and exhausted His wrath toward His elect, so that Christ actually purchased believers from slavery to sin and from the sentence of eternal death (4:5; Titus 2:14; 1Pe 1:18; cf. Ro 3:24; 1Co 1:30; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; Heb 9:12). becoming a curse for us. By bearing God’s wrath for believers’ sins on the cross (see note on 2Co 5:21; cf. Heb 9:28; 1Pe 2:24; 3:18), Christ took upon Himself the curse pronounced on those who violated the law (see note on v. 10). it is written. The common NT way (61 times) of introducing OT quotes (see note on Ro 3:10).

Although Israelites hung only the dead in Dt 21 (cf. Ge 40:19), many peoples in recent centuries had learned to execute people by hanging. Jesus experienced the curse in our place.

The “curse of the Law” was transferred from sinners to Christ, the sinless One, and He delivered people from it. The confirming quotation from Deut. 21:23 refers to the fact that in IT times criminals were executed (normally by stoning) and then displayed on a stake or post to show God’s divine rejection. When Christ was crucified., it was evidence He had come under the curse of God. (Is. 53)

Christ’s bearing the particular curse of hanging on the cross is a sample of the general curse which He representatively bore. Not that the Jews hanged malefactors; but after having put them to death otherwise, to brand some with ignominy, they hung the bodies on a piece of wood, not on a tree [xulou, עֵץ] (cf. Gen. 22:6), not by the neck, but by the hands: such malefactors were accursed (cf. Acts 5:30; 10:39). God’s providence ordered it that Jesus should hang on the cross by His hands and feet, so as to be a “curse for us,” though that death was not a Jewish mode of execution. The Jews, in contempt, call Him ‘the hanged one’ [Tolvi], and Christians, ‘worshippers of the hanged one;’ and make it their great objection that He died the accursed death (Trypho, in Justin Martyr, p. 249; 1 Pet. 2:24). Hung between heaven and earth as though unworthy of either.

“Christ took away the curse of the law and the right which it had, so that even though you have sinned, even though you now have sin (for we must use the language of Scripture), yet you are saved. Our Samson has shattered the power of death, the power of sin, the gates of hell. This is what Paul means in Galatians 3:13. ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.’ ”Philip Melanchthon

Galatians 3:14 “The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.”

Joel 2:28-29 “After this I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions. I will even pour out my Spirit on the male and female slaves in those days.”

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.

Faith in God’s promise of salvation. promise of the Spirit. From God the Father. Cf. Isa 32:15; 44:3; 59:19–21; Eze 36:26, 27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28, 29; Lk 11:13; 24:49; Jn 7:37–39; 14:16, 26.

By this period Jewish people applied the promise and blessing given to Abraham not only to the original promised land but to the whole world to come. the promise of the Spirit.The Spirit, associated with the world to come, here offers a foretaste (cf. Eph 1:3, 13–14). Paul focuses here less on the promise of land, however (cf. Ge 12:1), than the promise of Abraham’s seed (Ge 12:2; 15:7) in whom the nations will be blessed (Ge 12:3; 18:18).

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Verses 10–14–the two gifts that come from faith in Christ. (blessings of Abraham and the Spirit)

The promise was fulfilled for Jewish followers of Christ at Pentecost (Ac 2) and for Gentile followers of Christ beginning with Cornelius (Ac 10:1–48). See note on Gal 3:1–5.

APPLICATION

These men and women were commended for their faith. We often don’t live radical lives because we don’t have faith. People who are saved by grace alone through faith alone don’t sit back and indulge in sin and the ways of this world just like everyone else. Why? Because they believe God. They’re not only saved by grace through faith, but they also live by grace through faith.

NOTES:

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.

Verses 10-12: The effect of the law. Verse 13-14: The Work of Christ.

So far we’ve looked at the first mountain peak in this passage: God’s covenant with Abraham. Now Paul moves on in Old Testament history to Moses. It’s important to remember that God’s covenant with Moses does not contradict His covenant with Abraham; instead, God’s covenant with Moses complements His covenant with Abraham. Paul says in Galatians 3:15–16 that the law God gave through Moses didn’t nullify or replace what He had promised to and through Abraham. It complemented it by serving that promise. The Judaizers recognized the importance of the Abrahamic covenant, but they gave priority to the Mosaic covenant. Instead of looking at the Mosaic covenant through the lens of the Abrahamic covenant, they reversed that order and viewed the Abrahamic covenant through the lens of the Mosaic covenant. This led them to emphasize Moses’ obedience to the law as primary. So now, they reasoned, in order to be right with God, we’ve got to do certain things.In contrast to the Judaizers, Paul tells us that while God’s covenant with Moses was important, it didn’t nullify what had been promised through Abraham. In fact, what God did with Moses helps us understand what God did with Abraham. The necessity of faith is still there in both covenants. God saves His people by grace through faith, even under the law in the Old Testament. That aspect of God’s salvation never changed. So why did God give the law? That’s what Paul addresses in Galatians 3:10–25.

To clarify, most of Paul’s references to the law, including here in Galatians 3, deal with the commandments and requirements God gave to His people through Moses. There were moral laws, such as the Ten Commandments; there were ceremonial laws specifying how you were to worship, what sacrifices to make, what foods to eat or not eat, and what festivals to celebrate; further, there were civil laws outlining procedures and punishments for crimes like murder and adultery. These moral, ceremonial, and civil laws came together to form the law. This is important for understanding Galatians 3, because when the law is mentioned, Paul is specifically talking about the Old Testament law revealed to Moses.