Law and Faith
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O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
A few weeks ago, we saw Paul lay out, preemptively, his thesis for much of the next two chapters. Paul showed us that we are justified by faith, rather than law, and this results in our union with Christ. Beginning in this passage, Paul is going to begin his scripture laden defense of the doctrine of justification by faith, and in typical Pauline style, Abraham will have much of te focus.
Paul begins this passage by returning to his rebuke of the readers at Galatia, wondering who has cast a spell on them, causing their foolish behavior. In verses 2-5, Paul repeatedly contrasts the results of faith and works of the law or works of the flesh. Paul asks of them twice, how they received the Spirit (or were supplied the Spirit), and once if they really think it's a good idea to change their method now from carrying out the Christian life through the Spirit (which he implicitly states is through faith), to being completed by works of the flesh.
In verse 2, Paul asks the Galatians if they received the Spirit by works of law or by hearing of faith. Paul clearly has the idea that the believers of Galatia would have experienced the receiving of the Spirit in such a way that they would remember it. So he asks them how it happened. Did you do some work of the law, did you do some righteous act and receive the Spirit, or did you hear the Gospel and believe?
Continuing on, Paul implies the superiority of the Spirit for the Christian life - "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" Paul knows, as the apostle to the Gentiles, that it would be absolutely absurd to think that trying to carry out something that has been started by the work of God indwelling the Galatians by the Spirit, and then turning around and finishing it by working through the flesh. It can’t be done!
Then Paul asks them if they have suffered in vain - that is if it is in vain. Paul is not conceding that the Galatians are false believers, or that they have lost the Spirit, but his question does help us understand how important this issue is to Paul. Paul is leaving open the possibility, that if his readers indeed will finish by the flesh, and forsake the working of the Spirit, and the means by which it was begun, that they will have run in vain. Now, as a side note, the fact that I believe Paul is leaving this open, does not mean that I think Paul is telling his readers that they can “lose their salvation”. God uses means to provoke His people to do what He has called them to do, and one of the means that God uses is the written warnings found in His word.
It’s as if the Apostle is goading his readers into conformity to the principle of justification by faith. “Do you want everything you’ve been through thus far to be in vain? If you keep on the course you’re currently on, you will have run in vain! And I will have run in vain, as far as I had run for your sake!” And again, Paul asks the rhetorical question of his readers - how was the Spirit dispensed to you by God, and how were miracles worked among you by Him? Were these things done by works of the law? Did you see them at your circumcision, during sabbath observance, during your switch to kosher food? Or were these things done by your hearing of the Gospel, and believing what you heard? Paul’s answer is obvious, since the desire of law keeping among the Galatians is subsequent to their receiving the Spirit and their faith.
Now at verse 6, I would break this up a little differently than the ESV. In the Greek, it reads almost as if Paul leaves the question he just asked open ended, and is now straying off into a somewhat different direction. Paul veers off begin his defense of Justification of faith by the Old Testament scriptures. From the Greek, I would read verses 6 and 7 in this way: “As Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, you consequently know that those that are of faith, it is those that are the children of Abraham!”
So perhaps we are familiar enough with the argumentation of the New Testament to understand what Paul is talking about here. But to those unfamiliar with the Old Testament, or unfamiliar with what the Judaizers were attempting to introduce to the Galatians, Paul’s switch to the discussion of who the children of Abraham are seems to come out of left field. We might understand Paul’s bringing up Abrahams being counted righteous before God on account of his faith, but why does Paul draw the conclusion that those of faith are the children of Abraham?
Abraham was perhaps the most revered person within Judaism, particularly because of his obedience in sacrificing Isaac. But he was also important, because the promises, as we saw in Genesis, were given to him and to his children. So within Judaism, Abraham is seen as the prime example of faithful obedience to follow, and it is those who are descended from him who will receive that which was promised to him.
Now, it is important to notice a couple things about Paul’s use of the story of Abraham. First, within Judaism, it is common to see Abraham’s obedience given the spotlight, which is somewhat understandable. But Paul doesn’t draw attention to Abraham’s obedience at all here. For the writers of the New Testament, Abraham’s faith is always primary. Some, such as James, will place more emphasis on the obedience of Abraham, but his faith is always primary, and the cause of his obedience. He is not obedient until he has faith.
It is also important to notice that Abraham is not made actually righteous by his faith. We learn in the New Testament that faith results in righteous acts worked by the Spirit, but faith itself does not actually cause one to become righteous, rather it causes one to be considered righteous before God - which is a world of difference.
So Paul begins the answer to his question to the Galatians, by pointing out that those who are the children of Abraham are those who believe God as Abraham did, and are thus counted righteous on the basis of their faith, rather than their obedience.
And if Paul’s readers questioned whether Paul’s use of Abraham as the example of justification by faith, he prepares his answer for this. They may have questioned this either on the basis of thinking that perhaps the Scriptures saw that this is how Israelites would be justified, or perhaps this was not the norm - God didn’t typically act this way. Paul says that the Scriptures foresaw that the Gentiles would be justified by faith. We saw in Genesis, that God promised Abraham that all nations would be blessed in him. Paul interprets this blessing to be the justification of Gentiles by faith in Christ, and this sets up the next stage of Paul’s argument.
There are those who are blessed in Abraham by justification by faith, but there are also those who rely on works of the law. In contrast to those blessed with Abraham by their faith, those who rely on works of the law are under a curse. Paul blends a couple citations of Scripture, from , and . “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
At this point we may ask the question “Why is everyone who relies on works of the law cursed? Paul is making an argument here, and he is not simply recommending this “just because”. So why is it that everyone who relies on the law is cursed? Couldn’t someone keep all the things written in the book of the law? Is it possible? Paul doesn’t seem to think so.
Now it is necessary to insert an implied proposition in Paul’s argument here. Paul’s argument could be read this way:
“Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law.
No one does all things that are written in the book of the Law.
Therefore, everyone who relies on the works of the Law, is cursed.”
Paul doesn’t explicitly state that there is no one who does all things written in the Book of the Law. But readers of the Old Testament would have understood this to be the case:
“If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,
1 Kings 8:
Who can say, “I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin”?
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
Ecclesiastes
Aside from statements like this, we know that the law is filled with provision for sins and transgression of the law. Sacrifices were made for the unintentional sins of the people - the law was laid out with the presupposition that no one would keep it perfectly!
So does this
So we see that, just as in the Old Testament, we cannot rely on works of the law. We must have a provision for our failures, because we all fail according to the law.
So finally, we might ask, where does that provision come from? If we cannot rely on works of the law, what provision do we have for our failure according to the law? Paul says that we cannot be justified by the law, but rather that the “Righteous shall live by faith.” but the law is not of faith. So what then?
We now see this massive curse of the law hanging over our heads. The law is not a curse because of any deficiency in itself. It is a curse because of our disobedience to it! No one does all that it requires, and it stands to condemn us before God almighty, who will judge the living and the dead. So if we cannot rely on our obedience to the law - indeed we cannot have full obedience to it - what then will take away this curse?
Here come some of the most delightful words of the apostle Paul - “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us - particularly by being cursed by his hanging on a tree. But this was done in purpose. Remember that blessing of Abraham that the scripture foresaw would justify Gentiles by faith? The cursing of Christ, through his hanging on a tree was done so that we might receive that blessing, and that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
So what do we do with a message like this? The first thing that we can do, is preach the Gospel to ourselves over and over. As Justin said a few weeks ago, the Gospel is not merely about the forgiveness of sins. It’s about the Kingdom of God. But the forgiveness of sins plays a crucial role in that Gospel, because as long as we stand drenched in our sin, we can never stand before God in His kingdom. The forgiveness of sins is the means to the end, which is the Kingdom of God. So part of the Gospel is that we are counted righteous before God, considered to be children of Abraham, and given the Spirit through our faith in Christ. We must preach this to ourselves.
If we begin to attempt to rely on our performance of works before God, apart from the finished work of Christ, and the work of the Spirit in our christian lives now, our works will do nothing but condemn us before a holy God on the last day. So we must never forget the means by which we are brought into the people of God, the means by which we are counted righteous, and the means by which we are given the only asset that will help us live the Christian life, the Spirit.
This leads to our next application - may we see the utter foolishness of finishing by our flesh, what God started with His Spirit in us by faith. We only have one means of carrying out that which Scripture calls us to, and it is not anything that is found inherent in us. If you believe the Gospel of Christ, you have received the Spirit, and if you have received the Spirit, you now possess the only means of pleasing God that exists. Rejoice in that, and don’t disdain that wonderful gift by trying to please God through your works wrought by the flesh.
Finally, we should believe this message, the conclusions that Paul has come to, because it is the consistent pattern of God throughout history. God didn’t justify Abraham based on his keeping of the law (which Genesis does in fact say that Abraham, to some extent, kept God’s statutes). Abraham was justified based on his faith. The law has always hung as a curse over the heads of all men, because no mere man has ever kept it in it’s entirety. But God acts consistently, and he justifies those who believe in Him, and considers them righteous apart from the curse of the law that would condemn them. He always stands ready with a provision for those who believe in Him, it has always been that way, so we can trust that it is that way today. May we thank God greatly for redeeming us from the curse of the law by the death of His son. Let us pray.