Justification by faith alone
Context: Previously, Paul argued that going back to Judaism in an attempt to be saved by our own works brings condemnation for rebuilding what we have previously torn down (2:18). The only way to escape this condemnation by the law is through removal from its jurisdiction by ‘dying to it’. Gal 3 now goes on to prove from the Old Testament that eternal life is inherited by all who believe God that He came to bear this curse himself on our behalf in Jesus, the one heir God had promised already to Abraham.
Warm-up: Have you experienced among relatives how they divided an inheritance? How well did this go?
Read: Galatians 3:1-22
1) v2: Why does this chapter start with reminding the Galatians of how they received the Holy Spirit?
- Were they at that time circumcised? If not, what does this prove?
- What could have been the appeal of the claim that bodily circumcision is still necessary?
- How can this controversy help to define ‘legalism’ (or moralism, another term for the same system)?
- Why is it tempting to mistake legalism for true Christianity?
2) v10 states that legalism brings people back under a curse. What is this curse? Deut 27:26
- How did Paul seek to escape this curse as a Pharisee before his conversion? cf Phi 3:4-6
- Why was even such perfect zeal no solution?
3) vv5-7 What does it take to be freed from this curse?
- What has the Holy Spirit to do with it? vv2 & 3; cf Phi 3:3; Jn 3:5-6
- vv2 & 5: What have the Holy Spirit and saving faith to do with hearing?
- What must be heard and believed? v1
- Read Jn 3:14-15. How did this story from Num 21:4-9 illustrate already in the Old Testament what it means to hear the gospel and believe it?
- How could the Galatians know what any of this had to do with the patriarch Abraham? Did Paul explain this elsewhere? e.g. Ro 4:9-10.
4) vv10-14 contrast such saving faith against ‘works of the law’. How? v12
- Why could Paul say that “…the law is not of faith”?
- To explain this and to prove that he did not make it up, Paul quoted Hab 2:4, both here in v11 and elsewhere (Ro 1:17, Heb 10:38). Why is living under the law incompatible with and even contrary to living by faith?
- What has ‘living by faith’ to do with our so-called justification?
- Why are works of the law and faith mutually exclusive systems of justification?
- To explain this and to prove that he did not make it up, Paul quoted Hab 2:4, both here in v11 and elsewhere (Ro 1:17, Heb 10:38). Why is living under the law incompatible with and even contrary to living by faith?
5) Like our justification, our ‘inheritance’ can only come through faith. What is this inheritance, and why can no one obtain it by keeping the law? v18
6) vv19-22: Why then was the law even added?
- The answer in v19 rejects the view that the promise to Abraham is fulfilled in the Mosaic law covenant. How did Paul refute this competing interpretation?
- Hint: In contrast to the many Israelites who participated in the covenant mediated by Moses, how many were the heirs of the inheritance promised to Abraham? v16
- Did Abraham himself inherit it? Heb 11:8-10, 39?
- Who did? Why did this singular heir need no mediator? v20*
- v22 personifies Scripture: Why?
- “imprisoned” in what sense, and to what end? cf Ro 11:32 (same word)
7) Personal & application
- What heading would you give to this passage to sum up in your own words what the heart of it is all about?
- What do you make of the fact that the question of how anyone can be ‘justified’ before God has been a cause of conflict already in the early church?
- Does that mean that we might better bury the topic, or what?
- How important is it for you to sort through this theological discussion:
- Is it for you a matter of the past? If so, why?
- Or do you consider it of practical relevance for every Christian of all times? Why?
- How does it affect what you do with your life, and how you do it?
* Many mutually conflicting interpretations show that the ‘more than one’ mentioned in v20 cannot be easily identified. The context contrasts them against one singular promised offspring. This multitude, Paul argued, cannot be the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham of a singular heir (Gal 4:30), because they (the ‘many’) depended on Moses as an intermediary. By contrast, if the promised heir is Jesus, God himself is both the heir and the legator of this inheritance. Only this heir of Abraham needed no mediator since God is already one with himself, v20. Incidentally, v20 thus also proves that the faith of already the first generation of Christians was trinitarian, for if Christ were not a person of the Trinity (as proclaimed by Paul elsewhere, Phi 2:6), Paul’s reasoning here would have carried no force with his readers.
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