Heirs through faith: Abraham, the law and the promise

Galatians is a letter from the apostle Paul 'to the churches of Galatia' (1:2). Its authorship is not seriously disputed. Its destination and date are. The 'North Galatian' view holds that it went to churches among the ethnic Galatians in north-central Asia Minor, and was written in the mid-50s AD; J. B. Lightfoot defended this view. The 'South Galatian' view, argued by Sir William Ramsay, holds that it went to the churches Paul founded on his first journey in the Roman province of Galatia (Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, Acts 13 to 14), which would allow a date near AD 48 to 49, before the Jerusalem council of Acts 15. Either way the situation is clear from the letter.

After Paul left, other teachers arrived. They persuaded Gentile believers that faith in Jesus was not enough: to belong fully to Abraham's family they had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses (2:3-4; 5:2-3; 6:12-13). Paul's opponents are often called 'Judaizers', from the verb in 2:14 about forcing Gentiles to live as Jews. For Paul this was not a debate about customs. It touched the truth of the gospel (2:5, 14), and he writes in anger and anxiety, with no thanksgiving at the start and a curse on anyone who preaches another gospel (1:8-9).

Chapters 1 and 2 defend Paul's gospel and his apostleship; they end with the statement that a person is justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, and that Christ lives in him (2:15-21). Chapter 3 then proves the claim from the Galatians' experience and from Scripture.

Galatians is a letter, and chapter 3 is the heart of its argument. Paul reasons in the style of a Jewish teacher and of a Greek debater: an appeal to experience (verses 1-5), an example from Scripture (6-9), quotations that support and oppose each other (10-14), an illustration from everyday law (15-18), and an objection answered (19-25). A reader should follow the flow of the argument, since each paragraph answers a question raised by the one before.

Three interpretive questions run through the chapter. The first is what Paul means by 'works of the law' (verses 2, 5, 10). The older Reformation reading takes it as the attempt to earn favour by obedience. Since the work of E. P. Sanders (1977), and in different ways of James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright, many scholars have stressed that first-century Judaism taught that Israel was in the covenant by grace, and argue that 'works of the law' names the practices, such as circumcision, food laws and Sabbath, that marked off Jew from Gentile. Defenders of the traditional view reply that Paul's argument in verses 10 to 12 also addresses the failure to do all that the law requires. The class notes that both emphases appear in the chapter: the law cannot give life, and it cannot make Jew and Gentile one family.

• The second is how Paul reads the Old Testament. He treats Genesis as promise that finds its goal in Christ, and he reads the story of Abraham and Moses in its order of events.
• The third is the status of the law. Paul says it is not against the promises (verse 21) and that it had a limited purpose. This is not a rejection of the Old Testament but a statement of its place in the history of salvation.

Verses 1 to 5. 'O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?' Paul rebukes them as people who have lost sight of what they once saw, for Jesus Christ was 'clearly portrayed as crucified' before their eyes. He asks 'just one thing': did they receive the Spirit by works of the law or by 'hearing with faith'? The Spirit's coming, with miracles, was their shared and undeniable experience of salvation. They began in the Spirit; to finish in the flesh, by human effort and outward marks, would be absurd. The 'flesh' here is human strength unaided by God.

Verses 6 to 9. Paul turns to Abraham because his opponents claimed him. He quotes Genesis 15:6: 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision (Genesis 17), so 'those who have faith are sons of Abraham'. The Scripture 'foresaw' that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and 'foretold the gospel to Abraham': 'All nations will be blessed through you' (a combination of Genesis 12:3 and 18:18). The gospel is not a new idea; it is the fulfilment of what God promised at the start of Israel's story.

Verses 10 to 14. Those who rely on works of the law are 'under a curse', for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law' (Deuteronomy 27:26). Paul then quotes Habakkuk 2:4: 'The righteous will live by faith,' and Leviticus 18:5: 'The man who does these things will live by them.' The law's way of life is doing; the way of faith is trusting. Christ 'redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us', as Deuteronomy 21:23 says, 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.' The word 'redeemed' (exagorazo) is the language of buying out of slavery. The result is twofold: that the blessing of Abraham would reach the Gentiles, and that 'by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit'. Whether 'us' means Jewish believers under the law's curse or all believers is debated. Most take it as Israel's curse borne by Israel's Messiah, so that the blessing could pass to the nations.

Verses 15 to 18. Paul uses a human example: no one can cancel or amend a ratified covenant. The promises were spoken to Abraham 'and to his seed', and Paul observes that the word is singular, 'meaning One, who is Christ'. The Hebrew word zera is a collective singular, as English 'offspring' is, and Paul's reading has puzzled commentators. Many see him arguing that the promise is focused on one representative descendant, the Messiah, in whom the many are included, as verse 29 confirms. The law came '430 years later', which fits the Greek Old Testament's account of Exodus 12:40, and cannot cancel the earlier promise. The inheritance cannot rest on both promise and law; God 'freely granted it to Abraham through a promise'.

Verses 19 to 25. If the law does not give the inheritance, what is it for? It was 'added because of transgressions' until the seed came. Scholars understand this as exposing and restraining sin or as making it a clear offence against a written command. It was given through angels and a mediator (Moses), a tradition also found in Acts 7:53 and Hebrews 2:2, and the contrast with the promise, which God gave directly, shows its secondary status. Verse 20 is notoriously obscure, but its point seems to be that the promise rests on God alone. The law is not 'opposed to the promises of God'; it could not 'impart life'. Instead Scripture 'confined all things under sin' so that the promise might be given 'to those who believe'. The law was a 'guardian' (paidagogos), a household slave who supervised a child until adulthood. He was not the teacher, and the image stresses a temporary, protective role. The phrase 'to lead us to Christ' can mean until Christ or toward Christ, and both fit.

Verses 26 to 29. 'You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.' Baptism is the sign of being united to Christ: those baptised 'have clothed yourselves with Christ.' Then follows the famous statement that 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.' In the ancient world, these were the deepest divisions. The same pairs appear in a Jewish morning blessing found in rabbinic sources, which thanks God for not making the speaker a Gentile, a slave or a woman. Paul's point is about standing: all, without distinction, are sons and heirs. 'If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.'

The chapter is a central witness to justification by faith, the teaching that God puts people right with himself through trust in Christ and not by their obedience. Paul grounds it in Scripture itself: Genesis 15:6 and Habakkuk 2:4 both speak of faith, and he quotes them in Galatians 3:6 and 3:11. Romans 4 develops the same argument about Abraham at greater length.

It also teaches the unity of God's plan. The promise to Abraham is the first thread, the law is a later and temporary stage, and Christ is the fulfilment. Paul avoids two errors: the view that the law is a rival way of salvation, and the view that it is evil. It has a real, limited place. The chapter shows the Spirit as the sign of belonging to God's people, and baptism as the means by which people are joined to Christ.

Finally, Galatians 3 gives the New Testament's most direct statement of the church as the family of Abraham. Gentiles do not join Israel by taking on its marks; they share the promise as sons in Christ. Romans 4:11-12 and 11:17-24 also treat Gentile believers as joined to the people of God. How this relates to the future of ethnic Israel is treated in Romans 9 to 11 and is beyond this chapter.

Christ is the centre of every step. He is the one portrayed as crucified (verse 1), the one who became a curse by hanging on a tree and so redeemed his people (verse 13), the single seed of Abraham (verse 16), the one to whom the law was leading (verses 19, 24), and the one in whom all become sons (verses 26-29). Galatians 4:4-5 repeats the thought: God sent his Son, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.

The connections with the Old Testament are ones Paul makes himself. The promise of blessing to the nations is fulfilled as Gentiles receive the Spirit by faith (3:8, 14). The curse of Deuteronomy 21:23 describes the exposure of the body of an executed criminal on a tree; Paul applies it to Jesus' death by crucifixion and says that the curse the law pronounced on those who fail it fell on him. The singular seed is read as a promise fulfilled in the Messiah, the royal descendant promised to David (2 Samuel 7:12-14), who represents his people. That Christ bears the curse and brings the blessing is the climax of the Old Testament's story of promise, failure and redemption.