Galatians 3:1-14
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
The Law Brings a Curse
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
13 Christ has 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”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Justification understood begins with the crucified Christ believed in and followed according to His word and work for us. We cannot find the answers in following the Law to earn a place of acceptance with God in our own power of effort or goodness of our actions to meet a set of written standards and requirements. Our acceptance is In Christ and His work alone by freely given grace which we are utterly unable to add to in order to earn or keep our salvation from sin’s eternal consequences. We receive a new birth sealed by God’s Spirit when we believe and receive (John 1:12) Christ as God (John 1:1, 14) and not by vain efforts to keep the Law of works to earn what always lies just outside the our grasp. Since we began in this Spirit in our new life, sealed (Ephesians 1:13-14) as God’s chosen children, how could we ever attempt to go back to try to perfect our faith by works of the flesh which are completely inadequate to do any good (John 6:63, Romans 7:18, 8:8, 1 Corinthians 15:50)? God works in us to perfect us over the course of our lives in Christ’s righteousness and His Spirit’s work as we gaze into His face (2 Corinthians 3:18) and find the reflection resembling His more each passing day. All this comes through hearing by faith, trusting and taking God at His word and acting on it in response out of love and thankfulness for all Je has done to save us from our sin’s penalty. Like Abraham, we hear and obey in heart and actions with faith in His work for our good (Romans 8:28) and His glory. Trusting God in Christ is our righteousness and proof that we are children of God just as our spiritual father Abraham is. No blood or nationality or church allegiance can deliver us, only the faith which takes God at His word in His Son, Jesus the Christ (John 6:29) as we trust in the atoning sacrificial work on the cross to take on our punishment for sin and release us into saving grace in Him. We from all nations, not just Israel, are called as His children to be so blessed along with Abraham who demonstrated true faith in the face of doubt and uncertainty. If we stay the course as before by attempting to earn our salvation or continued standing with God afterwards by our own efforts, we do not understand justification or even participate in it if we never trusted Him and His work to provide the Lamb from the thicket to substitute for us on the altar to pay for sin. Yes, the just before God love entirely by faith in Him and not by penance or good works to earn anything. Grace is a gift of God as surely as faith itself (Ephesians 2:8-9) and not a covenant of works earned by doing apart from believing the Lord. Since Christ became our curse on that tree of the cross, we have been freed from it by this grace in which we stand (Romans 5:2, 1 Peter 5:12) as we inherit the promise through faith which means His Spirit now lives in us to enable us to live the law written on our hearts by the finger of God and not on cold stone tablets of requirements which we are unable to follow on our own. We have been saved by faith and not by the law that we may live according to the Law by God’s enabling grace and not our efforts to justify ourselves. Our justification is by the Just One (Acts 22:14) who is the just and justifier (Romans 3:26) of all by faith and grace alone who had accepted us (Ephesians 1:6) in the Beloved and set us free from sin and death (Romans 8:2-3, 9, 16)!
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