Galatians 3:1-14

Galatians 3:1 to Galatians 5:12. Doctrinal Section. Paul Sets the Choice before them Christ or the Law and Argues for its Urgency.

Galatians 3:1. It was a strange folly which could lead them to forget the picture, so plainly shown them, of the suffering Saviour. (1) Their own experience had been of the Spirit, as (a) the source of ecstatic prayer (Galatians 4:6), in which the sacred scrap of Aramaic speech (Mark 14:36) once used by Jesus was employed throughout the early Christian world (cf. Romans 8:15); (b) the source of miracles (Galatians 3:5). wrought by God Himself; (c) the source of the new moral life (Galatians 5:16 ff.). (2) The OT itself (Galatians 3:6) preaches faith (Genesis 15:6) and (Galatians 3:8) dwells on its blessings (Genesis 12:3 *, Genesis 18:18; though the original meaning in Gen. was probably lower Israel would prosper till good wishes in other lands came to run May you be as happy as a Jew; also (Galatians 3:11) Hab. 24 (cf. Romans 1:17; Hebrews 10:38). Here again the original meaning is differentby his fidelity). (3) The OT Law described itself (Galatians 3:10) as a very different system; Deuteronomy 27:26 (Paul takes these words more rigorously than the OT did), and again (Galatians 3:12) Leviticus 18:5. The two different systems of religion came together in the Cross, when Jesus, dying a cursed death (Deuteronomy 21:23), released Jewish believers from the curse which the Law announced, that Gentile believers might have a share in Abraham's blessing (cf. Galatians 3:8), and that we Jewish and Gentile Christian alike might receive what God promised so long ago, now fulfilled in the gift of the Holy Spirit. (The Atonement, as Paul here conceives it, had been offered on behalf of Jewish believers. There is no such limitation at 2 Corinthians 5:21.)