Next Paul appealed to Scripture to defend salvation by faith alone. To refute the legalists Paul first argued that it is incorrect to say that only through conformity to the Law could people become sons of Abraham (vv. 6-9). Second, he argued that by the logic of the legalists those whose standing the Law determines are under the curse of the Law, not special blessing (vv. 10-14).
3:6 The Judaizers, in emphasizing the Mosaic Law, appealed to Moses frequently. Paul took them back farther in their history to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation. He cited Genesis 15:6 to prove that God justified Abraham by faith, not because he kept the Law. Abraham believed the promise that God would bless him. Abraham could and did do nothing but believe God's promise that He would do something supernatural for him (cf. Rom 4:3).89His faith was his trust in God.
". . . Paul takes it for granted that Abraham's being justified by faith provesthat the Galatians must have received the Spirit by faith also; and this argument from Scripture falls to the ground unlessthe reception of the Spirit is in some sense equated with justification. For if this were not so, it could be objected that even though Abraham was indeed justified by faith, it does not necessarily follow that reception of the Spirit also has to be dependent on faith; conceivably while justification is by faith the gift of the Spirit could be conditioned on works. We may take it, then, that Paul conceives of receiving the Spirit in such close connection with justification that the two can be regarded in some sense as synonymous, so that in the Galatians' receiving the Spirit their justification was also involved."90
Genesis 15:6 is one of Paul's two key proof-texts for his teaching about justification by faith in Galatians (cf. Rom. 4:3). The other is Habakkuk 2:4, which he quoted in 3:11 (cf. Rom. 1:17).
This verse introduces Paul's major explanation of salvation history. It is a bridge concluding one section of his argument (3:1-6; "even so") and introducing the next (3:6-9; "Therefore,"v. 7).
3:7-9 "In this verse [v. 7] Paul extended his argument from Abraham to his posterity and raised for the first time the question that would dominate the remainder of Gal 3 and 4: Who are the true children of Abraham? This train of thought will find a conclusion in the allegory of the two mothers, Sarah and Hagar, and their two sons, Isaac and Ishmael (4:21-31)."91
The spiritualsons of Abraham, Paul contended, were not his physical descendants but those who believed God whether they were Jews or Gentiles. He expounded Genesis 12:3c and 22:18a (in the LXX) to prove his point. We should understand this promise to include salvation. Paul clarified that this is what God intended. However it is only those who trust God who enter into God's blessings for believers. Paul was not a universalist; he did not believe everyone will eventually go to heaven. Personal appropriation of God's gift is necessary for salvation.
The Judaizers were evidently teaching the Galatians that to become Abraham's children by adoption they had to receive circumcision. This was necessary for pagan proselytes to Judaism. They may have said that God had declared the Galatian Christians righteous by faith while uncircumcised like Abraham. Nevertheless now they needed to undergo circumcision as Abraham did. Circumcision would be a seal of their justification as it had been for Abraham. Circumcision would make them true sons of Abraham.
Paul argued that it was not circumcision that made a person a son of Abraham but faith. He treated circumcision as a part of the Law because even though God instituted it many generations before He gave the Law He reaffirmed it and incorporated it into the Law (Lev. 12:3).
"What endeared Abraham to many Jewish thinkers were his virtues and his deeds. They understood him to have kept the law before it was written."92
"In vv. 6-9 Paul set forth a positive argument for justification by faith. In vv. 10-14 he turned the tables and argued negatively against the possibility of justification by works."93
3:10 Living under the Mosaic Law did not bring blessing but a curse. The reason is that to obtain God's blessing under the Law a person had to keep it perfectly, and no one could. Even one failure brought God's curse. Paul cited Deuteronomy 27:26 that was a passage the legalists would have respected highly because it is in a highly legal section of a highly legal book. He did so to support his argument. The Law is similar to a chain; one must forge every single link securely or it will not support the person who clings to it for salvation (cf. 5:3; James 2:10).
Paul was not changing the original intention of the passage he quoted (i.e., Deut. 27:26). The whole Law taught that people cannot earn God's blessing. The blessing that people experience because they do God's will is not something they earn. God grants it freely in grace. What people earn and deserve is cursing and judgment from God since they cannot obey the Law perfectly (Rom. 6:23).
3:11 Paul further quoted Habakkuk 2:4, from the Prophets section of the Old Testament, to show that justification by faith has always been God's method. Since Scripture says that it is the person who is righteous by faiththat will live, no one can be justified by works of the law.
In verse 10 Paul argued that anyone who seeks justification by works of the Law will suffer God's curse. He or she will do so because he or she cannot keep the Law perfectly. In verses 11-12 he argued that justification by the works of the Law is impossible by definition.
3:12 Responding to the idea that perhaps both Law and faith are necessary for justification Paul quoted Leviticus 18:5. This verse shows that they are mutually exclusive. They are two entirely different approaches to God. The Law demanded perfect compliance. "Them"refers to the statutes and ordinances of the Mosaic Law.
Law and faith are as different as apples and oranges. The Law requires works, but the gospel calls for faith.
3:13 If the Law shows every person to be under God's curse, how can we escape God's wrath? Paul reminded his readers that Christ paid the penalty for our sins and made justification possible for every person. He voluntarily took the wrath of God directed toward us upon Himself; He became the object and bearer of God's curse (2 Cor. 5:21).
"He neutralized the curse for them, so that they, on whom the curse rightfully falls because of their failure to keep the law, now become free from both its demands and its curse. . . .
"Verse 13 thus represents Christ's death as a vicarious bearing of the curse of the law which delivers his people from the same curse. This is in simple terms Paul's Christian interpretation of Christ's death on the cross."94
"Christ has done all that is necessary and his death is the means of making sinners free."95
The proof that Christ became a curse for us was the fact that His executioners hung Him on a tree. Under the Law this was the fate of criminals whom God had cursed. Note that God did not curse Christ because He hung on a tree, but Christ hung on a tree because God had cursed Him. Paul again quoted Deuteronomy (21:23).
"The curse of the Law"is the curse pronounced on the law-breaker by the Law (Deut. 27:26; cf. v. 10).
"By bringing these two texts [in Deuteronomy] together and interpreting the latter [Deut. 21:23] in terms of the former [Deut. 27:26], Paul understands Jesus' death on the cross (to which a curse was attached according to Dt. 21:23) as a bearing of the curse of God incurred (according to Dt. 27:26) by all who fail to continue in obedience to the law."96
3:14 Christ's death has resulted in two blessings. The blessing of justification that Abraham enjoyed has become available to the Gentiles as has the blessing of the promised Holy Spirit's ministry to believers (Acts 1:8, 2:33).
". . . at several points in the argument of Galatians 3 Paul so parallels or intertwines the categories of being justified and receiving the Spirit that we can draw the conclusion: the experience of the Spirit and the status of justification are, for the apostle, inconceivable apart from each other."97
The contrasts between faith and law-keeping presented in this section would have been especially persuasive to people such as the legalists of Paul's day who regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as authoritative. They help us see the issue clearly too, of course, and they help us deal with legalistic false teachers of our day.98
Paul was not saying that the Mosaic Law is valueless for Christians. The Mosaic Law is a part of the Old Testament, all of which is profitable for Christians (2 Tim. 3:16-17). He was saying that obeying the Mosaic Law never results in the justification or sanctification of anyone, Jew or Gentile.
