Paul continued his argument that God justifies Christians by faith alone by showing the logical fallacy of relying on the Law. He did this to answer the legalists and to clarify the distinction between works and faith as ways of salvation (i.e., justification, sanctification, and glorification). He continued to base his argument on the biblical revelation of Abraham.
3:15-16 Paul now turned to the objection that when God gave the Law He terminated justification by faith alone. He reminded his readers, with a human analogy, that even wills and contracts made between human beings remained in force until the fulfillment of their terms. Likewise the covenant God made with Abraham remains in force until God fulfills it completely. The promises made to Abraham extended to his descendants as well as to him personally. They even extend to Christ, the descendant of Abraham who became the greatest source of blessing God promised would come through his descendants. Paul did not mean that Christ fulfilled the Abrahamic Covenant completely. He meant that through Christ, the descendant of Abraham, God continued to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant. The Mosaic Law did not supersede (take the place of) the Abrahamic Covenant.
The Hebrew word for "seed"or "offspring"(zera, v. 16) is a collective singular that can refer either to one descendant or to many descendants. An English collective singular, for example, is "sheep"that can refer to one sheep or to many sheep. Paul explained that the seed God had in mind in Genesis 13:15 and 17:8 was the one descendant, Christ.99
"The term seednot uncommonly denotes all the descendants of some great ancestor, but it is not normally used of one person. Used in this way it points to the person as in some way outstanding; the seedis not simply one descendant among many but THE descendant."100
3:17-18 Paul summarized his point in verse 17.
The 430 years probably began with God's reiterating the promises to Jacob at Beersheba as he left Canaan to settle in Egypt (in 1875 B.C.; Gen. 46:2-4). They probably ended with the giving of the Mosaic Law (in 1446 B.C.; Exod. 19).
The "inheritance"(v. 18; cf. v. 29; 4:1, 7; 5:21) refers to what God promised to Abraham and his descendants including justification by faith implicit in blessing. Reception of this did not depend on obedience to the Law, but God guaranteed to provide it. The idea of inheritance dominates much of the discussion in the following chapters.101
". . . the inheritance of Gal. 3:18 and 4:30 is parallel not with the land promises, Canaan, but with the gift of justification to the Gentiles. This is the major passage in the New Testament used to equate the inheritance of the land of Canaan with heaven, but the land of Canaan is not even the subject of the passage!"102
3:19 In view of the foregoing argument, did the Law have any value? Yes, God had several purposes in it. Purpose, not cause, is in view, as is clear in the Greek text.
There have been four primary interpretations of what "because of transgressions"means. First, some take it to mean "to restrain transgressions."103This seems legitimate since all law has a restraining effect. Second, some understand the phrase to mean "to reveal transgressions."This seems valid in view of other statements that Paul made (cf. Rom. 3:20; 4:15; 5:13). Third, it may mean "to provoke transgressions."This, too, seems legitimate. A "Do not touch. Wet paint!"sign on a bench tempts people to touch the bench to see if the paint really is wet. Fourth, some have understood that Paul meant "to awaken a conviction of transgressions."This seems less likely in this context since Paul showed more concern with the objective facts of salvation history than he did with the subjective development of faith in the individual.104
Angels who stood between God and the Israelites mediated the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Deut. 33:2, LXX). Both God and the Jews had responsibilities under the Law. In contrast, God Himself revealed the Abrahamic Covenant, without mediation, in which only God had responsibilities (v. 20; cf. Gen. 15).
"Just as it [the Law] had a point of origin on Mount Sinai, so also it had a point of termination--Mount Calvary."105
Paul clarified that the Law was only a temporary measure designed to function until Christ came.
"The function of the law was to point people to Christ, not to provide for all time the way the people of God should live."106
The Christian Reconstruction movement, headed by Rousas J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, and Gary North, answers Paul's question, "Why the Law then?"(v. 19) this way. God gave the Mosaic Law to provide a framework for the operation of every nation's government.107
"Reconstructionists anticipate a day when Christians will govern using the Old Testament as the law book"108
Reconstructionism rests on presuppositional apologetics, theonomy (lit. the rule of God), and postmillennialism. Other names for it are the theonomy movement and the Chalcedon school. It is gaining many followers especially among charismatic evangelicals. Its popular appeal is that it claims God wants America and every other nation to function as God intended Israel to function, namely as a theocracy. It fails to make a distinction between God's unique purpose for Israel and His purpose for other nations throughout history.109
3:20 The meaning of this verse has drawn numerous different explanations.110I think Paul probably meant that a mediator (here the angels, v. 19) is necessary when two parties make an agreement in which they both assume responsibilities, as in the reciprocal Mosaic Covenant. However a mediator is not necessary when the covenant is unilateral, as when God made the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant.
3:21-22 Do the Law and the promises contradict each other? Never! God designed them for two different purposes. The purpose of the Law was never to provide justification. It served as a mirror to show people their sinfulness and that they are the slaves of sin. When they realize they cannot save themselves, they will be open to receiving salvation as a gift by faith.
"God always intended to save by faith, apart from law. God gave the law, but he gave it in order that it would condemn all and thus prepare negatively for redemption on the basis of faith (3:22, 24, the purpose clauses conveying God's intention). The law was not given to make alive (3:21)."111
"It rivets upon us the conviction that we cannot be justified by anything we can do. Like the Israelites in Egypt, we are commanded to make bricks without straw, to be perfectly holy when we have none of the makings of holiness--to love God with all our hearts and the neighbor as ourselves when we are without divine charity."112
"A law can lay down what people ought to do, but it cannot give them the power to overcome the temptations to do evil."113
The whole Old Testament (v. 22), not just the Law of Moses (v. 21), showed that people are sinners and incapable of saving themselves.
"Continuing the perspective of salvation history introduced in vv. 13f. and developed in vv. 15-22, Paul gives further consideration to the place of the law in the divine economy by showing the relation between law and faith as two distinct dispensations."114
3:23-27 Paul pictured Israel before the advent of Christ as a child. The coming of faith (v. 23) is synonymous with the coming of Christ in Paul's view of salvation history.
In Paul's day it was common for children between age six and puberty to be under the care of a pedagogue (tutor). The pedagogue protected them from evil influences and demanded their obedience.
"No doubt there were many pedagogues who were known for their kindness and held in affection by their wards, but the dominant image was that of a harsh disciplinarian who frequently resorted to physical force and corporal punishment as a way of keeping his children in line."115
The Law did just that for Israel. However the need for that kind of assistance ended when Christ came. Now all who trust in Christ are adult sons (Gr. huioi), no longer children. It is faith in Christ Jesus that makes one a son of God (v. 25).
"Now the focus shifts from the historical to the personal, from the institutional to the individual. Paul has discussed the inheritance promised to the children of Abraham; now he zooms in on the heir who claimed his bequest."116
George suggested that verse 26 is the center of a chiasm.117The first half of the chiasm has a Jewish emphasis whereas the second half has a Gentile emphasis.
APromise (Abraham) 3:6-14
BLaw (Moses) 3:15-22
CFaith (Christ) 3:23-25
D"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."3:26
C'Faith (Spirit) 3:27-4:7
B'Law (stoicheia tou kosmou) 4:8-11
A'Promise (Sarah) 4:21-31
What unites us to Christ is the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit that takes place at the moment of salvation (1 Cor. 12:13). Paul's original readers may have taken his reference to baptism as being water baptism, but water baptism dramatized what happened to them when the Spirit baptized them. When Roman children reached son status their fathers gave them a special toga that identified their status. Paul compared that toga to Christ (v. 27).
God has dealt with humanity as a father deals with his children. When children are young, having limited information and experience, a good father makes allowances for their immaturity, but when they become mature, he deals with them as adults. The differences in the house rules that Paul spoke of here reflect different dispensations (i.e., economies, Gr. oikonomos, lit. house law).118
3:28 Another difference is that under faith all believers share the same privilege and position. Paul was not saying that all distinctions between people have ceased. Obviously people are still either Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free, and male or female. His point was that within the body of Christ all have the same relationship to God. All are of equal value.119
"The three pairs of opposites Paul listed stand for the fundamental cleavages of human existence: ethnicity, economic capacity, and sexuality. Race, money, and sex are primal powers in human life."120
Most of the evangelical feminists regard this verse as the major passage that teaches the abolition of male leadership in Christianity. Paul Jewett, for example, believed that Paul's teaching that woman is subordinate to man, for whose sake God created her, came from rabbinism rather than revelation.121Daniel Fuller reflected the same conclusion but for a slightly different reason.
". . . he [Paul] supported, by way of accommodation, a Christianized slavery and patriarchalism, but with regard to both he left sufficient clues for the church to have understood that these teachings no longer applied after the neither Jew nor Greek' issue had been settled."122
Bruce took a more biblically defensible position on this verse.
"The first stipulation here . . . is that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek . . .; the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between these two was fundamental to Paul's gospel (Eph. 2:14f.). By similarly excluding the religious distinction between slaves and the freeborn, and between male and female, Paul makes a threefold affirmation which corresponds to a number of Jewish formulas in which the threefold distinction is maintained, as in the morning prayer in which the male Jew thanks God that he is not a Gentile, a slave or a woman. . . .
"The reason for the threefold thanksgiving was not any disparagement of Gentiles, slaves or women as persons but the fact that they were disqualified from several religious privileges which were open to free Jewish males."123
Gentiles, slaves, and women did not enjoy the same access to God in Israel's formal worship as did Jews, free men, and males. They could trust God for their personal salvation, however. The priests in Israel had to be Jews, free, and males. Now in the church every Christian is a priest (1 Pet. 2:9-10). Paul's emphasis, however, was on believers' unity in Christ, not their equality with one another.
"Galatians 3:28 says nothing explicitly whatsoever about how male/female relationships should be conducted in daily life. Even the feminists acknowledge that the context of Galatians 3 is theological, not practical.124Paul is here making a theological statement about the fundamental equality of both men and women in their standing before God. Thus any ideas about how this truth should work itself out in social relationships cannot be drawn from Galatians 3:28, but must be brought to it from one's broader understanding of the nature of things."125
The statement does not mean "that all male-female distinctions have been obliterated in Christ, any more than that there is no racial difference between the Christian Jew and the Christian Gentile."126
3:29 A third change is that those joined to Christ by faith become spiritual descendants of Abraham and beneficiaries of some of God's promises to him. This does not mean Christians become Jews. Christians are Christians; we are in Christ, the Seed of Abraham (cf. v. 16). God promised some things to all the physical descendants of Abraham (e.g., Gen. 12:1-3, 7). He promised other things to the believers within that group (e.g., Rom. 9:6, 8). He promised still other things to the spiritual seed of Abraham who are not Jews (e.g., Gal. 3:6-9).127Failure to distinguish these groups and the promises given to each has resulted in much confusion.128Note one example of this error.
"Throughout the whole vast earth the Lord recognizes one, and only one, nation as His own, namely, the nation of believers (1 Peter 2:9)."129
Why can the amillennialist position represented above not be correct? The reason is that Scripture speaks of the church as a nation distinct from Israel (Eph. 2:11-22).130Jews, and Gentiles who had to become Jews to enter Israel, made up Israel. The church consists of Jews and Gentiles who enter it as Jews or Gentiles (Eph. 2:16; cf. 1 Cor. 10:32). Furthermore Paul called Jewish Gentile equality in the church a "mystery,"something unique, not previously revealed in Scripture (Eph. 3:5). The church began on the day of Pentecost, not in the Old Testament (Acts 1:5; 11:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:13; Col. 1:18). Believers of all ages are all the people of God. Nevertheless God has dealt with different groups of them and has had different purposes for them as groups in various periods of human history.
Does the church inherit the promises to Abraham? It only inherits some of them. The Jews will inherit those promises given to the physical descendants of Abraham. All believers will inherit those given to the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Saved Jews will inherit those given to the physical descendants who are also spiritual descendants.
