The Promise

Galatians 3: 23-29 (June 20, 2010)

1) The Text

23Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

2) The Context

There were some teachers in Galatia who claimed that a convert to Christianity must first embrace Judaism, that a Christian must observe Mosaic law. Paul wrote this letter to rebut this argument, to insist that one comes into union with God through faith in Christ, and not through ritual observances. This book is a charter of Christian liberty; it was instrumental in transforming Christianity from a sect of Judaism into a world religion. Galatia is in central Turkey, and was settled soon after 300 BC by Celts. In 25 BC, the province of Galatia was extended southwards. (Modern-day Ankara is in Galatia.)

3) Interpretation

Paul's explanations here need to be seen against the problem he is facing. He is very concerned that Christian missionaries have come into Galatia telling the people in the churches which he founded that they must keep all the biblical laws pertaining to Gentiles (and for instance, undergo circumcision). Paul finds this both an intrusion and a rejection of the essence of the gospel which he has been proclaiming. Paul had declared that all that matters was a response of faith to Jesus. The Gentiles did not have to become Jews first and then become Christians. Whether Gentiles or Jews, Christians were now no longer needing to fulfill the requirements of the Law. They were not under the Law.

This may sound convincing enough until we transpose it into the key of current debates. Paul was declaring that you could leave large parts of the Bible aside and that you should see it as having its main meaning in what Jesus brought to us. His Christian opponents were appalled. They saw Paul compromising the Word of God - watering down its demands. Such people would describe themselves today as fundamentalists. Such fundamentalists vehemently opposed Paul throughout his ministry. Paul knows his position is vulnerable. He certainly was not intending to abandon scripture. He was interpreting it. But then how could he declare that the biblical Law no longer applied?

Paul argues that he is, in fact, taking scripture seriously. Abraham is his example (3:6-9). Abraham found favour with God before there was any such Law. The promise to Abraham that not just Israel but the whole world would benefit from his stance Paul takes as a prediction of the coming to faith of the Gentiles. Gentiles come to favour with God also not on the basis of keeping the Law, but simply as Abraham does: by faith. This still leaves Paul needing to explain why the Law was even necessary.

His explanation is quite negative. The Law was designed to expose people's need of God by showing how they fail (3:10-14, 19-22). Even though given by God, it played a very indirect role. It was not set up to offer an alternative to Abraham's way of responding to God. On the contrary, he argues, its function was to drive people to the point where they saw that as the only way forward. The Law, he suggests, puts a curse on us and traps us in guilt and failure. For Paul, the death of Jesus was an act whereby he took the curse on himself in our place and released us from it.

Paul's usual way to speak of God's initiative in reaching out to us is to interpret the death of Jesus as an act which does what is necessary to make God's love and forgiveness available to us. Whether one chooses this way of expressing it or simply asserts on the basis of Jesus' whole life (and much of the biblical tradition besides!) that God reaches out to us in compassion, the major claim Paul is making remains: God treats us the way he treated Abraham and expects from us only what he expected from Abraham.

Earlier he had spoken of the promise to Abraham's seed. He interprets this in a rather contrived manner not as a reference to Abraham's descendants but as a reference the one descendant, Jesus, and then implies that by our solidarity with Jesus we become heirs of the promise. People in Paul's world sometimes employed such methods of interpretation. Underlying the argument is a conviction which we might share with Paul: all that mattered in the case of Abraham was his willingness to welcome God's goodness. That is all that ever matters, because when this truly happens our lives begin to change as love creates love in us and through us.

4) Thought Exercise

Are you willing to welcome God’s goodness?

What positive changes might you bring about through God’s goodness?