A Difficulty in Galatians 3

[RedFan]

Deut. 11:26 portrays the Law as both a blessing to those who keep it and a curse to those who don’t. Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug?

Gal. 3:10 stresses that the curse follows a single slip-up (quoting Deut. 27:26). Gal. 3:11 tells us that justification does not come from the Law, and that life comes only from faith (quoting Hab. 2:4). But then Gal. 3:12 quotes Lev. 18:5, perhaps the leading OT passage suggesting that keeping the Law is what leads to life. (One finds this notion echoed in Ezek. 20:11, Prov. 19:16, Psalms of Solomon 14:1-5, Philo’s Preliminary Studies 86-87, even Matt. 19:16-17.) This strikes me as at worst contradictory, and at best a poor choice of Scripture in support of what I take to be Paul’s goal: dissuading the Galatians from turning to the Law instead of to faith for their salvation. If that were my agenda, Lev. 18:5 is the last verse I would quote!

Granted, Galatians never explicitly declares that nobody can keep the Law perfectly – perhaps because the “blessing” part of Deut. 11:26 makes that a questionable conclusion (see also Ps. 18:20-24), or perhaps because Paul himself elsewhere claimed to be “blameless” under the Law, Phil. 3:6 – but isn’t that exactly what he wants the “foolish Galatians” to infer? And, doesn’t his quote from Leviticus undercut him here?

 

[MatthewG]

Redfan, the blessing and curse was all material based to the nation of Israel. Jesus fulfilled all the law from my perspective, so they are nailed to the cross Colossians 2:14.

Your thoughts?

 

[RedFan]

The question of whether salvation is still available under the Law post-Calvary is really the issue. Galatians, no less than Romans, has become something of a proof text for millions of Christians to answer No. But my reading of Galatians does not actually support that answer. Rather, it supports “Don’t choose to play by those Rules, you foolish Galatians; for once you sign up for that, you’ll almost certainly fail to end up with the required perfect score – and thanks to Calvary, there is now an easier way, so why take the chance?”

There is a common-sense distinction between the Law’s innate inability to save, and mankind’s innate inability to keep the Law sufficiently to be saved (a la Rom. 2:1 – 3:20). On my reading, Galatians at best supports only the latter. Someone may object that my distinction has no practical difference in effect. But if forgiveness when the Law is violated can reset the scoreboard, there is a HUGE practical difference. And that type of score reset is well attested in the OT.

So I read Gal. 3:12 – and its analogue, Rom. 10:5 – to mean that salvation is available under the Law, provided one keeps it perfectly. (Calvin agrees with me: “The hope of eternal life is, therefore, given to all who keep the Law; for those who expound the passage as referring to this earthly and transitory life are mistaken.”)

 

[MatthewG]

You are extremely smarter than me as far as you articulations of what you are presenting.

From what 1 John says is very different than having to keep the law, from my own perception friend it would be that abiding in Christ - he keeps the law perfectly - and when we fail - to have love for God and love for our neighbors that is when the Holy Spirit notifies us of our wrong doing, then we confess our sins before God and he is righteous and just to forgive us of those sins whatever they may be, I am not against a person going to read the Levitical law, but some where Paul mentions that if one person fails in one aspect of the Law itself, they have failed all of it. Therefore this is why Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God and why faith in him make us right with God and we can have peace with our Father in heaven.

Thoughts on these things?

 

[RedFan]

No smarter, but likely more confused than you by some of the things Paul has written.

It certainly strike me as foolish to try to gain salvation by keeping the Law given to Israel. Whether one should try is an analytically distinct question from whether it is possible to gain salvation that way, and I can make the most sense out of Galatians chapter 3 with a "Yes" answer to the second question -- for if Paul believed the opposite, Paul's quote from Lev 18:5 would be just about the silliest text he could ever have quoted.

Anyway, being a Christian, I'm certainly not trying to gain salvation through keeping every joy and tittle of the Law. That would be a Herculean task, although I think one that is theoretically possible. (Is it possible to run a marathon in less than two hours? Theoretically, yes. Has anyone done it? I don't think so.)

 

[MatthewG]

Was there any more questions you had about the text in Galatians?

You know thinking about your statement you are right it would be Herculean task, the reason why it would have to start at birth - to never have say at the age of 2 to get mad at mother for taking away a toy let just say, and giving her problems. This is why it is so amazing what Jesus done for you, me, our family, our friends, to live a perfect life none of us could ever live. That through Him we may have eternal life and newness of life by the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of Christ who lives with-in us by faith.

Also could you direct me to the Lev 18:5 quote actually just typing that out reminded me of what it is about it is unlawful sexual relations, but maybe I missed it in the quoting of Paul in Galatians my friend.

 

[RedFan]

Here you go, MatthewG: Bible Gateway passage: Leviticus 18:5 - New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Deut. 11:26 portrays the Law as both a blessing to those who keep it and a curse to those who don’t. Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug?

Gal. 3:10 stresses that the curse follows a single slip-up (quoting Deut. 27:26). Gal. 3:11 tells us that justification does not come from the Law, and that life comes only from faith (quoting Hab. 2:4). But then Gal. 3:12 quotes Lev. 18:5, perhaps the leading OT passage suggesting that keeping the Law is what leads to life. (One finds this notion echoed in Ezek. 20:11, Prov. 19:16, Psalms of Solomon 14:1-5, Philo’s Preliminary Studies 86-87, even Matt. 19:16-17.) This strikes me as at worst contradictory, and at best a poor choice of Scripture in support of what I take to be Paul’s goal: dissuading the Galatians from turning to the Law instead of to faith for their salvation. If that were my agenda, Lev. 18:5 is the last verse I would quote!

Granted, Galatians never explicitly declares that nobody can keep the Law perfectly – perhaps because the “blessing” part of Deut. 11:26 makes that a questionable conclusion (see also Ps. 18:20-24), or perhaps because Paul himself elsewhere claimed to be “blameless” under the Law, Phil. 3:6 – but isn’t that exactly what he wants the “foolish Galatians” to infer? And, doesn’t his quote from Leviticus undercut him here?

Oh what a wonderful question! What a wonderful thing to be grappling with! It is the glory of God to hide a matter and the glory of kings to search out a matter.
I have some of the balance you are grappling with on this.

The law is spiritual and good. But the law cannot bring life because of the weakness of our flesh, so instead it brings death, because all men sin. Sin and death spread from Adam to all of us.

But now our sins are forgiven and we have life by the holy seed of the Spirit planted within us. The outer man of flesh is Gods enemy and our own enemy. That outer man never obeyed God and never will. He must be crucified when we pick up our cross and follow so that the new seed of life within us can spring up. Adams seed must fall into the ground and die so the holy seed planted in us can spring up and that new life can spring forth. There IS no law against the Spirit and if the inner part of the cup is clean, the outside just will be as well.

Satan does not want the old outer man to die because he can only toss around, hassle and control our outer man and he does everything in his power to prevent it so that new life wont spring forth and he has largely stopped us in our tracks. We have very little power.

Since a leopard cannot change his spots, the only way to this new life being released to flow from us is to trust God to birth the child of promise and to guide and walk with us to our death. Our working cannot do it. It is through trust (faith.)

We most often cannot find men to help guide and disciple us because we have fallen into such decay. Men try to teach us we will always sin and there’s nothing to do about it. They have largely succeeded in getting us to believe it and so very few men ever enter into the Kingdom by trust.

The law is not done away with, not even a tittle. In fact, it is only through trust that we can ever actually come to fulfill the law. Truly, this is so, as anger in the heart is to have already murdered.

To be led by the Spirit is good but to actually walk in the Spirit is to be crucified and not sin and to walk in that newness of life in abundance that bubbles up and outward.

 

[RedFan]

Context can tell us more about Paul's theology on this issue.

Judging from chapters 1 and 2, it appears that Galatians was written before the Council of Jerusalem settled the burning issues of whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised and whether the Law of Moses needed to be kept. In Galatians Paul mentions two trips to Jerusalem (Gal. 1:18-20 and Gal. 2:1-10), which would comport nicely with the two recorded in Acts 9:26 and Acts 11:30. If our working hypothesis is that Galatians was written prior to the Council (Acts 15), then the point Paul is trying to get across about observance of the Law takes on a bit of a different dimension:

Two trips to Jerusalem with nary a rift between Paul and James get followed a couple of years later by the "men from James" stirring a controversy with Paul's audience, and now things get really interesting! He characterizes those giving him the right hand of fellowship at his last Jerusalem trip as men "reputed to be pillars" (Gal. 2:9) instead of just "pillars," and adds his parenthetical in Gal. 2:6 about the irrelevancy in God's eyes of their purported stature. What a dig! Martin Luther saw it: "Paul disparages the authority and dignity of the true apostles." Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 3rd edition), p. 50. Paul is angry! His sharp tongue is on full display in this letter: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!" (1:8); "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" (3:1); "I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!" (5:12).

It's easy to imagine an angry Paul's stridency in telling the Galatians to resist what Paul now sees as the Jamesian/Petrine view on these issues in the strongest possible terms -- yet Paul never declares declare that the Law is not salvific. That would have been the time and place to do so, if it were Paul's view. But he doesn't. And he doesn't, I conclude, because it's NOT his view.

 

[MatthewG]

Hello Redfan,

I just simply read all of Galatians to get an overview of what is being talked about. That is what helps me out. I don’t look to much into it unless actually going and doing a verse by verse study from what this study Bible I have by Holman it says the same thing about if’s you mentioned but it’s up for the reader to decide what they will believe.

 

[Lambano]

I've read some of the "New Perspective on Paul" works of NT Wright, Jimmy Dunn, and Richard Hays. Studying the writings of some of Paul's Jewish contemporaries like Josephus and others, the Jewish people of the time believed they were part of an on-going story that was prophesied in Deuteronomy that Israel would fall and come under the curse of Deuteronomy. This came to pass during the Exile. Even though Israel had returned to the land, they were continually oppressed by foreign powers, first the Macedonians of Alexander the Great and then the Roman Caesars. Effectively, they were still in exile, still under the Deuteronomic curse. And they were waiting for God to deliver them.

Paul's point in Galatians is that if the Christian converts accepted Torah as a way of life, they would be stepping right into the Curse. It has nothing to do with the judgment of individuals, since Torah already had the sacrificial system to take care of that. It had everything to do with the narrative in which Paul and his people lived.

I find the New Perspective to be an interesting counterpoint to the almost blatantly antisemitic view of Judaism found in Luther and Calvin and their contemporaries that we Protestants inherited.

 

[Episkopos]

Deut. 11:26 portrays the Law as both a blessing to those who keep it and a curse to those who don’t. Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug?

Gal. 3:10 stresses that the curse follows a single slip-up (quoting Deut. 27:26). Gal. 3:11 tells us that justification does not come from the Law, and that life comes only from faith (quoting Hab. 2:4). But then Gal. 3:12 quotes Lev. 18:5, perhaps the leading OT passage suggesting that keeping the Law is what leads to life. (One finds this notion echoed in Ezek. 20:11, Prov. 19:16, Psalms of Solomon 14:1-5, Philo’s Preliminary Studies 86-87, even Matt. 19:16-17.) This strikes me as at worst contradictory, and at best a poor choice of Scripture in support of what I take to be Paul’s goal: dissuading the Galatians from turning to the Law instead of to faith for their salvation. If that were my agenda, Lev. 18:5 is the last verse I would quote!

Granted, Galatians never explicitly declares that nobody can keep the Law perfectly – perhaps because the “blessing” part of Deut. 11:26 makes that a questionable conclusion (see also Ps. 18:20-24), or perhaps because Paul himself elsewhere claimed to be “blameless” under the Law, Phil. 3:6 – but isn’t that exactly what he wants the “foolish Galatians” to infer? And, doesn’t his quote from Leviticus undercut him here?

What you are noticing is the difference between righteousness and holiness. There are two standards, One is an OT standard, the other is a NT standard. The OT standard is not wrong...it is merely insufficient. We have been provided a better way through grace. If we "fall from grace" that means we are back to the OT standard.

My concern in this is that most people don't understand what righteousness is. Righteousness has to do with what we DO. Holiness has to do with WHERE we are vis à vis God's presence.

Outside of God's presence we NEED the law to guide us on a path that is at least ACCEPTABLE to God. We need the fear of the Lord when we are not walking in the power (and comfort) of the Spirit.

Are we foolish to ignore the grace of God to go at the law in our own strength? Yes. But that is not the same as condemning the righteous. If you don't drive a car, walking is still better than crawling.

Paul is comparing things so often...rather than making claims about salvation all the time.

Paul forsook walking in the power of the flesh because he was determined to ONLY walk by the Spirit. Many read this as Paul condemning righteousness. But this is FAR from true. Paul had walked at the righteousness level his whole life. Now that he knew it was insufficient he was going after the full measure of grace in his life.

Better to live in an apartment than be homeless. But if you have lived in an apartment all your life...you may not want to go back if a house becomes available.

And this idea of one sin meaning you have broken the whole law?

In Him is no sin. If you sin it means that you are not abiding in Him. It means you are still under the law. There is no need to condemn people for every sin...or else claim that some sinners are more justified than others based on their religious beliefs.

The law is not partisan. It reveals sin ...that's it. It also proves the power of God for those who walk in the Spirit. The law acts like a voltmeter that detects electricity (voltage). Put the meter on something electrically dead...like a tree. No reading. Check a wall socket with that same meter...and you find power. The same goes for the law. Jesus said without Me you can do NOTHING. Nothing what? Nothing eternal that shows up in reality as life and power and that satisfies the law.

 

[Robert Gwin]

Deut. 11:26 portrays the Law as both a blessing to those who keep it and a curse to those who don’t. Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug?

Gal. 3:10 stresses that the curse follows a single slip-up (quoting Deut. 27:26). Gal. 3:11 tells us that justification does not come from the Law, and that life comes only from faith (quoting Hab. 2:4). But then Gal. 3:12 quotes Lev. 18:5, perhaps the leading OT passage suggesting that keeping the Law is what leads to life. (One finds this notion echoed in Ezek. 20:11, Prov. 19:16, Psalms of Solomon 14:1-5, Philo’s Preliminary Studies 86-87, even Matt. 19:16-17.) This strikes me as at worst contradictory, and at best a poor choice of Scripture in support of what I take to be Paul’s goal: dissuading the Galatians from turning to the Law instead of to faith for their salvation. If that were my agenda, Lev. 18:5 is the last verse I would quote!

Granted, Galatians never explicitly declares that nobody can keep the Law perfectly – perhaps because the “blessing” part of Deut. 11:26 makes that a questionable conclusion (see also Ps. 18:20-24), or perhaps because Paul himself elsewhere claimed to be “blameless” under the Law, Phil. 3:6 – but isn’t that exactly what he wants the “foolish Galatians” to infer? And, doesn’t his quote from Leviticus undercut him here?

You have hit on the prime reason that the Bible has to be taken as a whole Red. It does not contradict, so you have to take all related verses to get the proper understanding. I have had many people over my history of serving God to quote me Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, but while that is gospel truth, misunderstanding of what believe means comes into play as well. When you factor in Mat 7:21, you can see that those individuals believed greatly in him, even doing many powerful works in his name, but they did not do the will of Jehovah so they were considered workers of lawlessness v23

 

[Hidden In Him]

Judging from chapters 1 and 2, it appears that Galatians was written before the Council of Jerusalem settled the burning issues of whether Gentiles needed to be circumcised and whether the Law of Moses needed to be kept.

No. Galatians is dated to around AD 57-58, whereas the council took place roughly 7 years earlier.

Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug?

Actually no, Redfan. Paul mentions the blessing immediately thereafter in Galatians 3:14-16:

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...

Some Greek texts in verse 14 read, "that we might receive the blessing of the Spirit through faith," which would have him doubling down on the word εὐλογία used in the previous clause.

I think your confusion is in understanding why Paul was using the phrase, "for the man who does them shall live in them." It was likely a reference to Christ, as a means of setting up the next several verses, the point being that Christ was the man who did them and lived in them, so the blessing of God for both Jews and Gentiles is to be found by abiding in Christ through faith.

God bless, and hope that helps.
Hidden

 

[theefaith]

We are united to Christ in faith and baptism

we share in his life as he shared in ours