Paul’s Appeal to the Gospel the Galatians Have Known and Experienced
3:1–2 The apostle begins this section of his letter by addressing his readers as foolish Galatians! This designation appears to have been a common one for the Galatian tribes who were often considered barbarians and “foolish.” The ancient Greek writer Callimachus (c. 305–c. 240 B.C.), for instance, uses the word as if it were a standard epithet, writing: “the foolish tribe of the Galatians” (Hymn 4, To Delos [Mair, LCL]).
Paul uses this epithet to remind the Galatians that they need not be as they once were and that in listening to the rival evangelists they are acting from their former ignorance instead of from their new life in Christ. In 3:3 he will repeat the word “foolish,” where it is used to stress a turning away from what the Galatians know.
Paul is on the side of his converts, for he asks Who has bewitched you? To be bewitched is to be victim of someone’s “evil eye,” to be under another’s spell. Paul is using language that will go straight to the pagan heart of his converts and thereby distance them somewhat from Jewish influence. Furthermore, Paul may have chosen the word “bewitch” to denigrate his opponents by casting them as magicians (see Betz, Galatians, p. 131). Here as elsewhere in the letter Paul does not deign to name his opponent(s).
The central and determining feature of the gospel for Paul is Jesus Christ … crucified. This is Paul’s shorthand for reminding his readers of the gospel and that there is no need for Gentiles to adopt the law. As he said in the previous verse, “if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” For Paul, the death of Christ proves his point: the death of Christ means that the law is no longer the means by which to live for God or to live righteously.
Paul reminds the Galatians that while their vision may at the moment be obscured by their acceptance of a false gospel, they have seen the truth. For before their very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. Here Paul asserts what may be the very thing that his opponents are hiding—the scandal of the cross. Paul boldly identifies his gospel and the basis of his converts’ faith with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Paul’s gospel is a gospel that preaches the crucified one, who was unexpected, although continuous, with God’s activity with the Jewish people. And Paul will go on to underscore for the Galatians that the truth of this gospel was demonstrated for them in their own experience—reception of the Spirit.
When Paul identifies his gospel with the cross he is identifying himself and believers in the gospel with a way of life that asks not for the certainty of rules or of social status but for the certainty of living in God, free to be for others because one is already crucified with Christ (2:20). Paul challenges his hearers to recognize that they have already acknowledged the power inherent in living a life that has died to the world. Their present desire to find security in the sign of circumcision and identification with the Jewish nation can only be explained as a form of bewitchment.
Paul further appeals to the Galatians on the grounds of what resulted from believing his gospel—he asks them how they received the Spirit. Paul presents his question respectfully: he wishes, he says, to learn from the Galatians. Having just called them “foolish,” this is a remarkable rhetorical move. Paul indicates that he is on their side and is committed to them despite their actions at the moment. The one thing he wishes to learn is: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Obviously the Galatians received the Spirit through believing his gospel; there is no need, then, for adding the law. Paul constructs this question by setting up a mutually exclusive contrast between “observing the law” and “believing.” In the Greek the contrast is even more evident. The syntactical constructions are exactly parallel in the first (“observing the law”; ex ergōn nomou) and second (“believing what you heard”; ex akoēs pisteōs) phrases.
This is the first time in the letter that Paul refers to the Spirit, who will become a central feature of his appeal to his Galatian converts. He will remind them not only that they received the Spirit at the beginning of their Christian life (3:3) but also that this is to be understood as a sign of a new stage in God’s plan of salvation. As he says in 3:14, the promise to Abraham is fulfilled in the reception of the Spirit. To remind the Galatians that they have received the Spirit is to remind them that their experience marks them as those who are partaking in the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Paul refers to the Spirit also when speaking positively about the character of the Christian life. The Spirit is in the hearts of believers (4:6); the Spirit accompanies, encourages, and undergirds our faith as we wait for the hope of righteousness (5:5). In fact, the Spirit is the life and guide of the Christian (5:25).
3:3–5 Paul asserts that the Galatian believers have continued confirmation that God is at work among them apart from their following the law. The one who gave them his Spirit and work[s] miracles among them does so because they believe what they heard (3:5), not because they observe the law.
Paul stresses God as the one who supplies the Spirit and works miracles. Both Paul and his converts around the Mediterranean world experienced the gospel as a gospel of power, accompanied, as Paul says in Romans, “by the power of signs and wonders … the power of the Spirit” (Rom. 15:19).
The Spirit is central to the Galatians’ self-understanding of their Christian life. Both Paul and the Galatians can agree that they received the Spirit, and neither of them want to downplay such an experience. This may be one of the features of the Christian life upon which Paul and the Galatians can still agree, and so on the basis of the Galatians’ experience of the Spirit Paul seeks to persuade them not to adopt the law.
The phrase “believe [believing] what you heard” occurs twice (3:2, 5), both times in opposition to “observe [observing] the law.” The ability to hear means the Christian stands in the tradition of the OT figures who heard the word or the revelation of the Lord. Hearing means more than noting that something has been spoken; it means understanding and responding to what is heard (cf. Rom. 10:16; 1 Thess. 2:13). It bears the same meaning in Paul and in the rest of the NT (e.g., Mark 4:23; 1 John 1:1; Heb. 2:3) as in our modern context when a person might say “I hear you,” meaning “I accept what you are saying.” The phrase “believe what you heard” emphasizes that the activity of the Christian is to believe. This way of being open to God’s revelation, to being shaped and transformed by conforming to Christ, is characteristic of the Christian life.
Paul repeats that the Galatians are exhibiting sheer folly (are you so foolish?) in being influenced by the rival evangelists. To follow the direction of these people will mean that the spiritual journey begun with and characterized by the divine Spirit will be reduced to mere human effort.
Paul appeals to what the Galatians have already invested in their Christian life—have you suffered so much for nothing? The word “suffer” has two possible meanings: neutral experience, and suffering. Although there is no indication in the letter that the Galatians had experienced persecutions, it very likely that they paid a social cost as a result of their conversion. Beyond appealing to his converts’ positive experience of the Spirit (3:5), Paul appeals to the fact that they have already experienced losses on account of the gospel. How foolish it would be now to lose the gospel also; then they would have suffered for nothing and would end up with nothing.
Nevertheless, Paul still holds out hope that the Galatians will come to their senses—if it really was for nothing. The emphasis in this construction is on “if.” Paul is doubtful that the Galatians could turn away from his gospel. He hopes that they will recognize the significance of the fact that God’s miraculous activity among them did not result from following the law. Their new attraction to the law cannot garner them anything more wonderful than what they currently have—the Spirit and righteousness.
Additional Notes
3:1 R. B. Hays has made clear how Paul’s reference to “Jesus Christ crucified” is both the central point of the story of Jesus and the image capable of reminding his hearers of the whole gospel. As Hays puts it, the phrase “Jesus Christ crucified” “would be meaningless outside the frame of reference provided by the gospel story, [it] stands for the whole story and distills its meaning” (The Faith of Jesus Christ, p. 197).
Crucifixion in the Greco-Roman world was the form of capital punishment used almost exclusively for society’s less privileged. It was rare for a Roman citizen or a wealthy person to be executed by means of this barbaric form of execution, except in the most extreme cases of high treason (see M. Hengel, “Crucifixion,” in The Cross of the Son of God [trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM, 1986], pp. 93–185). As Hengel notes, the Roman government used crucifixion as a means of social control: “the chief reason for its use was its allegedly supreme efficacy as a deterrent” (ibid., p. 179). This form of public, lengthy, excruciating death was a warning against civil disobedience.
Hengel suggests that “the earliest Christian message of the crucified messiah demonstrated the ‘solidarity’ of the love of God with the unspeakable suffering of those who were tortured and put to death by human cruelty” (ibid., p. 180). N. Elliott argues that Paul’s conversion to the crucified Messiah was at the same time a “conversion to the cause of the crucified” (Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle [Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis, 1994], p. 227). That is, Paul became at once committed to Christ and to society’s poor and disenfranchised. Elliott regards the centrality of the cross to Paul’s gospel as a symbol of his political commitment, or to put it another way, his commitment to preaching God’s justice. This is one of the reasons that Paul seeks to create a community of equals that includes slave and free, male and female, Jew and Greek.
3:2 Paul sets up a contrast between observing the law and believing. The phrase “observing the law” is a translation of the Greek phrase ergoi nomou (“works of law”). This Pauline phrase has been variously understood. M. Luther interpreted the phrase to mean “good works” and used the phrase to criticize the religious practice of his day. R. Bultmann described “works of law” as “the righteousness which man exerts himself to achieve” in distinction from “the righteousness from God which is conferred upon him as gift by God’s free grace alone” (Theology of the New Testament [trans. K. Grobel; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955], p. 285). In a somewhat similar vein D. P. Fuller suggests that the phrase “represents an all-out rebellion against God” because the law could be “in service of sin (and cause) a man to sin and gratify his ego” (Gospel or Law: Contrast or Continuum? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980], p. 96). L. Gaston suggests that” ‘works of law’ is a normal subjective genitive” and so means that the law is the means by which works are done (“Works of law as a subjective genitive,” Studies in Religion 13 [1984], pp. 39–46). J. D. G. Dunn argues that by “works of law” Paul means all that the law requires of those who are bound by it. The phrase refers not so much to works done seeking to earn God’s favor but to observances that mark the Jewish people off from other people. “Works of law” are the “badges” that distinguish God’s people, so the phrase refers to “works which betoken racial prerogative” (“The New Perspective on Paul,” p. 200). E. P. Sanders states that “in the phrase ‘not by works of law’ the emphasis is not on works abstractly conceived but on law, that is, the Mosaic law” (Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, p. 46; italics his). S. Westerholm argues that the phrase “works of law” refers to the same thing as the Mosaic law, for since the Mosiac law required works this phrase referred simply to the law (Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], p. 121). The two latter interpretations make most sense of the phrase since they see “works of law” as another way of saying Torah.
Paul’s Rebuttal of the Rival Evangelists’ Use of the Example of Abraham
3:6 Next Paul turns from the Galatians’ experience to Scripture. Citing the example of Abraham, Paul claims that just as Abraham had credited to him … righteousness on the basis of faith, so have the Galatians. This example is essential and strategic for Paul. It is essential because his opponents were probably using the story of Abraham in service of their position, for with Abraham God made the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 17:9–14). The story of Abraham would then provide the perfect warrant for the rival evangelists’ contention that belief in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, entailed adopting the Jewish lifestyle and signifying that with circumcision. It was essential for Paul to counter this straightforward and seemingly irrefutable argument if he was to convince the Galatians of the truth of his law-free gospel.
Abraham is a strategic example for Paul because he can argue that Abraham was counted righteous before the covenant of circumcision. Quoting Genesis 15:6, Paul asserts that the fact that Abraham believed God led to God reckoning him as righteous. The rival evangelists would have been puzzled by Paul’s separation of righteousness from obeying the dictates of the law. Paul, however, argues that righteousness through faith is defensible on the basis of Scripture and that righteousness by faith is at the root of the Jewish faith. Paul claims that his gospel, rather than that of his opponents, attests to the steadfastness of God and truthfully reflects God’s intention.
To the Jews Abraham was the father of Israel to whom God gave the land (Ezek. 33:24). God was loyal to Abraham in a special way (Micah 7:20), even calling him “my friend” (Isa. 41:8), for God had made a covenant with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants that God continually honored (Exod. 2:24; 4:5; 32:13). God chose Abraham to play a special role in the world because of Abraham’s trust in God (Gen. 15:6).
Within Jewish tradition Abraham’s righteousness is underscored. For instance, we read in Jub. 23:10: “For Abraham was perfect in all of his actions with the Lord and was pleasing through righteousness all of the days of his life” (trans. Wintermute; in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha). Jewish literature connects Abraham’s righteousness with his faithfulness. In 1 Maccabees 2:51–52 Mattathias says to his sons: “Remember the deeds of the ancestors.… Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” And throughout Jewish tradition Abraham’s faithfulness is connected with his keeping of the covenant. In the book of the scribe Jesus Ben Sira, Abraham is spoken of as “the great father of a multitude of nations.… He kept the law of the Most High, and entered into a covenant with him; he certified the covenant in his flesh, and when he was tested he proved faithful” (Sirach 44:19–20). As this final citation demonstrates, the covenant was signified by circumcision.
Thus Jewish tradition does not separate Abraham’s faith from his keeping of the law. For the Jews the two are of a piece. Abraham is faithful and so he is righteous, being circumcised and keeping the law. Paul appears to be the first Jew to separate Abraham’s faith from circumcision; his belief in God from law observance.
One of the most helpful contributions of recent Pauline scholars has been a new perspective on the Judaism out of which Paul came. The shorthand for this new perspective is “covenantal nomism.” This term signifies that the Jews understood their relationship to God to be based on God’s grace. God chose Israel and made a covenant with this nation. The law (nomism) was the way God laid out for Israel to know God’s will and demonstrate gratitude and loyalty to God (see esp. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 75). The significance of this perspective is that it corrects the Christian view of Judaism as a religion that didn’t understand God’s grace and regarded the law as a way to salvation. Rather, the covenantal nomism of Judaism understood that God’s gracious election of Israel assured Israel’s salvation and that Israel’s following of the law was an expression of gratitude and desire to stay within the covenant.
What distinguishes Paul from his Jewish kinfolk is not only that he argues against covenantal nomism but also that he separates grace (covenant) from law (nomism). Paul separates the response of faith to God’s grace from the response of obeying the law; this in turn separates him from Judaism.
3:7–9 The rival evangelists were almost certainly using the story of Abraham to contend that unless the Galatians were circumcised they were not true heirs of Abraham. Paul turns this around and says that those who believe are children of Abraham. In Paul’s view his case is clear from the evidence in Scripture, where it was foreseen that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. In other words, Paul asserts that he has Scripture on his side. Implicit in Paul’s use of the passage from Genesis is a warning that those who do not agree with him are outside the circle of blessing. In Genesis 12 God makes this promise to Abraham: to “bless those who bless you; and the one who curses you I will curse.” As Paul is convinced that only those who have faith through his law-free gospel are heirs of Abraham (3:7), it follows that those who are attacking that gospel are attacking also the true heirs of Abraham and so are cursed by God. Paul here infers what he said plainly in the opening of his letter—“if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (1:8; cf. 1:9).
Paul’s exegesis would be seen by the rival evangelists as a misconstrual of the biblical text. In Genesis the promise to Abraham occurs three times, only once prior to the covenant of circumcision (Gen. 12:3). Within OT Scripture the promise is to be understood as a promise that takes for granted the covenant of circumcision, rather than, as Paul presents it, one that is independent of that covenant. The rival evangelists might further have taken issue with Paul on the basis that the word “Gentiles” is not found in Genesis 12 but only in the later passages (Gen. 18:18; 22:18). The precovenant promise in Genesis 12:3 has rather “peoples” (often correctly translated “tribes”), which does not serve Paul’s purpose of making a direct connection between this text and the gospel he preaches to the Gentiles.
Moreover, Paul’s opponents may legitimately have found it hard to understand how Paul could find scriptural support for his contention that the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. In Genesis the Gentiles are promised blessing, not justification. And when in other parts of Scripture there is an expressed hope for the inclusion of the Gentiles it is inclusion into the covenant (e.g., Isa. 56:6).
Nevertheless, Paul considers himself to have Scripture on his side. Here as elsewhere, Paul interprets Scripture with the understanding that he has been granted authority to see clearly its meaning since, as he says in 1 Corinthians 10:11, “These things … were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” In the face of his opponents Paul boldly asserts that those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.
Paul appeals to his converts’ self-perception as those who believe, which later he will use effectively in distinction from those “who rely on observing the law” (3:10). The Greek phrase hoi ek pisteōs, which reads literally “those who are of faith” (the Greek of 3:10, hosoi … ex ergōn nomou, is literally “those of works of law”) conveys the sense that there is a recognized group of people who distinguish themselves as believers. Earlier in the letter Paul can speak of “the faith” (1:23), expecting his readers’ sympathetic attachment to that word. Paul now works his argument on the basis of his readers’ self-understanding as “those who believe” (see also 3:9, where those who have faith is a translation of the Greek phrase hoi ek pisteōs, which is identical to the one in 3:7, translated “those who believe”). Since his addressees are “those who believe,” they are children of Abraham.
The Greek reads literally “sons of Abraham,” resonating with 3:26 (“sons of God”). The significance of “son” in this context is that it highlights the metaphor of inheritance, since in the ancient world the son was the inheritor of the father’s legacy. The words understand, then should be read imperativally. Paul is commanding the Galatians to recognize what they have already implicitly accepted about themselves and to understand the consequences of such self-understanding: because they are believers they are sons of Abraham.
The curious phrase the Scripture foresaw is a way of saying that God foresaw (cf. Rom. 9:17). Paul, along with other Jews, could refer to Scripture speaking or acting. In the Mishnah (Kerithoth 6:9) it reads: “R. Simeon says: Everywhere Scripture speaks of sheep before goats.… Everywhere Scripture speaks of the father before the mother” (trans. Danby, p. 572). It was understood that when Scripture spoke or acted, God spoke or acted.
In Paul’s interpretation of the Scriptures, Abraham is the first recipient of the gospel that Paul now preaches—a gospel in which “God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” This is a powerful rhetorical move on Paul’s part: he claims Abraham as not only the first one to enact the gospel of justification by faith (3:6) but also as the first one to know about it (3:8). The good news that God declares to Abraham is that all nations will be blessed through you. The Greek reads “in you” (en soi). Being “in Abraham” is to benefit from (be blessed … with [3:9]) Abraham’s character and position. Being “in Abraham” is to be faithful (3:9) and righteous (3:6).
Paul wraps up and pulls together his thought by stating that believers are blessed along with Abraham. By referring to blessing Paul neatly deals with one of the problems his earlier use of the Scripture has caused—that in Genesis the Gentiles are promised blessing not justification. But he makes clear that he understands that the blessing is to be shared along with Abraham, who is the man of faith, the one who believed and so is righteous (3:6).
Additional Notes
3:6 Paul here includes a quotation of Gen. 15:6. Most often Paul introduces or concludes scriptural citations with a phrase such as “for it is written” or “as Scripture says” (e.g., Gal. 3:13). In this verse Paul gives no indication that he is quoting Scripture. We see this also at Gal. 3:11.
Paul generally uses the Septuagint. When Paul diverges from the Septuagint scholars explain this as either due to his using a version of the biblical book to which we no longer have access or because he, like many other ancient authors, changed the quotation to suit his purposes. Within the Jewish tradition, reinterpretation and rewriting of Scripture was commonplace.
On Paul’s use of Scripture, see A. T. Hanson, The New Testament Interpretation of Scripture (London: SPCK, 1980); E. E. Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981); R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); and M. D. Hooker, “Beyond the Things That Are Written? St. Paul’s Use of Scripture,” in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 139–54. For Paul’s argument about grace and law, see J. D. G. Dunn, “The Theology of Galatians: The Issue of Covenantal Nomism,” in Pauline Theology (ed. J. M. Bassler; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 1.125–46.
For an excellent overview of Abraham in Jewish writings, see G. W. Hansen, Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), Appendix 2.
3:8 Paul’s scriptural citation does not follow exactly Gen. 12:3, which reads “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” It appears that Paul has conflated Gen. 12:3 with Gen. 18:18 (“all nations on earth will be blessed through him”) and perhaps also with Gen. 22:18 (“through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me”). Paul may have chosen to use Gen. 12:3 primarily while adding features from the other two passages because for his argument he needed a scriptural passage that occurred prior to the story about God requiring circumcision (Gen. 17), and he wanted to work with the contrast of blessing and curse that occurs in Gen. 12:3 (“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse”).
Why Gentile Christians Should Not Follow the Law
3:10 Paul now turns to a direct attack on following the law. He takes the tack that following the law is a denial of the truth of the gospel, and those who rely on observing the law are under a curse. Citing the curse from Deuteronomy 27:26, which ends a series of curses and precedes a list of blessings, Paul characterizes as under a curse those who are “of works of law” (the literal translation of the phrase “observing the law”).
In one way Paul’s use of Deuteronomy respects the passage’s intention: the passage does promise a curse for those who do “not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out” (Deut. 27:26). Paul understands full well that the intention of the Jewish lifestyle is to fulfill the entire law. When he states in 5:3 that “every man who lets himself be circumcised … is obliged to obey the whole law,” he demonstrates his grasp of the situation.
In another way, however, Paul’s use of the passage is at odds with its function in Deuteronomy. Whereas the Deuteronomy passage functions to encourage obedience to the law, Paul uses it to warn against law observance. The result of becoming a full proselyte through circumcision means accepting the proposition that not observing the law (to which one is now committed) is to be under a curse.
This verse contains the first of four scriptural quotations arranged in a chiastic structure. The first and fourth (3:13) have parallel language, as do the second (3:11) and third (3:12).
3:10 cursed is everyone (who does not obey the law)
3:11 (the righteous) will live (by faith)
3:12 (the man who follows the law) will live (by the law)
3:13 cursed is everyone (who is hung from a tree)
The semantic effect of the chiastic arrangement of the scriptural quotations is to move from speaking of the law’s curse on those who do not fulfill the obligations of the law (3:10) to the law’s statement that the righteous one is the one who lives by faith (3:11) to the problem that the law requires those who participate in law to live by works of law (3:12) to the solution that Christ provided redemption from the curse by becoming a curse (3:13).
The fact that there is so much Scripture in this passage suggests that Paul is countering the use the troublemakers had made of these Scriptures. It is easy to see how at least three of the four scriptural quotations (Deut. 27:26; Lev. 18:5; Deut. 21:23) could have been put to good use by the rival evangelists.
3:11 When Paul states clearly no one is justified before God by the law his evidence is not phenomenological. That is, he does not cite the evidence of his or others’ experience. Rather, Paul cites Scripture: “The righteous will live by faith.” There are few other places where we see Paul the exegete so hard at work. Paul’s argument does not rest on an assumption that humans find it impossible to fulfill the law. Rather, Paul’s argument is based on the assumption that Scripture has something to say to the problem at hand, on the conviction that he rightly understands what it says, and on the desire to discredit whatever his opponents may have said on the basis of these Scriptures.
Paul is faced with the challenge of a seeming contradiction in Scripture. N. Dahl’s suggestion makes good sense of Paul’s use of Scripture in this passage. According to Dahl, Paul here uses legal arguments common among rabbis who sought to deal with contradictions in Scripture. When they were confronted with contradictory scriptural passages the rabbis sought to determine which passage held the basic principle that would serve to set the other passage in context. Paul sees an opposition between Habakkuk 2:4 (“the righteous will live by faith”) and passages such as Deuteronomy 27:26 and Leviticus 18:5 (“the man who does these things [i.e., observing the law] will live by them”). Dahl proposes that the way Paul resolves the contradiction is to determine that the valid principle is “by faith” (Gal. 3:13–14). This means that the other scriptural principle, “by law,” is provisional (Gal. 3:15–19; “Contradictions in Scripture,” in The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974], pp. 159–77).
3:12 Paul both reappraises his Jewish heritage in light of Christ and critiques it. He understands that fundamental to Judaism is faith. His use of Abraham demonstrates this more clearly than anything else could. For Jews, Abraham occupies the preeminent place he does with God and for God’s people because he responded to God’s call, because he trusted God; therefore, the Jewish people were founded on the basis of faith. Paul’s reappraisal of Judaism consists in separating faith from law observance (see comments on 3:6). He writes: the law is not based on faith. Paul’s critique of Judaism is that the life it may provide is only life under law—the one who practices law can do nothing but live by law. Paul’s view is that since the coming of Christ such a way of life is seriously flawed. Now the law has been separated from faith, and it is with faith, not the law, that righteousness comes.
3:13 Paul believes that the change in the relationship between law and faith within Judaism results from Christ’s death, which Paul interprets in various ways throughout his letters. As M. D. Hooker has noted, none of the images Paul uses to speak about the cross “is complete in itself” (Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretation of the Death of Christ [Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994], p. 45). Here it serves the apostle’s purpose to interpret Christ’s death as one in which Christ became a curse. This description should be understood in the context of the following scriptural quotation. Paul uses metonymy: Christ did not become as the law is (the curse of the law); Christ took on the position of those under the law—he became accursed. Citing Deuteronomy 21:23, Paul describes Christ’s death as one who was accursed, cut off from his people and from God. This place of curse is one that Paul and others were in until Christ redeemed them. Through his death Christ delivered believers from the “curse of the law” and thereby severed the relationship between faith in him and law. There is no need to follow law, for those who believe in Christ are released from law.
The quotation from Deuteronomy 21:23 contains the word “curse,” as did the first quotation (3:10, citing Deut. 27:26). In the scriptural context of each quotation the word “curse” indicates exclusion from the community. In Deuteronomy 27:26 all the people say “amen” to the curse, thereby affirming their stand against the behavior cursed and their willingness to shun anyone disobeying the law. The context of the Deuteronomy 21:23 quote is instruction about the burial of a criminal’s corpse: when someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and so executed and hung on a tree, the corpse must not remain all night upon the tree but should be buried that day, for “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” The exposed corpse of a dead criminal would defile the land God gives as an inheritance. The language of curse in relation to Christ’s death serves Paul’s point of emphasizing that through the Galatians’ faith in the death of Christ (3:1) they already are descendants of Abraham (3:7). He affirms that Christ’s death released believers from the curse of potentially being excluded from the people of God and effected inclusion within the people of God for those in Christ.
Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 21:23, in which the cursed person is a criminal deserving death, and his statement that Christ’s death was in our stead (for us), make plain that Paul thinks that Christ died for our sins. Nevertheless, Paul does not say explicitly that Christ died for our sins; he does not state directly that Christ’s death was a “sin offering” (cf. Rom. 8:3–4). The mechanics of salvation are beyond the rational realm. It is probably best to take Paul’s words as metaphorical. He seeks to explain his conviction that Christ’s death has effected the end of the law and opened the way for all to benefit from being the people of God. Paul’s focus is not on the manner in which Christ’s death made salvation available but on the fact that salvation is in Christ, apart from the law, and that those who believe in Christ are now incorporated into Christ.
Paul’s use of the first person plural pronoun us does not indicate that the Galatians had been following the Jewish law before they came to faith in Christ. In fact, we know that they had been pagans (4:8). Rather, Paul is describing the stages of God’s salvation plan, which he will describe in more depth in the subsequent verses. Before Christ everyone, Jew and pagan, was in slavery to the law (cf. 3:23), for whether one was a Jew or a pagan, there was no other way to deal with sin than through the law one knew (cf. Rom. 2:14). The ancient world understood law in a general sense to be that which reflected justice. As Aristotle says, “ ‘The just’ therefore means that which is lawful or that which is equal and fair” (Eth. nic. 5.1.8 [Rackham, LCL]). Law was a way of measuring and achieving justice. By broadening the field to speak about law in general Paul asserts that the Galatians have already followed the law. This is an effective rhetorical strategy, for the conclusion is plain that through believing in Christ crucified (cf. 3:1), the Galatians have already once turned from following law.
3:14 Paul speaks of the blessing given to Abraham in the first instance, which accords with the scriptural passages. Yet he immediately moves to his own interpretation of that blessing—the promise of the Spirit. It is this which Paul says we … receive … by faith. Whereas in 3:2 he had reminded his readers of what they had received, now Paul also affirms that he too has received the promise through faith. This shift is perhaps related to the fact that Paul directly relates reception of the promise to the death of Christ. As Paul tends to speak personally of the death of Christ as one in which he participates or one that is for him (2:20), it may be that Paul instinctively includes himself when speaking of Christ’s death (3:13) and its consequences (3:14).
Paul says that the promise comes through Christ Jesus. The Greek reads not “through Christ,” but “in Christ,” en Xristō. This verse resonates with the scriptural quote in 3:8: “All nations will be blessed through [in] you.” Just as God promised that in Abraham the nations would be blessed, so now it is in Christ Jesus that that blessing has come about. As R. B. Hays says about this verse: “It is only through participation in him that the Gentiles receive the blessing” (The Faith of Jesus Christ, p. 208).
The phrase by faith in the Greek is literally “through the faith” (dia tēs pisteōs), and it stands in parallelism with “in Christ Jesus.” If a subjective genitive reading for 2:16 is adopted (see Introduction), the sense here would be “we receive the Spirit through the faith (of Christ) in which we participate by being in Christ, and we are in Christ because we are believers.”
3:15 This is the first time since 1:11 that Paul addresses his readers as brothers. (This designation undoubtedly was meant to refer to both the male and female members of the Galatian churches.) He says that he wants to get at the issue at hand from the perspective of everyday life. Paul takes his example from the legal world and uses the case of a human covenant. His example turns out to be very brief, for he returns almost immediately to a discussion of Scripture.
On the basis of his distinctive understanding of the relationship of God’s promise to Abraham and the giving of the law, Paul implicitly criticizes the rival evangelists for suggesting that in the law God has annulled God’s promise that the righteous shall live by faith. This appears to be a response to what the troublemakers may have been preaching or what Paul understands as the consequence of their advocating of the law. Paul is convinced that the result of the rival gospel is to set aside or add to God’s covenant with Abraham.
3:16 Paul takes up the matter of the promises that he introduced in 3:14. Normally Paul speaks of promise in the singular, as he did in 3:14, but in this verse and 3:21 he uses the plural (see also Rom. 9:4).
The biblical narrative has God making a promise to Abraham that concerns his offspring, or seed (Gen. 13:15; 17:7; 24:7), but Paul interprets these Scriptures to be saying that the promises were spoken both to Abraham and to the seed. His subsequent point emphasizing that “seed” is in the singular takes its significance from his interpretation that the promises were spoken to this seed, who is Christ. Such a reading of the Scripture bolsters his contention that through being “in Christ,” the Galatians already have received the promise to Abraham (3:14). Since the promises were made both to Abraham and to Christ, those in Christ also inherit the promises to Abraham.
The word “seed,” often translated “offspring,” is found in Genesis 15:3, where Abram laments that God has given him no seed and so a slave shall be his heir. God promises that he will have a real heir and that Abram’s legitimate descendants will be as numerous as the stars in heaven (Gen. 15:4–5). Because Abram believed this “the Lord … credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Paul’s reference to the promises made to Abraham and his offspring is an implicit reminder of Abraham’s faith. Reference to the story of Abraham also foreshadows the story of Hagar and Sarah, a story to which Paul will turn later.
3:17 Paul starts to build his case for the priority of the covenant by noting that the law came much later than the covenant. Consequently, on the analogy of the example he used in verse 15, this has no effect on the original covenant.
Paul makes plain that his previous example from daily life (3:15) is to be applied to the issue of the relationship of the covenant and the law and of the Galatians’ relationship to the promise to Abraham. The covenant is God’s, and in referring to the covenant Paul is referring to the promise God gave to Abraham. Through repetition (“does not set aside”; “do away with”) Paul stresses that it is false to think that God’s law would set aside God’s covenant. The covenant, the promise to Abraham, was not made void through God’s giving of the law. In order to make his case against the rival evangelists Paul divides Abraham’s faith from his obedience to the covenant. Now Paul makes a distinction between what in the Jewish mind was of a piece—the covenant and the law. The rival evangelists were likely arguing that the covenant included the law, that is, that obedience to the law was requisite for those who thought they were beneficiaries of the covenant. We see a similar understanding in Jewish Christian texts such as James 2:8–12 and the gospel of Matthew, where fulfilling the law through faith in Christ is an uncontested part of being a believer. Paul’s stance is that the life of faith is at odds with obedience to the law, at least for Gentiles.
3:18 That Paul is shaping the argument on his terms is suggested further by the fact that here he works on the basis of a separation between law and inheritance. The following Sabbath prayer from the period of the Second Temple makes it plain that such a separation would have been foreign to the Jewish mindset, for the covenant, the law, and the inheritance were regarded as expressions of God’s gracious love: “From thy love, O Lord our God, with which thou loved thy people Israel, and from thy compassion, our King, which thou bestowed on the sons of thy covenant, thou has given us, O Lord our God, this great and hallowed seventh day in love” (t. Berakoth 3.7; quoted from E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 231). Yet Paul divorces the inheritance from the law. He argues that since the inheritance was given through the promise to Abraham and not through the law, then by implication if the Galatians are concerned about their inheritance they should focus on the promise instead of the law (cf. Rom. 4:16). By introducing the concept of inheritance Paul moves the argument forward. This concept will become increasingly important in his argument.
This is the only time in this letter that Paul uses the word charizomai (translated gave). In other letters this word occurs in the context of emphasizing God’s gracious activity in Christ (Rom. 8:32) or in giving the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:12). Here Paul stresses that the inheritance promised to Abraham is based on nothing more or less than God’s gracious gift. Implicit in this statement is that if the inheritance is shaped by gift and promise, then the Galatians are misguided to think that they can achieve it through a law-observant lifestyle.
Additional Notes
3:10 The section of Scripture from which the first quotation is taken (Deut. 27:26) is sometimes referred to as the “Shechemite dodecalogue” since it records the twelve curses pronounced on Mount Ebal by Levites. Following the curses are blessings that were recited on Mount Gerizim (Deut. 28:1–6).
3:13 For a judicious overview of Paul’s understandings of the death of Christ, see Hooker, Not Ashamed of the Gospel, pp. 20–46. See also J. T. Carroll and J. B. Green, “ ‘Nothing but Christ and Him Crucified’: Paul’s Theology of the Cross,” in The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), pp. 113–32.
3:15 The example Paul chooses is difficult because within Greek and Roman law a covenant could be changed at any time. The Jewish law did have a covenant that could not be changed (so E. Bammel, “Gottes DIATHEKE (Gal. 3:15–17) und das jüdische Rechtsdenken,” NTS 6 [July 1960], pp. 313–19). Yet, as Betz points out, it would be strange for Paul to be using such an example with his Gentile audience. Betz suggests that the practice of not changing a covenant may have been fairly widespread (Galatians, p. 155).
For a helpful analysis of Paul’s response to the rival gospel, see C. H. Cosgrove, “Arguing Like a Mere Human Being: in Rhetorical Perspective,” NTS 34 (1988), pp. 536–49.
3:16 It was much more common in the Jewish than the Greek world to speak of God making promises to human beings. In the Greek world generally human beings made promises to God; see J. Schniewind and G. Friedrich, “epangellō, epangelia,” TDNT 2:576–86, esp. pp. 578–79.
3:17 Exod. 12:40 states that the captivity of Israel in Egypt, that is, the time between Abraham and Moses, was 430 years. The prediction to Abraham in Gen. 15:13 (cf. Acts 7:6) states that the captivity will be 400 years. Longenecker suggests that Paul may be following current rabbinic treatment of this discrepancy, which considered that while the captivity in Egypt was 400 years there were 430 years between God’s covenant with Abraham and the Mosaic law (Galatians, p. 133).
The Limited Function of the Law in God’s Purposes
3:19 Now Paul asks the question that he presumes his hearers must be asking: What, then, was the purpose of the law? Paul’s answer is that he does consider the law to have had a purpose—it was added because of transgressions. But this purpose was time limited until the Seed … had come. Paul’s answer underscores his previous argument that the fundamental and unchanging basis of God’s relationship to God’s people is the covenant with Abraham—the promise. The law’s role, however, was not an eternal part of God’s overall purpose; it had a beginning (430 years after the covenant; 3:17) and an end (the coming of the seed). This verse resonates with 3:16, in which Paul affirms that the seed is Christ to whom, along with Abraham, the promise was made.
Paul’s presentation of the relationship between the law and transgressions is somewhat at odds with what he says in Romans, where he states that it is through the law that knowledge of sin comes (Rom. 3:20), and “where there is no law there is no transgression” (4:15). This discrepancy is largely the result of the rhetorical function of each of the passages. In Romans Paul is arguing for justification through faith on the basis of the general principle that no one, not even Abraham, is justified through law. In service of this argument Paul in Romans observes that the law functions to make one aware of sin. In Galatians Paul argues that the covenant with Abraham serves to structure all God’s dealings with humanity. In order to make this argument Paul observes that the law was added after the covenant for the good purpose of dealing with transgressions, and he asserts that this purpose is completed with the coming of the “seed.”
The Greek for put into effect (diatageis) is a participle of attendant circumstances, indicating that Paul is further describing his understanding of the circumstances surrounding the giving of the law. The participle is in the passive voice, and presumably God is the subject, just as at the beginning of the sentence God should be understood as subject of the passive verb “it was added” (cf. Williams, Galatians, p. 98). God directed the giving of the law to be through angels.
Most commentators take both Paul’s reference to angels and to a mediator to be a deprecation of the law; God was absent at the giving of the law and it came through lesser beings. Yet, while Paul underscores the agency of the angels and the mediator in a way that is unique, the shape of his argument tells against understanding him to be indicating God’s absence at the giving of the law. Paul’s argument against the law works on the basis of a larger argument for the faithfulness of God. As his previous statements about the abiding nature of God’s promise to Abraham demonstrate, Paul’s basic position is that God’s mind has not changed nor has God been absent during the course of salvation history. Paul’s case is not built on proving a change or a flaw in God’s historic relationship to God’s people. Paul’s case relies on the fact that God is faithful. Paul’s argument would be undercut if he were saying that God was absent at the giving of the law: what good would a promise from such a God be?
The chief point Paul makes in 3:19 is that the law is time-limited and that it ended with the coming of the “seed” (Christ). His statement about the agency of angels and the mediator affirms the good purpose of the law, implicitly recalling his presupposition that God is trustworthy. Paul’s use of the perfect tense (the tense often used in Greek to indicate a past action with continuing results in the present) for the verb, which is translated by the phrase “the promise … had come,” provides corroborative evidence that Paul intends to stress the faithfulness of God to the promise. As he says later, the law is not at odds with God’s promises (3:21).
Paul’s statement about angels accords with the positive reference to the participation of angels at the giving of the law found in the NT (Acts 7:38, 53; Heb. 2:2) and in other Jewish writings. In these texts the presence of angels does not indicate the absence of God. Philo writes that angels “are represented by the lawgiver as ascending and descending: not that God, who is already present in all directions, needs informants, but that it was a boon to us in our sad case to avail ourselves of the services of ‘words’ acting on our behalf as mediators” (On Dreams 1.141–142 [Colson and Whitaker, LCL]). In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs an angel is spoken of positively as being the mediator between God and humanity for the peace of Israel (Testament of Dan 6:2). Josephus has Herod say “we have learned the noblest of our doctrines and the holiest of our laws from the messengers [angels] sent by God” (Ant. 15:136 [Marcus, LCL]).
3:20 Paul’s statement that a mediator by definition cannot represent only one party works on the assumption that the mediator is a go-between and not the principal initiator of the transaction. As in the previous verse, so here Paul indicates his conviction that the law has a divine origin. Incorporating what may have been the rival evangelists’ presentation of the glorious, angel-attended event of Moses’ reception of the law, Paul declares that the mediator does not represent just one party. Paul contrasts the mediator with God. God, whom the Jewish faith affirms as one (Deut. 6:4), is the source of the law. The mediator was the agent through whom the law was given; the source of the law is God.
Typically commentators take this verse as Paul’s further deprecation of the law, in which he stresses that the law came only indirectly from God. Yet if Paul were asserting this he would be hurting the fundamental premise he needs in order to argue that the revelation in Christ is continuous with salvation history—the faithfulness of God. Such an assertion would also contradict his immediately preceding statement that the law was divinely ordained (3:19). Paul does not want to denigrate the law; he wants to present it in accord with the fundamentals of the Jewish faith.
3:21–23 Paul brings to the forefront the question that has been underlying the whole discussion—Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? The fact that Paul asks the question as he does and answers it with Absolutely not! demonstrates again that Paul thinks the law finds its source in God. This is a different approach to the law from what we find in other early Christian writings, which, in light of the adequacy of Christ, declare the inadequacy of the law (e.g., Heb. 7:18–19; Justin Martyr, Dial. 11 [ANF 1.199–200]). It is also a different approach from that of Marcion, whom Ireneaus reports as divorcing the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets from the God revealed in Jesus Christ (Against Heresies 1.27.2; [ANF 1.352]). Rather, Paul understands the law as adequate for the role it was intended to play but regards that role as limited in both duration and function.
Paul has already said that the law’s function had to do with transgressions (3:19), and now he says that its function is not to impart life or righteousness. The law and the promises do not contradict each other; they serve different purposes. The law’s function cannot go beyond that of containing transgressions. God’s gift of life and righteousness is what was promised, and it is available through faith in Jesus Christ or through the faith of Jesus Christ (see Introduction). The promise and the law are not in conflict. Rather, God intended their coexistence, at least for a time, within God’s salvific dealings with humanity.
At this point Paul introduces into the discourse the idea of imparting life. At several points in his letters, when speaking of God’s salvific activity in Christ, Paul uses the concept of “life” (e.g., Rom. 4:17; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:22). For Paul, God is the giver of life, which entails much more than fleshly existence (1 Cor. 15:36, 45).
Paul uses Scripture as a metonymy for God, comparable to how he uses Scripture at 3:8. The Greek for declares (synekleisen) has the meaning of “confine” or “shut up,” thereby suggesting that Scripture or God imprisons. The word occurs also at Romans 11:32, where God is the one who imprisons or confines all people in disobedience. Both references give evidence to one side of the theological tension, found in Paul and throughout the Bible, that arises from believing both in God’s sovereignty and in human responsibility. In Galatians, in the context of stating that the law “was added because of transgressions” (3:19), Paul also asserts that even the cause of the law—sin—was under God’s control. Paul declares something similar at the beginning of Romans, where he says that God hands sinners over to their sin (Rom. 1:28).
It has been suggested that “Scripture” should be understood as referring to a particular Scripture, as Paul does elsewhere (e.g., 3:8; 4:30), and that the Scripture to which Paul is referring is Deuteronomy 27:26 (so E. Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians [International Critical Commentary; New York: Scribner, 1920], p. 195; and Longenecker, Galatians, p. 144). This makes “the Scripture” synonymous with “the law” of verse 19, for the reference to Deuteronomy 27:26 (v. 10) undergirds the claim in verse 19. Yet surely it would damage Paul’s argument about the limitations of the law if in verse 22 he were claiming that the law/Scripture had the capacity to imprison sin. His point rather is that the law was used by God for a particular period of time for certain limited purposes, a point he will reiterate in the following verse. Paul is referring to Scripture as that which testifies to the ways of God. God, not the law or Scripture, is the implicit subject of verse 22. When we look at the whole sentence, it is God who made the promise to those who believe.
The second clause of the verse is a purpose clause describing the reason for which God imprisoned all things under sin. It was so that what was promised might be given to those who believe “through faith in Jesus Christ.” The promise, which is the promise to Abraham, is a gift. In 3:14, Paul has qualified this as a promise of the Spirit, which believers have already received.
If we take a subjective genitive reading for “through faith in Jesus Christ” (see Introduction) the sense is that the promise is given to those who believe with the faith of Jesus Christ. This is another way of saying what Paul said in 3:14—that through or in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that they might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
At first it seems curious that Paul should now speak of faith coming, since he has been seeking to prove that faith was always a factor in God’s dealings with God’s people. If, however, he is using faith as a shorthand way of referring to his statement in verse 22 about the faith of Jesus Christ, then Paul is saying that until the coming of Christ the law guarded human beings. Faith is something that can be revealed, which attests to its hidden presence in the period before its coming. This is different from the act of believing in God, which Paul claims has always been evident in the structure of the divine-human relationship (3:6–7). The “faith” that is revealed, therefore, is not defined by the manner in which humans relate to God but by the person through whom humans relate to God. As Wallis writes, “It seems probable … that Paul identifies the revelation of faith in 3:23 with the coming of Christ” (The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions, p. 113). The faith in verse 23 is a synonym for the faith of Christ that is clarified in the following verses, where Paul sets the coming of faith in parallelism with being in Christ Jesus (vv. 25–26). The faith that is revealed is the faith of Jesus Christ in whom, through faith, believers participate.
Continuing to answer the challenge “why then the law?” Paul expands on what he has said in verse 22. Being “prisoner(s) of sin,” human beings were held prisoners by the law. Paul repeats the thought of verse 19, that God brought in the law because of transgressions. The divinely assigned role for the law was that of confining sin for a period of time until faith should come.
3:24 Through his use of the word so Paul indicates that now he is giving a straightforward answer to the question he raised in verse 19. The law’s purpose was custodial for the period before Christ. The law’s function was both negative and positive, for while it confined (v. 23), it did so with a view to liberation. The law’s role was to be in charge so that we might be justified by faith.
The Greek word translated by “in charge” (paidagōgos) means pedagogue, tutor, or guardian. In the ancient Greco-Roman world a pedagogue was a standard member of a well-to-do household. Pedagogues were the guardians in charge of educating and directing the ethical conduct of the sons of the household. Paul equates the law’s function with that of guardianship. The metaphor suggests that as a guardian keeps watch over a child until the child reaches maturity, so the law guarded humanity until the coming of Christ. In the following verses Paul will appeal to the idea of inheritance (3:29–4:7), which is the flipside of the idea of guardianship. In the ancient world a boy often had a guardian until the age of maturity, at which point he came into his inheritance. In verse 24 Paul suggests that the way to understand the purpose of the law is as a time-limited guardian or disciplinarian, and he strongly implies that the opportunity of being “justified by faith” is akin to attaining maturity.
Throughout this passage faith refers to the action of believing (3:22b) and to the faith of Christ (3:23, 25), the one who has come. The second part of verse 24 fills out what Paul has said by claiming that the law served a purpose until Christ came. As a result of Christ’s coming righteousness is available to all through faith. A believing response to the faith of Christ means that one is “in Christ,” as Paul goes on to say in verse 26. Belonging to Christ in this way makes one an heir to the promise (v. 29). The age of maturity, in which the inheritance can be received, is available to those who live by faith in Christ. Being justified by faith is a sign that one is grown up, for it is a sign that one has inherited the promise to Abraham (3:6–9).
3:25 Paul brings this part of his argument to a climax by repeating that faith has come (cf. 3:23). Since this is so, the law’s function of supervision is ended. Such a claim on Paul’s part was a powerful retort to the rival evangelists’ position that law observance was the appropriate completion to faith in Christ. Rather than law observance being the sign of fully becoming part of the people of God, Paul argues, it is a sign that one is still a minor and so incapable of inheriting the promise to Abraham. Using the present tense Paul asserts that he and the Galatians are at the age of majority: we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
Additional Notes
3:19 Paul, like other Jews, referred to Moses as mediator; see T. Callan, “Pauline Midrash: The Exegetical Background of Gal. 3:19b,” JBL 99 (1980), pp. 549–67, esp. p. 555.
The Greek word for angels (angelos) can mean angels or messengers. In the Bible angels often have the role of fulfilling a commission on God’s behalf, of communicating with significant people at turning points in Israel’s history, e.g., with Hagar, Gen. 16:7; 21:17; with Moses when God’s name is revealed, Exod. 3:2; and with the shepherds in the NT birth narratives.
Although there is an ambiguous reference in Deut. 33:2 to God’s giving of the law being accompanied by angels (for translation of Deut. 33:2, see Martyn, Galatians, p. 357), the OT narratives about the giving of the law portray God speaking directly to Moses and generally do not mention angels (e.g., Exod. 19). As mentioned in this commentary, many take Paul’s reference to angels and to a mediator to be a deprecation of the law (so Betz, Galatians, p. 171; Matera, Galatians, pp. 133–34; Longenecker, Galatians, pp. 141–43; J. D. G. Dunn, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians [London: A & C Black, 1993], p. 191). See also W. D. Davies, who suggests that in order to counter the Christian claim that the law was an inferior revelation because of its mediation by angels, some rabbis made efforts “to belittle the role of the angels on Mt. Sinai” (HTR 47 [1954], pp. 135–40, esp. p. 140, n. 11).
The phrase until the Seed … had come may be a paraphrase of Gen. 49:10, which was often interpreted messianically (so D. Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], p. 86).
3:20 By boldly asserting the fundamental Jewish conviction that God is one (Deut. 6:4), thereby putting himself in line with the basic faith of Judaism, Paul continues to underscore his point that his gospel is continuous with Judaism. This is the same function that reference to the Shema (God is one) plays in Rom. 3:28–31—to stress that Paul’s gospel is the outworking of Judaism, even of God’s giving of the law.
For an interpretation that in some regards is complementary to the one given here, see N. T. Wright, who understands Paul to be affirming the divine origin of the law while at the same time considering that “the law cannot be God’s final word.” For Wright the key to Paul’s argument is his conviction that the unity of God means that God desires also a single family. The problem with the law is that it was given to one race only. The law, therefore, had temporary status in God’s plan. (“The Seed and the Mediator: Galatians 3.15–20” in The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], pp. 157–74).
3:21 As noted, the standard interpretation of Paul’s point in vv. 19–20 is that he wishes to show that the law is “intrusive, temporary, secondary and preparatory” (Bruce, Galatians, 179). In such an interpretation v. 21 is seen as a question to which the reader might rightly expect an affirmative answer (ibid., p. 180). However, the fact that Paul raises the question in order to answer it with an emphatic denial suggests again that Paul’s point in the previous verses, rather than being to point out the inferior origin of the law, is to claim only that the law has a circumscribed function in God’s dealings with humanity. The law is limited in terms of time and of function.
The Greek for Absolutely not! (mē genoito) is the standard emphatic rebuttal used in persuasive arguments of the time. See Epictetus: “Now that three things belong to man, soul, and body and things external … all you have to do is answer the question which is best?… The flesh?… ‘God forbid’! [“absolutely not”]” (Arrian’s Discourses 3.7. 2–4 [Oldfather, LCL]).
3:23 Others also understand “the faith” to refer to Christ. See, for example, K. Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 21; R. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, pp. 230–32; Martyn, Galatians, p. 122.
