Galatians 3 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Galatians 3:1-5

A. Find Out:

1. What is Paul’s first question? v.1a
   • You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?
2. How had Jesus been portrayed? v.1b
   • Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
3. What does Paul’s then ask about? v.2
   •  I would like to learn just one thing from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?
4. What does he say they are now doing? v.3
   • Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?
5. Of what does he next remind them? v.4
   •  Have you experienced so much in vain – if it really was in vain?
6. What does he finally ask about? v.5
   • So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

B. Think:

1. What is the main point Paul is driving home here?
2. How is the Holy Spirit used as an illustration?
3. How are miracles used similarly?

C. Comment:

Having spent a long time building up the credentials of the Gospel he preached, Paul now confronts the Galatians head on with their stupidity. He says that by the way they are acting they look as if they have had a spell cast on them. Look, he says, Jesus was preached as the one who was crucified for you and who, by implication, did everything necessary to justify you.

Come on, he says, how did you receive the Holy Spirit, how did you perform miracles? Was it by obeying the Law, by following rules? Of course it wasn’t! It was simply because you believed what you heard, that God gave you His Spirit and then did miracles through you. Be careful here, the point Paul is making is that it wasn’t by keeping the rules that the supernatural came into their lives.

However, that doesn’t mean to say that while believing we can get away with not being obedient to God. Obedience and availability are prerequisites for being used by God (see Acts 5:32 ) but they come after believing, after salvation. They are not necessary for salvation, but they are for being used by God in the days following.

D. Application?

1. My salvation doesn’t depend on me being good, it depends on me  believing the Gospel.
2. I cannot do anything to add to my salvation, I can just enjoy it!
3. Availability is the key to usability.

Passage: Galatians 3:6-9

A. Find Out:    

1. Who are they asked to consider? v.6a
   • So also Abraham
2. Why was he credited as righteous? v.6b
   • ‘believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’
3. Who therefore are believers? v.7
   • Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.
4. How are Gentiles justified? v.8a
   • Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith
5. So who are blessed? v.9a
   • So those who rely on faith are blessed
6. How is Abraham described? v.9b
   • Abraham, the man of faith.

B. Think:

1. What point has Paul been making previously?
2. How does he use Abraham as an example?
3. So what point does he drive home through it?

C. Comment:

Paul has just challenged them, asking whether they had been blessed by God because they observed the law or because they simply believed. Now, in these few verses, he hammers the point home with great clarity: it is by FAITH alone that we are blessed.

To achieve this, he uses the example of Abraham (just like he does more fully in Romans chapter 4). God had declared (credited) Abraham to be righteous, simply because Abraham had BELIEVED, simply because he had FAITH. Because he had had faith God promised that all nations would be blessed through him. In other words, anyone from any nation who believes in the same simple way that Abraham believed, will also be justified and will also receive the blessing of God on their lives.

These Galatians should be a clear object lesson to us: we are NOT saved because of what we DO. We are saved simply by our FAITH ONLY, in Jesus. We do things because we are saved, not to be saved. As we believe in our hearts, as faith rises within us, so that we know it and can say “Yes, it IS true for me”, so God justifies us and blesses us. Any “doing” that does not flow out of this, is man-centred striving and does not bring the blessing of God on it.

D. Application? 

1. My salvation is a FREE GIFT from God when I believed, and I AM fully justified by God and declared righteous in His sight.
2. Thank God for your free salvation today.

Passage: Galatians 3:10-14

A. Find Out:

1. Under what are “law-keepers”? v.10a
   •  For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse
2. Why? v.10b
   • it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’
3. How will the righteous live? v.11
   • Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’
4. How did Christ redeem us from the curse? v.13
   • Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’
5. What might happen as a result? v.14a
   • e redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus
6. In what specific way? v.14b
   • so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

B. Think: 

1. What are the two optional ways for a follower of God to live?
2. What are the “legal” results of each way?
3. What does this mean for us in practical terms?

C. Comment:

Having just used Abraham as an illustration, Paul takes the aspect of being blessed along with Abraham and highlights both sides of the coin. Look, he says, you are either under a curse or under a blessing! If you rely upon the law for your salvation, you are under a curse because Scripture says anyone who fails to keep the whole law is under a curse. However, it also says that the righteous will live (or know salvation) by having faith, so it is faith not the law that is the answer.

Then he points out a wonderful fact: Christ became a curse on the Cross by taking all our sins, so we are no longer under a curse. Therefore, because we are no longer under a curse and we live by faith in Christ, we are now under the same blessing as Abraham and all of God’s goodness flows towards us via the channel of His own Holy Spirit.

A curse is a promise of bad from God, His judgement. The blessing is the promise of good from God, His Spirit. This is the wonder of the Christian’s life, we have been transferred from curse to blessing, we are now a people of God’s blessing, and He ONLY purposes good for our lives from now on.

D. Application? 

1. The law (the ten commandments) still form the background of my life but I am no longer under the curse for failing to keep them perfectly.
2. Christ gives me His blessing and takes my curse.

Passage: Galatians 3:15-18

A. Find Out:

1. What cannot one do? v.15
   • no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established
2. To whom were the promises spoken? v.16a
   •  The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.
3. Who does Paul take that to mean? v.16b
   • Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds’, meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed’, meaning one person, who is Christ.
4. What doesn’t the law do? v.17
   • What I mean is this: the law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.
5. What is the first possibility about our inheritance? v.18a
   • For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise;
6. But how did it come? v.18b
   • but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

B. Think: 

1. What was the difference in time between God giving Abraham promises and the Law being given?
2. What point is Paul making in this passage?
3. What are the consequences of that?

C. Comment:

Paul keeps on pursuing this argument. First he had reminded them that Abraham had been credited by God with righteousness simply for believing. Then he had pointed out the impossibility of perfectly keeping the Law, and then of Christ having opened the way for us to be receivers of the blessing given to Abraham. Now he sets law against grace as a further proof. What he is saying is that God’s promise of blessing to Abraham came before the Law and was therefore not dependent on the Law and was not put aside by the Law.

Paul interprets the Old Testament promise to refer to Abraham himself and Christ as the one who came physically from Abraham (through Mary) and spiritually as THE son of faith. God had promised Abraham He would bless him, do good to him (Genesis 12:2 & 22:17), and make His covenant with him and his descendants (Genesis 17:19). That blessing, fulfilled in Christ, is for all who by faith receive Christ. It came before the Law and the Law has not put it aside. Today we are people of the promises, not the Law. Therefore, we rest in the promises, not strive to maintain the Law.

D. Application?   

1. My salvation depends on God’s promise and NOT my ability to uphold the rules.
2. Freed from striving to receive God’s love and blessing.

Passage: Galatians 3:19-25

A. Find Out:

1. What is Paul’s key question now? v.19a
   • Why, then, was the law given at all?
2. What gap was it given to fill? v.19b
   • It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator.
3. What was the problem with the world? v.22a
   • But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin
4. What was the law doing? v.23
   • efore the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.
5. So what was the Law to do? v.24
   • So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
6. How is the promise received? v.22b,24b,25
   • what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe….. Christ came that we might be justified by faith….ow that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

B. Think:

1. What had been the world’s problem before Jesus came?
2. How did the Law accentuate that?
3. So how, as Paul’s conclusion, did the Law help the Gospel?

C. Comment:

We now examine a passage that has words that are not very clear and words that bring immense clarity. Paul has just said that our inheritance of God’s blessing on our lives depends on His promise and not our keeping the rules. So, he now asks, what is the point of the Law?

To answer that he takes two paths. First, he says it was to point up transgressions until the promise was fulfilled. It came through a mediator, Moses, and yet a “mediator” presupposes that he mediates between two persons. However, it is all initiated, commanded and fulfilled by God and so it isn’t quite like that. God brought Law and promise so, asks Paul, is one against the other?

This is when Paul then takes the next path, noting the state of the world. If the world was without sin, people would be able to follow the Law perfectly and righteousness would automatically come. However, because everyone is under the power of sin, the law simply makes people realize even more that they are sinners incapable of following the Law, and thus showing them their need for a Saviour. When we come to that point and call on Him, Jesus, the promise is fulfilled, and the blessing of God released to us!

D. Application?  

1. The law reminds me I need a Saviour, and God has provided one in Jesus!
2. Jesus frees me from the failure of the Law.

Passage: Galatians 3:26-29

A. Find Out:

1. What are we now? v.26a
   •  So in Christ Jesus
2. How does that come about? v.26b
   • children of God through faith
3. What two things happened to us? v.27
   • for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
4. What differences are there? v.28
   • There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
5. What 3 descriptions are given of us? v.29
   • If you belong to Christ, / then you are Abraham’s seed, / and heirs according to the promise.

B. Think:

1. What descriptions are there of us Christians in these few verses?    
2. What was our side of bringing that about?
3. What do the verses say God has done?

C. Comment:

These are power packed verses that bring strength and assurance. First, the descriptions of us today. We ARE sons of God today, now, this minute. If you have believed Jesus and met God you ARE his child today (see also 1 John 3:1,3), we belong to Christ (v.29) for he purchased us with his blood (Acts 20:28). Now the consequence of that is that we are also described as Abraham’s seed and as such we are also heirs (inheritors) of the promises given to the man of faith.

Second, the other things that have happened to us. We had faith and God baptized (or placed) us into the mystical body that is the Church, with Christ as its head (see Ephesians 1:22 ,23, 4:15 ,16). We have thus been “clothed with Christ”, covered with him, with his characteristics, and that includes ALL Christians whoever they are.

Whoever has believed, who has had faith in Christ, has become one in the body that is the Church, made up of all believers. “They” may not worship like you and perhaps do many things differently, but as children of God they are part of the same body as you, equally loved by God. Dare we have wrong attitudes, hold wrong feelings and say wrong things about others in this same body we are in? We only harm ourselves if we do!

D. Application?   

1. Because I believe in Christ as my Lord and Saviour I AM a child of God today.
2. As a child of God I am the receiver of all the promises of God.