Galatians 3

Commentary

Galatians 3:1

¹ You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified!

Paul now moves from defending his gospel to appealing directly to the Galatians. His rebuke concerns their failure to follow the truth they had already received. Christ had been vividly portrayed before them as crucified through Paul’s preaching; to make observance of the law necessary for acceptance with God would imply that the cross was insufficient.

The question, “Who has cast a spell on you?” exposes how irrational their reversal had become. They knew what Christ had accomplished. Why, then, would they turn from him to a system that could not justify them?

Galatians 3:2-5

² The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort? ⁴ Have you suffered so many things for nothing? — if indeed it was for nothing. ⁵ Does God then give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard?

Paul begins with the Galatians’ own experience. They received the Spirit when they believed the gospel, not after adopting the works of the law. The same God who began his work in them by the Spirit continued to supply the Spirit and work among them on the basis of faith.

This does not make Christian obedience passive or unimportant. It means that human effort cannot purchase, preserve, or complete what God’s grace began. Growth comes through continued dependence on the Spirit, not by exchanging faith for self-reliance.

The word translated “suffered” in verse 4 can also carry the broader sense of what they had experienced. Paul may have their hardships in view, but his main point is clear: abandoning the gospel would render their former response and experience fruitless. The words “if indeed it was for nothing” leave room for hope that they will return.

Good works are therefore not currency with which we persuade God to act. His gifts are received by faith, and genuine obedience follows from grace rather than attempting to secure it.

Galatians 3:6

⁶ Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,

Paul grounds his argument in Scripture by citing Genesis 15:6. Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God. Righteousness was credited to him as a gift received through faith, not paid to him as wages for works.

Galatians 3:7-9

⁷ so then, understand that those who believe are the sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” ⁹ So then those who believe are blessed along with Abraham the believer.

Abraham’s true sons are those who share his faith. This is a covenant claim rather than a claim about physical descent: Gentiles who believe are included in the family God promised to bless.

Paul cites Genesis 12:3 to show that the inclusion of the nations was present in God’s promise from the beginning. Genesis also places Abraham’s being counted righteous before he received circumcision as a covenant sign (Gen 15:6; 17:10-11). Circumcision, therefore, cannot be the basis on which he or the Gentiles are justified.

Galatians 3:10-14

¹⁰ For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.” ¹¹ Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous one will live by faith. ¹² But the law is not based on faith, but the one who does the works of the law will live by them. ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) ¹⁴ in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.

Paul brings together four passages to contrast reliance on the law with justification by faith. Deuteronomy 27:26 places under a curse everyone who fails to continue in everything the law requires. The law does not offer justification through partial obedience.

Habakkuk 2:4 declares that the righteous one will live by faith, while Leviticus 18:5 states the law’s principle: the one who does its commands will live by them. Paul is not suggesting that the law is evil or that the Old Testament had no place for faith. He is showing that law-keeping cannot serve as the basis of a sinner’s righteous standing before God.

Christ supplies what the law cannot. By bearing the curse in his death, in fulfillment of Deuteronomy 21:23, he redeemed his people from it. The result is that Abraham’s blessing comes to the Gentiles in Christ and the promised Spirit is received by faith.

Galatians 3:15

¹⁵ Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it.

Paul reasons from an ordinary human covenant. Once it has been ratified, its terms cannot simply be canceled or rewritten. If this is true of human arrangements, God’s prior promise cannot be invalidated by a later covenantal administration.

Galatians 3:16

¹⁶ Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, “and to the descendants,” referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” referring to one, who is Christ.

Paul focuses the promises made to Abraham and his descendant on Christ, the representative descendant in whom they reach their fulfillment. The word descendant, or seed, can describe a collective people, but Paul reads the promise of Genesis 12:7 in light of its goal: Christ is the one through whom the promised inheritance comes.

Galatians 3:17-18

¹⁷ What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise.

The interval of 430 years fixes the law as later than the promise. A later arrangement cannot rewrite or cancel God’s earlier commitment to Abraham.

Promise and law also operate on different principles in Paul’s argument. If the inheritance were earned by keeping the law, it would no longer be an inheritance graciously given through promise. Paul insists that God gave it to Abraham; it was never a wage Abraham earned.

Galatians 3:19-20

¹⁹ Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the descendant to whom the promise had been made. It was administered through angels by an intermediary. ²⁰ Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one.

If the law could neither justify nor cancel the promise, why was it given? It was added “because of transgressions.” At minimum, the law identifies sin as transgression and brings it under explicit condemnation. As Paul says elsewhere, the law came in so that the trespass would increase (Romans 5:20). Its role in this argument is temporary: it remains in force until the arrival of the promised descendant.

Paul’s reference to angels reflects the association of Sinai with heavenly hosts in Deuteronomy 33:2 and Psalm 68:17. The intermediary in verse 19 is most naturally Moses, who stood between God and Israel.

Verse 20 is compressed, but Paul appears to contrast the law’s mediated arrangement, which involved parties on both sides, with the promise God freely guaranteed. The central point is clear even where the exact force of the contrast is debated: the mediated law cannot displace the promise of the one God.

Galatians 3:21

²¹ Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

The law and the promise are not rivals, since both come from God. The law is good within its appointed purpose, but it was never able to impart life. If it could have done so, righteousness would have come through it. Its inability to justify is not a defect in God’s plan; it marks the limit of the task God gave it.

Galatians 3:22-23

²² But the scripture imprisoned everything and everyone under sin so that the promise could be given — because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ — to those who believe. ²³ Now before faith came we were held in custody under the law, being kept as prisoners until the coming faith would be revealed.

Scripture’s verdict confines everyone under sin and removes every ground for self-justification. The promise rests on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and is given to those who believe.

The phrase “before faith came” cannot mean that no one exercised saving faith before Christ; Abraham has already supplied Paul’s decisive counterexample. It refers to the coming of Christ and the public unveiling of the promised way of faith in its fulfilled form. Before that fulfillment, the law held God’s people in custody.

Galatians 3:24-25

²⁴ Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ, so that we could be declared righteous by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

The term paidagōgos, translated “guardian,” referred to a household custodian charged with supervising a minor. It does not primarily describe a classroom teacher. Paul uses the image to emphasize the law’s custodial and temporary role: it confined and supervised God’s people until Christ, exposing their need for the righteousness that comes through faith.

Now that Christ has come, believers are no longer under that guardian. Paul is not declaring the law evil; he is saying that its temporary covenantal role has reached its appointed goal.

Galatians 3:26-29

²⁶ For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. ²⁷ For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female — for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.

Paul has arrived at the conclusion toward which the chapter has been moving: all who are in Christ are children of God through faith. No believer possesses a higher grade of sonship than another. The language of “sons” emphasizes the status of heirs, a status Paul expressly applies to both male and female.

When a person believes, the Holy Spirit baptizes that believer into Christ, uniting him or her with Christ and giving that person a new identity in him (1 Cor 12:13). This is a spiritual baptism, not the act of water baptism. Water baptism publicly portrays the union already received through faith, but the water does not save, unite us to Christ, or give us a new identity. Romans 6:3-5 develops this union in terms of participation in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Verse 28 does not claim that ethnic, social, or sexual distinctions cease to exist. It denies that any of them establishes a privileged standing before God or a superior claim to the inheritance. All believers are one in Christ.

Because Christ is the promised descendant, everyone who belongs to him also belongs to Abraham’s family and shares in the promised inheritance. Neither ethnicity nor works of the law creates an heir. The inheritance is received in Christ through faith.