March 7, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Galatians? Here’s today’s reading:
Galatians 3 (NIV)
Faith or Works of the Law
1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 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? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?...........Continue Reading
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“You foolish Galatians!” If there has ever been a human who could reach God by obeying the law, Paul would be a good candidate being the strict Pharisee that he was. However, Christ removed the scales from his eyes to reveal His Gospel to him. This chapter is a strong defense for the believer’s justification by faith alone. We are free indeed.
Amen, Steve!
Galatians 1
Galatians 2
Paul has brought out the big guns. Did you receive the Holy Spirit by observing the law?. Did you grow spiritually because you followed the law?. Or because of the Spirits work? Can you draw closer to God by following the law? Paul destroys the argument that gentiles had to become Jews to become Christians. Abraham was saved by his faith. We all share that same blessing. What a load to carry. Cursed is anyone who doesn’t follow everything in the law. Christ has redeemed us. Bought us!!! From the curse of the law. As he became the curse for us.!!!!!! This news is overwhelming to read. To think that God did this for each one of us!!
Galatians 3 – Paul is reading the riot act to the Galatians for observing the law and thinking they can earn their salvation on their own. He has to remind them that Christ had redeemed them from the law, he did that by going to the cross, the Gentiles have been given the promise of the Spirit.
Galatians 2
Galatians 3
11Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”
For some reason, this verse reminds me of a dynamic that happens in my own life. I noticed that whenever I indulge a sin in my life, my faith is short-circuited. I go into a phase of struggles with it.. then I somehow find myself trapped once again in the claws of the law. Sin has a way of sending me back into a time when the law subjected me into doom.
Galations is a book which defends not only justification by faith through grace alone, apart from the works of the law, but also Paul is defending sanctification by faith through grace, by walking in the Spirit as opposed to in our flesh trying to keep the Law and thus sanctify ourselves. The Judaizers tried to add keeping the law to justification and sanctification. They were false teachers and Paul calls them out on these false teachings. In Gal. 3:2 it says ” Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or hearing with faith? ” This speaks of justification by faith. Galatians 3:3 says ” Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? ” This is speaking of sanctification. Many well known preachers down through the years have brought believers back under the Law for sanctification. We have died to the law. Romans 7:1-6 is clear that the believer has died to the Law. We as believers are under grace walking in the newness of the Spirit ( Romans 7:6 ) . We are saved by faith through grace, and we are sanctified by faith through grace through walking in the Spirit. We are not sanctified by trying to keep the Law. The Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith are clearly in error in imposing The Law as a means of sanctification. Many believers find themselves struggling in their walk because they are falsely taught they must seek to keep the Law as a means of sanctification. The Law is a guardian to bring us to Christ , but after we by faith receive Christ as our Savior, we are no longer under the Law as seen in Gal. 3:23-25. Walking in the Spirit is the key for sanctification, not trying to keep the Law in the power of the flesh. Galations 5:16 says, ” But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ” Galations 5:18 is clear, ” But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ” Neither justification nor sanctification is by keeping the Law. We are saved by faith and receive the Spirit, now as believers we are being perfected by faith through grace in the power of the Spirit. Galatians is such an important book.
I picture a hamster in a wheel when you think of the idea that we could ever be justified by our own works. We would go nowhere fast! We mess up all too often and those shortcomings are the precise reason God knew we would need a Savior. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin removing our natural inclination to pride all together. If we think we can save ourselves by works, or laws, or anything on our own we are feeding that pride and continuing a sinful mindset. Now we should be eager to do His work, eager to show others the way, but not because of anything we have done but in humble, appreciation for what He has done for us!
You said it perfectly Steve!
I am baffled also that anyone who would experience the freedom in Christ would want to go back into slavery. When I met Jesus. Chains immediately fell from me. And they are never going back anywhere near me!! I am free!!!!!!!
We are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus [ verse 26]. Thank God that we are not saved by works for none of us would be saved’ Titus 3;5. Not by works of righteousness which we have done ,but according to his mercy he saved us ………… Amen to the other comments in chapter 3.
Paul uses various examples and illustrations to show that the law is not able to make a person righteous for salvation or in the life we live after it. Everything in our life with God is based in Jesus, faith, grace and the Spirit. That way everything in our Christian life brings glory to God because He does all the heavy lifting….He provides the power and the work, we believe and choose. It is only faith that is consistent with grace…and it is only by both that we are saved and sanctified. The fact that Paul uses Abraham as an example is huge because he was the father of the Jews. And yet if his relationship was established through faith in a promise, how much more powerful is our relationship with God based in faith in the fulfillment of the promise. It is really a question if we want to live in Romans 7 (under the condemnation and power of sin in the law) or in Romans 8 (the power of the Spirit).
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
Galations 3
28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I don’t know how people can say that sanctification has anything to do with works when there are many places in God’s Word that clearly state it does not. That is why it is important to read and study the Bible. So we know when people are telling us things that are false. Paul says all who rely on the works of the law are CURSED. It was Abrahams BELIEF in God that saved him, not anything that he did. The righteous live by FAITH. By FAITH we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. So in Christ Jesus we are all children of God through FAITH. John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever BELIEVES in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Reading this, I think of Saul going after his own ambitions and thinking works was going to please God. Became disobedient and jealous after his own doing in reference to what Paul is talking about here.