Year 2, Day 139: Galatians 3

The Significance of Christ

Paul opens Galatians 3 with an incredibly powerful statement: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law or by hearing of faith?”  Clearly Paul’s major point is that it wasn’t through fulfilling the Law, that’s for sure.  After all, he just got done saying that none of us are saved through fulfilling the Law!  Thus, it is important to understand the two concepts that Paul says is significant: receiving the Spirit and faith.

Now, there’s something that is really neat about the way that Paul often uses the word “faith.”  In the Greek, the word faith can naturally mean “faith,” “faithfulness,” or “belief.”  When talking about salvation, I tend to always lean towards faithfulness, but not in a way that implies my faithfulness.  After all, to imply my own faithfulness leads us straight back to works righteousness and the very thing that Paul is arguing against!  The question then becomes: whose faithfulness?  I bet you can figure that one out without explanation!

Let me give an example.  If I say, “I am holding my wife’s picture,” how to you hear that statement?  Am I holding a picture in which my wife is the photographic subject or am I holding a picture that belongs to my wife?  We really can’t tell just by my words, we need context to help us figure out whether the picture belongs to my wife or whether it is a picture that is of my wife.

The same thing happens in the Bible, especially around the word faith/faithfulness/belief.  Take a look at Galatians 2:16 as a really neat example of this – and then I promise to bring it back to Galatians 3. 

Galatians 2:16 reads like this in the ESV: “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”  I bolded and underlined the phrases in question.

Literally, the Greek words that I underlined are in what is called the genitive case.  Genitives are words that show relationship.  Sometimes, the relationship is one of possession.  If I say “that man’s wallet,” the word man is genitive because it is showing the man’s possession of the wallet.  If I say “the light of the sun” (or the sun’s light) the word sun is genitive because it is showing the sun’s possession of the light.  However, genitives can also be a word of composition.  If I say, “a group of women” the word women is genitive not because the women possess the group but because the women compose the group.

So let’s bring this back to Galatians.  In Galatians 2:16 we would be absolutely correct to literally translate it as:

 “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through Jesus Christ’s faith, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by Christ’s faith and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” 

Do you see the dramatic change that this small alteration of the genitive words brings to the passage?  Do you really think that where salvation is concerned that it is my faith in Jesus Christ that makes all the difference in the world?  Or is it Jesus Christ’s faith – or even better, faithfulness! – that makes the difference?  Which is really the most important concept – my obedience or Christ’s faithfulness?

Now, here’s the really neat thing.  The Greek supports both readings.  So in a way we can say yes to both!  To me, what is of primary importance is that Jesus Christ was faithful.  Yet, I must also understand that I am called to respond to that act of faithfulness by believing! 

For the record, that is exactly what Paul is saying here as he opens Galatians 3.  Literally, Paul says, “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law or by a hearing of faith(fulness)?”  Is Paul asking whether I received the Holy Spirit because I was faithful when I heard about Jesus or did I receive the Holy Spirit because I heard about the faithfulness of Jesus Christ?  The answer is … yes!  Yes to both!  First and foremost, without the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, I could have never have received the Holy Spirit no matter how much I thought I was listening.  However, having a faithful response to the message of Christ’s faithfulness is also a significant part of the process of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Wow, I’ve totally taken up all of my space today and didn’t even get past the second verse.  But in a way I did.  Remember Paul’s overarching point in this letter:  Salvation has come to us through the grace by way of Jesus Christ’s faithfulness, not our own ability to be obedient to the law.  That is the gist of Galatians 3:10-14.  Jesus Christ made Himself a curse under the Law so that we can be free from that curse of judgment.  Christ’s work, our reception of grace.

What’s the Point of the Law?

However, I do want to throw in a paragraph on the last section in this chapter.  After all, if we are saved by grace, why have the Law?  This is a very important question, because many people live this way.  Many people live as though Jesus’ death means we can do whatever we want.  We often live as though we sin so that God’s love through His forgiveness shows up more and more!  That’s how our actions demonstrate our thought – as flawed as that line of thinking really is.

The reality is that even under grace the Law still has good function.  The Law reveals our sinfulness.  It shows us just how much we need the grace that came through Jesus Christ!  However, it also shows us how God desires us to live.  This is where the response comes in.  We may not be able to live according to the Law perfectly, but that does not mean we do not strive for it.  Remember what I said yesterday.  Jesus Christ did not come to abolish the Law, He came to fulfill it.  He came so that we would no longer be bound physically by the Law but rather so that the Law could be written on our hearts in spirit.  He came so that spiritually we could follow God’s ways.  So even though we talk much about the fact that salvation only comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, we must also be careful to still value the Law and its usefulness to us as we respond to that gift of grace.

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