Why the Gospel is Better? (Galatians 3:1-14)

Paul obviously had to explain to the Galatians what the purpose of the law was. In doing so, he has also to mention some blessings that they received which were not connected to the law as given through Moses. The danger that we often face is that when someone responds wrongly to an issue we assume that the issue is also wrong. It is possible to think that the law has no purpose for believers, but that idea is called antinomianism. False teachers had misled the Galatian Christians regarding the law and one reason for the false message being accepted was connected to the Galatians being bewitched, which implies dark origins of the false message. There is no doubt that the devil was at work in Galatia trying to destroy the gospel work of Paul and Barnabas. 

Blessings without the law

In this set of verses Paul first gives five arguments to get the Galatians to think about what they have done in becoming zealous for the law, especially its ceremonial aspects, and which had led them away from the gospel.

First, they had heard about Christ and his death before they heard about those ideas promoted by the false teachers. During the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in their gatherings, the preaching was so powerful that it made the audience feel that they were present at the cross, although literally it had taken place hundreds of miles away and a couple of decades earlier. The preachers had taken the hearers on a spiritual journey to see the beauty of a crucified Saviour, and they did not need the ceremonial law for that to happen.

Second, when they believed in Jesus, God gave to all of them the Holy Spirit to live in them. This divine present was not made in response to their later dedication to the law but to their faith in Jesus when they heard the gospel and believed in him unto salvation. Attempting to keep the ceremonial law was not a feature of sanctification. It adds nothing to a person’s holiness of life, which is one reason why they had been given the Spirit.

Third, after they believed in Jesus, they had suffered for their faith in the sense that they were persecuted to some extent. This suffering did not occur because they were keeping the law, but because their faith had identified them with Jesus. They did not need to do anything else in order to face suffering for Christ. Paul indicates that their suffering was a good thing because it indicated that they were real believers. Better to suffer, says Paul, than to adopt the ceremonial practices. In any case, the Jews had not been persecuted for their practices, which implies that they were not regarded as much different from other religions.

Fourth, Paul refers to miracles that were occurring in the Galatian churches. He does not say what kind of miracles they were, but it would be safe to say that they were in some sense answers to prayer. It could have been prayers for healing or prayers for signs of confirmation of the gospel. Whatever the miracles were, they did not happen because of the adoption of the law’s requirements by the Galatians.

Fifth, combining the law with the gospel was not what had marked Abraham, the father of the faithful when he heard the gospel from God himself in the promise, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ Abraham’s response to that promise was to believe, and when he did so he was reckoned as righteous by God. It is true that later on he and his family were circumcised, but that did not have anything to do with his personal salvation. Paul’s reference to Abraham would have reminded the Galatians that God’s covenant had commenced with Abraham and not with the covenant he had made through Moses.

Before we move on, there are two applications that we can make to ourselves from what the apostle has written so far. First, are we trying to add works of our own to our lives so that God will bless us? This idea can be very subtle. Some things are good, but our response to them can make them bad. For example, a Jewish believer in Jesus might choose to engage in various rituals because he imagines that the more he does the better he is. The problem is that God has not told him to do this in addition to accepting the gospel. 

Another example is this. I might decide that it would be useful to pray for four hours a day. Such a practice would require a lot of thought every day if it is going to be meaningful. So instead of thinking about the gospel I become preoccupied with what should occur during those four hours of prayer. Before long, I imagine that I have to do that in order to be spiritual. The problem is threefold at least: (1) God did not ask me to do this; (2) I have replaced the gospel with something I do; (3) I will become legalistic and judgemental of those who do not do what I am doing. God expects us to live in the power of the Spirit and not by self-imposed rules.

Second, do we love the gospel? Do we see it in its beauty? Is it so vivid in our hearts that we almost think we are at the cross whenever we hear about it or think about it? We can dim the light of the cross by doing wrong things such as disobedience, and we can dim the light of the cross by adding things that may seem good but only make us self-righteous. It is always a question to ask about anything we do, ‘Will this activity dim the light of the cross as far as my soul is concerned?’

God’s Judgement on Who

The obvious difficulty with the law is that it is impossible for sinners to keep it. It demands perfection and never reduces that requirement. The law does not have grades of obedience or disobedience. It is either kept or broken. It makes no difference if everyone else is worse than me if I am not perfect myself. In addition, because we have failed to keep it, we are under God’s curse, and waiting for his judgement to occur, and the judgement is eternal. The law does not offer us any hope of deliverance.

But Paul reminds the Galatians of the divine remedy for this desperate situation that we faced as human sinners. Instead of us being cursed, Jesus became a curse for us. That means he willingly took the place of sinners on the cross. Jesus was not guilty of their sins in a personal way, but he was in a representative way. He always remained perfect, but he suffered instead for the imperfect. 

What did it mean for Jesus to become a voluntary curse? He became subject to divine punishment. Now there are degrees of divine punishment. For example, some divine punishments are longer than other divine punishments; some divine punishments are larger than others – the flood, for example; some divine punishments are more intense than others. What happened to Jesus was larger than all others put together because he bore the fullness of divine wrath.

Of course, this is very hard for us to appreciate. One way that may help us is to consider the darkest moment of his experience on the cross when he cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When he uttered those words he was not denying the presence of the Father. At that moment, he knew that he was bearing the Father’s wrath. What had been withdrawn from him was the comforting sense of his Father’s approval. His cry does reveal the intensity of the experience that Jesus had when paying the penalty for sin.

Paul describes the activity of Jesus as redemption. We were in a place of condemnation because of our sins and a price had to be paid in order for us to be set free. The price was the death of Jesus. We were not only in a place of condemnation, we were also in a place of confinement waiting for the penalty to be carried out, although we were blind to the prison walls. Jesus by his death also set us free from captivity to sin. The point that Paul is making is that it was not keeping the law that brought this redemption and liberty. 

The believer and the curse

Obviously, the work of redemption took place at Calvary. Yet we do not enter into its reality until we believe in Jesus. We come to him as condemned sinners, thankful that there is a way of ceasing to be under the curse of the law. As we have noted before, justification means that we have a perfect life reckoned to us and that the penalty for sin has been paid. But justification does not in itself change us because we are still sinners after we are justified. The question may arise, ‘Does my continuing to sin mean that I could once again come under the curse of the law?’ In other words, can I become a non-justified person again? The answer is no, because what is reckoned to our account is a permanent status. Justification cannot be reversed or removed. The curse was taken away and cannot return to one who is clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.

The blessing of the Spirit

But that was not all that the law could not do. The law was not able to bring about the blessing that had been promised to Abraham, which was that through his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. In contrast, the call to faith in Jesus not only brought about the state of justification, it also led to all of God’s people everywhere receiving the Holy Spirit when they believed.

The Holy Spirit is described as promised. There are two ways of understanding this description. One is that Paul means that the Father promised to Jesus that he would be given the Spirit as a reward should he finish his work on the cross. The other way is to regard Paul as saying that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to his people, as he said to his disciples on several occasions. As far as receiving the Holy Spirit is concerned, both aspects of the promise are true and show that the promise to send the Spirit has been fulfilled.

Paul also mentions that the presence of the Spirit was common to all believers. There is no such a person as a Christian who does not have the Spirit. When we look at Jesus on the cross, we see something external to us. But when we come to the presence of the Spirit we see something internal. Paul’s point here is, what is the mark of a true believer? The false teachers had claimed that the mark of a true believer was conformity to the ceremonial law. Paul states that the mark of a true believer is the presence of the Holy Spirit in a sinner’s life.

The presence of the Spirit indicates where the power for living a changed life comes from. The false teachers thought that the marks of a changed life were external conformity to a set of ceremonial commandments whereas Paul makes it very clear that a changed life comes from within a person through the power of the indwelling Spirit. When the Galatians commenced a life of adherence to the ceremonial law they moved away from the power of God even although they seemed to be more religious than ever.

Those whom the Father has justified because of their faith in Jesus have been given the Spirit to enable them to live the Christian life. He writes God’s moral law on their hearts and enables them to obey it lovingly. Yet, they are never sinless, although the Spirit works to make them increasingly like Jesus. This is the progress that God has planned and which pleases him. But it is impossible to please him by focussing on what he has not required.