Christ became a curse in our stead, not by himself breaking the law of God, but by being hung on a tree (the cross). He did not come under the In this lesson we study the second main section of Paul’s letter,
Paul makes enlightening comparisons between being in Christ and being
The three contrasts or choices
The blessing of Abraham was that he was "justified" which means "counted as righteous". This of course meant that he was eligible for eternal life. Now this happened without him ever having to keep the law of Moses, since Abraham lived
Abraham was "justified" not because he kept God’s law perfectly, but because he believed God’s promises to him
By sharing Abraham’s faith, and by no other means, everyone in the world can share his blessing. That is the power of the promise God
The curse of the law. The law of Moses, on the other hand, produced not a blessing but a curse. Paul refers to
The law says that those who keep it will live, those who don't will be cursed. Thus, under the law, eternal life or eternal death depend on whether one has kept or
The problem here is that if you break just one commandment, you cannot claim to have kept the law. You have broken the law. James makes this point too
Because nobody kept all the things written in the law, everyone was cursed by it! It could only impart life to one who kept it perfectly in all points. So in effect it
Paul is not saying that people under the law had no means of justification and eternal life. He points out that the principle has always been true that "the just shall live by faith"
Christ became a curse to bring about redemption. Christ, Paul says, redeemed us from the curse of the law, and he did so by becoming
Christ became a curse in our stead, not by himself breaking the law of God, but by being hung on a tree (the cross). He did not come under the
To go back to the law would be "foolish" for the Galatians, because it would bring them under the curse of the law, and lose them the blessing in Christ who became a curse
The promise God made through Abraham came long before the Law was given through Moses. The law of Moses did not set aside or change the earlier promise. The promise would be fulfilled in one man, the Seed or descendant
The promised seed, in other words, was not the multitude of Abraham’s descendants
Nobody’s eternal inheritance hangs on the law given to Moses. But everyone’s eternal inheritance depends on the promises
Paul makes an important distinction between the law of Moses and the promise to Abraham. It revolves around the the question of mediation
In the case of the law, angels and a priesthood acted as mediators between God
The outcome of the dispensation of law depended upon the performance of two parties: God who gave the law, and the people who tried to keep it. Since the performance of the second party was imperfect, the law produced condemnation for them instead of justification. It "imprisoned"
The earlier promise however, was "of one"
The mediator of the promise was God himself in the person of Jesus Christ the promised seed who came from God and was God. What God had promised he was able also to perform
The outcome of a dispensation of promise depended only on God’s performance. The promise depended upon the birth, death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and second coming of Christ. People who put their faith and trust in this, and not in their own performance, will be justified, not condemned. (This does not mean of course that they can perform little or nothing. They must make their best performance. Salvation is conditional upon that. But they do not trust or have faith in their own obedience, but rather in the
The promise and the law are not in opposition and contradiction to each other, however. If people could have justified themselves by keeping the law perfectly, then they could have got eternal life by the law. That would have made the promise of no effect. But because the law condemned them, it taught them their need of the promised Christ. The law therefore reinforced the promise and the
Throughout history, people have become sons and heirs of God through faith in Christ. This was true even before the first coming of Christ. Abraham, for example, was justified by that faith
There has never been any other way to receive God’s blessing
If we would be sons and heirs of God, according to the promise, we must share Abraham’s faith in Christ. In that way we become, spiritually speaking, "Abraham’s seed" or offspring, and we
The alternative is enslavement and condemnation. Before Christ came, the Jews were slaves under the law waiting for their coming of age. The Gentiles were also slaves
In the light of these facts, the respective former positions of Jew and Gentile become indistinct. When adopted as God’s true sons, we lose sight of the distinction between Jew and Gentile. There is no difference really. All become one in Christ. This is especially true now that Christ has come and the world has entered a new age of
Faith, to be valid, must express itself in obedience, just as Abraham obeyed God. One of the first acts of obedience, in this new age of faith, is baptism into Christ. We are all sons of God by faith in Christ, for all of us who have been baptised into Christ have all clothed ourselves with Christ. One who refuses or neglects to be baptised into Christ, cannot claim to have that faith in Christ which brings the blessing of sonship. Only "as many of us as have been baptised into Christ have
So Paul has challenged the Galatians by asking three questions. Will you lose your blessing for a curse? Will you exchange your promise that cannot fail for a law you cannot keep? Will you renounce your sonship and go back to slavery? These ideas have application to us too if we think to leave the Christian way and go back to our old way of life, for whether we were under the law of Moses or not, we still lived under a curse. Be challenged to