Chapter 3 is the doctrinal heart of the whole letter, and one of the most important passages Paul ever wrote on how the law and the gospel actually relate to each other. Rather than treating faith and the law as permanently at war, Paul builds a careful argument from Abraham himself — justified by faith centuries before the law was given at Sinai — to show what the law’s real purpose always was, and was never meant to be.
A study in Galatians 3 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 20 min read
O Foolish Galatians
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”
Galatians 3:1-2
“The truth has been opened before us, and yet the words of Paul to the Galatians are applicable to us. He says: ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.’”
Ellen G. White · Christian Education, p. 93
Paul asks a single, pointed question: did the Spirit’s undeniable presence and power among them come through law-keeping, or through simply believing what they heard? This study’s own source treats the question as timeless, not confined to the first century — any generation that has genuinely received truth can still be tempted back toward earning what was only ever received by faith.
“Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”
Galatians 3:3-5
“Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” names the exact error at the center of this letter — not a rejection of the law’s value, but the far more subtle mistake of thinking that what faith started, law-keeping must finish.
Abraham Believed God
“Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.”
Galatians 3:6-7
“‘Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the friend of God.’ … And Paul says, ‘They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.’ … But Abraham’s faith was made manifest by his works. … There are many who fail to understand the relation of faith and works. They say, ‘Only believe in Christ, and you are safe. You have nothing to do with keeping the law.’ But genuine faith will be manifest in obedience.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 153
This is exactly the point worth pausing on, since Galatians is so often misread as though Paul were simply against the law. This study’s own source names the actual error directly: not “faith apart from obedience,” but faith that inevitably produces obedience — Abraham’s own faith, tested on Mount Moriah, was the very thing that made his obedience possible in the first place, not a substitute for it.
“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
Galatians 3:8-9
“Through type and promise God ‘preached before the gospel unto Abraham.’ … And the patriarch’s faith was fixed upon the Redeemer to come. … The ram offered in the place of Isaac represented the Son of God, who was to be sacrificed in our stead.”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 154
This study’s own source ties Paul’s phrase “preached before the gospel unto Abraham” to a specific, concrete moment — the ram caught in the thicket, substituted for Isaac on Mount Moriah, was the gospel already being preached in type centuries before Sinai, and centuries before Calvary itself.
Redeemed From The Curse Of The Law
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.”
Galatians 3:10-12
Paul’s logic is stark: the law demands total, unbroken obedience, “all things,” and anything less brings a curse rather than a blessing. No one who has ever sinned, which is to say no one at all, can be justified on those terms — which is exactly why “the just shall live by faith” rather than by perfect law-keeping.
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Galatians 3:13-14
“For transgression of the law of God, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Christ, our substitute, was to suffer without the boundaries of Jerusalem. He died outside the gate, where felons and murderers were executed. Full of significance are the words, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 741
This study’s own source places this verse at the very moment of crucifixion — Christ suffering outside the city gate, where the condemned were executed, bearing in that specific, deliberate location the exact curse the law’s own broken demands required. The law’s claim against the sinner is not waved away; it is fully paid, by someone else, in that one place.
Wherefore Then Serveth The Law?
“Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
Galatians 3:15-16
“And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.”
Galatians 3:17-18
The promise to Abraham came 430 years before the law at Sinai, and a later covenant cannot cancel an earlier one already ratified — the inheritance was always going to come through promise and faith, never displaced by a law that only arrived centuries afterward.
“Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.”
Galatians 3:19
This one verse is worth slowing down for, because it is easy to read Paul’s whole argument in this chapter as an attack on the law itself, when his actual target is a specific misuse of it — treating the law as a means of earning righteousness it was never designed to provide. This site’s own studies of the Pentateuch and of Hebrews have already traced a distinction Scripture itself consistently makes: the moral law of Ten Commandments, the transcript of God’s own unchanging character, and the ceremonial law of sacrifices, feasts, and priestly ordinances, added specifically to point forward to Christ’s own sacrifice and fulfilled at the cross.
“There are many who try to blend these two systems, using the texts that speak of the ceremonial law to prove that the moral law has been abolished; but this is a perversion of the Scriptures. The distinction between the two systems is broad and clear. The ceremonial system was made up of symbols pointing to Christ, to His sacrifice and His priesthood. This ritual law, with its sacrifices and ordinances, was to be performed by the Hebrews until type met antitype in the death of Christ…Then all the sacrificial offerings were to cease. It is this law that Christ ‘took … out of the way, nailing it to His cross.’”
Ellen G. White · Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 365
This study’s own source is emphatic that the moral law — “Thou shalt not covet,” the law Paul himself calls “holy, and just, and good” in Romans 7:12 — was never nailed to the cross and never abolished; only the ceremonial system of types and shadows, whose entire purpose was to point toward the very cross that fulfilled it, came to an end there. “The law” Paul discusses as “added because of transgressions” in this chapter functions, in context, largely as this whole system: a temporary, God-given structure whose real purpose was never to save, but to expose sin and point forward to the Savior who alone could deal with it.
“Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.”
Galatians 3:20-21
Paul heads off the obvious objection directly — the law is not opposed to the promise, it simply was never designed to accomplish what only the promise, received by faith, could accomplish. No law, however holy, can give life to those already dead in sin.
“But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”
Galatians 3:22-23
“Concluded all under sin” is not a defeat but a diagnosis — the law’s real work was always to reveal universal guilt clearly enough that no one could mistake their own righteousness for a way out, leaving faith in Christ as the only door genuinely open.
Our Schoolmaster To Bring Us Unto Christ
“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”
Galatians 3:24-25
The Greek word behind “schoolmaster” is paidagogos — not a modern schoolteacher, but the household servant whose job was to walk a child to school every day, watch over conduct along the way, and hand the child off to the actual teacher once they arrived. The law’s role, on this picture, was never to be the destination; it was to walk the sinner to the door of grace and deliver them there, its own authority over that person ending the moment faith in Christ takes hold.
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:26-28
Every social division that mattered enormously in the ancient world — ethnicity, legal status, gender — is named here specifically so it can be dissolved in Christ. This is not a claim that these differences vanish, but that none of them determine standing before God any longer; faith alone does.
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Galatians 3:29
The chapter closes exactly where it began — Abraham, and the promise made to him centuries before Sinai. Every Gentile believer reading this letter, with no bloodline claim to Abraham whatsoever, is declared his true heir on the very same terms Abraham himself first received: not law, but faith.
