Download discussion questions:  Galatians 3:15-29
Calvary Institute – Fall 2018 Index

A Human Illustration

In this passage, Paul seemed to intentionally change his strategy.  Earlier he had used theological explanations about justification by faith in Christ (e.g., Galatians 2:15-17) and living by the Spirit of Christ (3:2-5).  He pointed to history and the prime illustration of Abraham’s justification by faith (3:6-9).  He emphasized how Abraham was the prototype of God’s plan to bless all the nations (3:8, 14).  Now he shifts to more familiar territory, a “human illustration” in case the Galatian Christians still were not getting the point.  As one member of our group suggested, Paul wanted to be more “black and white” for those who may not have followed his theological or historical arguments.  He must have assumed that everyone would understand the concept of a legally binding will.  He began this section with the illustration of a will (v. 15) and ended the section with the promise to heirs (v. 29).

Wills and Rules

Our discussion group noted several words or ideas that Paul associated with a will:

• Promises (v. 16, 17, twice in 18, 19, 21, 22, 29)
• Covenant (v. 17; Actually the same Greek word is used here, diathēkē, διαθήκη , for the English “will” or “covenant.”)
• Inheritance (v. 18)
• Graciously given (v. 18)
• Heirs (v. 29)

Paul stressed that a will is a promise freely and graciously given.  The law, on the other hand, is a conditional “offer” of provisional rewards (v. 18).  A will or a covenant in the form of an unconditional promise cannot be modified by a later addition of restrictions and rules (v. 15).  God’s covenant with Abraham was clearly an expression of God’s gracious nature in His unconditional promise:

I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
Genesis 12:2-3

When God gave the Law centuries later, the intent could not have been to alter or cancel His unconditional promise (v. 17).  Paul anticipates the question the Galatians (and we) might logically ask, “Why then was the Law given?” (v. 19).

Meat and Bones

First, before Paul seems to answer his own question directly, he makes several comments that our group never completely unraveled.  (We only have an hour!)

• His comment about the Law effected through angels (v. 19a) was probably a reference to a common Jewish tradition not otherwise mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures.[1] One comment in our group suggested a connection with the passage in Jude 1:9 about Michael the archangel. We did not pursue that thought but chose to focus on the passage in Galatians (not every question can be answered in every passage).
• The “mediator” (v. 19b) we agreed was probably Moses.
• We did not examine the distinction Paul argued between the singular and plural “seed” and “seeds.” One person asked about the use of upper case for “Seed” (v. 19), while another member pointed out the alternate translation “offspring” (ESV, with no capitalization).  We discussed the fact that upper and lower-case letters were not used for such distinctions in the original documents written by Paul and the other New Testament authors.  Those differences are the best attempts by translators to communicate the meaning into modern English.  As we have noted before, finding those differences in translations should stimulate our thinking to understand the passage better.

The fact that some parts of the passage are not easily interpreted should not be a discouragement to methodical inductive study.  Someone said long ago that reading a passage with difficulties is a bit like eating a fish.  First enjoy the meaty parts, then go back and pick through the boney parts.  Likewise, often it is more productive to focus on the parts of a passage that lend themselves to straightforward understanding.  Too often we can get bogged down in a difficulty and miss what may be the primary point of the passage.  Clearly, Paul’s offhand comment about angels should not draw our attention away from the thread that runs throughout most of his letter:  faith in a promise or an inheritance instead of works to satisfy the Law.

A Guardian for the Heirs

So we come back to Paul’s question, “Why the Law?”  His answer is summarized (v. 24) in the word “guardian” (CSB, ESV, NIV) or “disciplinarian” (Mounce) or “custodian” (RSV).  The original word is the source of the English “pedagogue” (paidagōgos, παιδαγωγὸς), “a slave who went with a boy from home to school and back again.”[2]  Our group agreed that “tutor” (NASB) or “schoolmaster” (KJV) seemed to have different connotations in modern English.  The idea of a guardian is more than giving instruction.  The guardian accompanying a student to and from school would have the role of protecting and keeping the child out of trouble.  Probably the one under his care would feel “imprisoned” (v. 22) and “confined” (v. 23).  But the real task of the guardian was to enable the young person to grow and develop in ways that would enable the full enjoyment of the inheritance coming to them.  The temporary restraints of the Law as guardian showed the Jews how to live as they awaited the eternal inheritance of the promise.

Promises

One question that came up in our discussion related to the word used eight times in these few verses:  “What promise is Paul talking about?”  The answer in the immediate context seems to be the previous passage, “In you shall all the nations be blessed” (Galatians 3:8).  God had promised Abraham to make him a great nation (Genesis 12:2), and Paul’s emphasis in Galatians is that the blessing to the Gentiles is that they, too, would be part of that nation, the sons of Abraham (Galatians 3:7), the people of God.

Heirs

Paul moved from being part of Abraham’s family in verse 7) to being part of God’s family, “sons of God in Christ Jesus” (v. 26).  He returned to his “human illustration” of a will to focus on the heirs, the beneficiaries of the promise in that will.  The promise to those who are heirs by faith is being embraced by or wrapped up in Christ:  “clothed with Christ” (v. 27).  The consequence of that intimacy with Christ is the overriding identity in Christ that supersedes race, status, gender (v. 28), and any other distinctions that tend to separate us.  The circumcision party that challenged Paul and intimidated Peter wanted to focus on differences and force everyone to conform to their specifications for spirituality.  Paul said nothing about eliminating differences.  Rather, he saw that what we have in common in Christ far outweighed the legitimate differences that God created among humans.

We remain Jew or Greek (Gentile), slave or free, male or female.  Clothed in Christ our differences become a unity that speaks powerfully to those around us.  “People want to be part of a culture that unites races, the rich and the poor, male and female, slave and free. We’re all yearning for this.”[3]  That unity, based on our promised inheritance, was the ultimate evidence that Jesus prayed for twice just before He was arrested:

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.  John 17:20-23

May we learn to respond to conflict or differences by returning to our common inheritance in Christ rather than looking for differences to divide us.  Then the promise to be a blessing to all the nations will become more and more a part of our experience.

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[1] Douglas J. Moo, Galatians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Baker Academic, 2013), 235.

[2] H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1843), 1286.

[3] Brant Hansen, Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They’re Missing Something (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2017), 65.