Galatians 3
God gives his Spirit to those who believe in Jesus
1 You Christians in Galatia are foolish! Someone has taught you to believe crazy ideas! I taught you clearly that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice on our behalf. You understood that. 2 I only want you to tell me one thing: When you received God's Spirit, was it because you had obeyed the rules of God's Law? No! You received God's Spirit because you believed the message about Christ. 3 Do not think like fools! You first became believers by the help of God's Spirit. So do not think that you can use your own human strength to complete God's work. 4 You have suffered in many ways as believers. Surely this could not be without any good purpose.
5 God gives you the gift of his Spirit. He also does powerful miracles among you. But he does not do these things because you obey the rules of his Law. No, he does them because you believed the message about Christ.
6 Think about our ancestor Abraham. The Bible says, ‘Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him’. 7 So you should understand who Abraham's children really are. They are the people who trust God.
3:6Abraham was the first ancestor of the Israelite nation. He was the father of Isaac and the grandfather of Jacob.
8 The Bible already said what would happen at a future time. It said that God would make the Gentiles right with himself, if they believed in him. God showed this good news to Abraham a long time before it happened. He said to Abraham, ‘I will bless people from all nations because of you.’ 9 So God did not bless only Abraham when he trusted God. God also blesses all people who trust him as Abraham did.
10 Some people try to obey all the rules of God's Law. They think that they will become right with God if they do this very well. But those people are under a curse of God's punishment. It is written in the Bible: ‘God will curse anyone who does not continue to obey all the rules in his Law.’ 11 We know that the Law cannot cause anyone to become right with God. The Bible says, ‘The righteous person will live because he trusts God.’ 12 But the Law does not tell people to trust God. It tells people about all the things that they must do. The Law says, ‘The person who obeys all the rules in God's Law will live’.
13 So God's Law puts us under a curse, because we have not completely obeyed it. But Christ took that curse away from us, because God punished him instead of us. The Bible says, ‘If someone's body is hanging on a tree, it shows that God has cursed him.’ 14 Christ died on the cross so that God would bless the Gentiles, as he promised to Abraham. And if we believe in Christ, we can receive God's Spirit that he promised.
God's promise to Abraham still has authority
15 My Christian friends, I will use an example from our lives. Two people may make an agreement together and they both agree to it properly. If they do that, nobody else can change that agreement. Nobody can take away its authority. 16 In the same way, God promised to bless Abraham and Abraham's descendant. The Bible does not say ‘descendants’. It does not speak about ‘many people’. No, God promised to bless Abraham's descendant. He speaks about one person, and that person is Christ.
17 What I mean is this: God made an agreement with Abraham. He promised to bless him. Then, 430 years later, God gave his Law to Moses for his people. But that Law could not take away the authority of God's covenant with Abraham. It could not stop what God had already promised. 18 God has promised to give good things to his children. But that does not happen as a result of God's Law. If that were true, then we would not receive God's good things as a result of his promise. But God gave those good things to Abraham as a gift, because he had promised to bless Abraham.
3:17Moses was a great leader of the Israelites, who gave God's laws to the people.
Paul explains the purpose of God's Law
19 So why did God give his Law to his people after his promise to Abraham? He gave his Law to show them which things are wrong. It would have authority until Abraham's special descendant would come. This was the descendant that God had promised to bless. God used angels to give his Law to his people. It was Moses who received the Law from God. Moses then took it to God's people. 20 But God himself gave his promise to Abraham. It was not necessary to have somebody between them, like Moses.
21 So does God's Law work against God's promises? No, certainly that is not true! It is not possible for the rules of any law to give us life with God. If that were possible, then God would have accepted us as right if we obeyed those rules. 22 But the Bible says that sin has power over everyone. Nobody can be free from that. This means that we can only receive what God has promised when we trust Jesus Christ. God gives his promise to those who believe.
23 Before God showed us the way of faith, the Law had authority over us. God's Law kept us safe, until God showed us that we must believe in Christ. 24 God's Law was like our guide. It kept us safe until Christ came. Then God could accept us as right because we trusted Christ. 25 But the way of faith in Christ has now come. So we do not need God's Law to keep us safe any longer.
26 All of you are God's children because you believe in Christ Jesus. 27 They baptized you as believers in Christ. This means that you have put on Christ, like someone who puts on new clothes. 28 It does not matter whether you are a Jew or a Gentile. It does not matter whether you are a slave or a free person. It does not matter whether you are a man or a woman. You all belong together because you all belong to Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are descendants of Abraham. Because of that, you will receive all the good things that God promised to Abraham.
