GALATIANS: The Curse

The next section of Galatians seems to undo everything that we’ve been talking about up to this point.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

At first glance, this appears to say that anyone who follows the Law is cursed. (And this has certainly been taught in far too many Christian circles!) But a closer inspection of the Text (especially when translated appropriately) reveals what Paul has just said within a Jewish context. That same phrase which refers to the “works of the Law” (remember the miqsat ma’asay haTorah, or ergu nomu in the Greek) is used here. Paul’s statement in context clearly says that those who rely on the miqsat ma’asay haTorah for their justification are under a curse. He then quotes Deuteronomy to make his case. Whenever a book is quoted like this, it is important to ask ourselves about the context of the quotation in order to understand what the author is driving at.

In the context of this Deuteronomy quote, the people of God are being reminded of their charge to carry the Law as they enter into the land God is giving them to possess. The story has the people of God being split up on two mountains; one party shouts out the commands of the Torah and the other party shouts back their agreement to follow the commands of God (see the story in Deuteronomy 27). The clear implication of Paul’s quotation is that if you are relying on the “works of the Law” for your justification, you have to live under this dark cloud that follows you everywhere you go; such reliance ends up being a curse.

Mt. Gerazim, where the people of God stood to renew their covenant

Paul continues to say (again) that we understand this, in fact, is not where justification comes from:

Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”

This time, when Paul wants to make the case that they are justified by faith, he goes to Habakkuk for his quotation. This is a brilliant move employed by Hillel when making his arguments about justification. Hillel noted that when Habakkuk talked about righteousness, he talked about “living by emunah”; this Hebrew word for “faith” refers more to “faithfulness” and putting your faith into action. By following the Habakkuk passage with another quotation from Leviticus connecting the idea of “living by,” Paul (employing a rabbinical interpretation method called gezerah shavah, something only the most educated could do) ends up making a case that the Law is not there for our justification; it is there to teach us how to live faithfully.

I realize all of that was probably incredibly confusing, so I’ll sum up Paul’s point like this: If you try to find your justification in the “works of the Law” you will find yourself under a curse. But the Law wasn’t given to find your justification; on the contrary, the Law was given to teach you how to live by faith.

Paul continues:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

By employing another gezerah shavah, Paul connects the idea of the curse to Jesus. By referring to Christ’s crucifixion in reference to being “hung on a pole [tree],” Paul says that when Jesus subjected himself to crucifixion, he redeemed us from that faulty way of thinking and showed us what God’s true plan is. When we properly understand where justification comes from and what God desires from that redemptive process, it opens us up to welcome the Gentiles into the family of God — not as theosabes, but as full-fledged children of Abraham.

Paul then uses an example to go back to his larger idea introduced in the last section:

Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Paul's illustration demonstrates how he views the story of God. Just as you do not undo a covenant (we might think “contract” in our world) by entering into a new one, so this is the case with God’s story. Paul makes the point that God’s story is aboutpromise. The story of Abraham is a story about promise and not a story about Law. Just because God enters into a covenant relationship with his people through the Law over four centuries later, it does not undo the larger story of God as a story of promise. This is a story about believing in God’s promises — it always has been, and it always will be. This story is not about following rules; it’s about living by faith in the promises of God.

This will have extraordinary implications for the Gentiles.

But Paul has to explain why God would give the Law in the first place.