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Straight from the text of chapter 3, titled By Faith, or works of the law?
that "title" is a translator's helping frame, and isn't part of the original text. But the point remains - the contrast St Paul is drawing is between faith and
works of the Law, literally the Torah (nomos in Greek). it's not faith vs works, but works of the Torah.
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I didn't mention chapter 5.
well, maybe you didn't write that post? but it's in there - you (or someone or something) wrote "* The Lesson: "For in Christ Jesus... the only thing that counts is faith working through love" (Galatians 5:6)."
believe it or not, i have the same bible. so quoting words isn't sufficient to make a case, here.
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Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
yes - I will again tell you the framing here is about the gentile Galatians becoming Judaeans - Jewish. Go back a bit, look at Chapter 1 and 2. At St Paul frames it that there is no other gospel, then establishes he didn't receive the gospel from men but Christ directly, and then he picks up an argument with St Peter, where he says "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" He didn't say "how could you force faithful people to do good works?" or "do some rituals". But "live like Jews." What describes how to be a Jew, the way of life of the Jews? The Torah, translated into Greek as nomos, Latin as lex, and English as Law. Hence - how can you force Gentiles to follow Torah.
He says - "We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." This is the introduction to the whole thing. The punctuation isn't in the original, so it seems to me this "we" is part of the former argument or speech - St John Chrysostom reads it this way. So he (St Paul) continues to Peter - that they are Jews by birth and not gentiles - yet they know that a person is not justified or made righteous by the works of the Torah, because by works of the Torah no one will be made righteous. Why do "we" know that? He includes others in this. We know this because St Paul writes this letter as from himself, not from him and another (like St Timothy). So who is we? The other Jews. And why do "they" know that the works of the Torah don't make you righteous? Because the Torah doesn't say they do, and it never was aimed at that. I'm belaboring this a bit for a couple of reasons.
One, it's in the context immediately preceding the portion you read. Two, it frames the whole argument St Paul is about to make. Three, the verse and chapter breaks and titles of sections aren't part of the original letter, so whatever break the translators and people who put verse and chapter marks thought seemed natural aren't truly part of the text. This is one, continuous letter. We should read it that way.
So immediately after saying that Jews
know the Torah doesn't make you righteous, and they
know that they were found to be sinners in spite of being both Jewish and keeping the Torah as they worked to be made righteous or justified in Christ. Then St Paul turns to himself - I - he does not nullify the Torah by teaching what he teaches, because
righteousness or
justification (same word) does not come through the Torah. If it did, Christ would not have needed to die.
Immediately after making this point he is where the quote from you comes in. Where is St Paul talking about faith vs works? Or trusting or some mechanism or whatever? It's not there man, that is a theological debate that came over a thousand years later.
Instead he's saying - when I came with my gospel to you, and you received the Holy Spirit, was it because you heard what I taught or because you followed the Torah? Literally "works of the Torah" or "by hearing with faith". You started with the Spirit, do you now need the flesh? Did God do miracles through you following the Torah? or through you hearing the gospel? Together with the before passages, the point is: if Christ Jesus died to make us righteous, and nowhere in the Torah does it say the Torah can make you righteous, and my gospel didn't require you to become Jewish and follow the Torah...then what are you doing?
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Galatians 3:22-25 ESV
[22] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[23] Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law imprisoneduntil the coming faith would be revealed.
[24] So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
[25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian
Yes? The word "prison" isn't there. It's actually, in my opinion, and extremely misleading translation. The word there translated as "imprisoned" is enclosed, shut up. "Prison" implies like.. a jail, a place where the guilty are kept after they are sentenced. This isn't the sense here. There are words for prison - desmoterion, phulake, but that's not here. Being under watch is common, but the act of jailing is not.
Imprisoned here is a sense of being confined, but the confinement is enclosed, like in a net (this word is used to describe the miraculous catch -- enclosure, same word-- of the fish by the apostles when St Peter is first called). It's not punitive justice, but custody, with a guard set over them. a prison guard is a guard but is very different than a guardian! a guard serving garrison duty isn't a jailer, and neither is a shepherd. This is confirmed by the Law or Torah as our paidagogos, literally the instructor or tutor for children.
There's a sense that patients are "imprisoned" in wards, or students are "imprisoned" in school. And while some schools are prisons, I think that saying "enclosed in a school" or hospital is "imprisoned" is an abuse of the language. And neither sense makes the hospital or school a
prison.
The Torah restrained sin by identifying it as sin, kept Israel separate and distinct, and prepared it for Christ. It also limited freedom by restriction. I think the best way to read this is is closer to quarantine or guardianship to contain and deal with the damage of sin, and minimize it, and teach from it, until the problem can be solved. Once Christ came, the tutor is no longer needed.
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[11] Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith." [12] But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them."
Yes, I know what St Paul wrote. I don't know what you mean when you say "truly right with God". You wrote:
Quote:
"In Galatians, Paul is writing to people who thought they needed to "add" something to their faith (like following religious laws or rituals) to be truly right with God."
But since I don't know what
you mean when
you said that, I don't understand exactly what you (or chat GPT as the case may be) is getting at.
