Paul opens chapter 3 with something that sounds almost rude in a theological letter: "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" (3:1, ESV). The Greek suggests the image of the evil eye — as if someone had cast a spell over the Galatians to make them forget what they had seen and received. What they had received was a vivid, public proclamation of Christ crucified. And yet they are now turning from it, looking to circumcision and Torah observance to complete what the gospel supposedly left unfinished. Paul will not let this go without a fight.
Galatians 3–4
Justification by Faith, Not Law
Main Highlights
- The Galatians' own reception of the Spirit through faith — not law-keeping — is the first and most direct evidence that justification was never by Torah observance.
- Abraham believed and it was counted as righteousness before circumcision existed, establishing that faith has always been the pattern of covenant membership.
- Christ redeemed those under the law's curse by becoming a curse himself on the cross, so that Abraham's blessing could reach the Gentiles through faith.
- The law served as a temporary *paidagōgos* — guardian — until Christ came; in him all are one, heirs by adoption, crying "Abba! Father!" by the Spirit of the Son.
The Spirit as Evidence
His first move is experiential before it is exegetical. He asks the Galatians to remember how they received the Spirit: "Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" (3:2, ESV). The question is rhetorical. They had received the Spirit through faith in the gospel, full stop. And the ongoing experience of the Spirit among them — the miracles, the transformed lives, the community of Jew and Gentile at one table — was all from that same source.
F.F. Bruce notes that Paul's appeal to the Spirit-experience is not an argument from emotion but from eschatology: the gift of the Spirit was the sign of the new age arriving, the promise of the prophets fulfilled (The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGTC, 1982, p. 149). To now seek completion through Torah observance would be to go backward in redemptive history, from new covenant reality to old covenant shadow.
What strikes us about this argument is that it begins with what the Galatians themselves experienced. Paul does not start with his credentials or with a Scripture verse. He starts with their own story. Did the Spirit come when you were doing the law, or when you trusted the gospel? The evidence was already in them.
Abraham and the Logic of Scripture
Paul then goes to the founding figure: Abraham. The quotation is from Genesis 15:6 —
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." — Galatians 3:6 (ESV)
The Greek verb elogisthē — "counted" or "reckoned" — is the language of the ledger, of something being credited to an account. Abraham's faith was credited as righteousness before the law existed, before circumcision was instituted, before any Torah had been given. The pattern was always faith. Those who share Abraham's faith are therefore his true sons, heirs of the blessing promised to him and to his offspring.
The law, Paul argues, does not contradict this pattern but temporarily amplifies the problem it was meant to illuminate. It cannot give life; it cannot justify; it pronounces a curse on all who fail to keep it in its entirety. Christ has redeemed those under the law's curse by becoming a curse himself — "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" (3:13, ESV, quoting Deuteronomy 21:23). The cross absorbs the curse so that the blessing of Abraham might reach the Gentiles.
We find it significant that Paul goes back to Abraham — not to Moses, not to Sinai, but to Abraham — to make his case. Abraham precedes the law by centuries. If the pattern was faith before the law, then the law cannot be what makes someone right with God. Paul is reading the entire history of Israel to show that grace was there from the beginning.
The Paidagōgos and the Coming of Faith
Paul's most memorable image for the law's role in salvation history is the paidagōgos — often translated "guardian" or "tutor" in English versions. The paidagōgos in the Greco-Roman world was not primarily a teacher but a slave who escorted the child to school and maintained discipline until the child reached maturity. The law served this custodial function: keeping Israel under its supervision, confined, until the time when faith would be revealed in Christ.
"So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." — Galatians 3:24–25 (ESV)
Richard Longenecker argues that the paidagōgos metaphor is carefully chosen — it communicates not that the law was bad but that it was temporary and preparatory, appropriate for a particular epoch in redemptive history that has now been superseded (Galatians, WBC, 1990, p. 146). The Galatians who want to return to law observance are, in effect, asking to go back to childhood custody when they have already been declared adults in Christ.
The climax of the argument is one of the most far-reaching statements in Paul's letters:
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." — Galatians 3:28 (ESV)
The social and ethnic markers that structured ancient Mediterranean life — ethnicity, legal status, gender — are not erased but no longer function as the basis for one's standing before God or one's place at the covenant table. All are one in Christ.
Adoption and the Allegory of Hagar and Sarah
Chapter 4 develops the heir-under-guardians metaphor further. Even a child who will inherit an estate is no different from a slave while under the control of guardians. Israel under the law was in a similar position — heirs in principle, but not yet in possession of the full inheritance. Then:
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." — Galatians 4:4–5 (ESV)
The Greek huiothesia — adoption as sons — is a legal term for the full transfer of rights and standing. And the evidence that this adoption has actually happened is the Spirit of the Son crying in the heart: "Abba! Father!" (4:6). This is the intimate address of a child to a father, the language of belonging.
Thomas Schreiner observes that the pistis Christou debate — whether the genitive phrase means "faith in Christ" or "the faithfulness of Christ" — surfaces repeatedly in chapters 3–4, but in either reading the point is clear: the ground of justification is what Christ has done, received through trust, not what the believer performs (Galatians, ZECNT, 2010, p. 215). Paul's allegory of Hagar and Sarah brings the argument to a close with the imagery of two mountains — Sinai producing slaves, the Jerusalem above producing free children. Believers are children of the free woman.
We keep coming back to "Abba! Father!" — that small Aramaic word inside a Greek letter, the actual sound a child made calling out to a parent. Paul uses it as evidence of the Spirit's presence. If you can cry out to God as Father, that itself is the Spirit bearing witness. The adoption is real. The cry is the proof.
Last updated: March 3, 2026.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.