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“It Is Those Who Have Faith Who Are Blessed along with Abraham”
1 You foolish Galatians! Exactly who was it that put a spell on you, in whose presence+ Jesus the Messiah was vividly described+ as crucified?
2 Answer me this one question: Was it by deeds of Torah that you received the Spirit, or by placing your faith in what you heard?+
3 Are you really so foolish? Although you began by the Spirit, now is it mere human strength+ by which you are trying to finish?
4 Did you experience so many painful and remarkable+ things for nothing? I can’t believe that!+
5 Does the one who provides you with the Spirit and performs acts of power within+ you, therefore, do so by deeds of Torah, or by your placing your faith in what you heard?
6 Abraham provides our example:+ “He placed+ his faith in God, and it was put down on record for him as righteousness.”
7 Be assured of this, then: It is those who have faith who are Abraham’s sons.
8 Because the Scripture foresaw, moreover, that it was by faith that God would mercifully+ hold the Gentiles to be righteous, it proclaimed the gospel ahead of time to Abraham: “All the nations will be blessed in+ ˢyou.”+
9 So then, it is those who share faith who are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10 Everyone who shares deeds of Torah, you see, is under a curse.+ For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things written in the Scroll+ of the Torah,+ and do them.”+
11 Now the fact that through Torah no one is “held to be righteous in the sight of God”+ is clear: “As for the righteous one, it is by faith that he will have life.”+
12 Torah, on the other hand,+ is not by faith, yet “the person who does these things will have life by them.”+
13 The Messiah, with regard to us, paid the price for us to be released+ from the curse pronounced in Torah,++ by becoming for us a curse (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree”+),
14 so that to the Gentiles would come, in union with Messiah Jesus, the very blessing promised to Abraham, so that the promised Spirit we might receive through faith.+
15 Let me illustrate, brothers and sisters, using something with which you are familiar.+ Once a covenant has been solemnly sworn into effect, even a merely human one, no one dares to turn his back on it or add to its terms.
16 Now, to whom exactly were the promises made? To Abraham, and to his “seed.”+ The Torah+ does not say, “and to seeds,” as though referring to multiple people, but says this—“and to ˢyour seed”+—in reference to a single person, namely, the Messiah.
17 Now here is my point: The binding force of the covenant previously initiated and put into effect by God,+ Torah, which came a good four hundred thirty years later, does not undo so as to cancel the promise.
18 If it is by Torah that the inheritance comes, you see, then it no longer comes by promise. On Abraham, however, God has graciously bestowed+ it by promise.
19 In light of these things, why was Torah given? It was added for this reason: To make sin even more severe and intense by giving it specific definition,+ added until the arrival of the “seed” to whom the inheritance+ has been promised,+ its instructions having been laid down in detail through angels,+ with Moses acting as an intermediary.++
20 An intermediary, moreover, by definition implies the existence of what? More than one party, who can’t meet directly.+ God, however, as a single party does act directly.+
21 Is Torah, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! If a Torah had been given that was capable of giving life, you see, then righteousness would have come, truly, by Torah.
22 However, as the Scriptures make clear,+ God chose to yield+ the entire human race over to the enslaving and tyrannical+ power of sin,+ so that what was promised might be given to those who place their faith in him+ by the faith of Jesus the Messiah.+
23 Now, prior to the arrival of this faith,+ it was under the jurisdiction of Torah that we were being held prisoner,+ yielded over to the power of sin+ until+ the appearance of the faith that was destined to be revealed.+
24 As a result, Torah has turned out to be this: Our guardian. Like an attendant hired to escort a child to and from school, supervising and guiding his conduct until he comes of age, so Torah did with us until+ the arrival of the Messiah, so that we might be held to be righteous by faith.
25 Because this faith has come, however, we are subject+ to a guardian no longer.
26 All of you, you see, are through faith, in union with Messiah Jesus, sons of God.+
27 Indeed, all of you who were baptized into union+ with the Messiah became clothed with the Messiah’s own life.+
28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile,+ there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female.+ Indeed, all of you constitute, in union with Messiah Jesus, a single and united fellowship.+
29 If ᵖyou belong to the Messiah, moreover, ᵖyou are “seed,” then, of Abraham, heirs according to promise.+