Galatians 3
BSASBPaul scolds the Galatians for drifting from faith toward law-keeping, and argues from their own experience and from Abraham that God’s people have always been made right by trusting Him. The law had a real but temporary role, and Christ has fulfilled the promise. Now all who believe are one family in Christ, heirs together of what God promised.
Galatians 3:1
Paul is shocked. The Galatians had seen the cross preached so vividly that it was as if displayed in front of them. How could they be drawn away from it, as if someone had cast a spell on them?
BSA: bewitched (“deceived, put under a spell”): Paul says their turn from the gospel seems so senseless that it looks like deception or an evil influence. portrayed (“openly set forth, described”): The cross was preached so plainly that it was almost put on public display.
Greek: προεγράφη (proegraphē, G4270) — “publicly displayed, written up in public.” The word suggests a notice posted openly for all to read. Christ crucified had been set before them that plainly.
See also: 1 Corinthians 2:2.
Galatians 3:2
Paul asks one simple question, and it settles the matter. They received God’s Spirit when they first heard the gospel and believed, not by keeping the law. Their own beginning in the Christian life proves how God gives.
BSA: hearing (“listening, heeding”): Faith begins by receiving what God has said, not by earning anything.
Galatians 3:3
They began by the Spirit’s power. Now they think they can be completed by their own effort. Paul calls this folly. The Christian life ends the way it begins, by depending on God and not on the flesh.
BSA: flesh (“human nature, physical body”): Here it means human strength and self-effort, as opposed to God’s power.
Greek: ἐπιτελεῖσθε (epiteleisthe, G2005) — “are you being completed.” It means bringing something to its goal. Paul asks whether they think human effort can finish what the Spirit began.
Galatians 3:4
The Galatians had suffered for the gospel. Paul asks whether that was wasted. His added words, “if it really was for nothing,” show he still hopes they will turn back and prove it was not.
BSA: nothing (“in vain, without purpose”): Turning from the gospel would empty their earlier hardship of its meaning.
Galatians 3:5
Paul returns to their experience. God keeps giving His Spirit and working miracles among them. Is that because they keep the law, or because they hear and believe? Everything God does among them rests on faith.
Galatians 3:6
Paul turns to Abraham, the great ancestor the law-teachers pointed to. Abraham was counted right with God because he believed what God said, long before the law existed. Faith has always been the way.
BSA: credited (“reckoned, counted”): God put righteousness to Abraham’s account as a gift, not as wages earned.
See also: Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3.
Galatians 3:7
The true children of Abraham are not simply those born into his family line but those who share his faith. This opens the family to everyone, Jew or Gentile, who trusts God as Abraham did.
BSA: sons (“children, descendants, heirs”): Faith makes people true family members who share Abraham’s inheritance.
Galatians 3:8
Long before Christ came, Scripture saw that God would make Gentiles right with Him through faith. God preached the gospel to Abraham in advance, promising blessing for all nations. The welcome of the Gentiles was always God’s plan.
BSA: justify (“declare righteous”): God pronounces believers to be in right standing with Him. foretold the gospel (“preached beforehand”): The good news was announced to Abraham ahead of time.
Greek: προευηγγελίσατο (proeuēngelisato, G4283) — “announced the good news beforehand.” Paul uses the very word for gospel-preaching. The promise to Abraham was already the good news in seed form.
See also: Genesis 12:3.
Galatians 3:9
The result is simple. All who trust God receive the same blessing Abraham received. Abraham is called the man of faith, and those who follow him in faith share in his blessing.
BSA: blessed (“praised, spoken well of”): This is the real favor of God given to believers, not mere good wishes.
Galatians 3:10
The law demands perfect and lasting obedience. Anyone who falls short stands under its curse. So depending on the law does not bring blessing. It exposes our failure, because no one keeps all of it.
BSA: curse (“divine condemnation”): It is God’s judgment on those who break His law.
See also: Deuteronomy 27:26; James 2:10.
Galatians 3:11
Since no one keeps the law perfectly, no one can be declared right with God by it. Scripture itself says that the righteous person lives by faith. Trust in God, not performance, is the path to life.
BSA: justified (“made right, declared innocent”): It is a verdict of acceptance from God, not a reward for effort.
See also: Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17.
Galatians 3:12
The law works on a different principle than faith. It says, do these things and live. That could only work for someone who did all of it, without fail. Faith and law-keeping are different roads.
See also: Leviticus 18:5.
Galatians 3:13
Here is the good news. Christ took the curse that belonged to us. Hanging on the cross, He bore God’s judgment in our place and bought us out of the law’s condemnation.
BSA: redeemed (“bought back, rescued”): A price was paid to free us, like buying a slave out of bondage. for us (“in our place, on our behalf”): Christ stood where we should have stood.
Greek: ἐξηγόρασεν (exēgorasen, G1805) — “bought out.” It is a marketplace word for purchasing someone out of slavery. Christ paid with His own life to set us free.
See also: Deuteronomy 21:23; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Galatians 3:14
Christ’s purpose was twofold. The blessing promised to Abraham would reach the Gentiles, and all believers would receive the promised Spirit by faith. Through the cross, God’s promise to the nations is fulfilled.
BSA: promise (“commitment, assurance”): The Spirit is the gift God solemnly pledged and now gives.
See also: Genesis 12:3.
Galatians 3:15
Paul gives an everyday example. Once people sign and confirm an agreement, no one can cancel it or tack on conditions. If that is true among people, God’s covenant is surely at least as firm.
BSA: covenant (“agreement, contract”): A binding arrangement that cannot be altered after it is confirmed.
Greek: διαθήκην (diathēkēn, G1242) — “covenant, will.” The word can mean a person’s last will. It pictures a settled arrangement that no one can change once it is in force.
Galatians 3:16
God’s promises were made to Abraham and his seed. Paul notes that the word is singular. It ultimately points to one descendant, Christ, in whom all the promises come to rest and through whom others share them.
BSA: seed (“singular, one descendant”): Paul reads the singular word as pointing to Christ.
See also: Genesis 22:18.
Galatians 3:17
The law arrived about 430 years after the promise. A later arrangement cannot cancel an earlier covenant that God Himself established. The promise stands, and the law cannot change how God’s gift is received.
BSA: revoke (“cancel, disannul”): The law cannot undo what God had already pledged.
Galatians 3:18
An inheritance cannot be both earned by law and given by promise. God gave it to Abraham as a free gift through His promise. So the way into the inheritance is receiving, not achieving.
BSA: freely granted (“gave graciously, showed kindness”): The inheritance came as grace, an undeserved gift.
Greek: κεχάρισται (kecharistai, G5483) — “has graciously given.” It comes from the word for grace. God gave Abraham the inheritance as a favor, and the gift stands as given.
Galatians 3:19
Then what was the law for? It was added alongside the promise to show sin for what it is, and it lasted until Christ, the promised seed, came. It was a temporary arrangement passed along by angels through Moses.
BSA: transgressions (“violations of God’s will”): The law made clear that sins are real breaches of God’s command. mediator (“one who stands between”): Moses stood between God and the people in giving the law.
See also: Romans 5:20; Acts 7:53.
Galatians 3:20
A go-between is needed when two sides make an agreement. The promise, however, rested on God alone, who pledged it freely. This verse is short and hard to interpret, but the point is that the promise depends on God’s own faithfulness.
BSA: mediator (“go-between, one who intervenes”): The law needed someone between God and the people. The promise rested on God alone.
Galatians 3:21
Paul rejects the idea that the law is against God’s promises. They serve different purposes. If the law could give life, righteousness would come by it. But it cannot make dead people alive. Only God’s promise does that.
BSA: impart (“bestow or grant”): The law could command and expose, but it could not give new life.
Greek: ζωοποιῆσαι (zōopoiēsai, G2227) — “to make alive.” The law could tell people what to do, but it could not make the spiritually dead alive.
Galatians 3:22
Scripture shows that everyone is shut up under sin. No one escapes. This leaves one way out, and that is the promise given by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
BSA: confined (“shut up, imprisoned”): Sin holds everyone captive, so rescue has to come from outside.
See also: Romans 3:9-12; Romans 11:32.
Galatians 3:23
Before Christ came, God’s people were like prisoners under watch. The law held them in custody, keeping them restrained until the time came when faith in Christ would be fully revealed.
BSA: custody (“kept under guard”): The law guarded and restrained people until Christ came.
Galatians 3:24
In Paul’s day a household guardian watched over a child, guiding him and keeping him in line until he was grown. The law did that for God’s people, and its aim was to lead them to Christ, so that they would be made right through faith.
BSA: guardian (“pedagogue, child-conductor”): Paul pictures a household servant who escorted a child, a supervisor rather than the final teacher.
Greek: παιδαγωγὸς (paidagōgos, G3807) — “child-guide, supervising attendant.” This was a trusted slave who walked a child to school and watched his conduct. He was strict and temporary, not the child’s father or teacher.
Galatians 3:25
Once Christ has come and faith is given, the child has grown. The guardian’s work is finished. Believers are no longer held under the law’s supervision but come to God directly in Christ.
BSA: no longer (“not anymore, freed from”): The old period of supervision has ended for those in Christ.
Galatians 3:26
All who trust in Christ are God’s grown children, not slaves or minors. Being a son of God is not reserved for the specially religious. It comes through faith in Jesus, and it is true of every believer.
BSA: sons (“children, heirs”): Believers hold the full standing of children who inherit from their Father.
See also: John 1:12; Romans 8:14-16.
Galatians 3:27
In baptism, believers publicly join themselves to Christ. Paul pictures it as putting on clothing. They now wear Christ, and God sees them in Him. Christians understand the details of baptism in different ways, but all agree it marks belonging to Christ.
BSA: clothed (“put on, dressed in”): Believers take on Christ as their new identity, like putting on a garment.
Greek: ἐνεδύσασθε (enedysasthe, G1746) — “you put on, you clothed yourselves.” It is the ordinary word for putting on a robe. Christ becomes the believer’s new covering and new identity.
See also: Romans 13:14; Colossians 3:9-10.
Galatians 3:28
In Christ, the great dividing lines of race, class and sex no longer decide who stands closer to God. All believers have the same standing and belong to one body. This does not erase differences, but it removes ranking.
BSA: one (“unified, joined together”): Believers share one life in Christ, so no group stands above another.
See also: Colossians 3:11; Ephesians 2:14-16.
Galatians 3:29
To belong to Christ is to belong to Abraham’s family. Believers, Jew or Gentile, are heirs of what God promised. The promise reaches us not through our efforts but through Christ, the true seed.
BSA: heirs (“those who receive an inheritance”): Believers receive the promised blessing as family members, not as hired workers.
See also: Romans 8:17.