Dear Editor,
The book of John is perhaps the most read book in the New Testament. Galatians is probably the most misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Why so? The main reason is that Galatians has not been studied from a Torah-based Hebrew context.
Sha’ul/Paul was a Pharasaic rabbinic Hebrew. In Galatians it is impossible to understand the writings of Sha’ul without having some understanding of his Hebrew background.
Galatians 3:13: “Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the Torah…”
Is the Torah a curse?
Au contraire, Psalm 1:1-3 says, “Blessed is the man who shall not walk in the counsel of the wrong, and shall not stand in the path of sinners. And shall not sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the Torah of Yahuah, and he meditates in His Torah day and night…”
Nowhere else in Scripture is Torah called a curse. Sha’ul, when writing about how sin had used Yahuah’s commanding of the Torah, says in Romans 7:11-12, “For sin, having taken the occasion through the command, deceived me, and through it killed me. So that the Torah truly is set-apart, and the command set-apart, and righteous, and good.”
The Torah of Yahuah can’t be both set-apart and a curse, so what is Galatians 3:13 saying? The Torah gives blessings which result from obedience and curses which come from disobedience, so Messiah has redeemed us from all curses.
Deuteronomy 27:26 says, “Cursed is he who does not establish (recognize and accept) the Words of the Torah…” If I am not walking in Yahuah’s ways and following His Torah, then I am under a curse and need redemption.
Yahushua has redeemed us from the curse, but not from the blessings of the Torah.
Ernest Andrews
Rockingham
Please don't let someone put a hex on you.
Note Galatians 3. "You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the Cross was certainly set before you clearly enough. Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God. Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed in you." So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law." The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: "The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that's the real life." Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: "The one who does these things [rule-keeping]continues to live by them." Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God's life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it. (The Message)
Believers are saved by God's grace through faith in Christ and we live lives pleasing to God by God's grace and the enablement of His Spirit.
Consider Paul's question in Galatians 3:3 ""Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"
Sincerely,
Brett Jones
It is one thing to tell Paul what he was and what he believed and quite another to hear his own words and thoughts on the issue. Note, if you would, his words in modern English from Philippians 3. "And that's about it, friends. Be glad in God! I don't mind repeating what I have written in earlier letters, and I hope you don't mind hearing it again. Better safe than sorry—so here goes. Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they're interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ's praise as we do it. We couldn't carry this off by our own efforts, and we know it— even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials. You know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting Christians; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law Book. The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness. I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
Galatians 2:19-21 "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." The Apostle Paul.
Paul never, no never, said believers were to keep the Law of Moses but he did say they were to "be strong in the LORD" and "be under the control of the Spirit."
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The Apostle Paul. Romans 8:14
Brett Jones