Chapter three now directs the focus to the problem at hand in Galatia. I really feel that Paul was led to write the first two chapters to show that the Galatians were not alone in both their walk and in the influence of false teachers who added to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The authority of Paul is also re-established into the church to deal with the false teachings that now infiltrated the church at Galatia. Paul calls them foolish and wonders who has placed this spell of deception on them. The teaching of Christ and his atonement at Calvary and the rising on the third day was already taught to the Galatians and implemented in their daily walk. Now the Galatians were going to try to complete the work the Spirit of God by reverting back to the law of Moses. In other words, they were going to undo what God already did through works. Paul starts to wonder if their efforts will be in vain to the point where he asks the Galatians why does God work miracles in them. Is it because they obey the law of Moses or is it because of faith in Christ?

Paul answers the question by re-teaching the Galatians about the theology of justification by faith. Here, the story of Abraham is told to prove the theology of justification by faith. Abraham had faith in God to manifest the promises of blessings on him and his descendents spreading to all the nations. Therefore, everyone (Jew or Gentile) who had faith in Christ will share the blessings given to Abraham. Because all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, there was no way that anyone could escape from being cursed because they were not able to completely obey everything and fulfill the law. Therefore, as stated in verse eleven, nobody can please God through the obeying of the law but only the just shall live by faith in God. Jesus took our place at Calvary by being the curse in order to take us from the fulfillment of the law to the experience of grace and justification by faith. Through Calvary, the blessings could now be taken to the Gentiles and fulfill the promise God made to Abraham and the Holy Spirit could come as fortold in John 14-16. The law of Moses only applied to the Jews. The promise of Abraham fulfilled applied to all peoples. Just because God gave the Law to Moses approximately 400 years after the promise to Abraham DOES NOT! negate nor superseed the promise of Abraham. If this was so, the Word of the Lord would have returned void when the book of Isaiah states that God's word shall not return to him void. The Law is now used to convict us of our sin where faith in Christ by grace is used to wash the sin. Therefore, Christ's atonement came not to eliminate the law, but to provide the ultimate sacrifice in order to take away our sin. Paul re-emphasized this point when he addressed the Roman church in Romans 6-8.

In the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, the law in reference to Christ is further discussed. We continue to see that the real purpose of the law was to keep and teach us until we had faith in God. When we started having faith in God, God became our provider of grace and mercy for our shortcomings and our guide to holiness. Where we were once dependent on ourselves to fulfill the law, we are now dependent on Jesus to bring us to true obedience. The law shows us our filthy rags. Baptism in the Spirit dresses us in the rainment of Christ. We now see in verse 28 that faith in Christ Jesus places everyone on the same playing field as a part of the covenant God Gave to Abraham by addressing the three major social distinctions of culture"

• Ethnic: "Jew or Greek". Today, this means all cultures, tribes, nations, and races of people can share in the same blessings of God.
• Socioeconomics: "slaves or free people". Today, this means that people from all economic classes from poverty level to millionaire can experience the same salvation and atonement provided by Jesus Christ.
• Gender: "man or woman". Today, all people regardless of gender can partake of the grace and the covenant of God.

The first century lifestyle was divided among these lines. Therefore, the church of the first century was divided in the same manner. All people who experience the salvation experience, justification by faith, and baptism in the spirit could now excersise their spiritual gifts. Every human being on planet earth falls in at least one of the three categories mentioned above. This was Paul's way to make sure nobody was left out of experiencing the pathway to redemption provided by Jesus to fulfill the promise made to Abraham. Therefore, everyone is now considered to be on the same playing field and could partake of the covenant because we are now seen as children of God. Unfortunately, in todays society, many within the organized church have reimplemented the dividing wall of benchmarks using ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics, and other issues such as politics to keep some people from experiencing the fullness of God and to determine "heresy" within the body. This is one of the many reasons that people find the church irrevalent. The church has again become the country club and the "good ole boys" network that Paul taught against and helped break down in his letter to the Galatians.

Paul now explains in verses 1-20 of Chapter four that we are no longer slaves, but children of God. Paul explains that even though children are under the jurisdiction of their parents until maturity, everything the parents own will someday belong to the children. The Spirit of the Son of God comes within us and reveals to us that God is our father and that everything our Heavenly Father has is now given unto us because we have been made from slaves to sin to children of righetousness. Paul still wonders about the futility of the labor toiled for the Galatians as he continues to convince them that they were once slaves who had to celebrate months, seasons, days, and festivals. Why would they go backwards when faith in God made them better? Paul then reminds them in verses 12-16 that the Galatians received him and helped take care of him when he was sick. I see the reverse parallel here. Paul realizes that the Galatians are now the sick ones because of the false teachers who placed the "add-on" requirements to the faith. Paul now desires to be the one who welcomes the Galatians back with open arms and spiritually nurse them back to proper spiritual health and balance. Paul shows his concern for the Galatians as well as wondering if he is their enemy or not.

Throughout the rest of chapter four, Paul continues to distinguish between the law of Moses and faith in God by reverting back to the promise of Abraham. Paul retells the story how Abraham tried to rush the promise of God by having a son with Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden, instead of waiting on God to open Sarah's womb. Hagar's child was born out of a fleshly act based on a lack of faith in the fulfillment of a promise because it was the legal thing to do in those days. Sarah's child was born out of the promise of God and the geneology from Abraham points to Jesus. Therefore the promise went through numerous generations until Jesus fulfilled the promise made to Abraham at Calvary by dying for Sin and rising on the third day to where all can experience faith in God. Since Hagar's child (a slave born from a slave) was born out of a legal technicality of a cultural norm, Hagar represents the law and the slavery that the law brings to us. Sarah's child represents redemption and fulfillment of the promise of God. What happened here is that the child of the law mocked the child of promise. This continues today as the Arabs mock the Israelites over land in the Middle East.

It is happening in the church today as the "add-on" requirements that are actually born from the law actually mock the law of God because the emphasis of the law is more on the law itself instead on the Spiritual promise of God. These "add-on" requirements of the law currently make trouble for the Spiritual church of today. We bomb abortion clinics "in the name of God" and justify it with the scriputre "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" to bring forth a judgement before it's God's time to judge. Like the Galatians, we have tried to intermingle these "add-on" rules and try to call it grace to make a theology. For the church to truly experience the blessings of God, we must get rid of these cultural, socioeconomic, gender, political, etc "add-on" rules like Abraham "got rid of the slave and her son (a slave) for He will not be given anything". We must get rid of our "add-on" rules and the programs, armies, and unanimity born not of the promise, but out of the fleshly act of trying to receive the promise before the promise is ready to be recieved. Our American Christian society has birthed the add-on requirement of politics in order to prematurely fulfill a promise of moral change before God is ready to birth the instrument of revival. We say that we are justified by faith, but we have, like the Galatians, reimplemeted the law to bring forth a righetousness that may one day mock the true instrument of moral revival God will bring forth to the point where the "legislation of righetousness" movement that enslaved many children of God into doing the political actions of a select few instead of God will be told to leave and to take the son (non-profit organizations, political action committies, etc) with it to where the true Abrahamic promise of freedom can come forth to liberate this country to where everyone can experience freedom, safety, security, and moral liberty in Christ no matter the socioeconomics, gender, ethnic, culture we are a part of.

Click Here for part four of The Galatia We Live In.