Thoughts on Galatians 3:1-6

 “O mindless Galatians, who bewitched you, on whose eyes Yeshua the Christ was first inscribed having been crucified? This alone do I wish to learn from you; did you get the Spirit from the works of the Torah or from the faith heard? Are you so mindless, having started off by the Spirit are you now brought to completion by the biology? Have you suffered such things as these for nothing? If indeed it was also for nothing. The one then furnishing the Spirit to you and energizing powers within you, is it from the works of the Torah or from the faith heard? Just like Abraham trusted God, and it was accounted to him for a state of being observant of doing the right thing.”

Galatians 3:1-6, St. Paul, 1st century

     Notice what Paul is most concerned with in his address to the Galatians. He does not ask, “having been forgiven by faith are you now being forgiven by the works of the law?” You would think that if their salvation was primarily about being forgiven because of the finished work of Christ and not earning their forgiveness from keeping the commandments of the Torah, that this is what he would address here. But it isn’t. No. The most important thing on his mind, the single question he wanted to ask to get their attention and get them to think was “where did you get the Spirit of Christ from, from faith in what you heard or from keeping the Torah? Having begun by the Spirit of Christ are you to now reach the goal of salvation through the efforts of the malfunctioning biology? Was it from keeping the Torah that you displayed the same powers which Christ displayed?”

     Consider this for just a moment. Paul’s chief concern here is “where is the origin of your ‘right actions’?” and not “by what were you forgiven and acquitted from your sins?” His entire train of thought about the salvation which is found in Jesus Christ throughout this letter, and throughout every letter he writes is not whether or not the Christian is forgiven, but whether or not that Christian is walking by means of the Spirit of Christ and that this is producing the Christian’s right actions as opposed to the Christian trying to do right actions with his own neurology by keeping rules and moral codes under his own power. In his letter to the Romans he’s explicit about this in the sixth through eighth chapters that there is no way to do the right thing using your own malfunctioning biology’s actions, responses, and behaviors because it is malfunctioning. Once more Paul’s train of thought is “is the professed Christian inheriting the kingdom of God right here right now and making use of that inheritance, or is he digging through the trash trying to make his own way and protect his own separate self?” Which latter thing is exactly what trying to be “righteous” by keeping the Torah or any moral code actually is.