Bible Reading Plan — M'Cheyne One Year

The Spirit Received Not by the Law

¹Foolish Galatians! Who has been enchanting you – you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was depicted on the cross?

²Here is the one thing that I want to find out from you – Did you receive the Spirit as the result of obedience to Law, or of your having listened with faith?

³Can you be so foolish? After beginning with what is spiritual, do you now end with what is external?

⁴Did you go through so much to no purpose? – if indeed it really was to no purpose!

⁵He who supplies you abundantly with his Spirit and endows you with such powers – does he do this as the result of obedience to Law? Or as the result of your having listened with faith?

Abraham's Faith and the Curse of the Law

⁶It is just as it was with Abraham –

⁷You see, then, that those whose lives are based on faith are the sons of Abraham.

⁸And scripture, foreseeing that God would pronounce the Gentiles righteous as the result of faith, foretold the good news to Abraham in the words –

⁹And, therefore, those whose lives are based on faith share the blessings bestowed on the faith of Abraham.

¹⁰All who rely on obedience to Law are under a curse, for scripture says –

¹¹Again, it is evident that no one is pronounced righteous before God through Law, for we read –

¹²But the Law is not based on faith; no, its words are –

¹³Christ ransomed us from the curse pronounced in the Law, by taking the curse on himself for us, for scripture says –

¹⁴And this he did that the blessing given to Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles through their union with Jesus Christ; that so, through our faith, we also might receive the promised gift of the Spirit.

The Promise Precedes the Law

¹⁵To take an illustration, friends, from daily life – No one sets aside even an agreement between two people, when once it has been confirmed, nor do they add conditions to it.

¹⁶Now it was to Abraham that the promises were made, ‘and to his offspring.’ It was not said ‘to his offsprings,’ as if many persons were meant, but the words were ‘to your offspring,’ showing that one person was meant – and that was Christ.

¹⁷My point is this – An agreement already confirmed by God cannot be canceled by the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, so as to cause the promise to be set aside.

¹⁸If our heritage is the result of Law, then it has ceased to be the result of a promise. Yet God conferred it on Abraham by a promise.

¹⁹What, then, you ask, was the use of the Law? It was a later addition, to make people conscious of their wrongdoings, and intended to last only until the coming of that offspring to whom the promise had been made; and it was delivered through angels by a mediator.

²⁰Now mediation implies more than one person, but God is one only.

²¹Does that set the Law in opposition to God’s promises? Heaven forbid! For, if a Law had been given capable of bestowing life, then righteousness would have actually owed its existence to Law.

²²But the words of scripture represent the whole world as being in bondage to sin, so that the promised blessing, dependent, as it is, on faith in Jesus Christ, may be given to those who have faith in him.

Children of God Through Faith

²³Before the coming of faith, we were kept under the guard of the Law, in bondage, awaiting the faith that was destined to be revealed.

²⁴Thus the Law has proved a guide to lead us to Christ, in order that we may be pronounced righteous as the result of faith.

²⁵But now that faith has come we no longer need a guide.

²⁶For you are all sons of God, through your faith in Christ Jesus.

²⁷For all of you who were baptized into union with Christ clothed yourselves with Christ.

²⁸All distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, have vanished; for in union with Christ Jesus you are all one.

²⁹And, since you belong to Christ, it follows that you are Abraham’s offspring and, under the promise, sharers in the inheritance.

³⁸But he is full of pity:

³⁹So he remembered that they were but flesh,

⁴⁰But how often they rebelled in the desert,

⁴¹tempting God again and again,

⁴²They did not remember his strength,

⁴³how he set his signs in Egypt,

⁴⁴He turned their canals into blood,

⁴⁵He sent forth flies, which devoured them;

⁴⁶Their crops he gave to the caterpillar,

⁴⁷He slew their vines with hail,

⁴⁸He delivered their cattle to the hail,

⁴⁹He let loose his hot anger among them,

⁵⁰He cleared a path for his anger,

⁵¹He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,

⁵²He led forth his people like sheep,

⁵³Securely he led them, and free from fear,

⁵⁴To his holy realm he brought them,

⁵⁵He drove out the nations before them,

⁵⁶Yet they tempted and angered the Most High God,

⁵⁷They drew back, false like their ancestors;

⁵⁸Their shrines stirred him to anger,

⁵⁹When God heard of this, he was furious,

⁶⁰He abandoned his home in Shiloh,

⁶¹He gave his strength up to captivity,

⁶²He gave his people to the sword,

⁶³Fire devoured their young men,

⁶⁴Their priests fell by the sword,

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,

⁶⁶and he beat back his foes,

⁶⁷He disowned the tent of Joseph,

⁶⁸but he chose the tribe of Judah,

⁶⁹And he built like the heights his sanctuary,

⁷⁰And he chose David his servant,

⁷¹From the mother-ewes he brought him,

⁷²With upright heart did he shepherd them,