Knox Bible

1

Senseless Galatians, who is it that has cast a spell on you, that you should refuse your loyalty to the truth, you, before whom Jesus Christ has been exposed to view on his cross?

2

Let me be content with asking you one question, Was it from observance of the law that the Spirit came to you, or from obeying the call of faith?

3

Are you so far out of your right senses? You dedicated your first beginnings to the spirit; and can you now find your completion in outward things?

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Was it to no purpose that you went through so much? Since it seems it was to no purpose.

5

When God lavishes his Spirit on you and enables you to perform miracles, what is the reason for it? Your observance of the law, or your obedience to the call of faith?

6

Remember how Abraham put his faith in God, and it was reckoned virtue in him.✻

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You must recognize, then, that Abraham’s real children are the children of his faith.

8

There is a passage in scripture which, long beforehand, brings to Abraham the good news, Through thee all the nations shall be blessed; and that passage looks forward to God’s justification of the Gentiles by faith.✻

9

It is those, then, who take their stand on faith that share the blessing Abraham’s faithfulness won.

10

Those who take their stand on observance of the law are all under a curse; Cursed be everyone (we read) who does not persist in carrying out all that this book of the law prescribes.✻

11

And indeed, that the law cannot make a man acceptable to God is clear enough; It is faith, we are told, that brings life to the just man;

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whereas the law does not depend on faith; no, we are told it is the man who carries out the commandments that will find life in them.✻

13

From this curse invoked by the law Christ has ransomed us, by himself becoming, for our sakes, an accursed thing; we read that, There is a curse on the man who hangs on a gibbet.✻

14

Thus, in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham was to be imparted to the Gentiles, so that we, through faith, might receive the promised gift of the Spirit.

15

Brethren, let me take an argument from common life. A valid legal disposition made by an ordinary human being cannot afterwards be set aside; no one can make fresh provisions in it.✻

16

The promises you know of were made to Abraham and his offspring; (it does not, by the way, say, To thy descendants, as if it meant a number of people; it says, To thy offspring, in the singular, meaning Christ).✻

17

And this is my contention; the law, coming into being four hundred and thirty years afterwards, cannot unmake the disposition which God made so long ago, and cancel the promise.

18

If our inheritance depends on observing the law, then it is not the inheritance secured to us by promise; that was promised to Abraham as a free gift.

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What, then, is the purpose of the law? It was brought in to make room for transgression, while we waited for the coming of that posterity, to whom the promise had been made. Its terms were dictated by angels, acting through a spokesman;✻

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(a spokesman represents more than one, and there is only one God).

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Is the law an infringement, then, of God’s promises? That is not to be thought of. Doubtless, if a law had been given that was capable of imparting life to us, it would have been for the law to bring us justification.

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But in fact scripture represents us as all under the bondage of sin; it was faith in Jesus Christ that was to impart the promised blessing to all those who believe in him.✻

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Until faith came, we were all being kept in bondage to the law, waiting for the faith that was one day to be revealed.

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So that the law was our tutor, bringing us to Christ, to find in faith our justification.✻

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When faith comes, then we are no longer under the rule of a tutor;

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through faith in Christ Jesus you are all now God’s sons.

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All you who have been baptized in Christ’s name have put on the person of Christ;✻

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no more Jew or Gentile, no more slave and freeman, no more male and female; you are all one person in Jesus Christ.

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And if you belong to Christ, then you are indeed Abraham’s children; the promised inheritance is yours.