Abraham - Galatians 3:1-9

3:1-3 - All this explanation of works vs. grace and the dispute that Paul had with Peter, begs the question, why would Paul tell the Galatians this? I believe that the congregations throughout the Galatian area were mostly gentile converts and they had these Jewish Christians coming over and telling them to obey the law of Moses in addition to their new found Christianity. Paul is telling them to follow the gospel teachings that come from Jesus, and maybe as an emphasis of “I know what I’m talking about to the point that even Peter eventually agreed with me.” Paul is just so hard to understand that I again am going to the NIV for help. Paul asks the Galatians to think back and tell him, “did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?” I understand this to mean, “did your testimony come because you kept the commandments or because the Spirit testified of what was being taught?” Clearly, the answer is that the Spirit testifies of the truthfulness of the gospel when you hear it, and we are transformed by the Spirit as we do our best to keep the commandments. The problem in understanding this concept is that keeping the commandments and growing our faith are not mutually exclusive. They are both part of the same process, the Spirit brings testimony and teaching and truth, but except under uncommon circumstances, the Spirit only does those things when we invite Him into our lives by keeping the commandments. When someone has been prepared to accept the gospel, they hear it (or come to understand it in some way such as reading or watching or something), the Spirit is the one who testifies of the truth. You can’t purposefully keep the commandments until you know about them, and you can’t know about them until the Spirit testifies that the gospel is true and worth your effort. So the order of operations is first Spirit then discipleship. It’s not possible to become a disciple of Christ before we have testimony borne to us by the Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit is the impetuous for starting and the commandments are the pathway. Therefore, Paul is asking them, “when did the Spirit bear testimony to you? When you heard the gospel or when you were keeping the law?” And my guess is that in this context, by “works of the law” Paul isn’t referring to general behaviors such as trying to be nice or helping the poor, etc. but instead probably was referring to specific rituals that were specific to the law of Moses. That would make a lot more sense because the law of Moses is less abstract than “love your neighbor” and more explicit like “only walk 798 steps of the Sabbath.” The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com explains, “Paul understands the fundamental principle that in mortality the physical precedes the spirits… Man, born in a natural and carnal state, can only become spiritual by the putting off the natural man and becoming spiritual by the natural man and becoming sanctified by the Spirit. For the Galatian saints who had started down the spiritual path of discipleship to turn from Christ’s gospel to the law of carnal commandments was an illogical progression. The schoolmaster was given to bring them to the gospel of Christ, not the other way around.” 3:4-5 - Paul puts it another way, asking (in my own words), “does God give you His Spirit and work miracles for you because of your faith or because of the rituals you do?” Clearly the answer is “because of our faith” because when we say it like that, it sounds stupid to think that God works miracles for you because of the rituals you do. Again, it’s hard to understand because temple work and the sacrament are examples of ordinances that we do that brings blessings, but it comes back to “why do we do them?” Do I go to the temple because I’m told to go or because I value the experiences I have there and want to be closer to God? So, we could say the blessings I get from temple attendance come not because I physically go to the building, but because of the faith I have to participate. And again, it’s a process. There was a time, and sometimes it’s still like this, that I was working nights and would make time to go to the temple on my way to work one day but I was exhausted because I had worked the night before so I usually fell asleep during the session. I honestly believe that God accepted my sleeping through the session as sufficient because it was all I could do at the time, literally it was the absolute most that I could offer. All of this is to say that the concept is difficult to understand, but I think it’s mostly because our commandments now are abstract enough to meet us where we are and allows obedience at every level, whereas anciently, the law of Moses was more specific. But I think if we consider our motivation for keeping the commandments we can know if we are obeying because we are “supposed to” or if we are being obedient because we love Jesus and want to do what he says. For instance, with this whole covid thing, church has been limited, so in the beginning I almost started treating Sunday like any other day, but after a few weeks I realized that my lack of Sabbath day observance highlighted my lax attitude about it prior to covid. Basically that means, if I didn’t go shopping, went to church, etc. on Sundays because I was “supposed to” then it wasn’t benefitting me anymore than if I hadn’t been going at all because I didn’t want to be there or keep the Sabbath day holy. Since I had that realization, I have been making an effort to do Sunday activities that are more appropriate or thinking about the Savior more or having a meaningful family sacrament. I think when Church starts back up, I will go back and try to be more present and actively engaged in the meeting. Because sitting in the foyer playing on my phone isn’t growing my testimony, and I honestly think that it was hindering my progress because I held kind of a resentment for being there and couldn’t wait to get out of there. This has been really good for me actually and I’ve really enjoyed our own sacrament meeting. As much as I’ve absolutely hated quarantine because I couldn’t go to jiu jitsu, it’s been really good for me, I’ve grown a lot and it’s been really interesting. I’ve been in charge of my own spirituality and it’s been an incredibly growing time for me in that aspect. 3:6-7 - As an example of Spirit and law and all that Paul brings up all Jew’s greatest reference, Abraham. He tells the Galatians, who might not be as familiar with Abraham, that “Abraham believe God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” When I first read this statement, I thought “what a great point, Abraham didn’t have the law of Moses and yet is still regarded as one of the most righteous people of all time.” Therefore, if Abraham could be uber righteous, even without the law of Moses, then clearly it’s not the law that perpetuates the righteousness. The article makes a statement that I really loved which says, “righteousness is more than obedience to God’s laws.” This is a perfect example of my Sabbath day observance prior to covid. I went to church and didn’t shop on Sundays, did that make me more righteous? No, in fact, looking back I think it made me less righteous because I hated it. We can physically do things that appear to be obedient to the law, but if we do them out of obligation or guilt, then it we get just as much benefit as if we had never done them at all. If I had actively and consciously broken the law of the Sabbath, then I would have been spiritually hindered. I wasn’t hindered because I kept the law begrudgingly, but I didn’t receive any benefit from it either. The article continues, “Abraham’s greatness was not that he kept the gospel better than anyone else but that he exercised more faith. He had great desires for righteousness and actually believed that God would bless him according to his desires.” His spiritual greatness didn’t come from keeping the law of Moses, he didn’t have it, and the Galatians can be spiritually without it as well. Abraham’s greatness came because of his faith, and that’s how strong spirituality can come to us as well as the ancient Galatians. It’s possible that the Galatians felt intimidated in their new faith by the Jewish Christians because the Jewish converts had a lifetime of religious indoctrination and generations of religious tradition, whereas the gentiles might not have had that. They might have felt that the Jewish converts had more authority to teach them the gospel and that they should concede on any point of doctrine that was of concern or misunderstanding. And it all comes back to the Jewish lineage. But Paul tells the Galatians who might be concerned that their “unremarkable” ancestry “know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” I’m not sure why this statement would be important to the Gentile converts, unless it was because there was an issue of legitimacy in leadership and teaching roles within Christianity. And I really like that Paul is telling them, “if you believe, then you have just as much right to the gospel and the roles within it as do those who were born as the seed of Abraham.” 3:8-9 - Paul reminds his audience that God is all omnipotent, and knowing that He “would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So, then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” If God knows everything from the beginning, then he would know that when his gospel went to the gentiles that there would be this problem between the law of Moses and the gospel of Jesus Christ among his people. When God taught Abraham the gospel, He didn’t teach him the law of Moses, he taught him the gospel and gave him commandments that would help him and his children follow the path of righteousness. The article quotes Joseph Smith as teaching, “For our own part we cannot believe that the ancients in all ages were so ignorant of the system of heaven as many supposed, since all that were ever saved, were saved through the power of this great plan of redemption, as must before the coming of Christ as since…We conclude that whenever the Lord revealed himself to men in ancient days, and commanded them to offer sacrifice to him, that it was done that they might look forward in faith to the time of his coming, and rely upon the power of that atonement for a remission of their sins… We may conclude, that though there were different dispensations, yet all things which God communicated to his people were calculated to draw their minds to the great object, and to teach them to rely upon God alone as the author of their salvation, as contained in his law.” It’s important to remember that God knew the plan from the beginning, he knew exactly how people would react to the gospel in their different times and different circumstances. And because the gospel is eternal and the plan has been the same from the beginning, we can deduce that the principles of the gospel have been taught to throughout human history, though the laws given to the people to use as stepping stones to grow in faith might have been different in varying periods of time. If we look at school subjects such as math and science, we know that the textbooks are different and the experiments and tests are different to teach the same principles. Does that mean that the principles of physics or chemistry or algebra or calculus are invalid because the textbooks are different? Of course not. The same goes here, is the gospel invalid because God customized his message to the audience?