No longer… a new era

Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many, but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person, who is Christ. My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise, but God granted it to Abraham through the promise.
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring would come to whom the promise had been made, and it was ordained through angels by a mediator. Now a mediator involves more than one party, but God is one.
Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed come through the law. But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:11-29).

Logic and argument in the first Century world does not always accord with what we might consider a reasoned argument. Paul pulls on the singular ‘offspring’, and as per English the word could be singular or ‘seed’ as in referring to many actual individual seeds. Even if we say that the logic seems a little thin we remember that for Paul it is the radical inbreaking of a new era that means he can now put (for him) the definitive reading on the promise. The promise was to Abraham and to his one seed – Jesus. The argument is beyond the use of the singular word, it is the self-evident reality that the many ‘seeds’ of Abraham did not bring in the promised era.

The law then is added later, but Paul presents it as temporary, coming 430 years after the promise, and only in place until Christ came… and only for the Jews (note again the ‘we’ word: ‘our disciplinarian’). The law is not opposed to the promises of God, because it is not an alternative – salvation by Jesus or salvation by law would never have been something that Paul would have considered! And at one level, the law as law, simply makes plain that the Jews too are imprisoned under sin. The singular use of the word ‘sin’ indicates that Paul sees it as a power, not as the collection of all the bad things we have done.

And at the end of this section we have the ‘in Christ there is neither… nor’ central statement (Gal. 3:28). The NRSV updated edition adds a little bit ‘no longer’, but the addition is following the thrust. It is all about the coming of a new era, thus I think the ‘no longer’ is justified. Everything before is placed in a temporary setting, the law having distinguished Jew from Gentile – then. But in Christ the law has gone (covenant is fulfilled) so the the old divides of ‘Jew and Greek’ do not work; the division of ‘slave and free’ is also deeply significant, for the culture within the Graeco-Roman world was all about maintaining class culture. Meals were highly structured, with who sat where, and how one reciprocated being vital. Given that the ekklesia gathered around the meal that class structure disappeared. (Consider the meal in Corinth where Paul said ‘I can give you no credit’ for what you are doing for they were perpetuating the rich / poor divide, thus it was no longer the Lord’s table they were gathering around but the table of culture; the instruction in James concerning a rich person coming in and being given the best seat, the seat being at the meal table; Jesus instruction not to invvite those who can reciprocate.)

The in / out divide has gone that religion created – and always creates; the political outworking of the very undergirding of Imperial culture was ended; and the careful change of grammar from ‘or’ to ‘male and female’ indicates a major eschatological element. The quote is from Genesis – how it was in the beginning. Here is the eschatological frame for in the age to come there will be no more marriage. There will be no more that the only covenantal relationship will be in marriage, we will be one, all of us. Sex will disappear but the level of intimacy and knowing one another will be what marriage presses in for. Male and female will not mark us out.

The closing verse then sums it up:

if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise

Not if you are Jewish you are a descendant, but if, and therefore only if one is in Christ, for the inheritance does not come through the law (something temporary that never produced the promised blessings of Abraham to the world, and never could).

As Paul lays out his case one can understand why he was willing to oppose people to their face. The coming of Christ has ended something, has ended division, so eat together, and do not make anyone into a ‘less than’ person.

The ekklesia that I maintain was not about how many people can we get in here through the door so that our numbers grow (maybe important if the view is ‘they need a ticket to be secure’, but more often simply to confirm how great we are!) but was about the total transformation of the oikoumene, the nicely ordered world that was simply part of the system that imprisoned people (sin). The ekklesia had to model a new way of being, that was a sign that the old era was no longer dictating the future. Theology and social outworking went together; heaven and incarnation were necessary for ‘glory’ to come, and if the glory of God was to fill the whole earth, maybe we can understand the ‘bolshiness’ of Paul.

Perspectives