Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary

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Galatians 3

1Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified?

2I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

3Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh?

4Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?

5He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

6Even so, Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

7Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham.

8The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations will be blessed.”

9So then, those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham.

10For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.”

11Now that no man is justified by the law before God is evident, for, “The righteous will live by faith.”

12The law is not of faith, but, “The man who does them will live by them.”

13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,”

14that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

15Brothers, speaking of human terms, though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one makes it void or adds to it.

16Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his offspring. He doesn’t say, “To descendants”, as of many, but as of one, “To your offspring”, which is Christ.

17Now I say this: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.

18For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by promise.

19Then why is there the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.

20Now a mediator is not between one, but God is one.

21Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could make alive, most certainly righteousness would have been of the law.

22But the Scripture imprisoned all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, confined for the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

24So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

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

27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

29If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.

Early Christian commentary

c. 182–188 AD (historical editorial dating) | Irenaeus of Lyons

1. He has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning led us away captives in Adam, and trampling upon his head, as thou canst perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch for His heel." For from that time He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians, "that the law of works was established until the seed should come to whom the promise was made." This fact is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same epistle, where he thus speaks: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished, unless it had been a man [born] of woman who conquered him. For it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting himself up as man's opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out of whom the woman was fashioned (ex quo ea quæ secundum mulierem est plasmatio facta est), in order that, as our species went down to death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory] against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death.

Commentary · Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 21, Section 1 · Original source · Irenaeus of Lyons; The Writings of Irenaeus, Volume II, Ante-Nicene Christian Library IX; translated by Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut; T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1869. Existing transcription supplied by Wikisource contributors. · Licence · Source revision · Whitespace normalized; source pagination and footnote reference markers removed. English wording unchanged.