A lot of times when we encounter something from the Bible, it’s an isolated verse or two. We read devotionals that focus on a couple passages. We do topical Bible studies and jump around between scriptures looking for ones that fit together. We listen to sermons that follow a similar pattern of linking connected scriptures together. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you read a translation of the New Testament that highlights quotes taken from the Old Testament (like the NET, which puts direct quotes in bold italics and allusions to OT passages in italics), you’ll see that Jesus and the apostles frequently reference lines from much larger passages without explicitly addressing the context.
However, most of the people that Jesus and the apostles (at least those writing to Jewish audiences) were speaking or writing to were scripturally literate. In addition, they shared a cultural framework so familiar that it didn’t need to be explained, but which is very different than how many of us live today. Jewish people of Jesus’s time–both boys and girls–learned Torah (the law of God, and first five books of the Bible) as the main focus of their schooling up until age 13 (Metsämuuronen, 2019, “How Jesus Learned the Scriptures?”). Chances are, if these people heard Jesus quote a scripture they could automatically fill in the context because they knew where it came from.
Unfortunately, most Christians aren’t that Biblically literate today. We don’t have to memorize the Bible to contextualize it, though. We just need to know how to read and study it. If we hear or read someone quote an isolated passage of scripture, we write down the reference and then look up where it came from. We can study the historical context, read commentaries, and look up dictionary definitions of the Hebrew or Greek words that were translated into whatever language we’re reading the Bible. Since the 19th century, we have greater access to scriptures than anyone before, and about 80 million Bibles are being printed every year (“Best-Selling Book,” Guinness World Records). We could be the most Biblically literate generation, if we wanted.
Reading the Scriptures Around Scriptures
Most of the time, reading verses of the Bible in context simply means reading the whole chapter or book that the verse appears in. Paul provides a good example. Romans is one of my favorite books of the Bible, and I spend a lot of time studying it. It’s also one of the books that’s frequently quoted out of context, which can lead to distortions and misinterpretations. For example, let’s look at this verse from chapter 6:
For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 6: 14, NET
I’ve seen people quote this verse and frame it as if law and grace are opposite things; as if God can’t use both. They say we don’t have to keep God’s law at all because we’re under His grace, which is a free gift that releases us from obligation to do anything other than believe in Jesus. But that doesn’t fit with the book of Romans as a whole, or even just surrounding verses.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness?But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
Romans 6:12-18 NET
You can read the entire book of Romans, as well as the gospels to connect Paul’s teaching with Jesus, if you want the full context for these verses. But in this case, even just quoting a few verses before and after our example verse is enough to show that the interpretation saying we don’t need to obey God’s law is patently false. Without the law, we wouldn’t even have a clue what it means to sin or to obey God (Rom. 3:20; 7:7). Also, law isn’t the same thing as the Old Covenant (a common misunderstanding), and the law of God is still relevant to those under the New Covenant (Rom. 13:8-10). But you wouldn’t know that if you only listen to someone read a few isolated verses.
Sometimes, the context could be just a few additional verses. Other times, it’s an entire letter or many chapters. You might even be surprised by how big the context is. That happened to me when I did my study of Isaiah 40-66. I was trying to read the context for Isaiah 50:10, and realized that this entire final section of the book is one continuous message from God.
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Read The Whole Bible
Okay, I know it’s a huge book and Bible reading is becoming increasingly rare even among Christians (“Report: 26 Million Americans Stopped Reading the Bible Regularly During COVID-19”). But just sitting down and reading the Bible every day (or as close to every day as you can manage) is probably the best thing you can do to improve your understanding of scripture.
The more you familiarize yourself with the whole of scripture, the more you’ll start seeing links across the text and the better equipped you’ll be to understand individual scriptures within the context of the entire Bible. Also, you don’t have to limit yourself to reading chapter by chapter. I find it super helpful for understanding Paul if I can take the time to sit down and read a whole letter in one setting. For example, 1 Corinthians is framed around Passover, Unleavened Bread, and the Exodus story, but you have to read the whole letter and be familiar with Exodus to get that.
For much of the Old Testament, you can break it up into story arcs (like, reading all of Joseph’s story in one setting). Or you can just set a timer and read for 20 minutes, then stop wherever you are and pick back up there the next day. There are also plans designed to help you read the Bible in a year that you can find online if you’d like to follow along with a specific program.
For the Old Testament specifically, I recommend reading in the original Hebrew manuscript order. That organization just makes more sense. You can either jump around in traditional English translations to read in the original order, or pick up a Bible translation that uses that order. There aren’t many, but I know of three: A Faithful Version (AFV), the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)*, and Tree of Life Version (TLV)* (please note that links marked * are affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a small commission if you click on the link and make a purchase). Of those, the TLV is the one I personally use.
Finding Historical Information
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Another aspect to understanding the context of scripture is learning about the language, culture, and society at the time the Bible was written. Thankfully, there are many scholars who’ve done this work and published it in easily read books to help those who aren’t archeologists, historians, or experts in classical languages to understand the historical context for the Biblical writings. Here are a few of the many resources available, which I use frequently:
*please note that these are all affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a small commission if you click on the link and make a purchase
If you don’t mind reading academic papers, there’s a wealth of scholarship available online for free. Use Google Scholar as your search engine, and you’ll find tons of articles published by experts in their fields. For example, I was curious about the times that Paul mentions other people helping him write his letters, and so I searched “apostle paul coauthors” and I found several articles addressing the question of co-authors, co-senders, and secretaries in relation to Paul’s writings.
If you’d rather listen or watch than read, I recommend subscribing to The Bible Project on YouTube and/or listening to their podcast. They do a ton of research into original languages and context.
With all of these writings, it’s important to remember that they’re a supplemental resource to the Bible rather than a replacement for it. If there’s a contradiction between what a human author says and a statement made in the Bible (particularly one that’s unambiguous and where there aren’t dramatically different translation options), then you always go with what the Bible states. People can make mistakes, and we’re all influenced by our own understanding, cultures, and backgrounds. That’s not to say humans never introduce errors into scripture (take the infamous Comma Johanneum, for example), but ultimately the Bible’s origin is God Himself and it’s much more reliable than human writings. We will benefit greatly from the time we take to study the Bible and understand the context for verses that we read.
Around the world, “at least 2.2 billion people” have some type of “vision impairment” (WHO 2023). I’m blessed to live in a country where I have easy access to eyecare and the glasses I need to see well, but the World Health Organization says that for about 1 billion people with vision impairment, it “could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed.” That’s a lot of people who have trouble seeing, and a whole lot who aren’t getting the help they need for it.
In the Bible, God addresses blindness and sight impairment on both a physical and spiritual level. When Jesus walked on earth, He healed those who were physically blind (Mark 8:22-26; John 9:1-7). At His return, prophecies promise healing for all those with vision problems (Is. 29:18; 35:5-6). Healing and relief from all physical illness or injury is one of the many wonderful things that God promises we can look forward to in His kingdom (Rev. 21:1-4; 22:1-5).
More importantly, though, God is concerned with the problem of spiritual blindness. From His perspective, on a spiritual level, most of the world is blind. In other words, they’re unable or unwilling to “see” His truths. Even some in the church are spiritually blind. Thankfully, He is just as capable of healing spiritual blindness as physical blindness, and He’s making spiritual eye-opening accessible today.
As we read about the problem of spiritual blindness in the New Testament, we learn about two sources for that blindness. One is Satan, the adversary of God. Paul writes about this in a letter to the Corinthians.
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4, NET
So that’s one source of blindness. Satan is actively trying to thwart God’s plan to save humanity and bring them into His family. Satan won’t ultimately succeed, but he does have power in the world today and he can blind human minds so they don’t see Jesus’s light (unless, of course, God steps in and removes this blindness).
Another type of blindness is self-imposed. This type of blindness affected the people who didn’t understand Jesus’s parables, and was one of the reasons that He spoke in parables.
Then the disciples came to him and said, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He replied,“You have been given the opportunity to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but they have not. For whoever has will be given more, and will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand. And concerning them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
‘You will listen carefullyyetwill never understand, you will look closelyyet will never comprehend. For the heart of this people has become dull; they are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
“But your eyes are blessed because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Matthew 13:10-17, NET (with quotation from Isa 6:9-10)
Note that the lack of sight on the part of some of his hearers was their choice. “They have shut their eyes,” Isaiah said in the passage Jesus quotes. As descendants of ancient Israel and inheritors of the covenant God made with that people, the Jews of Jesus’s day had access to God’s truth. They were the people who should have been able to see, and yet many did not.
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God’s Mercy for The Unseeing
Paul addressed the question of his Jewish contemporaries’ blindness at length in Romans, particularly in chapter 11. Here, Paul pointed out that God graciously chose to have mercy on those who should have known better, but still “shut their eyes” and rejected Jesus as the Messiah, by treating them the same as unbelievers (Rom. 11:32). In the end, those who should have known better yet did wrong anyway will receive harsher judgement than those who didn’t really understand what they were doing (Rom. 2). It is to the Jewish people’s benefit for God to conclude those who rejected Jesus were blind unbelievers rather than people who should have been able to see His light but rejected Him anyway (Heb. 10:26-39).
Furthermore, Paul said there’s another positive that came from some people in Jesus’s time shutting their eyes against the truth. He writes, “that blindness in part is happened to Israel” so that the non-Israelite nations could be welcomed into God’s covenant people (Rom. 11:35, KJV). It’s all part of God’s long-term plan to bring as many people as possible into His family.
“He said [to Paul], ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will reveal to you; delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
Acts 26:15-18, WEB
Jesus’s mission of eye-opening continued with His apostles, whom He empowered to share His gospel message. He opened up the opportunity for people to enter covenant with God to everyone one earth, not just those from a particularl physical background. Now, anyone can have their eyes opened to the truth (including, Paul makes sure to point out, the Jewish people who’d initially shut their eyes [Rom 11:11-16]).
When Paul talked about the Gentile’s eyes being opened, he was talking about people who had no background with the One True God learning about Him for the first time. Sometimes, though, as with some of the Jewish people of Jesus’s day, blindness can happen to people who think they know God well. Jesus talks about that again in relation to the New Covenant church when addressing the church of Laodicea in Revelation.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot!So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! Because you say, ‘I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,’ but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see! All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me.I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Revelation 3:15-22, NET
This is a serious warning. And it’s for all who have ears to hear what Jesus is saying to the churches. That ought to include us. Somewhat ironically, if you think the warning doesn’t or can’t apply to you, then you’re likely someone who needs to hear it the most (1 Cor. 10:12). Thankfully, there’s a cure to this spiritual blindness. We can humbly accept the warning, go to Jesus, and ask Him for healing.
Open my eyes so I can truly see the marvelous things in your law.
Psalm 119:18, NET
Like this psalmist, we can pray that the Lord would open our eyes so that we can see the marvelous things contained in His word. He wants people to come to Him (Matt. 11:28; John 7:37-38) and He wants His people who’ve lost their way to return (Joel 2:12-13; Mal. 3:7). Healing spiritual blindness is important to Him today, since He deeply desires all people to see the truth and choose life (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9).
I want to start out today’s post with a verse that comes from King David’s advice to his son Solomon. One of the first things he said before passing on the kingship was, “You be strong therefore, and show yourself a man; and keep the instruction of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do, and wherever you turn yourself” (1 Kings 2:2-3, WEB). Did you notice how many words David uses to refer to God’s instructions? He talks about statutes, commands, ordinances, testimonies, and law.
This isn’t the only place where multiple Hebrew words are used to describe God’s instructions, but I picked it because it includes most of them all in one verse. Another example comes from Nehemiah, where it talks about God giving ancient Israel “right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments” (Neh. 9:13, WEB). For some time now, I’ve wondered why all those different words are used and what distinctions there are between them. I figured now is as good a time as any to actually study it.
Starting with A Dictionary
I decided to start by going to my favorite Hebrew dictionary, the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. I looked up the words used in those verses from 1 Kings and Nehemiah, as well as the Hebrew words for “word” and “charge” since they’re often used alongside them in other verses. The TWOT organizes words by root words and derivatives, so we’ll start with the roots and branch out from there to the derivatives used in the specific verses.
“word.” Root dabar, “to speak” (TWOT 399). The word dabar shows up in the Hebrew Bible more than 2500 times, and in the KJV translators used about 30 different English words for the noun (H1697) and 85 for the verb (H1696). Clearly, it’s not a simple word to translate. However, all “have some sense of thought processes, of communication, or of subjects or means of communication” (TWOT 399).For our purposes today, dabar can refer to words God speaks; it is, for example, used of the Ten Commandments as “words of the covenant” (Ex. 34:28. WEB).
“statutes.” Root haqaq, “primary meaning of cutting or engraving in stone,” though it also means “enacting a decree” or law (TWOT 728). The masculine noun form choqor hoq (H2706) appears in Nehemiah, and means “statue, custom, law, decree” and is frequently paired with the word for “keep,” stressing the importance of obeying God’s statutes (TWOT 728a). The feminine noun form chuqqahor huqqa (H2708) is used in 1 Kings, and is similar to the choq form, but is also used to talk about “perpetual statutes” such as the ordinances for holy days (TWOT 728b).
“law.” Root yara, “throw, cast, shoot” or “teach” (TWOT 910). The word for “law” is the derivative torah (H8451).Torah can be translated “law,” “instruction,” or “teaching” (TWOT 910d). Broadly, it means teaching in the sense of wise instruction (often directly from God). It also refers more specifically to God’s instructions, “statutes, ordinances, precepts, commandments, and testimonies” as well as His moral law which predates the giving of the law code as part of the covenant (TWOT 910d). In time, torah came to refer to the first five books of the Bible as well as God’s law.
“testimonies.” Root ud,to return, repent, or do over again, with various derivatives related to witnessing and testimony (TWOT 1576). The derivative eduth (H5715) is the one we’re looking at today. It specifically means “a warning testimony” (TWOT 1576f). Can be used as a synonym for law (as in Psalm 19 and 119) since “The law of God is his testimony because it is his own affirmation relative to his very person and purpose” and it is also “a warning sign to man” (TWOT 1576f). `
“commands.” Root sawa, “command” as a verb (TWOT 1887). The noun form for “commandments” is miswa or mitsvah(H4687). This word can refer to terms in a contract or instructions from a teacher, but most often it’s used for “the particular conditions of the covenant” God makes with humanity (TWOT 1887b). This is, for example, a word used of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 24:12).
“charge.” Root shamar, “keep, guard, observe, give heed” (TWOT 2414). The derivative mishmeret(H4931) doesn’t appear in any of the verses we’ve looked at so far, but it will in a few we’ll read next. It refers to something we keep as an obligation or something we do as a service (TWOT 2414g).
“ordinances” or “judgements.” Root shapat, to judge or “exercise the process of government” (TWOT 2443). We’ve looked at this word and its derivativemishpat (H4941) before. It’s a nuanced word, with “at least thirteen related, but distinct aspects” centered on the concept of justice (TWOT 2443c). For example, mishpat can mean “a case or litigation,” the judge’s ruling on that case, “an ordinance of law,” and/or justice as “rightness rooted in God’s character.”
As we can see in these brief word studies, there are some differences between the words although they mean similar things. A judgement, for example, is not exactly the same thing as a commandment. Most of the words used to talk about God’s instructions (statutes, testimonies, commands, etc.) fall under the umbrella of “law” or torah. You can tease out nuances between the words, like 119 Ministries does in their article, “Commandments, Statutes, Ordinances, and Judgments…What’s the Difference?” However, when they come from God, all these things are very similar in terms of how we’re expected to respond to them.
Of these words as a group, the TWOT writers say, “hoq occurs in sequence with other words for law: debarim (words), tora (law), mishpat (judgement), edut (testimony), and miswa (commandment). These words are used almost indiscriminately” and though some have tried to separate them into groups, such as using hoq and mishpat for two different categories of laws, “efforts to distinguish clearly between their connotations have not been entirely successful” (TWOT 728a). As GotQuestions.org says, the main point is “obedience to all that the Lord commands,” regardless of the word being used.
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How These Words are Used
The words we looked at in the previous section occur hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of time in the Hebrew Bible. Clearly, we won’t be able to look at all those examples. We can, though, start looking at some of the verses that use more than one of these words together and see how they’re used and what we can learn about the response God expects from His people.
Yahweh appeared to him, and said, … “In your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed,because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my requirements (mishmereth), my commandments (mitsvah), my statutes (chuqqah), and my laws (torah).”
Genesis 26:2, 4-5, WEB
One of the things that often confuses people is the link between God’s law and the Old Covenant. Christians agree that we’re not under the Old Covenant–it has been replaced by a New Covenant based on better promises and ratified in Jesus Christ–but many Christians disagree on the role the law plays today. Some think that when the Old Covenant went away, the law went with it. But that’s not what Jesus or Paul taught and, as we see here in this verse about Abraham, God’s requirements, commandments, statutes, and laws pre-date the Old Covenant at Mount Sinai. You can see evidence of this elsewhere as well, such as God commanding Noah to “take seven pairs of every clean animal” on the ark but only one pair of unclean animals (Gen. 7:2, WEB). Clean and unclean meat laws are an example of God’s laws pre-dating the Sinai covenant by hundreds of years.
Now, Israel, listen to the statutes (choq) and to the ordinances (mishpat) which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you. You shall not add to the word (dabar) which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments (mitsvah) of Yahweh your God which I command you. …Behold, I have taught you statutes (choq) and ordinances (mishpat), even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it. Keep (shamar) therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes (choq) and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him? What great nation is there that has statutes (choq) and ordinances (mishpat) so righteous as all this law (torah) which I set before you today?
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 5-8, WEB
The laws that God gave His people taught them how to follow Him and set themselves apart as His special people. We can still learn from them today because we’re also God’s people, though our context is not the same as that of ancient Israel. Some laws don’t apply to us directly (e.g. most of us don’t have to worry about what to do if your bull gores someone to death [Ex. 21:28-36]) but we can still learn wisdom from the principles behind the laws (e.g. God’s view on restitution and responsibility). Some laws still apply directly today, such as the Ten Commandments, which teach us more about how to fulfill the law in love (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14).
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Psalm 119
If you want to know how a godly person interacted with the Lord’s words, statutes, ordinances, testimonies, charge, judgements, and law, then read Psalm 119. This is the longest psalm in the Bible and the whole thing is a meditation on God’s law and the psalmist’s relationship with those instructions.
Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to Yahweh’s law. Blessed are those who keep his statutes, who seek him with their whole heart. Yes, they do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts, that we should fully obey them. Oh that my ways were steadfast to obey your statutes! Then I wouldn’t be disappointed, when I consider all of your commandments. I will give thanks to you with uprightness of heart, when I learn your righteous judgments.
Psalm 119:1-7, WEB
Psalm 119 begins with this beautiful passage that puts me in mind of Romans 7-8. The Psalmist loves God’s law so much, but also recognizes that his ways are not steadfast enough to obey all God’s statutes. Similarly, Paul says “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good” (Rom. 7:12, NET) but because he couldn’t obey it fully he needed Jesus’s sacrifice to set him free from the law. Now, he could serve God “in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code” (Rom 7:6, NET) while fulfilling “the righteous requirement of the law” by walking “according to the Spirit” instead of according to the flesh (Rom. 8:4, NET).
Like Paul and this psalmist, we can find delight in God’s law and learn from His instructions while also realizing we can’t perfectly obey God or justify ourselves. We need Jesus mediating forgiveness and making us right with God so we can serve Him in the spirit (which, in many ways, means taking the law to a higher, better level).
Do good to your servant. I will live and I will obey your word. Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law. … My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times. … Indeed your statutes are my delight, and my counselors. … Let me understand the teaching of your precepts! Then I will meditate on your wondrous works. … I have chosen the way of truth. I have set your ordinances before me. I cling to your statutes, Yahweh. Don’t let me be disappointed. I run in the path of your commandments, for you have set my heart free.
Psalm 119:17-18, 20, 24, 27, 30-32 WEB
Have you ever thought about God’s instructions like this? I think a lot of times, we feel confused or frustrated when we read God’s laws, trying to figure them out. But the psalmist models a different approach. He asks God to teach him to understand the law, finds delight in the wonderous things of God’s law, and obeys because the Lord has set his heart free. There’s great comfort in knowing that God places guards around our lives to keep us safe and help us know how to follow Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls.
Yahweh, your word is settled in heaven forever. Your faithfulness is to all generations. You have established the earth, and it remains. Your laws remain to this day, for all things serve you. … How I love your law! It is my meditation all day.
Psalm 119:89-91, 97, WEB
I love the consistency and reliability of God. I don’t have to worry about Him changing His mind about His relationship with me or with His people as a whole. I don’t have to worry that He’ll say one thing a couple thousand years ago and then contradict Himself tomorrow. His plan of salvation, the way Jesus delivers us, and how we show our love by obeying Him doesn’t alter on a whim. We can count on Him not to break his New Covenant with us or to change the terms of relationship.
God’s law, word, statutes, ordinances, judgements, charges, and commands are good and they are good for us. We might not be able to figure out exactly what the differences are between those words or sort God’s instructions into neat categories, but that’s not the point of them. They’re a revelation of God’s character, guides for relating to Him and living in a way that honors Him, and a source of wisdom as we learn how to be more like Him.
God is emotional. Not in the negative sense so many people mean when they describe another person as “emotional” (i.e. too sensitive or overly expressive), but in a positive sense. He’s not an unfeeling robot or someone only guided by logic (though logic is certainly part of His character and thought process). He feels emotions, including passionate, strong emotions.
I’m amazed when I think about God’s emotions. The type of emotions He has and the way they’re described in the Bible prove He cares deeply about us. He even has emotions that people tend to be warry of. Jealousy, for example, is something humans tend to think of in negative terms. The Bible, however, uses it in both positive and negative senses for human beings, and God experiences jealousy in a right way as well. Sometimes, jealousy or zeal (which are both translated from the same Hebrew word) is the correct emotion to feel in a situation. And sometimes, God’s zeal is what drives Him to accomplish incredible things for His people.
Zeal and Jealousy
In Hebrew, the word translated “zeal” or “jealousy” is either qana (H7065) or one of its derivatives. This word family represents “very strong emotion whereby some quality or possession of the object is desired by the subject” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament [TWOT] entry 2038). The TWOT suggests the best way to understand this word is by relating it to the English word “zeal” for the basic meaning. Uses of qana in the sense of “envy” is “zeal for another’s property” and the “jealous” use is “zeal for one’s own property.”
We likely already have ideas of what “jealous” means based on our experience with its uses in English. For example, we might think of someone suspicious, unreasonable, and controlling. We need to set those connotations aside when we’re approaching a study of jealousy in the Bible. Much like anger, jealousy in scripture is presented as the right response to certain situations; it only becomes sinful if we act on it wrongly. Also like with anger, God’s expressions of jealousy are always right. He is righteous all the time, and He is perfectly in control of Himself and His emotions.
In scripture, “jealousy” is frequently used in relation to marriage. Unfaithfulness in one spouse (or suspected unfaithfulness) leads to jealousy (TWOT 2038). In the Old Testament, adultery was a death-penalty sin. We have at least two examples of God lifting that penalty even before Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins (see 2 Sam. 12:13 and John 8:10-11), but the severity of this law highlights how serious God is about adultery. Keep in mind that God describes Himself as Israel’s (i.e., His chosen people’s) husband. He has a right to be jealous over her affections, and He would have the right to execute her for adultery (i.e. idolatry; unfaithfulness to Him). He doesn’t do that, though. His jealousy may inspire Him to wrath (i.e. just punishment for sin), but it also inspires zealous, “arduous love” that brings about salvation (TWOT 2038).
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What Makes God Zealous?
The title for today’s blog post comes from a phrase God repeats a couple times in the Bible: “The zeal of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will accomplish this” (NET), “The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this” (WEB), or “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this” (NKJV). What sort of things is the Lord of Heaven’s armies so eager to accomplish that it rouses His zeal?
During the reign of King Hezekiah, Yahweh promised to accomplish deliverance for Judah from an attacking army and says, “Yahweh’s zeal will perform this” (2 Kings 19:31, WEB; see 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37). In Isaiah 9, this phrase appears when God promises a Messiah will come to sit on David’s throne forever (Is. 9:6-7). Similar sentiments show up in other prophet’s writings. In Zechariah, Yahweh proclaims Himself zealous or jealous over Zion as He promises mercy, comfort, prosperity, and salvation (Zech. 1:12-17; 8:1-8).
The word of Yahweh of Armies came to me. Yahweh of Armies says: “I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.”
Yahweh says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of Yahweh of Armies, ‘The Holy Mountain.’” …
Yahweh of Armies says: “Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they will dwell within Jerusalem; and they will be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.”
Zechariah 8:1-3, 7-8, WEB
Remember that the TWOT says qana in the sense of “jealousy” is “zeal for one’s own property” or spouse? God is zealous about protecting and defending His people from outside attackers. They belong to Him and He has a strong, zealous desire to keep them His own. He is zealous about protecting them and their relationship with Him.
When God made a covenant with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai, and later when Joshua reminded the people of that covenant, God and His followers warned the people that Yahweh is a jealous God who does not accept rejection and disobedience (Ex. 20.5; Josh. 24:19). Despite this warning, Israel repeatedly turned their backs on God and worshipped idols, rejecting Him as their husband and bringing His just wrath on the nation (Ezk. 5:7-13; 16:38-43; 39:21-29). God is jealous because He cares. When He brings punishment or allows the consequences of sin to affect people, it’s because He is zealous about justice and He jealously guards His relationship with His people. His goal is to bring them back into right relationship with Him, as evidenced by God’s plan for Jesus to come as the Messiah.
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Messianic Zeal
When we did our in-depth, two-month study of the final section of Isaiah last year, one of the themes we looked at was Messianic prophecies called Servant Songs. The first of those songs is located in Chapter 42:1-9, but what comes after is also related and God returns to talking about “my servant” in 42:19. In between these statements from Yahweh Himself comes a passage about human response to His activity.
Sing to Yahweh a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is therein, the islands and their inhabitants. Let the wilderness and its cities raise their voices, with the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing. Let them shout from the top of the mountains! Let them give glory to Yahweh, and declare his praise in the islands. Yahweh will go out like a mighty man. He will stir up zeal like a man of war. He will raise a war cry. Yes, he will shout aloud. He will triumph over his enemies.
Isaiah 42:10-13, WEB
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So, God promised to send the Messiah, “my servant” who “will bring justice to the nations” and be “a covenant for the people,” and then Isiah responds by calling for people to praise Yahweh who will “stir up zeal like a man of war.” In their entry on qana, the TWOT writers point out that we can read this Messianic verse in connection with the idea of God marrying His people. They write, “God’s jealousy when offended issued in just retribution, but when stirred by His grace it resulted in eternal love. Hence, the church is called the bride of Christ” (TWOT entry 2038).
That brings us to the New Testament. Jesus displayed zeal, too. Like Elijah, who was “very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant” (1 Kings 19:9-18), and the Psalmist who said, “My zeal wears me out, because my enemies ignore your words” (Ps. 119:139), Jesus was filled with zeal about ensuring God’s people had a right relationship with Him.
He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables.So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zealfor your house will devour me.”
John 2:14-17, NET (bold italics mark a quote from Psalm 69:9)
We often talk about this passage as an example of righteous indignation, but the Bible writers present His response as zeal rather than anger. Seeing people turning God’s house in to a place for merchandising made Him zealous to set things right.
We’re made in God’s image, and that includes our emotions. Unlike Him, we don’t always handle our emotions correctly because we’re not perfect. But He is, and He does. His zeal/jealousy is good and right, and it moves Him to set things right between Him and His people. We can be very thankful for the zeal of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Recently, I realized that The Bible Project, which I follow on YouTube, also has a podcast hosted by co-founders Tim Mackie and Jon Collins. I started listening to their Deuteronomy series, which is the end of their walk through the Torah (first five books of the Bible) that spanned all of 2022. It’s been fascinating. I’ve never sat down with the Torah and meditated on it the way they describe doing, though I have read those five books of the Bible several times over the years.
Then some Pharisees came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?”He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator madethem male and female,and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”Jesus said to them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, but from the beginning it was not this way. Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”
Matthew 19:3-9, NET (bold italics mark OT quotes)
In this podcast episode, Tim and Jon point out that Jesus went back to Genesis to reveal God’s original ideal for marriage. In this particular situation, the Law (given through Moses) isn’t representative of what God wanted from the beginning. It is God’s concession for hard-hearted people living in a fallen world. In other words, God intended marriage to be permanent but in a world where that doesn’t always happen He gave guidelines for divorce. Here, Jesus says infidelity is a justifiable reason for divorce. Later, Paul says that if a believer has an unbelieving spouse who wants a divorce the believer isn’t “bound” to stay married (1 Cor. 7:15). As the Bible Project points out, this hints that Jesus’s statement in Matthew 19 wasn’t taken as a full expression of His views on divorce and remarriage, but rather as the proper way to interpret the specific law in question from Deuteronomy.
My purpose today isn’t to examine divorce and remarriage as a topic, but to use this as a jumping off point for meditating on Jesus’s relationship with the Law. I did something similar in my post “What Happens When God Takes Justice to the Next Level?” In that post, we went through the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus reveals that He came to fill up the Law to a spiritual level, not destroy it. For example, He said it’s not enough for His followers to obey the command “thou shalt not murder;” He also expects us not to despise or condemn other people (Matt. 5:21-22). That’s very similar to what He does in Matthew 19. It’s not enough to follow the instructions for divorce; Jesus said that, ideally, God doesn’t want divorce to happen at all (though there are some times it can/will).
If you read a Bible that calls attention to Old Testament quotes in the New Testament (NET, for example, puts direct OT quotes in bold italics and allusions to OT passages in italics) then you’ll see that Jesus quoted from the Old Testament extensively. The Blue Letter Bible’s website has a list of quotes and allusions, which you can click here to view. They list 258 quotes or allusions to the Hebrew scriptures in the four gospel accounts, including many from Psalms, Isaiah, and the Torah (especially Deuteronomy and Leviticus). To make things more manageable for today’s post, we’ll just focus on Matthew. This book contains 102 of the quotes and allusions noted by Blue Letter Bible, though not all are quotes from Jesus; many are Matthew linking Jesus’s life to Old Testament prophecies (which is a different, though fascinating, topic).
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Useful for Everyday Living
The first time Matthew records Jesus quoting the Old Testament is during the temptation in the wilderness. Here, Jesus goes into the wilderness for 40 days and nights after His baptism. Then, Satan shows up and tries three times to tempt Jesus into sin. Jesus counters each of these temptations with a quote from Deuteronomy (Matt. 4:1-11).
This account highlights and reveals a couple interesting things. First, Jesus had these verses memorized. There’s a good chance, given what we know of first-century Jewish education, he could have had the whole Torah memorized. Second, Jesus’s main counter for an attack by Satan was to quote God’s law. Clearly, He found value in memorizing and living by these verses.
Similarly, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy when He gave practical instructions for resolving a disagreement between brothers in the faith, and may also have been alluding to Leviticus (Matt. 18:15-20; Lev. 19:15-17; Deut. 19:15). He uses principles from the Laws God gave for interacting with other people and upholding justice to show how we should resolve disagreements as His followers.
Additionally, Jesus told a young man who asked Him about eternal life, “‘if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ ‘Which ones?’”’ he asked. Jesus replied, ‘“’Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony,honoryour father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself‘” (Matt. 19:17-19, NET). There’s more to that story (Matt. 19:16-26), but for the topic we’re studying the main thing I want to point out is that Jesus taught familiar commandments from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy as guides for heading toward eternal life. In short, He treated God’s laws from the Old Testament as something we should still follow that are useful for everyday life.
Back To God’s Intent
As I mentioned in the intro, Jesus quotes several Old Testament laws in the Sermon on the Mount. He does not say these laws are wrong or that we shouldn’t obey them. Rather, He counsels His listeners to pay attention to God’s intent behind the law and obey at a higher level. He expects more of us than simply keeping the Law. He expects us to become like God, who gave the law, and “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48, NET). Later, He boils the Law down to the most important points.
And one of them, an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”Jesus said to him, “‘Lovethe Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:35-40, NET
Here, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Love is the essence, or fulfillment, of God’s law (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14). The other commandments in the Law are details; instructions on how to love God and love your neighbor. And based on Jesus’s conversations about the Law, we really should be doing even better than simply obeying the letter of the law. We need to obey God in the spirit and intent behind the law.
Be Wary of Human Ideas
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Now, thinking humanly, we might conclude that if Jesus wants us to keep the law even better, maybe we should put some extra guards around it. That’s a mistake people in Jesus’s day made, too, and He condemns the practice. People do not have the right to elevate human traditions to the level of doctrine, and they especially don’t have the right to replace something God commanded with anything else (Matt. 15:1-20).
Another error that Jesus pointed out was misinterpreting scriptures. One day the “Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to him and asked him” about the levirate marriage law of Deuteronomy. He knew they really wanted to ask about the resurrection rather than that law, and He replied, “You are deceived, because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God” and He quoted from Exodus to backup the truth of the resurrection (Matt. 22:23-33). In this case, human reasoning got in the way and these people tried to use one of the laws recorded by Moses to prove a point that law had nothing to do with.
When we read the psalms, especially Psalm 119, we see people meditating on God’s Law, loving His commandments, and praying for deeper understanding. We need to continue following that example. In many ways, obeying God is very simple: love Him and love your neighbor. But we’re not yet perfect; we aren’t yet fully “grown up” to be like Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:14-16). We are, however, being conformed to His image and having His mind formed in us (Rom. 8:28-29; 1 Cor. 2:15-16). We can study God’s law–and Jesus’s example of interacting with God’s law–to learn more about Him and our role as His followers.
When I was writing last week’s post about inheriting covenants, I found myself writing a lot about Galatians. At one point while drafting, more than half that post was just about chapters 2 and 3. I decided to copy all that I’d written into a new post, condense the Galatians section, and focus entirely on Galatians this week.
I don’t usually spend much time in Galatians, at least not writing about it here on the blog (though I did previously write another “crash course” post on it 4 years ago). I’ve more than made up for that in today’s post, though, which is quite long (apologies for the 4,000 word article).
My reason for avoiding Galatians is it’s very easy to misinterpret, and I usually don’t want to take the time to contextualize verses from it and/or I’m not quite sure how to explicate them correctly. It’s easier to quote from other books, at least when we’re talking about a subject like covenants or a Christian’s relationship to God’s law. The “I am crucified with Christ,” fruit of the spirit, and “sowing and reaping” sections are the easiest to understand, so that’s where I (and most people I know of) spend most of their time if they go to Galatians. Today, though, we’ll do our best to study the whole thing.
Context and Background
Galatians is one of the letters that Paul likely wrote with co-authors. He began the letter, “Paul … and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia” (Gal. 1:1-2. NET). Though Paul wrote this letter with his own hands (Gal. 6:11), it seems that he collaborated, at least to some extent, with other believers. That would make sense considering the subject matter; Paul’s main focus is on correcting errors in the Galatian’s theology. Bringing in others to consult on and probably proofread the letter makes it less about Paul and more about the truth held by trusted, established followers of Jesus.
Paul also takes great care to outline his qualifications as an authority on the subject of the true gospel. He can write to correct distorted gospels because he is “an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)” (Gal. 1:1, NET). He also reminds his readers “that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source; instead I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12, NET). Right off the bat, Paul wants to be very clear that the gospel Galatian believers originally received came straight from Jesus and was verified by the apostles who’d been personally taught by Jesus (Gal. 1:13-2:10). That understanding helps contextualize Paul’s shock that he would even need to write this letter.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel—not that there really is another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell!As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell!Am I now trying to gain the approval of people, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ!
Galatians 1:6-10, NET
We’re not sure exactly when Galatians was written, but it was at some point after Paul had preached the gospel to churches in this region. Like most of his letters, he’s writing to a group that he already has a relationship with and addresses something specific that’s going on in the church.
One exception to this pattern is the letter to Rome; Paul hadn’t been there before, and Romans is an introduction of sorts (Rom. 1:8-15; 15:22-24). That makes Romans very helpful in understanding Galatians; we can assume that the foundational theology Paul outlines in Romans is pretty much what he would have preached to the Galatians. Since the gospel he preached came straight from Jesus, it wouldn’t have been changing from church-to-church or over the course of Paul’s ministry.
Likewise, we can use the gospels as guides to interpret Galatians (as well as Paul’s other writings). As a faithful apostle, Paul would not have contradicted any of Jesus’s teachings. If there’s ever a case where we’re not sure what Paul meant (and he can be tricky to interpret, as even Peter points out [2 Pet. 3:15-16]), we need to compare what he’s saying to Jesus’s teachings. Whatever interpretation we go with must agree with Jesus. We won’t talk about the General Epistles much in today’s post, but those are also helpfulpre-reqs for understanding Paul.
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Paul Setting The Stage
Paul does not outline the specifics of the heresy in Galatia. He assumes his readers already know what’s going on. Those of us divorced from this context have to read closely and draw conclusions from the letter and what Acts tells us about similar questions. It appears that the Galatian believers had been deceived by someone who came in and told them they needed to keep the whole Jewish law in order to be saved. The Galatians were worried that male believers needed to be circumcised, that they all had to keep the whole Old Covenant law, and that they additionally had to keep Jewish additions to God’s law.
A large section of the letter’s introduction is devoted to Paul explaining his ministry and pointing out that the true Christian apostles never compelled new Gentile converts to be circumcised (see Acts. 11 and 15). Male circumcision was a key part of the Abrahamic Covenant, which continued for ancient Israel into the Sinai Covenant and up to the time of Jesus. Paul addressed the question of whether new converts to following Jesus the Messiah should be circumcised in several letters. Taken together, his basic explanation was that New Covenant circumcision happens in the heart rather than as a physical sign (which aligns perfectly with God’s Old Testament intention as well [Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 9:26; Rom. 2:29; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11-12]).
But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he had clearly done wrong. Until certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this and separated himself because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision. …
We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then one who encourages sin? Absolutely not! But if I build up again those things I once destroyed, I demonstrate that I am one who breaks God’s law. For through the law I died to the law so that I may live to God.
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!
Galatians 2:11-12, 15-21, NET
In other words, the Old Covenant ended with Jesus’s death and a New Covenant took its place. We certainly don’t live lawlessly now, but we live with the knowledge that we can’t make ourselves righteous. Jesus’s faithfulness brings us righteousness and justification. The moment we think we’re saved by our own efforts rather than Christ’s sacrifice, we’ve set aside God’s grace. That doesn’t mean we break God’s law now; Christ in us does not encourage sin nor did He do away with God’s law (Matt. 5:17-20; Rom. 3:28-31). But He also didn’t redeem us and give us the Spirit so that we could then try to save ourselves by our own efforts.
You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?Are you so foolish? Although you began with the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by human effort?Have you suffered so many things for nothing?—if indeed it was for nothing. Does God then give you the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:1-5, NET
These questions prime the Galatians for the next parts of Paul’s argument. He defends the gospel he preached previously, then asks questions to wake them up to ways they’d distorted the gospel. From the way Paul speaks, I assume the Galatians made one of two errors very common to people trying to follow Jesus.
Sometimes, we err by becoming too permissive and thinking that God’s grace means we have no responsibilities and that law doesn’t exist anymore (Paul addressed this with the Corinthians, who prided themselves on allowing sin in the congregation). Other times, we’re more like the Galatians and error by thinking that if we do every command written in the Bible just right and maybe add some Jewish tradition on top of that, then we’ll make ourselves good enough to deserve salvation. Neither is correct.
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Faith Like Abraham
Rather than present again the nuanced rhetorical argument of Romans, where Paul explains that the New Covenant replaces the Old Covenant entirely and elevates the Law of God to a higher, spiritual, internalized level, in Galatians Paul goes back even farther to the covenant God made with Abraham. For this letter, he needs to show that the Galatians are not saved by doing the works commanded in the law and counter the claim that new believers should be circumcised. To do that, he argues that New Covenant believers follow the same pattern that Abraham did even though they’re not doing the physical sign of that covenant.
Just as Abraham believedGod, and it was credited to him as righteousness,so then, understand that those who believe are the sons of Abraham.And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, saying, “All the nationswill be blessed in you.”So then those who believe are blessed along with Abraham the believer.
Galatians 3:6-9, NET (bolt italics mark quotes from the Old Testament)
Here, Paul quotes from the record in Genesis of God cutting a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15). This covenant is one of inheritance and blessing. We learn more about this in Genesis 17 and 18, which Paul also quotes. Back in Genesis, God said He would bless Abraham and that “I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Then the Lord will give to Abraham what he promised him” (Gen. 18:19, NET). Notice that God’s covenant with Abraham included following the Lord’s way and doing what is right. But, as Paul emphasized, the promises come to Abraham and his descendants because God is faithful, not because they kept the Law that God later shared as part of the Sinai Covenant or because they observed Jewish traditions added later.
For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.”Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous one will live by faith.But the law is not based on faith, but the one who does the works of the law will live by them.Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.
Galatians 3:10-14, NET (bolt italics mark quotes from the Old Testament)
God does want people to follow His law (it defines sin, and since sin is not consistent with God’s character it damages relationships between us and Him). But God also knows that all people sin and we can’t keep His law perfectly. It is very, very good for us that He upholds His parts of covenants even when people aren’t faithful, because one of those covenant promises was that God would send Jesus as the Messiah. That’s how we inherit the Abrahamic Covenant promises: through Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, “and to the descendants,” referring to many, but “andto your descendant,” referring to one, who is Christ. What I am saying is this: The law that came 430 years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise. For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise.
Galatians 3:15-18, NET (bolt italics mark quotes from the Old Testament)
A few verses later, Paul says that the Law was “added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the descendant to whom the promise had been made” (Gal. 3:19, NET). He also says the law was a guard to keep us safe and a “guardian” or “tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24, WEB). The law defines sin for us and reveals the penalties for breaking God’s covenant law. As transgressors of the covenant, we deserved to inherit the curses contained in the covenanting words (Deut. 11:26-32; 27:1-28:68).
The only one who perfectly kept God’s covenant was Jesus Christ, and so He’s the only one who truly deserved to inherit all the promises. Once Christ inherited, He died and “willed” those promises to us. Now, “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29, NET). Moving from the Old to the New Covenant is like going from being slaves to being “sons with full rights” (Gal. 3:23-4:7).
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No Going Back To the Old
Now we get to the passages of Galatians that I struggle with, because I understand that the Old Covenant is over and we’re under the New Covenant, but I also know from Jesus Himself and from other apostolic writings that God’s law still exists. The confusing part is that most of God’s law that we have recorded in scripture was given as part of the Old Covenant. So I struggle sometimes with figuring out what in the Torah is God’s timeless, enduring Law and what is part of the Old Covenant that ended with Jesus’s sacrifice.
Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all.But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless basic forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?You are observing religious days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that my work for you may have been in vain. I beg you, brothers and sisters, become like me, because I have become like you. You have done me no wrong!
Galatians 4:8-12, NET
Remember that he’s talking with Gentile converts, so the “beings that by nature are not gods at all” are most likely references to false gods worshiped by people in the Galatian region. But Paul is also talking about not being enslaved to the Old Covenant, so we read this part about “observing religious days and months and seasons and years” and readers wonder if Paul means something pagan, something added by the Jews, or the sabbaths outlined in Leviticus 23. Many commentators say it’s the Sabbaths, but Jesus kept the Sabbath and the author of Hebrews (very likely Paul) concludes, “a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). Additionally, Paul clearly instructed the Corinthians to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Cor. 5:8). Whatever he’s talking about here in Galatians, it isn’t getting rid of God’s holy days.
Contextually, since Paul was talking about the time before they knew God at all, it seems most likely that he’s referring to something other than the Biblical holy days. It may be that the Galatians practiced some kind of religious syncretism and continued keeping their pagan festivals. Or perhaps he’s rebuking the Galatians for keeping the holy days wrongly (perhaps transactionally, as if by keeping these days God will “owe” them something), as ancient Israel did when God told them, “I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations!” (Is. 1:13, NET).
Paul then made a personal appeal to the Galatians to hear him and come back to the truth. He accuses those who’ve been preaching a distorted gospel of trying to isolate the Galatians for their own gain (Gal. 4:13-20). Then, he returns to the topic of being under the law and this time uses Abraham’s children as an allegory. It roughly parallels Romans 11, in that Paul is contrasting the Jews who didn’t follow the Messiah with the Jews and Gentiles who accept Jesus and inherit the promises of God (Gal. 4:21-31; Rom. 11).
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A Christian’s Freedom
As Paul begins to wrap up this letter (ch. 5-6), he moves to talking about the freedom of New Covenant believers to put God’s way of life into practice by living in faith and love. Essentially, the second half of Galatians is an expanded version of a statement he makes in his first letter to Corinth: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Instead, keeping God’s commandments is what counts” (1 Cor. 7:19, NET).
You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace! For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight—the only thing that matters is faith working through love. You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from the one who calls you! …
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another.For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:4-8, 13-14 NET
As we’ve been talking about for a good part of this past year, faith involves active, relational loyalty. It’s part of keeping covenant with God that we appreciate His gift of grace by honoring Him, patterning our lives after Him, and obeying His commands. At the same time, we must never think that the actions we take in response to God saving us are a way for us to save ourselves. Jesus is the one who saved us. He even frees us from being under the law in the sense “that law is not intended for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane” (1 Tim. 1:9, NET). If we aren’t any of those things (i.e. we’ve repented of sin, believe in Jesus who cleanses us from sin, and follow Him faithfully, repenting if we miss the mark), then we aren’t under any penalty from breaking the law.
But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other, so that you cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too. Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each one examine his own work. Then he can take pride in himself and not compare himself with someone else
Galatians 5:16-6:4, NET
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That’s a long quote, but I think it’s key to understanding Paul’s take-away points from this letter. His insistence that the Galatian believers don’t need to be circumcised or keep the law does not exempt them from following God’s commandments. In fact, he issues the strict warning that those who sin will not inherit God’s kingdom! Living in the Spirit and walking by faith (as is expected of New Covenant Christians) means behaving in accordance with the spirit and therefore fulfilling the law of Christ (see also 1 Cor. 9.21). It’s a higher, better level of commandment keeping than the Galatians were trying to do by focusing only on the physical sign of an old covenant and not on the heart-level transformation that God looks for in His people.
Paul wraps up this letter with an admonition to teach truth, encouragement to keep doing good, and another reminder that the people who’d deceived the Galatians just wanted to avoid persecution and make themselves look righteous (Gal. 6:6-18). In conclusion, Galatians was written to address a specific problem in a specific church region at a specific time. But it still has a lot to teach us today when we take the time to put Paul’s words in context and understand his argument. Like the Galatians, we must be wary of letting ourselves get entangled in ideas or practices that sound righteous, but really distract us from faithfully following Christ and fulfilling the law of God by truly practicing love for Him and our neighbors.
Like An Anchor 