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Galatians 3:19-25 As an Argument for God's Faithfulness: Reading Paul's Rhetoric in Light of His Strategy

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Galatians 3:19-25 As an Argument for God's Faithfulness: Reading Paul's Rhetoric in Light of His Strategy Word & World Volume XX, Number 3 Summer 2000 Galatians 3:19-25 as an Argument for God’s Faithfulness: Reading Paul’s Rhetoric in Light of His Strategy L. ANN JERVIS Wycliffe College and University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada F ASKED TO PROVE THAT PAUL DENIGRATES THAT WHICH IS MOST SACRED TO AND distinctive of Judaism, the first place to which most would turn is Galatians. And, if asked to choose a passage from Galatians that best demonstrates Paul ma- ligning the law, fingers would almost certainly point to Gal 3:19-25.1 In this passage Paul appears to claim that the law either was not essential to God’s plan or did not originate with God. The dramatic and confounding words of Gal 3:19-25 are the focus of this study. The query prompting a re-examination of this passage is this: If 1So disparaging do Paul’s words about the law sound here that J. L. Martyn has written: “one could ask whether in Galatians Paul anticipates Marcion by suggesting that the Law did not come from the Father of Jesus Christ” (Galatians [New York: Doubleday, 1997] 365). ANN JERVIS is professor of New Testament at Wycliffe College with a cross-appointment to Trinity College, University of Toronto. She has recently published a commentary on Galatians with Hendrickson Publishers in the NIBC series. For Paul, the law’s divinely ordained functional and temporal limitations origi- nated with God and were essential to God’s redemptive purposes. God remains constant and trustworthy in the move from law to promise. Copyright © 2000 by Word & World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. All rights reserved. 281 Jervis Paul were claiming that the law was supplementary or of suspect pedigree, would not his rhetoric go against the strategy necessary to win his case? Paul is commonly understood to be denigrating the law in 3:19-25 on the ba- sis that it was either a secondary and inessential part of God’s purposes2 or never part of God’s plans, having originated not from God but from angels.3 While these readings make sense of the rhetoric of the passage itself, they do not, I will contend here, correspond to the strategy that must necessarily undergird Paul’s rhetoric. If Paul were denigrating the law in this fashion he would at the same time be deni- grating the character of God. For to claim that the law was supplementary is also to imply that God had not anticipated the need for it. And to claim that God did not give the law is to say that there is a significant event in the history of the people of God over which God had no control. If Paul were saying this, his argument would rest on arguing for a God who is neither steadfast nor sovereign. The God behind Paul’s gospel would be a God who changes course in response to events God had not anticipated or created. The strategy behind Paul’s rhetoric would then be that of demonstrating that God is neither constant nor in control. I. PAUL PROVES GOD’S SOVEREIGN STEADFASTNESS IN GALATIANS 1-3 Throughout Galatians we rather see Paul demonstrating his recognition of the strategic importance of proving that the sovereign steadfastness of God is re- vealed through his gospel and not that of the rival evangelists. It is the task of this essay to offer a reading of Paul’s peculiar words in Gal 3:19-25 in a manner consis- tent with the strategy Paul adopts up to this point in Galatians. Paul’s Galatian letter is directed to the challenge presented him by the rival evangelists. The alternate gospel, which required gentile believers to be circum- cised, rested on claiming that in it the sovereign steadfastness of God was con- firmed. This, for instance, is why Paul brings the Abraham story into his argument. The story of Abraham readily served the purpose of the rival evangelists and was al- most certainly included in their pitch to Paul’s Galatian converts. On the basis of the scriptures about Abraham the rival evangelists contended that, since God es- tablished a covenant with Abraham that included circumcision (Gen 17), unless believers in Messiah were circumcised they were not inheritors of Abraham. The rival evangelists must have charged that Paul’s gospel, which did not require cir- cumcision of gentiles, not only contravened the covenant but impugned God’s trustworthiness. The rival evangelists’ argument was consistent with the tradition about Abra- ham. For the Jews Abraham was the epitome of righteousness (Jub. 23:10) and his righteousness was connected to his faithfulness (1 Macc 2:51-52). Abraham’s faith- 2R. N. Longenecker writes that Paul’s use of prosetevqh (the law was “added”) in 3:19 “signals a nuance of disparagement and suggests that the law was not of the essence of God’s redemptive activity with humankind” (Ga- latians [Dallas, TX: Word, 1990] 138). 3Martyn, Galatians, 366. 282 Gal 3:19-25 as an Argument for God's Faithfulness ful obedience to the covenant implied that even prior to the law Abraham had, in effect, kept the law. In the book of the scribe Jesus Ben Sira, Abraham is spoken of as “the great father of a multitude of nations....He kept the law of the Most High, and entered into a covenant with him; he certified the covenant in his flesh, and when he was tested he proved faithful” (Sirach 44:19-20). Jewish tradition did not separate Abraham’s faith from his acceptance of circumcision and obedience to the covenant. Abraham was regarded as a law observer. To Jews the story of Abraham signified that from the beginning God required circumcision and law observance of all who would be part of the covenant. It was essential for Paul to counter this point of view if he were to convince the Galatians of the truth of his law-free gospel. In order to do this Paul needed to demonstrate that his gospel, rather than that of his opponents, attested to the steadfastness of God and truthfully reflected God’s intention. Paul’s challenge to a gospel requiring gentile Christian circumcision relied on positioning himself in the camp of the sovereign and steadfast God. That Paul recognized the strategic impor- tance of proving God’s trustworthiness and used his rhetoric to this end is evident throughout the verses leading up to Gal 3:19-25. Paul maintains that there is only one gospel of Christ and that it will never change (1:6-8). God revealed this gospel to Paul and chose him, even before he was born, to preach it (1:15-16). God is consistent, working through Paul’s gospel on behalf of the gentiles and through Peter’s on behalf of the circumcised (2:8). God’s call to and gift of righteousness remains. With the death of Christ, God has simply expanded the arena in which God’s purpose for humanity is enacted. Living in the crucified one, whether one is a Jew or a gentile, is now the venue for righteousness (2:20-21). Paul argues that God’s intention from the beginning of the establishment of God’s people was that the gentiles would be justified by faith (3:8). God had planned all along to make the gentiles the heirs of Abraham apart from the law. Abraham was the first recipient of the gospel that Paul now preaches (3:6) and the first to enact it (3:9). According to Paul, the evidence of Scripture confirms his gos- pel. God has always intended that the righteous shall live by faith (3:11). The death of Christ does not indicate a change in God’s agenda or that the earlier period of God’s people was flawed. The death of Christ fulfills God’s promise to Abraham (3:14). God had promised that in Abraham the nations would be blessed and now in Christ Jesus this blessing has come about. Verse 14 resonates with the scriptural quote in 3:8: “All nations will be blessed in you.” Just as God promised that in Abraham the nations would be blessed, so now it is in Christ Jesus, the seed of Abraham (3:16), that the blessing has come about. While the rival evangelists may charge that Paul’s law-free gospel for gentiles indicates an inconsistent God, Paul contends that from the beginning God intended gentiles to be included in the promise by faith. The death of Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise. Paul describes Christ’s death as one in which he became accursed. Citing 283 Jervis Deut 21:23 in 3:13, Paul describes the death of Christ as one who was cut off from his people and from God. Paul and others were under such curse until Christ’s death.4 For to live under law is to live under threat of curse, to live under threat of exclusion, if one disobeys the law. Christ’s death delivered believers from this curse. Paul’s argument at 3:10 begins by citing the curse from Deut 27:26. Paul characterizes as under a curse those who are under works of law. While Paul’s use of this Scripture is at odds with its function in Deuteronomy, which is to encourage obedience to the law, it at the same time accords with Deuteronomy’s rhetoric. The Deuteronomist promises a curse for those who do not uphold the words of the law by carrying them out (Deut 27:26).
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