Thursday, October 12, 2006

Further Evidence for an Inclusive Reading of "Us" in Gal 3:13-14?

As discussed in the previous post, I am persuaded that when Paul says Christ redeemed "us" from the curse of the Law, he is referring to Jewish and Gentile Christians, not merely Jews. An additional line of evidence for this may be found in 3:22, where Paul says "But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe."

Here there should be no question that Paul refers to not only Jews but everyone (in the Greek it is ta panta, which could even be translated "all things") being imprisoned under the reign of sin. But instead of saying "the Law" has imprisoned everyone he says "the Scripture." Now, this could merely be Paul using a synonym, or Paul could mean the entire OT witness (Law, Prophets, Writings). Or he may even have a particular Scripture reference in view, which if that is the case then why not Deut 27:26, quoted in Gal 3:10? If so, that would provide further evidence of the link between the curse of the Law and the larger curse that rests on all creation from Eden.

So what do you think? Am I desperately grasping for evidence to support my flimsy view or is there something to seeing a link between 3:10ff and 3:22?

2 comments:

Keith's Blog said...

Gentile justification is clearly demonstrated in Galatians 3:8-9. This thought is grounded in verses 10-14 through through the connecting "for" (gar) at the start of verse 10. Seems to me that is a slam dunk for your view.

Keith Shearer

Keith's Blog said...

Oh, yes, and if the "for" at the start of verse 10 is Paul's grounding of Gentile justification in his argument that follows, that does extend to verse 22 and beyond, so your evidence is extremely strong.