Chapter 3
Paul says he only has one question of them: Did they receive the Spirit by the works of the law (that is, did the Holy Spirit indwell them because of their perfect keeping of the law) or by hearing with faith? The obvious answer is that they received by hearing. The Galatians can look individually to their own personal experience of salvation and recall the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which in every case followed their hearing the gospel of faith in Christ alone as the way of salvation. Not one got "indwelt" while eating matzah on the Sabbath. So how can they now expect to be made perfect by the flesh (obeying the old law) when they began in the Spirit? The flesh - that is, compliance with the law - has no further part to play. They are saved. It is done.
2021 - This also says a lot about whether those out in the dark of Africa who have never heard can be saved. I think this verse would be a proof text to say that they cannot. Faith comes by hearing. Only by hearing. But I suspect a lot of "explanation and amplification" has been built around this concept also.
Paul seems to be replying to specific points the Judaizers are making as they teach false doctrine, but he does not state their arguments. So you kind of have to read the counterargument and then reconstruct the original argument.
***Paul now makes an argument that Abraham himself was justified by faith alone (he came before the law after all) and the coming of Christ was foretold to Abraham when he was told that all nations would be blessed in him. This is to connect Gentile Abraham's salvation by faith before the law was given with the salvation of Gentiles now, after the Law's requirements have been satisfied. Therefore, those who are being saved now are the sons of Abraham, and recipients of the promises made to Abraham. Apparently, the Judaizers were saying that salvation is a promise made to Abraham's descendants only. Since Gentiles are NOT his descendants, they must "become Jews" in order to be saved, and this "becoming Jews" means being circumcised and living under the law. Otherwise, they cannot claim the promise made to their father. It is an insidious argument. The Judaizers were using fear of hell to compel the Gentiles to adopt a false religion. Is that not what all the cults do today??? That is surely why we need the Bible, and why we should be ecstatic that it is available to us to read for ourselves rather than taking the word of those who call themselves "teachers". Gnosticism was the same sort of thing, putting the teachers in between God and man to elevate the position of the teachers!
2021-2, I also think that Paul is showing that the Holy Spirit never comes through the Law. Those who stick with the Law as the core of their religion are never indwelt. There is no escrow. There is also no assurance. No one who relies on their own effort at Law for salvation will ever experience the Holy Spirit inside them. Only by hearing. Preaching. I notice also this year just how insidious the Pharisees had made things. They had taken the Law, given to curse the people - to demonstrate daily that the required perfection was not achievable by man - and made it doable. They could all do it! They'd made it easy, even. Turned the whole Law upside down to what it's intended meaning was. They had diluted its intended effect of conviction of sin and need and instead made it a source of personal pride, even arrogance, that they were so pure they could keep the whole law! This is why it had to fall. This is why they had to fall. I like the way Paul ties pre-Law to post-crucifixion, leaving the Law sort of as a relic of the past. No wonder they had such a problem with him.
2023 - This passage is also used to say that the church is now the recipient of the promises made to Israel. This is a key passage supporting Covenant theology with Dispensationalism. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. [Gal 3:29 ESV]. This says that Gentiles are Abraham's spiritual descendants and recipients therefore of the spiritual promises. First among those would be the prophecies of the coming of the Indwelling Holy Spirit. Under this dispensation, BOTH Jews and Gentiles are spiritual recipients of the promises of salvation. I note that MacA's Biblical Doctrine quotes this verse both under a section on the church, and as part of "The Future". I need to take a much closer look at the context here and see if Paul had "the church" in view here - and it's properties and membership - or he is combining the Old and New Covenants - or if in fact he is talking about WHY you DO NOT have to follow the Law to perfect your salvation. I think the answer to that one is pretty obvious. In this chapter - indeed in this book - Paul is refuting the Judaizer's teaching that BEFORE you can truly be a Christian, you must first be a Jew and practice the Law, and continue to do so. He is not talking about what constitutes a church and certainly is not talking about the Future purpose of the church in the end times. You just cannot get there.
2024 - The Judaizers were holding onto the concept of Israel as God's people. They were pushing the whole exclusivity of that phrase. The Law was given to the Jews at Mt. Sinai through Moses. Only to the Jews. (They were forgetting that when God spoke the 10, he spoke them to all present, not just to the Jews...but that is a different argument.) So these Christianized Jews were accepting that Jesus was Messiah, and he had come as promised, to the lost sheep of Israel. And ONLY to them. And yet the message that the gospel was also for Gentiles was undeniable. So they resolved these two antagonistic concepts by teaching that to receive the New Covenant, just as with the Old Covenant, you have to be a Jew. But there was now a provision for Gentiles to BECOME Jews via circumcision and keeping the Law. There were Proselyte Jews under the Law - we see that in several places in Acts where there were "Jews" who had been converted coming to the Temple from all over the world. They could come to the Temple...but not to all places in the Temple. The parts of the Temple closest to the Holy of Holies were still reserved for "real" Jews. These proselytes were still considered second class Jews. And this is the practice the Judaizers were trying to incorporate into this new "religion" of Christianity. To them, any relationship with God still depended first on whether or not you were a Jew, and to them "Jew" mean circumcised keeper of the Law. This is the distortion - the corruption of the gospel against which Paul is writing.
2025 - This verse:
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." [Gal 3:8 ESV]. So the idea here, as I see it, is that the connection of Gentiles to Abraham is not about the church replacing Israel. There was no Israel at that time anyway. I don't think it is about that at all. In Abraham all nations - including Gentiles - would be blessed means that the same faith that saved Abraham before the Law would save Gentiles after the Law. Abraham's salvation and our salvation today are on the same level playing field. The difference is that Abraham did not have an indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit keeps us from sin. That is needed because we have no Law to guide us. Abraham had no Law to guide him either, but also no Holy Spirit, so "where there is no Law, sin is not imputed".
The blessing that we have in common with Abraham is that we too are justified by faith, just as he was.
2025 - And this one:
14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. [Gal 3:14 ESV]. In context, this seems to imply that while the Law was in effect, Gentiles were indeed excluded. The Law walled in God's chosen and made the march of history about the Jews. God's work on earth was exclusively about the Jews and the Law. Non-Jews had no route to salvation. (There are exceptions, but they were rare.) While the Law was in place, circumcision and the Law ruled. Faith still saved, as it always has, but to serve God you had to be Jewish. This requirement during the time of the Law is what the Judaizers were trying to maintain under the New Covenant. It would have remained that way had Christ not fulfilled that Law, taken the curse the Law pronounced, and so removed that severe restriction on access to God, making salvation by faith available to all. I think Paul is saying here that during the time of the Law, it was all but impossible for a non-Jew to be saved. With Christ, though, ALL can be saved.
I don't think this is worded as well as it could be, but hopefully it is clear enough to get the idea across.
2025 - And this. It just keeps building:
16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. [Gal 3:16 ESV].
So the promises to Abraham's seed were promises to Christ. I saw a guy talking about this the other day. It goes with 14. In Abraham's seed, in Jesus alone, will all the nations be blessed. Not talking about the church here, talking about one man.
Now Paul shows the purpose of the Law. It's real purpose. He quotes the OT saying that if you don't keep the whole law you are cursed. This is the Law's result - since it can never all be followed. The Law is intended to curse all mankind. If it was possible to keep the whole Law, then that is all that would be needed. So why would the OT say "The righteous man shall live by faith" instead of that he shall live by law? It is because the law cannot be kept. "Cursed is every one who hangs upon a tree". Christ therefore took the curse pronounced and required by the law upon himself, satisfying the law once and for all. Once that was done, the blessing of Abraham on all nations of the world became available through faith.
(No...I don't quite have this one worded correctly, because I don't quite understand it. It has been an intense morning with all this coming at me together. My brain is getting really tired.)
2022 - The Law came that the whole world might be shown as cursed by sin. No one can keep the whole Law - at least not as Jesus explained it. It wasn't just about rote, it was about keeping your mind clean and pure also. Even though the Pharisees claimed to get the external keeping of the Law correct, Jesus taught that it was the heart - not the hands - to which the Law applied. So. All are cursed. The whole world is cursed, according to the LAW. It showed that NO ONE can meet the standard. So what next? The Law was about cursing all men, but it was never about justifying men. He quotes the verse that says the just shall live...by faith. It does not say, here or anywhere else, that we live by the Law. The Law curses, but does not justify. Only faith can justify. Vs 12 makes this clear. The Law is about "doing", it is about "works", it is NOT about faith. So all are cursed by the Law, but the Law cannot deliver anyone from that curse - hence the sacrifices. We all stand condemned to death by the Law, and the Law provides no route, no method, no procedure for our redemption. (2025 - True, but not really. The Law did provide for a deferral of the consequences of sin until the full price was paid by Christ. It condemned, it deferred, but it did not redeem.) So what God did was make Christ a curse for us. The Law provided for this in that it says "cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree". So the crucifixion showed beyond a doubt that God made Christ a curse FOR US. The death of Christ, as cursed on behalf of all men to pay the penalty demanded by the Law, but which the Law could not itself pay, REMOVED the Law. Abrogated is the word. The crucifixion was the end of the Mosaic Law. Hmm...It was the end of the sacrifices for sin, it was the end of the priesthood as intermediary in settling the obligations of man as to the requirements of God through the Law. Acts tells us it was the end of the dietary laws - or does it? Jesus showed that if you're hungry the Sabbath Laws don't apply, maybe if you were hungry enough the dietary laws could be set aside also.
2022 - I think you can also argue that freedom in Christ in fact sets aside all Laws. Even adultery no longer results in stoning. It is not what you should do. Jesus preached against it. But it does not condemn us any more to even physical death much less spiritual - as it did under the Law. Not sure about this. It is a struggle for me still to articulate just what went away with the abrogation of the Law. There is this...33 But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. [Jer 31:33 KJV], but I think this is a Millennial verse. I don't think Jeremiah is prophesying about the Age of the Gentiles, those guys didn't recognize that there would even be such a time. So what are the rules for the Gentiles? Perhaps we need to think of it as the way things were in Abraham's time, before the Law. Each man does what he thinks best - with the indwelling Holy Spirit as guide. It is unreasonable to think that the third person of the Trinity, guiding our conscience from inside us, is going to say adultery is now ok. Or that homosexuality is now ok, or robbery, or cursing our parents, or any of that other stuff specifically prohibited as sin in the Law. The dietary laws were to separate Israel from surrounding nations. To make them so weird that no one would want to intermarry with them and so keep them a separate race, God's chosen people, who will receive the promises during the Millennial. And the sacrifices were for accidental - not intentional - sins. And the priests were the intermediaries who offered the sacrifices and who once yearly delayed the punishment required by the extant curse that the Law laid on all. Christ abrogated that part and we went back to a direct, unconditional covenant with God, individually, as it was in Abraham's day. We live by faith, unconditionally, not by the Law.
Perhaps that is the best understanding of what was abrogated that I've ever had...and could put into words. I'm saying the Law had three aspects: Moral, dietary, and sacrificial. Everything fits under those three. Dietary and sacrificial are completely gone. Moral is still here as to how we should behave in order to please God, but the punishments required by the Law are gone. What the Law calls sin is still sin, but you don't get stoned for it anymore. God judges us, when our time comes, for the things we decide to do.
2024 - As underlined above, the continuity between Abraham's salvation through faith, and salvation by faith under the New Covenant, is directly linked to how we relate to God. For Abraham, it was direct. He spoke with God, God spoke to Him. Under the Law, there was prayer, but sacrifice via the Levitical and Aaronic Priesthoods, was required - was the only way to appease God. In the New Covenant, we are back to speaking directly with God, with the help and intervention of the Holy Spirit within us. Abraham did what seemed right to him. Under the Law, all the rules - the impossible rules - told them what was right (though not all situations could be addressed), and under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit, so that we can know and do what is right much more accurately and precisely than either Abraham or the Law could do. With the Spirit within is us, there are no longer any gray areas. We can get it right now...we just don't.
(2021 - Paul's argument here is couched in a way that the Jews would understand in that he makes many references to OT scripture. This makes sense in that the Judaizers would likely have been partially quoting OT verses that supported their position. So Paul here points out some verses that they are not taking into account:
First, Paul quotes Dt. 27:26:
26 "'Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.' [Deu 27:26 ESV] This is the last verse of a lot of curses, and the most all-encompassing of all. You are cursed if you don't keep the law. That would mean the whole law. Break any tiny portion of the law, and you are cursed, condemned, out of fellowship.
He continues with this verse:
11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith." [Gal 3:11 ESV] Hmm...So the argument is that we would not need faith to live if we could live by the law. This quote is from Hab 2:4
In the next verse, Paul says that the law and faith are separate things. Habakkuk wasn't saying that righteousness under the law somehow leads to faith:
12 But the law is not of faith, rather "The one who does them shall live by them." [Gal 3:12 ESV] This quote is from Lev 18:5, which says:
5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD. [Lev 18:5 ESV] This verse does NOT say, if you keep the rules AND have faith, then you live. It says if you keep the rules, that's all you have to do. So there are two ways, but only one is possible, and you choose one. If you rely on faith, you don't need the law. If you rely on the law, you do not need faith. Mutually exclusive is what they are.
Next, he ties Abraham's justification by faith, which was before there was ever any law, with the justification of Christ's time by faith alone, and doing away with any further necessity of obedience to the Mosaic Laws. The point is that the Law could never be kept. The law was there to show how all sin, and all are cursed, because none can meet the standard necessary to be justified before God by personal obedience. Further, Jesus said that sin could, would, and did occur even without violating the law. The Pharisees had made an art of sinning without "technically" violating the law. Jesus raised the standard even higher. And so enter grace, by faith, and the only real possible way of salvation. Then the verse about cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, a curse that anticipated the death of Christ by the Romans, and leaving no doubt that he became a substitutionary curse in our place to satisfy a law that was not only impossible to keep, but still left room for other sins that would still condemn us even if we perfectly kept the law.
And to close his argument, he goes back to the beginning of his argument. They received the Spirit after hearing, not after keeping the law. Paul says that receiving the Spirit is the proof of the promise to Abraham fulfilled in each person. That Gentiles receipt of the Spirit is proof of the promise that in Abraham all nations would be blessed and this promise is being fulfilled right there among them, and it is by faith, as it was with Abraham. All that stuff about the law was something else, and it has nothing to do with the Gentiles, and it has no business being "added" to the gospel that Paul preached to them.
Here's the problem. How many could follow such an argument - unless they had the Spirit within them already? This is not evangelism to the unsaved, these first three chapters, to this point at least, are written to saved people who have let error slip in. But the fact that they had received the Spirit - the fact of which is Paul's most crucial point - means that they were still saved. He does not tell them that they've messed up and lost their salvation and they need to be re-saved. He tells them they need to get their practice of salvation back in line with biblical teaching. It is not a back up and start over so much as it is a "get out of the bar ditch and back up on the pavement"!
A new direction now:
Paul says that the Law, when it came 430 years after Abraham, did NOT make the original, ratified, and agreed covenant (contract) null and void. That is, the Law did not replace the promise. Not any more than a contract signed and ratified properly can be changed afterwards. God's promise to Abraham stands. God didn't tell Abraham that the contract they had would be automatically nullified when the Law came along. The Law is something else entirely. BUT, if you want to claim that the promise - the Spirit - comes only through the Law, then it no longer is even about the contract God had with Abraham, because that was about God's promise.
2022 - Here is how we ought to think of Jesus, and it is different than I have ever thought of him before: 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. [Gal 3:16 ESV]. I always read this as promises made to ALL the offspring of Abraham, as a promise to the nation of Israel fulfilled in the Millennial. But Paul is very specific here that this promise was to one, and only one, offspring - and that offspring is Jesus. The promises made to Abraham will be fulfilled in Christ. Christ will have the land, Christ will rule, Christ will bless all nations, including Gentiles. The blessings on the Gentiles started in Paul's day - all nations are being blessed now BECAUSE OF Jesus. But not all nations will inherit the land. Jesus will inherit the land, and will rule over it as it is filled with others. The church will be gone, so Zion and the church are not the same. The promises about the land are not fulfilled to all nations, but only to Israel. To the direct descendants of Abraham. But the church, intangible and consisting of all nations, receives blessings. Here are some relevant verses:
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. [Gen 12:7 ESV]. Both "your" and "offspring" are singular.
15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. [Gen 13:15 ESV]. "...and to thy seed forever." is how we find it in KJV. It is like one word with two prefixes and a suffix - so four parts. Both thy and seed are masculine singular. The land is to be given to ONE person, ONE descendant, and that is Christ. This is exactly Paul's point. Ahhh....but then the very next verse says...
16 I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. [Gen 13:16 ESV]. Offspring/seed in this verse is exactly the same (Sp2ms) as the previous verse. How though can we read "as the dust of the earth" in any way other than very very plural? So...what are we to do now? Paul states emphatically that offspring was singular and that it references Christ. Hmm...Perhaps we need to look at these verses as each being about a separate promise. Even though offspring is only singular in the first, it a promise to give the land to a single individual. A King, perhaps, since Christ is in view according to Paul in Galatians. But then in 16, there will be an offspring that corresponds to the dust particles on the earth. Many individuals, though each is unique and separate. This must be the way Hebrew - in that day - stated such a promise. Note that in English, offspring is the word used (or seed), both of which are both the singular and plural forms of those words. Almost as if the translators didn't want to take sides. I wonder exactly how you would say "offsprings" in Hebrew? And IF I just wanted to argue, I would wonder which verse Paul was referencing when he made his statement in Gal 3:16.
That got me through vs 18. So next year, when I get to this, I'm going to go faster through the first part, and leave myself plenty of time to focus on vvs 19-29. As I read through those, I suspect that they have just as much import as what came before. I just am worn out yet again in 2021, so again I just read the rest of it. It is as intense as what came before, and those two controversy verses are right at the end of chapter three. I am too tired to deal with them. I hope, I plan, to come back later after I've done some other things. Maybe I'll be refreshed enough then to tackle these last few verses. And I just now noticed that I read all this today in the NASB, instead of the ESV as I have been reading.
2021-2, vss 19, 20:
[Gal 3:19 ESV] Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
[Gal 3:20 ESV] Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
This is the question, directly answered here by Paul. If we can understand his answer...
In 19, I think he is saying that the Law was given to delay God's righteous judgment until the perfect price could be paid. The Law was there to bridge the time from Abraham to the Messiah - the promised one through whom all would be blessed. That promise of "through your offspring will all the world be blessed" was never about the people of Israel, it is not offspring plural, it is offspring singular. It means until Jesus Christ performs the work he is sent to perform. Perhaps the Law was to preserve and move forward the promise, to remind the world symbolically, repeatedly that the promise was coming. But then, why wait 430 years after Abraham? Because the people had lost most of the real meaning of that promised while in bondage in Egypt. They needed it back, revitalized, taught to all generations in between. So the Law reminded them why they needed Jesus - because they could not attain to God's standards - while pointing to the purpose of his coming, which was substitutionary death, sufficient not just in the flesh for Israel as Abraham's descendant, but sufficient in Spirit for all who would hear and be saved.
What is this about angels and intermediaries then? MSB says that the Bible says angels were involved in the giving of the law, but does not explain their specific role. These references are cited - Ac 7:53 and Heb 2:2. Here they are:
[Act 7:53 ESV] you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."
[Heb 2:2 ESV] For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution,
So there are the angels, sort of, but certainly satisfyingly. But nothing about an intermediary, unless that is a reference to Moses. In vs 20, MSB notes says that the point is apparently (and that is John MacArthur saying "apparently") that a mediator is required when more than one party is involved (as in the Law was a conditional covenant, so both sides had to be monitored/mediated?) but the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. No intermediary, no priest, God saves us by the Holy Spirit through the blood of Christ, with no high priest in between. I think that's what it means. Perhaps angels is about the Levites, and the rest of the Aaronic beyond the high priest himself. A conditional contract between two or more is enforceable, but by a third party. More than just the parties to the contract are required. This was the Law. This is why a priesthood was required, a high priest between God and man - Moses to start, the high priest after that.
(2021-2, out of time on a Friday morning again, did not get to dig into vss 21-29. Can hopefully come back to them after school drop offs.)
2021-2, Later...This verse:
[Gal 3:22 ESV] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
NASB translates it "Scripture has shut up everything". MSB note says the Greek word in question means "shut up on every side", like fish enclosed in a net. Says the idea is that man is trapped by sin, away from God, and was helpless to escape that net under the law. The Law provided no egress from that net. There is no MSB comment about it being "Scripture", upper case, that forms the prison or net. Surely this is a reference to the books of the Law, the Pentateuch. It seems to me that those walls - that net that the Scripture supplied, though insufficient to save, was necessary to preserve the promise. Perhaps it could be thought of as enclosing the promise, keeping it safe from the world, from Moses to Christ. Preserving the semblance and the promise until the offspring arrived. Yes...vs 24 pretty much says that. In fact, imprisoned and shut up may both be bad translations. I don't have a better word though.
Here:
[Gal 3:25 ESV] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, Guardian is referring, I think, to "Scripture". But we know Paul still applies "honor thy father and thy mother" to the New Testament Church, and we know he says adultery in Corinth, incest, and homosexuality are all still wrong in the NT church AFTER the abrogation of the Law. Surely we don't want to say that the letter of the law has gone away but the intent remains? Honor thy father and mother is from the 10, which also were before the law. It is hard to rigidly define what remains, how we know it is in agreement with God's "forever" laws, and so on. Do we do a search outside the detailed laws, and if we can find a prohibition there, then it is still wrong and we're sure it is wrong? Or is it less rigid than that, depending on our communion with the Holy Spirit, in tune with our consciences, to determine right and wrong? That last sure opens it up to debate through time, and I don't think it's supposed to be that way. Or maybe it is just that I prefer it not be that way. We know from the NT that it is ok to eat ham and bacon now. That part of the law is no more. Is it only the prohibitions in the law that fell? No, the sacrificial part also fell.
Well...this is another of those ideas that a person ought to study out so that an articulable position can be adopted. Yeah. I like that phrase.
2021-As to those two controversial verses right at the end of Chapter 3, we are most certainly not talking here about how to conduct the business of the church. That is far from what Paul is talking about. In context, Paul is saying there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, and you do NOT have to be a Jew to received the Holy Spirit. What you are - race, creed, color or natural origin - is irrelevant now to your qualification for salvation. Faith saves you, no matter who or what you are. That is the point. Salvation in Christ, not who can teach Sunday school
2021-2, These last three verses:
[Gal 3:27 ESV] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[Gal 3:28 ESV] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
[Gal 3:29 ESV] And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
Here is the proof text for saying that Israel and the church are one and the same. In Christ = Abraham's offspring. Who inherits the promise? The children of Abraham. This would be all the proof you needed, were it not for all those verses about a Millennial during which the sacrifices would return, and the judging of the 12 tribes and the 144,000, and the return of Israel to the Promised Land. I don't think all those are as easily explained as being Zion/Church combined as these three verses can be explained as being focused on the current argument, and not on end time organizational matters.
2022 - That last verse, 29, I still need to work out. For now, I would say that since the Gentiles are blessed - since all nations are blessed through Christ - and since the blessings were to come to the descendant of Abraham, that is, to Christ, and since we as saved Gentiles are "in Christ", then in that sense we are Abraham's descendants, and so heirs - IN CHRIST - according to the promise. NOT as stand-alone descendants in the same manner as Israel.
I need to go back and look specifically at the promises to Abraham - the one that is singular and NOT plural - and see just what is there.
2023 - This passage is also used to say that the church is now the recipient of the promises made to Israel. This is a key passage supporting Covenant theology as contrasted with Dispensationalism. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. [Gal 3:29 ESV]. This says that Gentiles are Abraham's spiritual descendants and recipients therefore of the spiritual promises. It cannot mean that we become physical descendants and so recipients of physical promises. First among the spiritual promises are the prophecies of the coming of the Indwelling Holy Spirit. Under this dispensation, BOTH Jews and Gentiles are spiritual recipients of the promises of salvation. That is, they are both heirs, and co-heirs, equal in all respects. Note that MacA's Biblical Doctrine quotes this verse both under a section on the church, and as part of "The Future". I think the key to understanding this verse as it relates to the church is in taking a much closer look at the context here. Does Paul have "the church" in view here - and it's properties and membership such that the church supersedes, even replaces Israel as recipient of the promises, or is talking about WHY you DO NOT have to follow the Law to perfect your salvation. Isn't he saying that under the NC, salvation accrues by faith alone, and that being Jewish in the religious sense as opposed to the national sense, is no longer a consideration. The Law was given to Israel, exclusively really, with only a few exceptions. The church is give to ALL with no exceptions whatever. So the same faith that saved Abraham now saves everyone. It saved Abraham BEFORE there was Law and it the promise made to him of salvation BEFORE the Law is not a promise to ALL - not just his physical descendants - AFTER the Law. The real point is that the Law is over, done, and complete and that in fact NO ONE need follow it. I think that pretty much covers this verse finally. In this chapter - indeed in this book - Paul is refuting the Judaizer's teaching that BEFORE you can truly be a Christian, you must first be a Jew and practice the Law, and continue to do so. He is not talking about what constitutes a church and certainly is not talking about the Future purpose of the church in the end times. You just cannot get there. And look at vs 2 of this chapter: 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? [Gal 3:2 ESV]. This is about the Law and the New Covenant, not about the vehicle of the Law - the Temple perhaps - and the vehicle of the New Covenant - the church. It just cannot be turned into that. Also in this verse Paul tells us he is contrasting spirit and flesh.
2023 - Oh my...Just look back at this verse for confirmation: 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. [Gal 3:14 ESV]. We of the New Covenant are heirs of the promised Spirit, not heirs of the land of Israel. Clearly Paul has the spiritual promises to Abraham in mind, and the future still holds the fulfilment of the physical promises dealing with the land of Israel exclusively for the physical descendants of Abraham.