GALATIANS CHAPTER 3 - CONTEMPORARY ALIGNED VERSION (SPIRITCODE)

1. You silly people, who has duped you into not trusting in the truth of our message. You who have had the graphic truth of Christ being crucified set plainly before you.

2. I would like to know if you think you received the Holy Spirit by living under the Law, or whether it was by having faith in what you heard from us.

3. Are you really that silly? You started off your new life in the power of the Spirit, and do you now think you are going to follow through and complete this new life by self effort.

4. Have you gone through so many trials for nothing, if indeed that is what is happening?

5. Do you think that God who releases his Spirit to you and works supernaturally among you does that because you obey the Law or because you have faith?

6. Even Abraham came into a place of harmony with God simply by having faith and trust in him.

7. So realize that if you live a life of faith you are living as real children of Abraham.

8. The Scriptures were telling us back then that God would bring the whole world into perfect relationship with him through faith. The Scriptures were preaching the message of a shared life with God by telling Abraham that through him the whole world would receive this blessing.

9. So those who live by faith get the same blessing that Abraham received through faith.

10. Anyone who lives under the Law is under the curse because Scripture says that anyone who does not fulfill everything written in the Law is under a curse.

11. So it is clear that no one can live in right relationship with God through the Law because only living by faith and trust in God brings us into harmonious relationship with him.

12. The Law has nothing to do with faith, but if someone puts himself under the law he has to live according to all of it.

13. Christ has liberated us from the curse of the Law by being made a curse for us, because Scripture says that anyone who is crucified is cursed.

14. This allows the blessing of Abraham to come upon the whole world through Jesus Christ, so that we can receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith.

15. So my friends, looking at things in down-to-earth contractual terms, a binding agreement between people cannot be revoked or extended in any way.

16. God made promises to Abraham and his descendant. He did not say to his descendants, as if there were to be more than one, but to his descendant, which was to be Christ.

17. So the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later could not revoke that binding agreement between God and Abraham through Christ.

18. If the inheritance was dependent upon obeying the Law then it is not truly a promised inheritance, but God made this agreement with Abraham as a firm promise to a descendant.

19. So it might be said ‘What was the point of the Law?’ Its purpose was to show people how sinful they were, and it only had effect until the descendant came that would inherit the promise. The Law was given through angels to Moses who was to be the go-between.

20. A go-between is not needed if only one person arranges the binding agreement, and God was the one arranging the agreement between himself and Abraham.

21. Does this mean that the Law is in opposition to the promises of God? No: If it was possible for a Law to bring people into perfect harmony with God, and share life with him, then God would have devised such a law.

22. But Scripture has declared that all of humanity is under sin, so that the promise of a shared life with God can only be experienced by those who believe in Jesus Christ.

23. But before faith became the principle of life, we were under lock and key to the law, locked away from the life of faith principle which was yet to be revealed.

24. The law kept everybody under supervision in a school room until Christ arrived, so that we can now live life as graduates of faith and not students of regulations.

25. Now that faith has arrived we don’t even have to go to school any more.

26. Because all of us are grown sons and daughters through faith in Jesus Christ.

27. Those who have been baptized into Christ are now part of everything Christ has and does.

28. It makes no difference whether a person is Jewish or Greek or a servant or a master, or a man or a woman. Everyone can enjoy the same status of sharing life with Jesus.

29. And if you belong to Christ in this way you are the seed of Abraham and share that inheritance of Christ, which was what was promised.