identify and restrain transgression (5.16-18), but the Spirit also serves the people of God as “cloud-like guidance”, brings about real fruit (5.22-23) and even enables restoration within the community of faith (6.1-2). The indwelling of the Spirit, it would appear, is being presented as better than the giving of the Law. Is, then, the Spirit simply an upgraded Law? Are the Galatians to avoid a return to the Law simply because they have a better option in the Spirit? Paul does not present the Spirit as merely a new version of the Law. Instead, for Paul, a universe-shattering change had taken place in the advent, life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. The giving of the Spirit serves as a constant reminder of that change. For Paul, comfort—here specifically from the agitation of the missionaries—was to be found in the Spirit’s ongoing (3.2-3) witness (4.6) to that which had been accomplished by the sending of the Son (4.5). Paul has argued events of Christ’s advent and death have altered the world in such a way that makes it inconceivable to return to the former ways of doing things. The Spirit is a witness to the Christian that this is indeed the case. Pointing towards that which has already been accomplished is a major role of the Spirit in the life of the believer. Gal 3:23-29 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Jon Jordan, Faculty This is an excerpt from a paper delivered at the 2012 University of St. Andrews conference on Galatians & Christian Theology. The rest of the paper can be read in its entirety here.
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