October 14, 2010 – Galatians 3:15-4:20

If someone were to only read this portion of the Bible I can see how Faith Alone could be believed.  “through faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe”.  The promise being inheritance promised to Abraham, that being that all nations will be blessed by his descendants, put another way, saved.  “that we might be justified by faith.”  “For through faith you are all children of God”.  And another line I think points to the idea of Once Saved always saved.  “no one can annul or amend even a human will once ratified”.  But I think mistakes in interpretation can be made either by only focusing on one line or taking a writing out of context. 

If you listened to the homily I linked to, Fr. Pacwa talked about why this letter was written.  The Galatians were moving backwards, wanting to follow Jewish law and traditions.  Paul is telling them that they do not need to follow the Jewish law because that was part of an Old Covenant.  When you have a New Covenant, you follow the new.  All the covenants that came after Abraham did not take away from Abraham, but the covenant that we make with Christ is a fulfillment of those covenants and so they are no longer necessary for our Salvation.  His focus on faith is to contrast what the Galatians are trying to do with works.  But there is nowhere in here that he says we are saved by faith alone.  We have to take all of Paul’s writings into account.  Just because someone writes a letter or gives a talk on one subject does not mean they want you to disregard all of their other works.  And the only place in the Bible we see Faith Alone is James 2:24 saying we are not saved by faith alone and Paul himself says that faith without works is dead.