Father, I am confused. Earlier, Paul went out of his way to tell the Galatians that Abraham was saved by faith, and now he is telling them that faith just recently showed up. Unless some kind of saving faith has always been possible, then no one was saved before Jesus' resurrection, not even Abraham. And there is no way that Paul would ever knowingly contradict himself, and certainly not within the context of a single letter. So he must have been saying something other than the plain meaning of his words. Help me to understand this.

The Gentiles were never under Moses' Law were they? So is Paul now addressing just the Jews among the Galatians? If that is the case, then when he says "faith has come," is he referring to Pentecost? I don't mean the event, but the great mass conversions that started then as thousands of Jews placed their faith in Jesus, and the real meaning of the Law of Moses became clear to them. OK, since Paul is saying "we," this seems like a real possibility.

Paul said he was "kept in custody under the Law." That doesn't bother me, because it was after all a covenant, and Israel had agreed to it's terms. Custody of the Law was implicit in that covenant. The blessings of being a nation favored by God came from compliance to the Law, and rejection by God was tied to rebellion against that Law. So it was the primary authority in their lives, or was supposed to be. But if the Law never promised eternal life, then how can Paul say that the Law's custodial function kept Paul and his ancestors "shut up to the faith" yet to be revealed? Father are we back to two-faith question again? Oh...the faith that made righteousness possible to Abraham, HAS always existed, and again is not what Paul is talking about. The Law was to create an earthly nation of Israel. But the "Faith that was to be revealed" in Jesus is not a new way to be saved, it is a new way to have a nation. Faith in Jesus is that same salvation by faith, but it also is the "gospel of the kingdom of heaven." It is the nation of Israel that was being tutored by the Law. The faith that they were prevented from knowing until Pentecost was not the faith required for personal salvation. It was the fulfilment of all of the promises releating to the "Messiah, the King of the Jews," The King of a Spiritual Kingdom, the "Kingdom of Heaven," the Eternal Kingdom, of which the earthly Israel was just a shadow. Moses' Law was only concerned with the "shadows" of the spiritual realities in Heaven, and the temporary kingdom. So now that a Kingdom of Faith has come, Israel is no longer a Kingdom under the tutorship of Mosaic Law. It is to be a Kingdom under its Messiah, the Son Of David. At Pentecost, Israel was supposed to become what had God had always intended: A kingdom of priests through the indwelling of the Spirit of the ultimate High Priest, Jesus, the THE Melchizedek! Oh, Lord if only Your people had repented then. That was what You really wanted wasn't it?

Thank You for giving me a few minutes of your time. Galatians is a unique letter. It will take some time to get into Paul's mind, and from there to understand what God has chosen to reveal through the disaster that the congregation at Galatia was experiencing.

The effect of these Meditations will be cumulative, and the real benefit may have nothing to do with what I have written. I believe that the discipline of having a brief daily conversation with God about the meaning of a variety of Bible passages over a period of a few weeks, even if you come to some very different conclusions, will still be a wonderful and enlightening experience for you. At DeadRight.net, under the Yellow Pages, is some background info about Galatians. If you missed an earlier Meditation, you can still read it at DeadRight.net by going to the homepage, clicking on Newsletter, and clicking on "browse previous newsletters