Help with Galatians chapter 3

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What law is this refering to? The mosaic law? I have been reading in the catechism about the different law, eternal, old, new, natural etc. In a discussion I was lead to believe that this could be support against the CC and how we follow rules and laws that were instituted by Christ. Further more that we are not led by faith and we just follow law which can not save us, which is true but all people see when they are looking in is us following a strict rule. I am looking for ways to show that the Law of the church is not the same as the Law that is being refered to here in Galatians.
 
descout said:
What law is this refering to? The mosaic law? I have been reading in the catechism about the different law, eternal, old, new, natural etc. In a discussion I was lead to believe that this could be support against the CC and how we follow rules and laws that were instituted by Christ. Further more that we are not led by faith and we just follow law which can not save us, which is true but all people see when they are looking in is us following a strict rule. I am looking for ways to show that the Law of the church is not the same as the Law that is being refered to here in Galatians.
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In Galatians 3, the law means the old Jewish restrictions that Christ abolished. They are not part of our justification. In Galatians 3:1-3, St. Paul reminds the Galatians that when we first receive the Spirit, He comes by faith and not by our deeds: “O foolish Galatians!” he says, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”

Here St. Paul is teaching that our initial forgiveness comes by faith, unmerited.

He stresses that after we receive the Holy Spirit, it is not necessary to keep the whole Old Testament Law; trying to do so in the flesh will only lead to failure, and death. (Galatians 5:19-21, Galatians 3:10-12)

Paul harshly corrects this methodology. He says that since we have begun by the Spirit, we must end with the Spirit, instead of the flesh: “Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” “Rather, I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would.” (Galatians 3:3, 5:16-17)

“Having begun with the Spirit” and “now ending with the flesh” means we need to complete our faith by our deeds. St. Paul does not object to the idea of completing our faith as such, but simply to the idea of ending with the flesh: “For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” “He who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” “[Therefore] let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men.”
(Galatians 6:7-10)

Yes, we can “reap” eternal life by faith completed in good deeds sown to the Spirit, but not by trying to keep the whole Law, which only leads to sinning in works of the flesh. So merit exists, but only after we receive the Spirit, for He brings it about inside of us by His grace alone, just as the Catholic Church teaches.

If you read the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 1987 to 2029, you can see how closely Paul’s doctrine aligns with our own:

"Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God’s merciful initiative of offering forgiveness." (#1990) “Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion.” (#2010) “With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.” (#1991) “Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.” (#2010)

Now the laws of the Church are closely based on God’s will and are intended to help us increase in holiness. Seen in this light, St. Paul’s teaching about sowing works to the Spirit in Galatians actually supports the Church’s teaching on obedience to the Church’s laws, for these laws help us on to holiness.

Let me know if that helps. I know it might be a bit more on the “faith versus works” side of things than your question deals with. If you find that to be the case, my bad; that is because I mostly just copy-pasted it from my website (completelybiblical.blogspot.com).
 
Paul speaks against those observances of the Judaic Law in which were fulfilled and no longer binding when Christ came. We have a law of Christ that we observe as we see in Gal 6:2, but that law is observed from this side of the cross (after Christ), while the Judaic was to be observed on the other side of the Cross which points to the 1st coming of Christ. the former pointed to the coming Messiah while the New is observed as a celebration of His coming. Any observance we do as Catholics are done not in preparation for the Messiah but because He has come.
 
Yes you are correct Galatians specifically deals with the Mosaic law. It is also what St. Paul refers to as works…which many Protestants foolishly try to make as good works that St. James talks about in his epistle.

It’s been awhile that I have read Galatians but I know St. Paul was dealing with the problem of need for circumcision of which converts were trying to bring back into practice in order to be saved. St. Paul was against this because all was completed in Christ on the cross. No jewish laws were needed anymore but the teaching of Christ and His Apostles.
 
When referring to Mosaic Law though, what exactly is entailed? When I read Law, I thought it meant like the 10 commandments. I was so confused reading throughout the entire thing. It was like “So am I supposed to obey the 10 commandments or what the heck does law mean?”
 
When Paul speaks of the law, he’s speaking of the Mosaic Law, including the 600 or so laws besides the ten commandments. He was focused on circumcision because some believers were slipping back into a fear-based legalism, believing one must perform all the right acts in order to be just in the eyes of God. Paul tells us that the Law is holy, good, and spiritual, but that we aren’t. We lack something that would, by itself, keep us from breaking the Law, keep us from even *needing *an external law written on stone or anywhere else for that matter.

Man is sinful, separated from God, unable to control his desire, his lust, his pride; he’s a lawbreaker. But the answer is not to simply hand him a set of rules and say, “now obey”. The reason God *did *do such a thing through Moses was to teach us something very valuable-that we *cannot *obey, on our own, in the flesh, which is the only possible avenue for obedience before Christ’s Atonement and the reconciliation with God that it won. **“The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so”. **(Rom8) To attempt to obey under these conditions is a pretense of holiness at best.

So man cannot, of his own efforts, be holy enough for God, because God is his holiness. Which is why it’s said in scripture that Jesus is the Law. And Phil 3 says this:

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith".

The “righteousness of my own” is the self-righteousness-a “righteousness” apart from God- that all men possess and which was attained at the Fall –because there man rejected God’s righteousness by disobeying His one command. After that man was said to go his own way, doing what was right in his own eyes, and sin flourished. The Catechism tells us that trust in God died in mans heart at the Fall. This is why we exist in* this* world instead of Eden-man’s separated from God; he lost faith in God, let alone hope in and love for Him. So the beginning of a restored relationship with God is faith-this must be the basis of our righteousness-trust that God exists and that He and His righteousness are, well, right. And Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection serve to prove this fact in no uncertain terms because by it the righteous died for the unrighteous, proving man’s sinfulness while proving God’s love for sinful man, and thus His trustworthiness, His right to our faith. Atonement literally means At-one-ment.

What all this has to do with Gal 3 is that Paul isn’t telling us we no longer need to fulfill the Law-he’s telling us we must have restored relationship with God in order to fulfill it the right way, the way Jesus did, the only way that it was ever meant to be fulfilled, by our love. And this is why Paul tells us in 1 Cor 13 that, “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing”. So neither faith nor the Law are sufficient in themselves. It’s not faith alone or the Law alone, it’s love alone because it’s God alone, who is love. And His New Covenant promises in Jer 31 tell us He intends to accomplish that change in us. So the Catechism teaches:

**1965 The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put my laws into their hands, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."19

1966 The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it:
If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there . . . the perfect way of the Christian life. . . . This sermon contains . . . all the precepts needed to shape one’s life.20

1972 The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who “does not know what his master is doing” to that of a friend of Christ - “For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” - or even to the status of son and heir.31
**
 
I think the CC should probably be shouting from the rooftops her teachings that the Law is not to be our master-God is-and yet He intends to fulfill the Law in us by the power of His grace.

**1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good,14 yet still imperfect. Like a tutor15 it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a “law of concupiscence” in the human heart.16 However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.

1964 The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel. "The Law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come."17 It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ: it provides the New Testament with images, “types,” and symbols for expressing the life according to the Spirit. Finally, the Law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential books and the prophets which set its course toward the New Covenant and the Kingdom of heaven.

There were . . . under the regimen of the Old Covenant, people who possessed the charity and grace of the Holy Spirit and longed above all for the spiritual and eternal promises by which they were associated with the New Law. Conversely, there exist carnal men under the New Covenant still distanced from the perfection of the New Law: the fear of punishment and certain temporal promises have been necessary, even under the New Covenant, to incite them to virtuous works. In any case, even though the Old Law prescribed charity, it did not give the Holy Spirit, through whom "God’s charity has been poured into our hearts."18 **

St Basil sums it up this way:
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.
 
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