To give up Christ and His work, to substitute man's works instead, grieved the apostle.
The foolish Galatians had been bewitched; they did not believe the truth of Christ's dying for their sins to be the ground, and only ground, of salvation.
Was it by the hearing of faith that you received the gospel, or by the works of the law? he asked.
You began in the Spirit but are you now made perfect (full grown) by the flesh? do you suffer in vain?
Those who walk by faith are Abraham's children. The gospel was preached unto Abraham, saying that the Gentiles would be justified by faith. All nations were to be blessed through Abraham.
The believer has been redeemed by Christ from the law's curse. Christ was made a curse for us. "Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree."
The blessing of Abraham was to come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ "to receive the promise of the Spirit" through faith. There was a promise made to Abraham and his seed, not of many but One, Christ. The law came after the covenant, by four hundred and thirty years, which could not set aside the promise to Abraham. The inheritance cannot be by the law because God had given it to Abraham by promise.
This letter to the Galatians took them back to the very foundations of Christianity.
The heathen were the heirs of promise in Christ. The law was no longer the way set before the Jew for blessing, for he had broken the law. Therefore, the blessing of Abraham can now flow freely to all who have faith in Christ.
The law was introduced between the promise and its fulfillment so that the condition of man's heart might be seen. There was no law given that could give life, otherwise righteousness might have come by that means. Man in his nature is the slave of his passions and cannot fulfill the law.
The Jew was kept under this schoolmaster (a disciplinarian) in order "to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Having believed through faith, we are now no longer under a schoolmaster but are free and have life in the Spirit.
All who have faith are the children of God by Christ Jesus. Those who have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ. There are no distinctions, male or female, Jew or Greek, bond or free, all are one in Christ Jesus. "If... Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."