Principle of Works, Cursed by the Law
Galatians 3:10-12 · Miles Driedger · Aug 17, 2025
Galatians (2025-26), No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261940306217

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, so we are in Galatians chapter 3. We're going to be looking at verses 10 through 12 this morning. And I've titled this The Principle of Works. Last week we talked about the principle of faith, and now we're kind of looking at the other side of the coin, so to speak, and the subtitle is Cursed by Law. So that's what Paul's talking about here.

So let's refresh our No, my screen's not. Just a second. There we go. Are we seeing? Okay. I think my Zoom screen is partly covering my... I don't know how to change that. Probably covering my screen. Does anyone know how to change where things are sitting? Yeah, I think I put my headings a little too high on the on the page. That's okay. I think we can. I think we can survive here. So I just want to do a little bit of review where we've been at in chapter 3. So, um.

We said that in verses one through five, Paul kind of blasts the Galatians with this string of questions to show them the foolishness of the deception that they're buying into. And essentially, he tells them there are two and only two possibilities when it comes to your Christian life. They're as different as night and day, and the Galatians should have known the difference.

They are the two principles that a believer can live according to. It's either grace through faith or it's works of law. It's the same principles that apply when you're born again in the first place. Right. And so Paul asks them that question. Did you receive the spirit by works of law or by hearing with faith? And the answer is obvious.

They knew. that they had received the Spirit by faith, not by works. And Paul's pointing out that the difference between faith and works, which was so obvious to them regarding their new birth, should be just as obvious when it comes to the Christian walk. And by placing works and faith in opposition to one another, Paul here has set up most of the remainder of the letter to the Galatians, because this is really what he deals with here until the end. In chapter 5, verses 6 and 7, he says, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, in other words, law, means anything but faith working through love.

And then he says, you were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? In other words, you were walking by faith. And now you're switching back to operating by law. Who hindered you? And so he's still dealing with the same thing way down in chapter five. So this is really his theme for the rest of the letter. This is the problem, right? This is what was going on in the Galatian churches.

And I'm referring to these as principles, and why am I talking about principles, the principle of faith and the principle of works? These can be described as principles because they consistently produce the same results. I don't know if that's the best definition of a principle or not, but we get the idea, right? a principle is an operation, it always produces the same result given the same input, right? It works in the same way.

And that's what we said Paul's describing in verses 6 through 12. So in 1 through 5, he talks about these two principles. Was it by works of law or by hearing of faith? And then in 6 through 12, Paul says that it's a principle that the blessing of God always comes to those who put their faith in Him. God's blessing always comes as a grace gift, and it can only be received by faith, right?

And then he says, let me prove it to you from the Old Testament Scriptures. And so in verses six through nine, he gives the proof from Scripture. And he uses Abraham, right? as an example, an Old Testament example. And the reason he uses Abraham, for one reason he uses him is because Abraham is clearly said to have been justified, as we said, at least 13 years before he was even circumcised. So it's a very clear example of someone who put their faith in God, was justified, and never even circumcised, and 400 years before the law was given, right? And the other reason that Paul chooses Abraham is because God promised Abraham that not only his physical descendants, the Jews, would be blessed, but he also promised Abraham that all the nations would be blessed in him.

And that's a truth that Paul wants to expand in chapter 3. We'll get there in the next few weeks. So Paul's showing that he didn't make up this whole walk by faith thing, right? It's demonstrated in Abraham's life, which is recorded in the Old Testament scriptures. So it's really, really important that Paul goes back and shows them this is not some new thing. I think that's sort of what Paul would probably use that.

Paul's invented some new doctrine and Paul says, no, this is true all the way back in Genesis. But we know that the false teachers in Galatia were teaching that that the true path to God's blessing was not through faith alone, but through keeping the law. That was a popular idea in the first century. It's still a very popular idea today, right?

You know, honestly, it feels comfortable to, it feels comfortable to our flesh, right? To believe that what God really wants for me is, he wants to see my good works. He wants to see me, you know, cranking it out for him. We just don't believe that it could simply be that God wants me to rest in what He's provided for the Christian life, right? Surely God would be more pleased if I'm given it all I've got, kind of a thing. That just feels comfortable to our fleshly nature.

And so in verses 10 through 12, Paul shows that that idea, that error, is totally false. It promises God's blessing, but it's an empty promise. The result is exactly the opposite, right? So the result of faith, the blessing, and now in verses 10 through 12 he shows that the result of works, of law, is actually cursing.

So that's what we're going to be studying this morning, verses 10 through 12. And as we begin, I just want to comment on how much Paul is using the Old Testament scriptures in this whole section. It's really important to notice in verses 6 through 9, he quotes twice from Genesis. In verses 10 through 12, he quotes three times from Deuteronomy, Habakkuk, and Leviticus. And then in verse 13, he's going to quote once more from Deuteronomy, when he talks about our deliverance from the curse of the law.

So why does Paul do that? Obviously, Paul knows, he understood that the ultimate authority for all things rests on the Word of God. But of course, I mean, we understand that Paul was also writing scripture. But I think what Paul is encouraging is what we could call maybe the Berean mentality, right?

This was a new revelation, this church doctrine. And Paul is saying, check out what I'm saying against the Old Testament scriptures and see if it matches. See if there's a harmony there. New information, yes, but the principles are the same. They've been here all along.

We also remember that these false teachers at Galatia, they were really focused on the law, you know, the Torah, those five books of Moses that gave the law. And what Paul's doing is he's taking them back. Most of these quotes, all but the one from Habakkuk, come from the five books of the law. And so Paul's kind of taking them to their own textbook and he's showing them that, you know, you should know this from the law itself. Even the law makes it clear that what you're teaching is not true. So let's read verses 10 through 12. And then we'll look at those verses here. My screen's partly covered, so I'm going to read off of that paper here.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them.

So verse 10 there begins with the word for, and something I heard recently that I found helpful is that you can think of the word for as a strengthening word. Sometimes we think of it as an explanatory word, and it is that, but when a person says something and then introduces the next sentence with the word for, they're strengthening the point that they made beforehand. Right, so so Paul here is strengthening the claims that he just made in in verses 6 through 9 So question is what is Paul's point that he is now strengthening? And I think if we could summarize does anyone want to take a stab at summarizing that The what preceded Verse 10 Going back all the way through kind of 1 1 through 9 It's the principle, really, that we've been talking about, right?

And we can say it this way, that blessing from God is always on the basis of grace through faith and not by works. So blessing from God is always on the basis of grace through faith and not by works. And now, he's going to strengthen that claim by showing from scripture that not only do works not result in blessing, they result in being cursed. So works of law not only fail to secure blessing, they actually deserve exactly the opposite.

And Paul says that very clearly in verse 10. He says, for as many as are works of the law are under a curse. So he just That's his initial statement. And then he goes on to explain and tell us why that is. So why is being cursed the result of works of the law? What does Paul give? He gives us a quote, right?

And the quote, he says, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. That's coming from Deuteronomy 27, verse 26. quoting from the law. And what's the key word in that quote? Say it again. All things. Right. All things. That's exactly right. All things. Right. You know, every honest person eventually admits that they cannot keep the whole law. Right. And if you can't keep the whole law, then the law itself says that you're cursed.

James actually says exactly the same thing in James 2.10, right? Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, he has become guilty of all.

You know, I don't know, I've seen this illustration before where using the Ten Commandments, you know, and you have a string divided into ten. And, you know, if you were to... I sometimes, you know, hang something on the string and say, if I cut this, you know, string at any point, the result is the same, right? You've broken the law. You've broken the whole law. That's really critical to understanding the law.

And that's what Paul's pointing out here, that you have to keep the whole law or you are cursed. And so Paul with this one little quote, he He turns the entire teaching of the false teachers of Galatia on its head. The Judaizers were teaching that as Christians, we need to be under the law in order to really live the Christian life and to have God's blessing. And Paul shows from the law itself that if you put yourself under the law, then you're guaranteeing exactly the opposite, cursing, not blessing. So this kind of raises an interesting question.

Is God unreasonable to curse men for their failure to keep the law? Because if we think about it, God gave the law. And didn't God know that man couldn't keep it? Right? Yes. So why the law? Why then the law? Now, what's interesting about that question that's beginning to raise in our minds is that Paul addresses that, right? Just a few verses down, get there in a couple of weeks. He says, why the law then? So this is an important question that's raised when we begin to understand that the law is something that no one could keep.

And if you can't keep it, then you're cursed by it. um and you begin to scratch your head why did god do this right and what's his answer there was added because of transgressions now i've read that you know many times throughout my christian life and wondered what does that mean i mean because you can kind of it's a little bit vague. It was added because of transgressions. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean that it's, oh, we were sinning so much we need the law to help restrain sin or to help reduce sin?

Well, that's not really what Paul's getting at because if we look down a couple of verses at verse 22, says, but the scripture has shut up. This is talking about the law, right? This is just three verses down. But the scripture has shut up everyone under sin so that promise by faith in Jesus Christ might come to those who believe.

So what he's saying is that actually the law was given for the purpose of making it very clear that we are sinners, that we'll never be justified by works. That was actually a primary purpose of the law. Now, we got to leave these verses for someone else in a couple weeks time, so we can't spend too much time here. But I just want us to be thinking clearly about this as we look at these verses about the cursing of the law, right? The law was given in order to show very clearly how sinful we are. You know, God's law was never designed to be a means of blessing. It was designed to open our eyes to the reality that if we're ever going to be blessed by God, it's going to have to come some other way.

And that's exactly what God has done, right? He's provided blessing. Yes, Kathy. Isn't that a blessing in itself? That the law shows us our sin? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. It's one of those sneaky blessings. You don't realize it at first. You're like, oh, this is terrible. And come to find out, no, this is wonderful that God would open our eyes to our sinfulness. Really good point, Kathy. Thank you.

And so what God has done is he has offered blessing freely by grace, right? And that's available to everyone. So no one can complain that God gave a law that no one could keep because the reality is that God has provided blessing to everyone and anyone who will receive it by faith can have it, right? So God's law is not unjust or unfair or unreasonable. God's law is perfectly just.

But it's true. The law simply states what's true. And the reality is that we are sinners by nature. And the law tells us that because you're sinners, you are cursed. And as Kathy said, that's actually a blessing. And God did not intend the law to be the means of blessing. So with that in mind, let's ask the question, what does it mean to be cursed? I mean, we have that here in these verses, but what does it actually mean to be cursed?

Any thoughts on that? Well, I have a thought. Yes, please. I grew up in one of the largest denominations on the planet, so I think you know what I'm talking about, and very law-based. And I tried my best, because I was trying to please God and everything. And the harder I tried, the further I felt away from God. And it was really frustrating. So that was a curse.

Yeah. That's great. Thanks, Kathy. I mean, it's funny. I grew up in one of the smallest denominations on the Earth. And I felt the same way. I felt the same way. So interesting how that works, because we all, you know, we all so naturally gravitate to that idea. And it's and it's popular, really. I think a good synonym for cursed would be condemned. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Bob. You had a great, great word as well, for sure.

You know, this whole idea of cursing and blessing is not Paul's idea, right? It's all set up in the law of Moses, right? He's using, he's just using Old Testament language and you know, cursing and blessing, I put up there Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, you know, um, great chapters for seeing where the law itself, uh, lays out the blessings and the cursings.

Um, and uh, And it kind of goes on and on and on. If you obey, you'll be blessed. If you disobey, you'll be cursed. And it's it's really very simple. You know, we've got God's God's favor for obedience and God's displeasure and wrath for disobedience. Right.

And and what we see there in those chapters is a blessing would come by law if you're able to keep it right. But you can't, right? Therefore, blessing must come by another means. But we see that that phrase there, blessing would come by law if you were able to keep it. And we think, well, wait a minute, didn't we just say in the last slide that that the law was never intended to be a source of blessing? Yes, we did. Right. So so how do we how do we put these together? Right. How how is it that the law says if if you're able to keep it, you'll be blessed? doesn't that make another way of blessing, right? First, we have to understand that the law is perfectly correct when it says that if you keep it, you'll be blessed.

But second, like we said, God knew that none of us could keep the law and that he never intended it as a means of blessing. And so that blessing would come if you keep the law. But since you can't, blessing cannot come by the law. The problem is not with the law, right? The problem is with us. And so when you read those things in the law, that you'll be blessed if you have to understand in your mind that I can't. As much as it says that I'd be blessed, I can't keep the law.

And so blessing has to come to me by another means. So their law really has nothing to do with us receiving blessing, it has to do with showing us our need. And just as Paul said in Galatians 2 verse 21, he says, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. So we need a Savior. The law proved that. The law made that very clear. And that's exactly what Christ came to provide on the cross. All right, so are we clear on those thoughts, or have I totally confused the issues? No. Good job. Good job. OK. OK.

So let's look at the beginning of verse 11. He begins there, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. So that's Paul's claim. Paul's about to provide evidence that no one is justified before God on the basis of works of law. And then he brings together two Old Testament quotes as that evidence. And so the claim here that no one is justified before God by works of the law, is going to be supported or proved by these next two quotes. And so what we've got to do is we've got to apply Paul's logic to understand how these following two quotes prove that claim. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at those two quotes and then we're going to come back to this phrase and connect how these two quotes support this claim.

So just kind of keep that in the back of your mind, this phrase at the beginning of verse 11, that no one is justified by law, is what Paul is supporting in these next two points. So then he quotes Habakkuk 2, verse 4, the righteous man shall live by faith. So what is the truth claim of that quote, Habakkuk 2, verse 4? What is the propositional truth claim?

It's very simple, right? I mean, it's just, it says what it says. I mean, you could read it again to me, I guess. But notice that, what do we know to be true from this quotation? And notice that he's talking about the righteous man. Was the righteous man a believer or an unbeliever? That's a term for a believer, right? The righteous man. So this is, there's only one way to be justified, only one way to be righteous in God's sight. And that's by grace through faith. So what is the claim in this verse about the believer? The claim is that he lives by faith. The righteous man shall live by faith. So the claim in this verse is that the only way for a righteous man to live is by faith. And that's our operating principle. This is our faith principle, right?

And really, it's simply Galatians 2.20, right? The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. So this is a fact that God established in scripture way back, at least as far as Habakkuk, right?

Galatians 2.20 isn't a new truth. So life for the believer requires faith. Faith is the requirement for our walk, for our life.

Now, in verse 12, How does Paul prove that the faith requirement that we just saw in Habakkuk 2.4 is not met in the law? And it is very simple, right? What does he say? He says, the law is not a faith.

So Habakkuk 2.4 just told us the principle that faith is required for a righteous walk. And then he tells us, but the law is not a faith, right? If the life of the believers live by faith, and the law is not of faith, then obviously the law can't produce that life.

Paul isn't just stating this on his own authority, right? Again, he's going to quote scripture, and he takes us to Leviticus 18, verse 5, right? However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. And what's the key word in this one, or important to Paul's argument here? If you look at the Leviticus 18 verse 5 translation, it might be a little clearer. In the NASB, Leviticus 18 5 says, but by which a man may live if he does them.

Here it's translated as practices them, right? Yeah, but practice is kind of the important word there, right? It's the word for doing. And in other words, it's the word for working, it's the word for works. And in fact, the word here, translated practice, is actually an aorist active participle. It could be translated, the one having done them shall live by them, right? It's In other words, I'm doing my best doesn't cut it. You've got to do it all perfectly. That's what the law demands, as we've already stated. But what Paul's really getting at here is that the law is all about doing it, not about faith so much as practice or doing.

Yes, Andrew. Yeah, and it looks like that. I just looked at that Leviticus section and yeah, the word faith isn't anywhere in that section in the law, right? Yeah, there's no word faith there. It's all living. Yeah, great point, Andrew. I think that's exactly what Paul's pointing out.

He's saying, guys, the law is not a faith, right? Look at it. It says the one who does them or practices them fully and completely shall live by them. So yeah, the law itself is very clear that it is not of faith, it is of works. So now we've looked at those two quotes, let's connect these back to how Paul is using them to prove his statement at the beginning of verse 11, where he says, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, in God's word, we could say, because he's about to show us his quotes, right? Four.

And then he showed us Habakkuk 2.4, which says that the one thing required for life is faith.

And then to show us that the law can never meet this requirement, he goes to Leviticus 18.5 and he proves that the law is of works and not of faith. So life requires faith, which is the opposite of works. And the law is kept by works, not by faith. Therefore, no one is justified by the law. You can't be, because the law is not faith.

So it's really simple logic, but we just want to connect it all together here and see how Paul is building this argument. So what Paul has shown us in verses 6 through 12 is that the results of faith and works are totally opposite. For the believer, faith in the fact of our identification with Christ, in his death and resurrection, is what results in a righteous walk. But on the other hand, the believer who's walking by works of the law is producing something that God condemns as worthless. Now he's still saved if he's put his faith in Jesus Christ, death on the cross for him. But if he's walking by law, then he's really wasting precious time and opportunity. And he's not producing in his walk what the Lord has for him.

So what Paul's given There's really two arguments in verses 10 through 12. In verses 10, he showed us that the law requires perfect obedience and no one can do that. Therefore, even if the law promises blessing, you can't get at it because you can't keep the law. And then verses 11 through 12, he shows us that life is on the basis of faith and that the law is kept on the basis of works. And so by both of those arguments, the law will never get you where you want to go.

Let's wrap up the class here by talking briefly about what's behind these two principles. And the best way to talk about that is with the word source. What Paul has been talking about since back in chapter two is really the source of our life as believers. When we talk about walking by faith, What source are we relying on, right? We're relying on Christ, who is our life.

Again, in Galatians 2.20, it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, right? So the righteous life that is produced through us as we walk by faith is not our life, it's Christ's life. It's a life that's sourced in Him. He's the source of that life. He is that life. And he's the one producing that righteous fruit.

And conversely, when we walk according to the law, or we walk by works, what are we relying on? Are we relying on Christ? Can Christ be the source of that life? No. Why not? Because Christ died to the law. Right. So so when we're walking by the law, what's left to rely on? Well, it's ourselves. Right. We have to rely on ourselves to do the living.

And and does that produce the fruit of the spirit? No. Right. In Galatians five. Later on here in Galatians 5, Paul contrasts what he calls the bees of the flesh, and he contrasts that with the fruit of the Spirit, right? You know, sometimes it might look similar to us, right?

In Philippians 3.9, Paul calls this a righteousness of my own derived from law. Well, that sounds like something that looks kind of nice and shiny, at least on the outside, right? But what we see as well in Galatians 5 is that there's also the d's of the flesh and they're listed and they look really nasty there in chapter 5. And so what we see is that there is what we could maybe call the immoral flesh and there's the moral flesh.

But it's all sourced in the same place. It's all coming from me as the active agent. So the source is self, either way. And the reality is that that's not acceptable to God. Because the father is pleased with his son. And it's the life of his son that he wants to produce in us. And we don't crank out the life of the Son by our works, by our effort, right? The life of Christ is produced by grace as we rest by faith.

You know, he's already set this up in Galatians 2.20. He's really just explaining the reasoning why that little statement about the Christian life is true, right?

And it's totally contrary to the idea that we can live a life acceptable to God out of our own resources. The same idea that Kathy was talking about earlier, same idea that was common to me in my earlier Christian life. I thought that God wanted me to live a life acceptable to Him and that it depended on me. I was going to have to do it. And what a wonderful thing to realize that that sneaky blessing of finding out that you're actually not able to. You can never do it right. Yes.

Paul says later on in Romans 8.8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. That's pretty absolute. Yeah. That's a great verse to bring up. Yeah.

It doesn't matter how good your fleshly works look to those around you or how bad they look. I mean, none of it's pleasing to God because of the source, right? That's why we want to talk about that here. There's really only one source of the Christian life and that is Christ himself. And that's what Paul's fleshing out here and explaining and detailing. So it's really important.

So any other questions or thoughts before we end there? Miles, I know this is going to be brought out in the next couple of chapters, but if we're not walking by our own works and we are walking by faith, if a new Christian comes up to me and says, what do I put my faith in? If you want me to live by faith, What do you mean by that? How am I supposed to live by faith?

Faith in love. Yes, yes. That's the whole thing right there. Yeah, yeah, that is really a really, really important question. And it takes time to really come to see and understand that, right? Because it sounds, walking by faith, I mean, sounds so ambiguous. It just sounds mushy, you know? What does that mean? Because we know that faith has to have content. We sort of intuitively know that.

So much of this, Might be explained by walking by means of the Holy Spirit. Rather than the way I look. Yeah, and the way that I look at the work of the Holy Spirit here. Yeah, the way that I. I think it's helpful to think of a walking by the spirit is that the spirit always works through revealed truth. The spirit is the author of scripture. And what has he revealed to us as true in the pages of his book? And I think the key thing When we talk about walking by faith, that Christian walk, it really comes back to that Romans 6, 7 and 8.

But it's particularly there in Romans 6, but what is put into a tiny little capsule in Galatians 2.20, the fact that we've been crucified with Christ, that we are dead to the flesh, we're dead to the sin nature, right? We're dead to the world, we're dead to the law. And we are now resurrected, we're raised to new life in Christ Jesus.

And that's going to take some time for a young believer, as you talked about, Bob, to understand that. That takes some growth. And that takes time, but that's the key of it. That's the heart of it, is to understand what God has already done with us on the cross. And therein lies the not-so-secret secret of the Christian life. So, good, great, great thought and thought-provoking question there, Bob.

Next time what we're going to look at is exactly what the Lord has done to free us from the curse of the law. Because the problem is that we already existed in a state of being cursed by the law. That was a problem and we had to be freed from that. So let's close in prayer there. And then I got to go hear my brother preach. He's doing the service. Let's let's let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for what you have revealed to us as true. We pray that we would more and more learn to walk independence on the truth that you've revealed. Lord, we just we we are so incredibly blessed to to have this truth revealed to us, and Lord, to know that we could never earn or merit your blessing or favor in any way by any means, and that we must receive it simply by grace through faith. We pray that you continue to impress these truths on each one of us. In Jesus' name, amen.