In Chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul begins to argue that salvation comes to us through faith in Jesus and not through the law. He uses personal experience, Jewish history and theological reasoning to demolish the teaching that we can earn our way into a relationship with God. The gospel comes to us by God’s grace and we receive it by faith – we take God at his word.

Paul’s teaching is that Jesus has met all the requirements of the law, but was punished as though he failed. On the other hand, we have failed to meet the requirements of the law but we have been justified (declared righteous) as though we met them all. Jesus became a curse so that we could receive the blessing of acceptance by God and an intimate relationship with him.