Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?
Parallel translations
- KJV Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
- BSB Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing?
- NKJV Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
- NASB Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
- NLT Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul asks whether their sufferings and experiences were for nothing. To abandon the gospel would render their past faith meaningless.
Overview
The Galatians had likely endured hardship for the faith, and Paul warns that turning to a false gospel would empty those experiences of value. His words carry a note of hope that their faith is not, in fact, in vain. The appeal urges them to hold fast to the grace by which they first believed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- 2 Jn 1:8Watch yourselves, that we don’t lose the things which we have accomplished, but that we receive a full reward.
- 1 Cor 15:2by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
- Heb 10:32–39But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings;
- Ezek 18:24“But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered. In his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them he shall die.
- 2 Pet 2:20–22For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
- Heb 6:4–6For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 3:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.