They key to understanding Galatians is understanding what Paul meant by the phrase "works of the law". For a while it was a mystery because the phrase wasn't used anywhere else in rabbinic literature. However, with the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran text 4QMMT was able to shine some light on this:
Now, we have written to you some of the works of the Law, those which we determined would be beneficial for you and your people, because we have seen [that] you possess insight and knowledge of the Law. Understand all these things and beseech Him to set your counsel straight and so keep you away from evil thoughts and the counsel of Belial. Then you shall rejoice at the end time when you find the essence of our words to be true. And it will be reckoned to you as righteousness, in that you have done what is right and good before Him, to your own benefit and to that of Israel. (p. 364, Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation)
In other words, the author was saying to the recipient that they would be saved by keeping the law in the way that they said they should keep it. The Galatians had already been saved by faith, but they had begun listening to people who were teaching them that they weren't saved unless they kept the laws of Moses, including the oral law. In context of Galatians 3:12, starting with verse 10, Paul was arguing against being saved by works, which is indeed without faith.
In Romans 4:14, Paul didn't say that the Mosaic law voids the promise and faith, but rather that if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
So the law doesn't justify you and it doesn't make you a heir to the promise, but that doesn't mean that there is no advantage to being obedient to God. Without God, we are slaves to our sin nature and can't be obedient to Him through our own effort. It is only through our faith in God that He works through us to conform us to the character of Christ in obedience to God. Having faith is acting in a way that demonstrates that we trust God, so obedience to Him is a natural outflowing of faith, and in this way, our faith upholds the law. Paul added Romans 3:31 to make sure that no one misunderstood the previous verses and mistakenly thought that that because we are justified by faith apart from the law, therefore we shouldn't bother keeping it.
Paul's point was that Abraham was justified by faith, so being justified by faith is common throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The law was never given so that we could be justified by keeping it in the first place, so Paul is upholding the law when he defended it against those who were teaching that they had to keep it in order to be justified.
But the fact remains, the law is not of faith, and law voids the promise, so when people promote law on the church then and now, what happens?
Plus Romans 4 would pertain to their
future, like in Galatia, even the Jews had to now walk, that is a verb about the future, in the footsteps of Abraham in Rom 4:12. Paul always uses Abe to ward of law, circumcision, Judaism, nationalism, pride, etc.
What you don't seem to understand about Galatians is this.
They were saved, but they were now going to
add the law, they had to
now live by faith, or now live by law, they were at a crossroads, getting ready to
add law, perfect through the flesh Gal 3:3. But Paul said no. Gal 3:15, no one ADDS..
Look at these verses, it was about how they were going to live in their
future sanctification. LIVE by faith, or law.
11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous s
hall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall
live by them.”
Just like Gal 5:3, if they were altered, they would now for their
future live
all the time by law, not just for one day.
Bottom line, if you not going to see past justification in Galatians, and see the sanctification, you will miss the point.
red above, you keep saying oral law from Paul, but you have not shown proof. There is nothing in Galatians to indicate oral law, or in Acts 15.
In fact, why would Paul go all the way to Jerusalem, to fight oral law?
Look at this verse below, it was about those who came to push law, Paul called it bondage, and Paul uses the bondage word several times in Galatians, about
the law. So those of Acts 15:1, and 15:5 were pushing law bondage, it says Moses in 15. So you argue from absence. Gal 2:4 is about Acts 15.
Gal 2:4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into
slavery—