Don

I end up where Cheryl did, but I get there differently.

Gal 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

is a better translation.  The diff. is the “no male AND female” not “no male NOR female”.  The Greek is kai, usually “and”.  I see this as a remez/hint back to the garden.  Paul in another verse talks about Christ being the 2nd Adam.

“works of the law” I see as a Greek form of the Hebrew “Ma’aseh ha Torah” which was used in the Dead Sea Scrolls to identify the markers of Judaism.

“curse of the law” I see as not saying the law is a curse, but is referring to the curses in the law for not obeying it; these are given in Deu as blessings and curses or in covenant/contract language benefits for compliance and penalties for non-compliance.

The Jews thought that they were “in” simply because they were Jews.  Jesus speaks against this to Nicodemus, saying it must be by faith, as does Paul here and elsewhere.  The Jews have a huge advantage, as Paul points out, in getting “in” as they were given the word of God, but no one is auto-in.  So there is a physical Israel and a spiritual Israel.  Being in physical Israel does not guarantee being in spiritual Israel.

So Paul is NOT mainly discussing individual salvation, altho that is included, as Fee points out, he is discussing (spiritual) Israel’s salvation.

The key thing to see is that everything about being a believer AND a congregation is wrapped up in Israel’s salvation; if someone were to claim there is something spiritual outside of that, I do not want it as it would be false, as something false is all that is left outside of spiritual Israel.  This is the fundamental mistake of the non-egal understanding when they try to limit the meaning of these verses.