Earliest manuscript available: P46 (papyrus) which dates to approx. 200 AD (150yrs after it was written) is viewable in The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin.
You can't read Galatians and afterwards say 'that was a nice piece of spiritual reflection' any more than you can take a live coal in your hands. -- John Piper
The secret of the Lord is with those who have been broken by the cross and healed by his Spirit. -- PT Forsyth
Underneath this letter is a kind of 'compassionate rage'.
'let me be a spiritual cupid that you would fall in love with Christ through this book.' -- John Piper
Grace can now come to you and glory can go to God - by Christ crucified
Good point : Christians often look for a now word from God separate from and in place of the Bible and the need to do careful Bible analysis. Piper then goes on to slate Christians and pastors who treat the Bible haphazard-lously. He calls it a sort of 'massaging' on the text. It is 'humility' and 'submission' to treat the Bible with the authority it deserves.
Chapter 1:
Phil Moore: Straight to the Heart of Galatians
Phil sums up the book of Galatians as being about how the Holy Spirit makes us 'free on the inside'.
1:8 - One Staple
Tells the story of David Nowitz:
David Nowitz had tried very hard. The Society for Family Health in Johannesburg had never had such a conscientious marketing manager. He had managed to secure government funding for a mass distribution of pamphlets throughout the city to warn people of the dangers of sexually transmitted infections. He had the pamphlets translated into Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and Afrikaans. He had paid a distribution company to deliver the pamphlets throughout the city along with a free condom to help people to respond to his warnings. It was only when he visited a home and saw one of his pamphlets that he realized with horror what had happened: the distribution company had stapled the condom to the pamphlet, putting two holes in every single condom. David Nowitz admitted to reporters that “We made a deal with a low-budget distribution company.” He had entrusted his message to people who thought a single staple wouldn’t make any difference, when in reality those two tiny pinpricks undermined everything. His safe-sex campaign actually increased the danger of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies across Johannesburg.Phil then writes: If you can imagine how David Nowitz felt when he saw that first staple then you can imagine the horror that stirred Paul to write his letter to the Galatians in AD 49.
Paul uses three words to show them just how serious their gospel alteration is:
The first is the word 'metatithemi' which was used in relation to people who changed sides in a battle (and as we see from John Stott is also where we get the word 'turncoat' form). To turn from full dependance on Christ to introducing some self-reliance is to be a traitor to the gospel. Strong words.
The second word is 'heteros' which meant 'another of a different type' as in 'heterosexual'. The gospel of some self-reliance is another gospel altogether. These messages couldn't be more serious.
The third word is the word 'anathema' which is the word that the Septuagint uses to translate the Hebrew 'herem' which means 'handed over to the Lord for destruction' (see Achan's sin in Joshua). Paul utters the word twice to convey the seriousness of their sin. Phil says that the church would have understood him to be saying 'to hell with them.'
1:10-2:14 - Good Ideas and God's Idea
Setting this letter within it's Galatian world is useful for understanding just how offensive the gospel message was/is. We must remember (perhaps I ought to begin with?) what happened when Paul went to Galatia in Acts 13. Phil writes this about that:
We tend to forget that he fled from another city having almost been lynched for trying to persuade the pagans there that they needed to turn from the hero gods of Mount Olympus to the crucified God of Mount Zion.I like that: 'turn from the hero gods of Mt. Olympus to the crucified God of Mt. Zion'
Phil uses this section to stress the need for humility and accountability in theology and cites the Rob Bell/Andrew Wilson debate as an example of what happens when we untie ourselves from accountability.
Tom Wright : Galatians for Everyone
1:1-10
Wright begins with a story that helps us make sense of Paul's anger and frustration. Imagine living in the 1970s during apartheid South Africa and living with a vision to build a community that allows blacks and whites to be friends and brothers, together under the same roof. Imagine if you drew up the plans, dug the foundations and then got called away on urgent business. Sometime after you left you then receive a letter from the ones you entrusted with building the community that other builders came later, builders who claimed to be 'official' and rubbished your credentials. They changed the plans, built two entrances instead of one communal one, built up walls to keep the races apart saying that 'this is a much more acceptable and accurate building to build that reflects the community being established.'
That story, along with then a description of life in the 1st Century, the threat of the Imperial Cult, the rubbishing of Paul's apostleship by new apostles and the insight that Paul is a builder of 'people-buildings' rather than bricks and mortar buildings, is a helpful way in to the book of Galatians.
Apostleship, Wright says, became a 'technical term in early Christianity for the original ones whom Jesus sent out after the resurrection.' The new apostles claim that Paul's apostleship is from other Christians, whereas they have got theirs first hand from the original 12 themselves.
1:10-17
Paul pauses for breath and, like Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, says to himself 'well roar'd lion!'. In other words he stops to briefly make the point 'if I was trying to please men I would not have said what I had just said!' He makes it quite clear that pre-Christ (his head being full of Jewish prophet heroes from the OT who killed God's enemies) he wanted nothing more than to stamp out this blasphemous nonsense called Christianity.
He then went to Arabia (Wright reckons to the region of Sinai) for a personal and private wrestling with God.
1:18-24
Paul seeks to affirm both his independence from the other Apostles and his unity with the message of Jesus. Wright recalls the launch of the Independent newspaper. Weeks before its launch it ran an advertising campaign: 'It is. Are you?' designed to create interest in what was to come, the new - totally politically and ideologically independent newspaper. Paul is not peddling a message he received from anyone other than God himself, and this matters. Wright comments that Paul's referring to the Christians who heard of the one 'who previously persecuted the church now preaches the faith he tried to destroy.' Was to make the point that the saw in Paul's gospel message a continuity and unity with the original message. they weren't saying 'he who previously persecuted us, is now undermining and distorting the message.'
'Learn to prize both the independence which grows out of a fresh vision of Jesus, and the convergence between different preachings of the gospel. But keep your eye on the main issue, which must always be God's glory.'John Stott: The Bible Speaks today
1:1-5
- Many suppose that Galatians is the earliest written of the epistles and date it around 48/49AD.
- Written to a group of churches in the Turkey area. The NT recognises the church of God, split into local churches, not denominations.
- The letter begins with an extended introduction to the main themes of the letter and gives an indication as to the reason for writing it: namely Paul's apostleship and his gospel of grace.
Introductions.
Compare the introductory sentences in the other epistles. With the exception of Romans and 1 Corinthians which are slightly more extended and for good reason (he'd never met the Romans and so was offering further introduction, and he had some strong words to bring to the Corinthians) all of the epistles begin with a quite standard: Paul an apostle to the church in, grace and peace to you from God... sort of intro. Not so with Galatians which begins with an extended:
The main issues that Paul wishes to address map onto this introduction very well: his own apostleship and the gospel of grace. He wants the church to be reminded from the get-go that he has apostolic authority from God and recognised by the brothers who are with him. He also goes to lengths to explain the gospel of grace namely that Jesus gave himself up for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age. If we were to lose the rest of the book we could still have a fairly good idea of what it's about from this introduction.
Paul and apostle - not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father; who raised him from the dead - and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches in Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Paul's Authority
The false teachers were denying him a position of authority. They instead treated him as an impostor.
Stott is keen to point out that there are no apostles today. He cannot entertain the idea that we may still have apostles with a little 'a' who are of a category difference to the Apostles of scripture. He quotes a theologian Cole's epistle of Paul to the Galatians when he says: 'To the Jew the word was well defined; it meant a special messenger, with a special status, enjoying an authority and commission that came from a body higher than himself.' which leaves me thinking 'great' in which case the concept of apostles today may not be such a big leap. For Stott it is and I think he defends no-apostolic-succession for valid reasons but not for biblical ones. He is right that their authority and status is unequalled in church history and he is right that we are to assess our ideas against theirs not the other way around. They are unique, they are apostles of the risen Christ given special status and authority over all men but what of the references to other apostolic figures within the NT itself or perhaps the use of the word in a wider setting than simply referring to the 12(+2)?
Piper is helpful here. He is happy to distinguish between general and particular apostles: Quoting
- Phil. 2:25 : Epaphrodites was an 'apostle' of the church to Paul's need. see inter-linear
- 2 Cor. 8:23 : our brothers are delegates 'apostles' of the churches. see inter-linear
Piper says that there is a usage of apostles that is simply: authorised representatives of a church. Paul is not this type of apostles (by men) but by God.
Mt. 10:40 - 'he who receives you, receives me.' Jesus gave the 12 an unrivalled authority and Paul is claiming to have the same authority as the 12 (see 2:8).
He is keen that we understand the special divine authority given to Paul by God because of some modern views that seem to tug in an unbiblical direction:
a. the radical view : supporters leave us saying 'well that's Paul's view, but mine's different.' One writer states: St. Paul and St. John were men of like passions to ourselves. However great their inspiration... being human, their inspiration was not even or uniform... For with their inspiration went that degree of psycho-pathology which is the common lot of all men. They too had their inner axes to grind of which they were unaware. what therefore they tell us must have a self-authenticating quality, like music. If it doesn't, we must be prepared to refuse it. We must have the courage to disagree.' A 'self-authenticating quality'? to which i say, 'what if my self-authenticating quality is different from yours?' Since that is the case with this quote I can have perfect freedom to disagree with it and disregard it completely. And 'the courage to disagree'? Courage? Arrogance more like!
b. the Roman Catholic view : the view that Paul wrote as one commissioned by the church to write authoritative doctrine that he was an apostle of the church. The argument goes that since the Bible authors were churchmen, the church wrote the Bible and so when the Church disagrees with what they wrote then, we can move on since we have an authority above scripture.
Two reasons why we must believe that Paul was commissioned by Christ and speaks with Christ's authority.
Paul's gospel
Stott: Although 'grace' and 'peace' are common monosyllables, they are pregnant with theological substance.
In the introductory verses what can be glean about the death of Christ?
1. Christ died for our sins
The death of Jesus Christ was primarily neither a display of love, nor an example of heroism, but a sacrifice for sin. --StottIt is explained further at 3:13.
These words are very thunderclaps from heaven against all kinds of righteousness. -- Luther2. Christ died to rescue us from this present age
v4 to deliver us from this present age.
If his death on the cross was 'for our sins' then he died to deliver us from the age of sin. Bishop Lightfoot says that the word/idea of 'deliver' or 'rescue' strikes the 'keynote of the epistle. The Gospel is a rescue, an emancipation from a state of bondage.' The word for rescue is only once used in the metaphorical sense as it is here. Other times in the NT it is used in relation to the Israelites deliverance from Egypt, Peter's rescue from prison and Paul from the mob. Christ died to rescue us.
It cannot mean 'take us away from this present age' since Paul didn't live that way (in a monastry) nor did he encourage others to do so. Jesus prayed the opposite in fact and was the first to make the statement that we are the 'light of the world' and 'salt of the earth'. The word 'age' then is taken to mean the passing age of death where the devil reigns and sin is present. Again it is a reminder of the two ages that exist alongside one another: the age to come and the present age. Christians are those who have been transferred from one to another like passing between two overlapping ages, perhaps seeing that one is going to run out soon, the track expires and we need to board a different train. This is a good reminder that it is not only in the realm of signs and wonders/healing that we talk about the two ages.
3. It was according to the Father's will.
We must never assume or imply that either one of the Father/Son were an involuntary party in the atonement. Paul affirms both in this epistle: 4a the Son sacrificed himself and 4b according to the will of the Father.
Paul ends his introduction with worship - very appropriate in light of the wonder he has just recounted.
1:6-10
This is the only epistle where Paul doesn't follow his greeting with thanksgiving or a prayer. He simply launched straight into the urgent matter at hand, namely the Galatians abandonment of the gospel and the twisting of the gospel that he sees taking place. He is urgent and desperate for them to feel the force of his rebuke.
Interesting incite
Gk. metatithemi - translated 'deserting him who called you' - is a word commonly used of soldiers in the army who revolt or desert and of men who change side sin politics or philosophy. A variant of the word was used of Dionysius a philosopher from the mid 4th C AD. He abandoned his stoic philosophy in favour of Cyreniacs when he encountered severe pain. He was thus called 'Dionysius the Renegade' or turncoat from the word methathemenos. Paul is thus using the root for the word that later became forever associated with turncoats.
The true gospel is in essence: Acts 20:24 'the gospel of the grace of God.'
The false teachers were Judaizers' whose gospel is summed up in Acts 15:1 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.'
'you must let Moses finish what Christ began.' or rather 'you must add your effort to Christ's work to finish its work for you.'
There is a train of thought that like's to try and keep experience and theology separate as though we can discuss and debate what we believe without it affecting our relationship with the God of grace. Paul's ache for the church here comes from the rejection of that idea. To reject the gospel of grace is to reject the God of grace. They have turned from him who called them, not just the gospel. In my quick search around the 'him' of v6 it seems that both Piper and Stott see this as a reference to rejecting God rather Paul. Paul may have taught them the gospel of grace but God called them to it. This would make sense also of the 'my gospel is from God not from men'
7
there are some 'troubling' you. The word here means to 'shake' or 'agitate' and is a word used in the Jerusalem Council (which probably happened after this letter was written) : A15:24 'we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions.'
'distort' - carries with it the force of 'reverse' and is thus translated: pervert (NIV, ESV, NKJ), twist (NLT) & 'turning the message on its head' (MSG)
The two chief characteristics of the false teacher was that they were troubling the church and changing the gospel... to tamper with the gospel is always to trouble the church. The best way to serve the church is to believe and preach the gospel.
8
the word here for 'accursed' is the Greek word anathema (an-a-themma) which is use in the English language today. It means 'accursed of God' understood in OT terms as 'devoted to destruction'. Paul pronounce an apostolic curse on these false teachers that they should be destroyed by God.
His hope is that the Galatian churches stay well clear of such men.
Why is Paul so strong and use such drastic language?
1) the glory of Christ: to say that we need to add to Christ's finished work is to say that Christ's work wasn't sufficient in itself.
2) the souls of men: we are concerned with such serious and significant issues that we can't meddle with gospel things lightly!
Is he speaking out of turn or just in a moment of passion? Should we take his curse seriously?
1) he isn't attacking specific men but false teachers in general
2) he puts himself under the curse also and tell us that he would be accursed if he ever did such a thing: he is not trying to please men (perhaps in response to their accusations). Question: why could the charge be levelled at him that he was trying to please men?
- v11: Servants of God are subject to God and as such can't 'try to please men' (in so far as it relates to the message of the gospel, rather than pleasing people in general. Mind you, even in loving and serving others or motivation isn't to 'please' men but to please God. To try to please something comes close to making it into a god-thing in our lives. I try to please my wife of course but my ultimate service is to God and as such I can't please her by doing things that are in contrary to pleasing God.
Stott uses the phrase: 'preferring apostles to angels.' to explain the degree of authority that we should ascribe to the NT's authority.
Dr. Alan Cole "The outward person of the messenger does not validate his message; rather, the nature of the message validates the messenger."
Conclusion:
We must not compromise the message like the Judaisers or reject it like the Galatians, we must live by it ourselves and seek to make it known to others.
1:11-24 (the origins of Paul's gospel)
v12 'I would have you know brothers' is a favourite phrase of Paul when introducing a key idea or important statement.
Paul's gospel was neither: invention, tradition but was revelation.
Paul points to his life: before Christ, at conversion, and after conversion as evidence that he didn't invent his gospel but instead received it by Christ.
Pre-Christ: Paul wasn't satisfied with persecuting the church but wanted to destroy it. (Acts 26:10 & Gal. 1:13) Stott: Now a man in that mental and emotional state is in no mood to change his mind, or even to have it changed for him by men. No conditioned reflex or other psychological device could convert a man in that state. Only God could reach him - and God did!
Conversion: notice the subject change of the verbs 'I persecuted... I tried to destroy... I advanced in Judaism...' to abruptly becoming 'God... set me apart... called me... revealed his son...'
Notice how at each stage the initiative lies entirely with God. God called him while he was still 'pre-natal'.
'In order that I might preach Christ among the gentiles' it is a private call for a public reason. A private revelation for public communication.
After conversion: Paul again goes to great lengths to show that he didn't receive his gospel from men but from God. Acts 9:20-31 is the equivalent account of what happened. Paul offers three proofs of his receiving his gospel from God and not men: 1) Arabia (for 3 years receiving revelation. Presumably after his initial escape from the city of Damascus in a basket.). On Arabia Stott offers the following: possibly it was not far from Damascus because the whole district at the time was ruled by King Aretas of Arabia. 2) He visited Jerusalem for 15 days and saw only Peter and James of the apostles. Interestingly, acts records that he met Barnabas who is also described as an apostle and so it again is likely that there were two types of apostle even then such that Paul was with an apostle in Barnabas but only saw Peter and James of the Apostles. 3) After 14 years (from his conversion) he went to Jerusalem again and it was agreed that his gospel was indeed authentic.
Q: Why does Paul go to such lengths to show that his gospel was revealed rather than learned or inherited?
Chapter 2
2:1-5
Badges. Every group has badges or codes of belonging. For the Jewish people that badge was the law of Moses and since telling how effectively someone was keeping that law was difficult, it centred on the issue of circumcision. You could tell if someone had been circumcised! T
The language in this section is quite difficult which, wright says, probably reflects Paul's anger and embarrassment that the issue had been brought up.
2:6-10
Paul walks a narrow path and affirms both that Peter and the Apostles are no different from anyone else, loved by God and also that they pillars of the church. Wright points out that the use of 'pillar' here indicates that the church thought of itself in some real sense as being the new Temple.
What steered Paul's journey over this narrow ridge was the gospel that empowers them both.
2:11-14
'You don't need masks or make-up in the kingdom of God'
Greek actors practised hypocrisy which was the word use for mask wearing and playing a role.
Greek actors who became politicians were called 'hypocrites' (from Wiki)
Peter was acting hypocritically when he refused to sit down with gentile believers for dinner. Meal time habits. Eating with people is still a sign of acceptance and companionship and it the 1stC it was a BIG deal. Indeed in some parts of the world, wright says, it is illegal to eat with particular groups of people.
2:15-21
A well known story is told of Margaret Thatcher visiting an old people's home. She was going from room to room meeting senior citizens who had lived there for a long time. One old lady showed no sign of realising that she was shaking hands with a world-famous politician. 'Do you know who I am?' asked Thatcher. 'No, dear,' replied the old lady, 'but I should ask the nurse if I were you. She usually knows.'
Begin again. It must be a strange experience for people to have to begin again learning who they are and, Paul indicates here, it is to be the experience of every Christian. That is the emphasis that Paul stresses in this passage, losing one identity and rebuilding another.
Paul and his opponents are concerned with what makes someone truly part of God's people. Who is the true Israel of God? is another way to ask it. Paul points out that it is the faithful imperfection of the one man, Jesus, that allows him and only him to be established as truly Israel. It is then as a result of our alignment with his faithfulness that we become part of the people of God.
'If I rebuild what I tore down' means 'if I carry on living sinfully' then I have shown not Christ to be a sinner, but me. If however I live my life and find my life's strength and energy by being in him then I show that I have died and am now raised by and living with him.
Wright makes this more decidedly about identification with the true people of God than about personal righteousness through faith in Christ.
In my view - given the context, both are true and could appear quite naturally. I'm not able to comment on the precise wording that leads Wright to 'faithfulness of Jesus' and the ESV/NIV and others to 'faith in Jesus'. work to be done here then...!
John Stott: The Bible Speaks today
2:1-10 Only One Gospel
false teachers (note 'false' and not simply 'different') dogged Paul's ministry (some suggest this to be his 'thorn') every where he went. We can deduce from Paul's special mention of Peter and his role of being the gospel preacher to the Jews that one of the things the Judaisers were coming and doing was pitting Paul against Peter as though Paul was a 'minority of 1' and Peter represented the majority... Their goal we might say was not 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' but rather 'exalting Peter to site Paul.'
To confute this Paul travelled to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus. Barnabas was a Jew whereas Titus was a Greek, a result of his mission t the gentiles. Titus was his gentile disciple, a concrete carrier and example of the content of Paul's message. There was perhaps a lot of pressure on Titus to behave well! Along with the message he preached he presented these two things to the apostles: the man Titus and the message of Paul.
- sent by revelation. That is to say 'God told me to go'. We don't know in what form this revaltion came to him but it could well have been the prophetic word of Agabus given to Paul and Barnabas when they were commissioned to go up to Jerusalem with the relief for the famine.
v6 although he recognises their office as apostles he is not overawed by there person as it was being inflated by the Judaizers.
v9 'right hand of fellowship' accepted in with a hand shake and agreement that they indeed were preaching the same gospel and that they indeed ought did receive from the Lord an authentic gospel and a valid mission field.
consider how difficult it must have been for Peter et al. Peter later writes about Paul's superior learning when he mentions he finds some of his letters 'hard to read'. The impulsive teenager of the gospels was of a very different gift and capacity to the Paul of the epistles. 'you follow me' was Jesus reply to Peter when he questioned his legitimacy or ability compared to John and it'd be the same here I suppose.
It could be tempting to skim over this section, says Stott and yet there are at least two v significant issues that it addresses. I see the following key lessons: 1: submission even of Paul to apostolic revelation. 2: Paul's apostolic authority along with the others. 3: place of the poor in gospel ministry 4: unity of the faith built upon relationships and doctrine rather than suspicion 5: Integrated behaviour and belief in gospel work.
Stott poses theses two:
1: the unity of apostolic gospels. We mustn't draw too tight a distinction between Pauline, Petrine and Johanine gospels. They are one.
2: the need to hold unwaveringly to truth and not be moved from it. see Luther quotes on this below
Let this be then the conclusion of all together, that we will suffer our goods to be taken away, our name, our life, and all that we have; but the Gospel, our faith, Jesus Christ, we will never suffer to be wrested from us.
Now as concerning faith we ought to be invincible, and more hard if it might be, than the adamant stone; but as touching charity, we ought to be soft, and more flexible than the reed or leaf that is shaken with the wind, and ready to yield to everything.
-- Martin LutherI think a point needs to be made here that Stott doesn't mention anything on verse 10 'remember the poor.' Strange and yet illuminating.
2:11-16 Clashes with Peter in Antioch
When Paul went to Jerusalem (the capital of and starting place of mission to the Jews) Peter offered him the right hand of fellowship but when Peter came to Antioch (the capital and starting place of mission to the Gentiles) Paul opposed him to his face. High drama especially given the city it took place in.
In Acts 10&11 Peter received a vision from the Lord about eating with gentiles. Theologically and experientially he is convinced that God shows not partiality between Jew/Gentile. Here however we see him slipping back into old ways. The man who denied Jesus in front of a servant girl, now denies him in front of Judaisers. Tragic. Fear of man makes you a hypocrite.
What happenend as a result? This incident brought about or came just before the Council of Jerusalem in A15. Paul wrote Galatians before this council and may even have written it from Antioch where he's stopped before going on to Jerusalem.
Stott concludes: we must walk straight according to the gospel. Peter knew that:
faith in Jesus was the only condition on which God will have fellowship with sinners; but he added circumcision as an extra condition on which he was prepared to have fellowship with them, thus contradicting the gospel.
Still today various Christian bodies and people repeat Peter's mistake. They refuse to have fellowship with professing Christian believers unless they have been totally immersed in water (no other form of baptism will satisfy them), or unless they have been episcopally confirmed (they insist that only the hands of a bishop in the historic succession will do), or unless their skin has a particular colour, or unless they come out of a certain social drawer (usually the op one), and so on.
All this is a grievous affront to the gospel.Stott ends the chapter with a rousing call to true gospel defence:
When the issues between us is trivial, we must be as pliable as possible. But when the truth of the gospel is at stake, we must stand our ground. We thank God for Paul who withstood Peter to his face, for Athanasius who stood against the whole world when Christendom had embraced the Arian heresy, and for Luther who dared to challenge even the papacy. Where are the men of this calibre today? Many are the vocal pressure groups in the contemporary church. We must not be stampeded into submission to them out of fear. If they oppose the truth of the gospel, we must not hesitate to oppose them.
2:15-21 - justification by faith alone
Here for the first time in the epistle one of the central words of the Christian message appears. It is the word 'justified' and relates to the grand doctrine of justification. Luther says this about the doctrine:
This is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.Luther adds: 'if the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost.'
v15-16 - 'yet we know' is, I think, more a statement that 'we Jews know' rather than, as Stott says 'we Paul, Peter and the other Aps know'.
v17-18 - these verses have been much misunderstood and there is still some confusion as to their meaning.
One argument is 'if God justifies bad people, what is the point of being good? Can't we do as we like and live as we please?' Paul's response to such a statement is 'Certainly not!' He then says essentially 'if, after Christ justifying me, I am still a sinner in the way I live, then this is my fault and not Christ's. I have only myself to blame,' he says. Paul then refutes his critics argument by showing that: justification is not a legal fiction, in which a man's status is changed, while his character is left untouched.
Justification happens by putting faith in Christ. Faith in Christ happens alongside the death and resurrection narrative played out in our own lives. These are not different salvation models but different ways of explaining the same event that all happened together. There is a mixing of metaphors rather like:
The judge acquitted me, and I died when Jesus died, only to pass not only a sentence of 'not guilty', since Jesus' death for my sin became my death for my sin, but I rose to new life in Christ, and was forever given the status of being 'guilt-free' and righteous. Friends and Rachel mixing the recipes? only a positive example...
The law's demand for death for sin was satisfied in Christ's death and mine with him by faith.
In one sense it is not us who lives at all but Christ who lives in us. And, living in us, he gives us new desires for holiness, for God, for heaven. Stott:
See how daringly personal Paul makes it: Christ 'gave himself for me'. 'Christ... lives in me.' No Christian who has grasped these truths could ever seriously contemplate reverting to the old life.I like what he says when he says: not to trust in Christ because of self-trust is an insult to both the grace of God and to the cross of Christ, for it declares both to be unnecessary.
To be in Christ is to be more than simply 'justified' it is to be 'alive' truly alive.
Chapter 3
Tom Wright: Paul for Everyone
3:1-9
Blondin and the volunteer he carried cross the tightrope. Wright imagines the scene in which the volunteer says half way across 'let me out, I'll be ok on my own from here.' foolish man... foolish Galatians!! I think that a more our-worldly example could be an image of being rescued from a burning building by a fireman. Would we offer, half way out the house, that we'll 'take it from here, thanks.'?
3:10-14
He uses the image of 'roadblock' when he says that despite God making it clear that what he wanted was to bless the whole world through Abraham, the ethnic people/physical family of Israel had overturned like a huge truck and now blocked the road down which God was going to bless the world. God still intended to bless the whole world through Israel but they were failing and thus preventing the world from blessing.
What caused Israel to overturn in the road was the law itself.
In Deuteronomy the 'curse' is the promise of exile but isn't a stingy 'I will get cross with you and send you into exile' sort of curse but rather a 'if you take this bend at 50mph you'll tip over' sort of curse. The curse was the consequence or effect of not keeping the law (the cause).
I think that ensuring that we understand the curses and blessing not in terms of 'admission to heaven and forgiveness of sin' but in terms of its historical context is important here. The 'curse' I receive for trusting in something else to justify me isn't a punishment but the natural consequence for my sin. Weeds for poor gardening.
Jesus, Israel's representative, took on the curse - was punished by pagan nations and exiled out of the city district. What happened as a result was twofold:
1) the roadblock was lifted and the blessing could now go out to the whole earth
2) the Spirit was given to the Jews, the very thing they needed to be able to follow God faithfully by faith.
15-22
A major problem in salvation history was that Israel, despite being 'the hope carriers of the world' were also infected with the sin-disease that all of mankind suffers from. The doctors who carried the cure, were also infected. So, Paul argues, the law came to effectively put those doctors in quarantine until the diseases in them worked its way out, which it did in Christ, the messiah who finally arrived from the family. Then the law (quarantine) could be done away with and the cure administered liberally without need of the quarantine.
On verses 19-20 (the confusing verses!) Wright points out the similarity to Romans 3:29 which seems to shed more light on it. For the law to be the badge of belonging it would create two families, believing Jews, with the law and believing gentiles without it, but since God is one and wants one family and so the entry badge is faith, not law.
23-29
The Paidagogos is here translated as 'babysitter'. Wright points out that the role of the Paidagogos is still used today in many parts of the world. For us, the western equivalent is rather like an au pair - only an au pair with discipline rites and duties they must fulfil!
What Paul is claiming throughout this letter is that with the coming of the Messiah, Israel is now God's 'grown up child'. A grown up doesn't need a babysitter.
The transition from being under the law and rule of a babysitter to being a mature person is 'faith'. Demonstrating faithful trust is also how they prove themselves trustworthy. Now that Jesus the messiah has come, Israel has 'grown up'. He demonstrated utter faithfulness to the law by obeying God and now because of his faithfulness blessing has gone out to the whole world.
Children of God - is a term that reminds them of the Exodus and here Paul is laying the foundation for the next stage in his argument.
'Jesus is Lord' is what the candidate for baptism would have to say.
All one in Christ: the ground is even at the foot of the cross.
Do we see the unity and faithfulness that comes out of being in Christ? Or, do we secretly wish we still had a babysitter?
John Stott: The Bible Speaks today
1) God has given them his Spirit
2) They are already part of Abraham's family
When the word of God, the gospel, is preached 'the Spirit of God works in people's hearts to bring them to faith.'
J.B. Phillips translates 'you foolish Galatians who has bewitched you?' as 'O you dear idiots of Galatia... surely you can't be so idiotic.'
So stupid is their turning from the gospel that Paul wonders if some sorcerer has cast a spell over them. It's a rhetorical question of course since he knows only too well about the influence of the false teachers... or perhaps he is thinking of the Satanic origin of such deception.
'The gospel is not good advice to men, but good news about Christ; not an invitation to us to do anything, but a declaration of what God has done; not a demand, but an offer... To add good works to the work of Christ was an offence to his finished work,'
1 - referring to the proclamation of the crucifixion rather than them actually seeing him or being at the/a crucifixion.
2 - he assumes that they have received the Spirit, and seems to liken receiving the Spirit with being converted/justified.
5 - From God's part. God gave them the Spirit (whereas in v2 they received him) and worked miracles in response to their believing.
6-9 Abraham and his righteousness.
The process:
1) God presented (placarded) Abraham with a promise / The Galatians were presented with the promise of forgiveness.
2) Abraham believed God's promise (despite its human improbability)
3) God counted that faith to him as righteousness
8 - the verbs 'justify' and 'bless' are used as equivalents here.
It was perhaps the case, given Paul's use of this story, that the Judaisers were telling the Galatians that they needed to do something (circumcision) in order to become the true children of Abraham. This argument robustly sweeps that away with the recognition that they are already sons of Abraham by faith.
By keeping Christ crucified before your minds eye, Paul's argument goes, you won't wander off away from this great truth of being justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
This is what some writers have called the 'existential' element in preaching. We do more than describe the cross as a first-century event. We actually portray Christ crucified before the eyes of our contemporaries, so that they are confronted by Christ crucified today and realize that they may receive from the cross the salvation of God today.Illus. Billy Graham's first and last sermon. show video?
What we receive from the gospel:
- justification
- the Spirit
'everybody who receives the Spirit is justified, and everybody who is justified receives the Spirit.'
10-14
justification mean to be in favour with God; 'eternal life' means to be in fellowship with God.
One theologian points out that what is most shocking about this is that whereas the Jews (and Judaisers) would have thought of the great non-jewish world to be under a curse, Paul asserts that it is Jews as well, unless of course they keep the whole of the law... there is no distinction, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Stott points out that the verse 'cursed is any man who is hung on a tree' is not so much that 'in the hanging' he is cursed but that the hanging is a sign of someone who already has been cursed by God. Therefore Jesus hanging on the cross, did so as one who had already been cursed by God, rejected and abandoned, left alone.
What is the blessing the Christian receives? Again we see that it is justification and the Spirit but it is also, from these verses - eternal life, which we know from John 17 is 'knowing God'.
15-22
The 430 years is a reference not to Abraham through to Moses but to the length of time they spent in bondage in Egypt. (Ex. 12:40) - although elsewhere A7:6 and Gen 15:13 it says '400 years'.
v15: ought to be 'will' rather than 'covenant'. It is the same Gk word but given the 'human example' context it is more likely to be understood to mean a man's 'last will and testament'. Paul's opening statement is that 'since a man's will cannot be altered' neither can God's.
Why the law? ans. to expose sin.
Deut 33:2 - mentions angels giving the law and God becoming king over his people.
'God is one' is a variously interpreted verse and idea. Stott says that the emphasis is on the difference between God giving the law via the angels and Moses (2) but the promise to Abraham he gave 'firsthand' (1).
Is the law set against the promises of God? this question is different from the first in that it isn't being asked by the Judaisers to Paul, but rather it is presented as being from Paul to the Judaisers. He is accusing them of setting the law against the promise.
The law cannot justify us. Paul says, if it could a command would have been given, which it wasn't because it couldn't.
Stott: to summarise. The Judaizers held falsely that the law annuls the promise and supersedes it; Paul teaches the true function of the law, which is to confirm the promise and make it indispensable.
Here we see a truth about God: namely that he is working history. He accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will.'
Here we see a truth about man: that he is a sinner and needs saving. The law exposes sin and guilt in a way that nothing else does. Stott:
it is only against the inky blackness of the night sky that the stars begin to appear, and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment that the gospel shines forth. Not until the law has bruised and amitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for Christ to set us free... not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.Paul presents the Bible like a mountain range whose highest peaks are Abraham and Moses and whose Everest is Jesus. He shows how God's promise to Abraham was confirmed by Moses and fulfilled in Christ.
23-29
Everyone is either 'under the law' or 'in Christ'.
What we were under the law:
- in prison
- tutored harshly
v23 - the word used in the sentence 'we were held captive' is the same one used of Paul in 2 Cor. 11:32, when the city of Damascus was 'guarded' to try and arrest him. Acts 9:24 it is used again in a similar context. Guarded, imprisoned, captive.
v24 - tutor: Paidagogos. A slave who would conduct a boy from youth to and from school and superintend his conduct. They were harsh disciplinarians often depicted in ancient drawings with a rod or cane in their hand. In 1 Cor. 4:15 Paul picks up on this image when he says 'you have a thousand tutors but only one father' in other words, lots of people to discipline you harshly but only one who loves you. He also uses the image of 'shall i come with a rod or with love?'
The law then is there to breath down our necks telling us what to do and then discipline us when we don't do it.
But when Christ came we were free, we graduated. The three images here for 'in christ' are:
- Sons of God through faith in Christ
- put on Christ by virtue of being in Christ
- baptised into Christ.
The 'put on Christ' is likely a reference to the 'toga virilis' of ancient custom given to a boy when he became a man, signifying that he had grown up.
We are one together in Christ. The literal rendering is : you are all one person in Christ Jesus. As such in Christ there is no distinction of race, of rank or of sex.
'A word of caution must be added. This great statement does not mean that racial, social and sexual distinctions are actually obliterated. Christians are not literally 'colour blind'... nor are they unaware of the cultural and educational background from which people come. Nor do they ignore a person's sex, treating a woman as if she were a man or a man as if he were a woman... When we say that Christ has abolished these distinctions, we mean not that they do no exist, but that they do not matter.'Chapter 4
1-11 - once slaves, now sons
John Stott
God meant for the law to be a stepping stone to liberty. The devil came and twisted it and turned it into a cul de sac. This in reference to the v3 elementary principles of the world, that is the demons and unclean spirits of the age that twist and restate God's word wrongly.
When the time had fully come: Stott suggests means both the cultural historical readiness for the messiah (Rome and Greece, having done what they did) and the law had done its work in preparing the people for the messiah.
v4: God's purpose is to redeem and adopt.
v4: born of woman. He was God's son and also born of a woman.
Tom Wright
Some interesting points here. He is again very good at stressing the links between this mini-story and the Jewish story of the Exodus. In the Exodus God redeemed his people and sent them the law (40 days after leaving Egypt). In the Christians story we (both Jews and Gentiles) were set free from slavery to sin and made sons by the sending of the Spirit (40 days after).
He comments on the Trinitarian undertones and beginnings in Paul's theology here. This is important. The earliest of all Christian writings that we have, has in it a clear 'God sent his son and God sent his spirit' ie God is 3 in 1.
He also points out that the 'elemental spirits' here probably refers to the widely held Jewish thought to do with 'guardian angels or deities' which looked after different nations. Then 'in one of his most daring moves, Paul suggests that the Jewish law itself had become just another guardian angel looking after Israel, keeping it separate from the other nations.' He suggests that Paul's statement is meant to sound like 'the law is preventing the creation of a single worldwide family.'
Phil Moore: (1-31)
Good point:
Abba, Father. It is perhaps to emphasise and speak to the
inclusion that Christ has brought that Paul always puts the Greek word ‘Pater’
after the Hebrew word ‘Abba’. ‘They can cry in one breath together that God is
their Dad.’
Acts 14: Galatian districts.
Gal 4:31 Hagar is called ‘Hagar the Egyptian’ in Gen 21. Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael & Isaac, Law & grace.
8-11
Tom Wright
He begins with the story of a whale in an aquarium that gets set free only to return to the aquarium. I couldn't find this story on a quick google search.
The returning to festivals and days and feasts is a returning to prizing Jewishness above their non-Jewishness. They keep festivals and holidays which have as their end point, the arrival of the Messiah who has now come. Wright's big point is that in Christ all of our dividing lines ought to be destroyed but the Judaisers are insisting on them coming up again, or at least the Jewish ones being reasserted.
NB: Paul doesn't despise the keeping of days. Early Christians did Rev 1 - 'The Lord's Day' and Paul references the Passovers/Easter celebrations. He doesn't think them wrong or bad, only that using them to self-identify and justify or even to celebrated the future coming of a Messiah who's already come is foolish.
12-31
Tom Wright
I think where Wright is most helpful is that he draws out
that the problems in Galatian churches aren't just an issue over 'how to be saved/justified', but about being considered part of the true covenant people of God - which as it happens is a large part of what it means to be 'saved'.
Hagar and Sarah:
Children of slavery or children of freedom. Wright
speculates that given Paul’s illustration here it is likely that the agitators
(I think a better term than Judaisers) were using the story to their advantage
and saying something similar to:
There are two children in this family of ours and in order
to ensure you don’t get ‘pushed out’ you really ought to become a little bit
more Jewish, let’s try circumcision for starts... oh and we’re from Jerusalem
(the real centre of authority), whereas Paul’s not really even known in
Jerusalem.
Hagar & Ishamael – Arabian, non Jewish,
ultimately pushed out
Sarah & Isaac – Jewish and blessed
To which Paul responds by using the same illustration but in
a different, more biblically consistent way:
-
Hagar produced a child, but he was a child of
the flesh (human effort) who was ultimately rejected. Human effort is also what
the tutor of the law required and yet it produced a slavery.
-
Sarah produced the child of promise who was
ultimately accepted. Trusting God’s promises gave them life.
Paul also makes the point that Mt. Sinai is in fact in
Arabia (thus geographically outside the promised land) and so again hints at the fact that those who are truly 'arabian' are those who insist on keeping the law of Moses, something given in Arabia until the people arrived in the Promised Land (here the faithfulness of the Messiah who provides entrance into the covenant family of God by his grace).
Chapter 5
5:1-7
Tom Wright
Great illustration. Montreal, in the winter. The lakes that freeze over north of Montreal. In the winter you can drive across the lake. The ice is frozen up to 10feet deep. In spring however the ice starts to thaw and the locals leave an old car abandoned in the middle of the lake. When it starts to sink, they no longer use the lake as a road as pretty soon it'll be boating season. He likens this to the Jews and the law. Prior to the coming of the messiah, the way to know God was like driving across the lake. With the coming of the messiah, spring dawned. Now to know God was to get a boat across. Getting circumcised is akin to getting in your car, do it and you're on your own.
Phil Moore
1st January 1863 - the emancipation proclamation was passed. By nightfall only around 20000 slaves had actually walked free.
v1 : Paul mixes his metaphors: 'do not be ensnared then by a yoke of slavery.' Saying that legalism throttles believers in the same way that a hunter's snare chokes a rabbit.
We need one another:
if you want to grow in your practical experience of the gospel, find a church full of Christians who will fight for you as much as Paul.v12 - the Greek doesn't make it clear that Paul intends for them to cut the whole thing off! but most English translations follow the logic of the argument through to its natural emphasis.
Paul is very much like a friend in the way he pastors them here: he uses humour, he uses empathy and he does what he can to make it easy for them to repent.
Quotes a moving scene from the biography of Booker Washington in which he recalls the reading of the Emancipation Act, his mother kissing him with tears of joy that they were now all free. The day she'd prayed for for so many years had finally come.
5:22-26
The difference between a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and a real fruit producing tree. don't get taken in by the glitz and the glam of the fake and the dead. Christians produce fruit that in turn means that they keep the law and bickering in the church isn't known. But, given the presence of the bickering, it goes to show that the efforts of the agitators to 'clean up' or improve the church are actually making it worse.
To quote:
The underlying point is that if they live in the way the Spirit directs them to, the Jewish law will have no condemnation for them.
Chapter 6
1-5
illustration of a sports team arguing and not being united, one person preferring another or sneering at another for their mistakes. In Galatia the churches were behaving like that. It was the inevitable outcome of the type of message they taught. It had in it, different grades of 'in' and 'out' ness.
6-11
has to do with money and the importance of using your money wisely (sowing it) for good and for God.
6:11-18
A personalised ending, a connection from Paul personally with the readers of the letter and a strong leading from Paul back again to the cross of Christ. It's all about the cross of Christ, glorying in it, declaring it and boasting in nothing other than the cross of Christ.
Those who respond by faith are given the title of great honour: they are (verse 16) 'the Israel of God'. They are, after all, Abraham's family (chapter 3); they are the Isaac-family rather than the Ishamael-one (chapter 4); they fulfil the whol oe fhte law in their love for on another (chapter 5). They are God's chosen people.
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