Paul's letter to the Galatians

This early letter of Paul to 'the churches of Galatia' is wholly devoted to refuting the arguments and attacks of 'Judaisers'.  The Judaisers were the conservative group of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who wanted to impose the Law of Moses on Gentile converts to Christianity.  For more details about these people the reader is referred to the section entitled 'The Background to Paul's letters'.

In New Testament times Galatia was a Roman province occupying a large swathe of territory across the centre of Asia Minor.  Its south-west region included several of the cities in which Paul had preached the gospel of the kingdom of God in his first missionary journey (Acts chapters 13 and 14).  These were Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe.  The Apostle revisited these cities during his second missionary journey (Acts 15.40 to 16.2) and at least once more after that (Acts 18.23).

The believers there were Paul's own converts, and as such were naturally very much his concern and responsibility.  We can understand his indignation that the foundation he had so carefully laid - God's salvation from sin and death through Christ's sacrifice - should be so soon and subtly undermined by 'false brethren' emanating from Jerusalem (Galatians 2.4).  His own concern is reflected in the striking way he begins this letter, outlining its two major themes.  These were the unique way he had been appointed an Apostle (Galatians 1.1) and how Jesus had obtained deliverance for us by his sacrifice (Galatians 1.4).

Paul first gives his usual double greeting, 'grace' (or favour) and 'peace' (the Greek and Hebrew salutations respectively) to the several 'churches' of Galatia.  He then launches a passionate protest to the effect that these believers were well on the way to abandoning the gospel which he had preached to them.  They were adopting 'a different gospel' (Galatians 1.6 RV), a perversion of the true.  So strong is the apostle's condemnation of this aberrant 'gospel' that he invokes a curse on anyone - even an angel - should they teach anything other than 'the gospel of Christ' already taught! (Galatians 1.7-9)

The identity of these false teachers has already been indicated above, although they are not specifically named here.  They are referred to as infiltrators (Galatians 2.4) and troublemakers (Galatians 5.7-12), who zealously sought the believers 'in no good way' (Galatians 4.17 RV).  They are alternatively called 'the circumcision party' (Galatians 2.12 RSV).

The rite of circumcision, originally given to Abraham and his descendants as a token of the covenant God had made with him, was incorporated into Moses' Law and made binding on all male Israelites.  However Gentile believers were not required to practice either circumcision or any other rite prescribed by the Law, and indeed they were better without it.

God had now offered all nations, both Jew and Gentile, salvation through faith in Christ.  This required no dependence on 'works of the law.'  Failure to recognise the superior, and the only acceptable status of 'faith-righteousness' rather than 'law-righteousness' had led to factions and schisms within the Galatian churches (Galatians 1.7; 2.4,5; 5.10-12).  This resulted in hurtful envy and strife (Galatians 5.15,26).

Paul's authority, he asserts, was sent not from men or by man (Galatians 1.1 NIV - perhaps an allusion to the choice of Matthias by lot to replace Judas - Acts 1.23-26).  He now recounts how his commission from God to preach the gospel had been direct and therefore indisputable (Galatians 1.12ff.).  This little autobiographical sketch confirms Luke's account in 'The Acts' and adds some extra facts.

Amongst these were that Paul had been a keen disciple of a famous Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22.3) and as a result became advanced in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries.  Then Jesus appeared him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9.1-16) and appointed him, quite independently of the Twelve in Jerusalem, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

Paul did this preaching without seeing or consulting the other Apostles.  The one exception to this was a very brief visit after three years to acquaint himself with Cephas (Peter) and James, the Lord's brother (Galatians 1.18-20).  Fourteen years later he and Barnabas did go up to Jerusalem together to give the Apostles and elders there an account of their missionary work.

This received general approval and the question of circumcising Gentile believers was not raised at all (Galatians 2.1-10).  Nevertheless, zealots for the Law of Moses were entrenched amongst the Jerusalem community to such an extent that later on Peter, Barnabas and others were enticed to behave hypocritically.  Paul had to reprove them in public for their devious behaviour (Galatians 2.11-21).

Paul had powerfully presented the Galatians with a crucified Christ - a stark witness that Moses' Law had been superseded as the way to salvation from sin and death.  Their conversion to Christianity had been on the basis of faith in Christ, not on obeying the Law.  This was in keeping with God's promise to Abraham that 'all nations' (not merely Jews) would be blessed in him (Abraham).  This blessing would come to other nations by their exercising the same trust in God's revealed purpose as that which Abraham had exhibited.

Note in passing how Paul calls this promise 'the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham' (Galatians 3.8 RV).  How many church leaders even acknowledge, let alone preach to their flock an 'Abrahamic' gospel?  If they have substituted 'another gospel' of a different hue, do they not come under the same apostolic condemnation, the anathema of chapter one verse 9?

Frail humans, whether Jews or Gentiles, cannot keep God's law perfectly, Paul continued, and they all fall under a curse (Galatians 3.  10-14).  But Christ became a curse for us in order to rescue us from the condemnation imposed by that Law, and to open the way to forgiveness and blessing through faith in his sacrifice.  Long before the Law was given at Sinai, God had made a solemn covenant with Abraham.  This granted him and his descendants the inalienable inheritance of Canaan - 'the promised land.'  As this covenant was granted without any condition attached to it, the Mosaic Law given 430 years later could not annul it (Galatians 3.17).

The Law itself, for the reason already stated, was powerless to confer eternal life.  It could only foreshadow, in type and figure, the true way of salvation through Christ later to be revealed.  With their faith in this great sacrifice the Galatians, in common with all true Christians, had been baptised (i.e.  immersed) in water and thereby 'clothed themselves with Christ' (Galatians 3.27 NIV).  'And if you belong to Christ, then you [too] are Abraham's "seed" [i.e.  descendants] and heirs according to the [same] promise [of inheriting the land for ever]' (Galatians 3.29 - cp.  Matthew 5.5).

It must be obvious to any unbiased mind that without such faith in Christ, and the union with him achieved by a symbolic death and burial with him in the waters of baptism (see Romans chapter 6), nominal Christians have not complied with the conditions that God has laid down for entry into the way of (eternal) life.  Neither sprinkled infants nor unimmersed adults qualify for the prize, which God has offered to obedient believers alone.

The Apostle proceeds to liken the believers' new status in Christ to that of heirs now 'come of age', no longer subject to the restrictions of the old Law (Galatians 4.1-20).  From 'slavery' under that Law, they have been granted full sonship.  They have been 'adopted' by God, whom they can now invoke as 'Abba' (Aramaic for 'Father').

But the Judaisers were bent on persuading them to become enslaved again (to the Law of Moses), and to submit to 'the weak and beggarly elements' of Judaism in vain pursuit of a righteousness based on 'works.'  How their attitude to Paul had changed from the time of their earliest contacts with the Apostle, when they had welcomed him as if he had been Jesus in person! (Galatians 4.14)

The Law itself (i.e.  the Torah, or the five books of Moses), upon which Paul's opponents relied, contains a parable which illustrates this controversy between 'law' and 'grace' (Galatians 4.21 to 5.1).  The book of Genesis records that Abraham had two wives.  The second one was Hagar, a bondmaid in his household.  He had married her only after it was clear that his true wife Sarah, was unable to produce an heir for him.  Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Paul writes that she and her son represented the old (Mosaic) Law given at Sinai, and the two correspond to contemporary Jerusalem, still in bondage to the Law.  Later Isaac was born to Sarah and she, says the Apostle, symbolises the heavenly Jerusalem, or the community of believers in Christ, freed from the old Law (Cp. Revelation 21.9-10).

The critical moment arrived when Ishmael was caught mocking Isaac, whereupon Sarah had Hagar and Ishmael dismissed from Abraham's household, and Ishmael disinherited (Genesis 21.8-13).  True Christians are antitypically (or correspond to) the children of the free woman (i.e. Sarah).  They must be on their guard against attempts of the Judaisers to put them back under a yoke of bondage (Galatians 5.1 RSV).

Paul gives a further warning that a Christian believer who allows himself to be circumcised burdens himself with an obligation to obey the whole Mosaic Law (and therefore becomes alienated from the principle of faith in Christ).  He then dwells on the characteristics of those who let the Spirit of God rule in their lives.  It was the Spirit, after all, which had originally called them through the Apostle's preaching (Galatians 5.2-6.5).  The works of the fleshly mind are plain enough, he says.  'Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery ...' and other vices follow (Galatians 5.19,20,21 NIV).

People guilty of persisting in these sins will definitely not inherit God's kingdom.  By contrast, 'the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness [and] self-control' (Galatians 5.22,23 RSV); 'against such things there is no law.'  If any fail to live up to these principles (and who is perfect?) they must be corrected with gentleness, for we are all prone to sin (Galatians 6.1-5).

Paul ends with yet another condemnation of the Judaisers (Galatians 6.11-16), but before doing so he pens a sober warning about reward and punishment in the Day of Judgment:

'Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.' (Galatians 6.7-9 RSV)

Thus our whole future depends on what we sow now.  If we sow to the flesh, we inevitably lay up for ourselves condemnation and corruption - eternal death.  But if we are wise, we will devote ourselves to sowing the seeds of obedience, patience, faith and love.  This is all the fruit of the Spirit, and in due season (i.e. on the Day of Judgment when Christ returns) we shall reap eternal life.  Finally the Apostle adds a very practical exhortation based on the life which he, like his Master, had followed:

'So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.' (Galatians 6.10 RSV)