Galatians
Overview
Paul wrote the book of Galatians to the assemblies of Christians scattered around the southern portion of the Roman province of Galatia in order to warn them against the influence of false teachers in their communities. These troublemakers (Gal. 1:7; cf. 5:10, 12) insisted that the Gentile Galatian Christians had to complete their Christian commitment and finalize their place in the people of God by becoming Jewish (3:3). Gentile men would need to accept circumcision (6:12), and everyone would need to follow the Jewish calendar (4:10). Presumably, everyone would also have to observe the Jewish dietary restrictions (cf. 2:12). The false teachers seem to have accompanied their argument for doing these and other “works of the law” (2:16; 3:2, 5, 10) with an attack on Paul’s character (1:10; 5:11; cf. 6:17) and apostolic authority (1:1, 11–12, 17; 2:6).
Paul replies with an emotional, sophisticated, and theologically rich letter. He first defends the divine origin of the gospel and his authority to define and proclaim it (1:1–2:14). As part of this defense, he recounts his life-altering conversion from persecutor of the church to Apostle to the Gentiles and provides a record of his contact over the preceding years with the three most important apostles in Jerusalem.
A brief passage summarizing the theological message of the letter (2:15–21) forms a bridge to its main theological argument (3:1–6:10). In this second main part of the letter, Paul argues from Scripture that the Mosaic law has served its God-ordained purpose in salvation history and cannot be imposed on Gentiles. Doing this would nullify God’s fulfillment of his ancient promise to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s offspring (3:6–4:31). Through the death of Christ (3:13–14) and the coming of the Holy Spirit (3:1–5, 14; 5:16, 22–23), God has made it possible for both Gentiles and Jews to escape the otherwise justified curse of the law on the disobedient (3:10). They can now begin to live in ways that fulfill the purpose for which God created them (5:13–6:10). Faith in this good news is the single requirement for receiving these blessings, which is why Paul considers the imposition on God’s people of any additional requirement to be a “different gospel” (1:6).
Author
As with most letters from antiquity, the first word of Galatians names its author—in this case, Paul. Although fake letters purporting to be from some authoritative figure were not unknown in that era (cf. 2 Thess. 2:2; 3:17), the literary style, theological concerns, and historical details of Galatians fit the other early evidence of Paul’s life and ministry so well that no serious historian questions the letter’s authenticity.
Following the custom of his time, Paul used secretaries to take down his letters at his dictation (Rom. 16:22), sometimes adding a comment in his own hand near the letter’s end (Gal. 6:11; cf. 1 Cor. 16:21; Col. 4:18; 2 Thess. 3:17; Philem. 19). The similarity in style between Galatians and most of Paul’s other letters, however, shows that the secretary’s role in the composition of this letter was minimal.
Date and Occasion
The precise date of Galatians, and thus its exact position in Paul’s career, is uncertain. The apostle wrote it sometime after he preached the gospel in Galatia, but what Paul means by “Galatia” in 1:2 is not entirely clear. He might be referring to the region traditionally called Galatia in the north-central part of the Anatolian Peninsula (what is today Turkey).1 More probably, however, “Galatia” refers to the southern part of the much larger Roman province of Galatia, which covered not only traditional Galatia but also areas south of that region, including Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and Pisidian Antioch.2 Paul and Barnabas had visited these towns on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:13–14:26), and thus the writing of Galatians would have fallen sometime after that journey.
Paul also wrote Galatians sometime after the visit to Jerusalem described in Galatians 2:1–10 and after the dispute between himself and Cephas in Antioch, described in 2:11–14. Again, however, it is not clear where these events fall in Paul’s career as Luke describes it. Many interpreters believe that the Jerusalem visit of 2:1–10 corresponds with Paul’s second postconversion Jerusalem visit, which Luke describes in Acts 11:27–30. If this is correct, then Paul probably wrote Galatians between this visit and the Jerusalem council of Acts 15:1–34.3 This would make it his earliest letter and put its composition at about AD 48.4
The visit of Acts 11:27–30, however, was to bring famine relief aid to Judea (Acts 11:28–29), not to discuss the gospel’s content and the right strategy for its worldwide proclamation (Gal. 2:2, 6–9). A divine revelation certainly prompted the visit of 2:1–10, just as it prompted the famine relief visit, but the revelation Paul describes in Galatians came to him (2:2), not to the prophet Agabus, as in Acts 11:27–28.5 Moreover, Paul and Barnabas handed their relief aid over to “the elders” (Acts 11:30), a group separate from the apostles.6 Paul and Barnabas probably never met with the Jerusalem pillars (James, Cephas, and John) on this visit, which is likely why Paul felt free not to mention the trip in his account of his relationship with Jerusalem. It is likely, then, that the Jerusalem visit Paul describes in Galatians 2:1–10 corresponds with the Jerusalem council, whose story Luke tells in Acts 15:1–34. The dispute with Cephas at Antioch probably took place after the council, in the period that Luke describes briefly in Acts 15:35.
Paul could have written Galatians any time after this, but he probably wrote the letter before the composition of 1 Corinthians. By the time Paul wrote that letter, he seems to assume that the Galatian Christians would contribute to his collection for poor fellow Christians in Jerusalem, and so affairs in Galatia seem to be back in order (1 Cor. 16:1; Rom. 15:26; cf. “Gaius of Derbe” in Acts 20:4). This puts Galatians sometime in the period AD 49–54.
The occasion of the letter is easier to discern. False teachers had arrived, or arisen, in the churches in southern Galatia, which were mainly Gentile, insisting that the Christians there had taken only the first of two necessary steps in becoming Abraham’s descendants and therefore members of God’s people (Gal. 1:7; 5:10). Faith in Christ was the first step, but the second step was equally important. They had to adopt the custom of circumcising males within their communities (5:2–3; 6:12–13), keep the Jewish festivals (4:10), and, probably, observe the food laws (cf. 2:11–14). In other words, they had to become Jewish. These false teachers were most interested in circumcision (5:2–3, 6; 6:12–13; cf. 2:3; 5:11), putting intense pressure on the Galatians to conform to this distinctive marker of Jewishness (6:12). They may have exercised this pressure by refusing table fellowship to the Galatian Christians unless they agreed to observe the Mosaic law (4:17).7
These troublemakers made a persuasive case by attacking Paul’s credibility and probably also by appealing to Scripture, perhaps especially the story of Abraham (e.g., Gen. 17:1–14). Paul, however, considered their version of the gospel “no gospel at all” (Gal. 1:7 NIV). It diminished and therefore ungratefully spurned the grace of God in the death of Christ (5:4; cf. 2:21; 3:10–13; 4:4–5), ignored the powerful presence of God’s Spirit among the Galatians (3:1–5), and through a misreading of Scripture turned the clock back to an era of salvation history that had passed away (3:15–4:7).
Genre and Literary Features
Galatians is, in some ways, a typical private letter of the Roman period. It begins with the sender’s name (“Paul”) and includes an address (“to the churches of Galatia”), a formally gracious greeting at the beginning (“grace . . . to you”), and a wish for the recipients to prosper at the end (1:1–3; 6:18).
In other ways, however, Galatians is a unique document, even within the body of already unusual Pauline letters. Unlike most of Paul’s other letters, including all of his other letters to churches, it replaces the thanksgiving prayer report or benedictory prayer with an expression of astonishment (1:6–7) and a curse, repeated for emphasis, on those who are troubling the Galatians (1:8–9). The letter’s conclusion, similarly, contains a lengthy paragraph in Paul’s own hand, emphasizing the wrongheaded motivations of the false teachers and the critical importance of walking not by their rule but by the rule of God’s new creation (6:11–18). Unlike most other Pauline letters, Galatians contains no general wish for peace on the recipients (cf. Rom. 15:33; Eph. 6:23; 2 Thess. 3:16) and no greetings to or from other believers (Rom. 16:3–16, 21–23; 1 Cor. 16:19–20; 2 Cor. 13:12–13; Phil. 4:21–22; Col. 4:10–18; 2 Tim. 4:19–21; Titus 3:15). As with 1 Timothy, Paul simply ends on a stern note of warning and concern and with a brief grace benediction.
The parallel with 1 Timothy is instructive, because the reason for all of these differences lies in the dire theological peril into which the Galatians have put themselves. This is similar to the situation behind 1 Timothy, as the Ephesian church was also on the verge of apostasy (1 Tim. 1:3–4). Paul dispenses with talk of the peace and blessing that exists among Christians because the Galatians are close to forfeiting it all by “deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” (Gal. 1:6).
Theology of Galatians
Although Galatians is a relatively short letter, it develops a number of important theological themes. Three of these—justification, the law, and the family of God—play a particularly important role in the argument.
Justification
The language of “righteousness” or “justification” is especially important in Galatians. Paul assumes that every human being is guilty of violating God’s law and therefore must answer before God in his role as judge of the universe (2:16–17; 5:5).
Unlike modern Western courts, ancient Jewish and Roman courts met on the presumption that the defendant was guilty of the crime, and the judges simply confirmed or refused to confirm that the defendant deserved punishment. To “justify” someone was to release him from punishment and restore him to the good graces of the community, and a “just” judge did not punish the “righteous” or leave the wicked person unpunished (e.g., Ex. 23:7).8
Paul insists in Galatians that if God measured people against the standard of doing the law, no one would go unpunished (Gal. 2:16; 3:10–12, 21–23; 5:4; cf. Ps. 143:2). God releases unrighteous people from punishment, however, when they trust in his gracious gift of Christ’s death in their place (Gal. 2:21; 3:6, 8, 11–14, 24). Their faith in God’s gracious provision, then, renders them righteous, and they “live” in the fullest sense (3:11). They are not guiltless (no legal fiction is involved) but forgiven and reconciled to God (cf. Rom. 4:6–8; 5:1). This judicial decision is assured when they believe the gospel (Gal. 2:16) and is confirmed on the day of judgment (5:5).
Law
In Galatians, the “law” is preeminently the Mosaic law, the covenant God made with his people at Mount Sinai as their national constitution (3:17; 4:24–25; cf. Ex. 19:1–6). This law was perfect for his people during the time God intended it to be in effect (Gal. 3:21), but with the coming of Christ it is in effect no longer (3:19, 23–25). Now God’s people are not a theocracy living as a political entity in a certain geographical location, and the commandments of the Mosaic law, with their national concerns, function in a different way than they did prior to Christ’s coming. They are still Scripture (3:22), but they no longer set the boundaries of God’s people (3:28; cf. Eph. 2:15).
A core part of the Mosaic law, however, expressed God’s permanent will for the conduct of all human beings in their relationship with him and with one another (Gal. 5:14, 23). God put this expression of his will in clear, written form for Jews (3:22) and in instinctive form for Gentiles (4:4–6; cf. Rom. 1:32; 2:14–15) to show all people, whether Gentile or Jewish, how far short they fall from God’s standards and to highlight the necessity of their redemption through the substitutionary atoning death of Christ (Gal. 3:22–25). These permanent elements of God’s will, pithily condensed in Jesus’ own summary of the law, Paul refers to as “the law of Christ” (6:2; cf. 5:14).
After believers’ justification by faith in Christ, the Spirit releases them from sin’s bondage to an extent never possible before, and they are now able to fulfill the law (5:14, 22–23; 6:2). They do not do so perfectly (5:17), but, as John Calvin says, God enables them to keep the lusts of the flesh from reigning over their lives.9
God’s Family
Paul’s argument in Galatians rests largely on the notion that all believers, whatever their ethnic origin or affiliation, are metaphorical children within the same family. He approaches this subject from two angles, the family of Abraham and the family of God.
It is likely that the false teachers maintained that the Gentile Galatians could become part of God’s people only by becoming Abraham’s descendants through circumcision, the same covenant marker Abraham applied to his son Isaac (Gen. 17:1–14; 21:4).10 Perhaps in response to this idea, Paul insists that only a multinational, multicultural family could fulfill God’s promise to Abraham. God had said Abraham would be the means of blessing not merely to one ethnic group (the Jews, defined by circumcision) but to “all the nations” (Gal. 3:8; cf. Gen. 12:3; 18:18). Faith in the gospel and union with Christ provide the means for the fulfillment of this promise (Gal. 3:9, 14, 27–29; 4:28); it requires no one to adopt a culture different from his or her own, as it makes everyone a child of Abraham by faith (3:28–29).
Paul also develops the idea that believers are the adopted sons of God through their union with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This idea emerges out of Paul’s argument that God’s plan to save his people has moved forward from the era of the law, with its curse on the disobedient, to the era of justification and redemption from sin (3:24–26). Believers have moved metaphorically from a period of immaturity and slavery to a period of realizing all the privileges of the adult, adopted sons of God, who have begun to receive the inheritance promised to Abraham (4:1–7).
This complex metaphor communicates to the Galatians the enormous privilege God has given them through their union with Christ and the tragedy that would ensue if they stepped back in time from the period of maturity, adoption, and inheritance to the status of slaves by coming under the Mosaic law. They are now able to call God “Father,” with all of the love, protection, and honor entailed in that privilege, and adopting another culture’s customs, as if this would bring them more clearly into God’s family, is not only unnecessary but implies a repudiation of God’s grace (4:8–11; 5:2–4).
Relationship to the Rest of the Bible and to Christ
Paul explains the gospel in this letter as the fulfillment both of God’s promises to Abraham and of the Mosaic law’s purpose. God’s promise to Abraham included a global component that, in Paul’s thinking, encompassed all creation. He promised Abraham that he would be the means of blessing “all the nations” (3:8; Gen. 12:3; 18:18). He also promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; 22:15–18). These are the “promises” (plural) Paul probably has in mind in Galatians 3:16, and as the comment on 3:16 explains, Paul probably takes “the land” as a reference not only to the land of Canaan but to the whole earth. The gospel’s outreach to the nations in all their diversity is the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem all creation from the effects of human rebellion against the Creator. It is the beginning, then, of the new creation Isaiah prophesied (Isa. 65:17; 66:22–23).
The Mosaic law played a critical, but completed, role in this plan. It “was added because of transgressions” (Gal. 3:19) and “held” people “captive,” “imprisoned” under sin (3:22–23), expressions that would be enigmatic were it not for Paul’s more detailed explanation of the law’s role in salvation history in Romans. There it becomes clear that God gave the law in order to define sin precisely and to demonstrate fallen humanity’s incapacity to overcome sin (Rom. 3:20; 5:20–21; 7:5–12). This is why the law pronounces a curse on “everyone who does not abide by all things written” in it (Gal. 3:10). It simply announces God’s just punishment of those who violate his will and, in this way, prepares people for the good news that Christ has delivered those who trust him for salvation from the penalty they deserve.
Christ plays the central role in the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and in the rescuing of people from the plight defined by the Mosaic law. As people within the “nations,” both Jew and Gentile, believe the gospel, they become Abraham’s offspring by imitating his faith in God (3:6) and by union with Christ, the most important “offspring” of Abraham (3:27–29). As a result, all of the nations are blessed through Abraham, just as God promised (3:8; Gen. 12:3; 18:18). All of this is possible, however, only because of Christ’s loving, sacrificial, substitutionary death on the cross (Gal. 3:14; cf. 1:4; 2:20). His death removed the curse the law pronounces on all human beings, whether Jewish or Gentile, for their rebellion against God (3:10–13). In their union with Christ’s death (2:20), moreover, believers begin to live according to the leading of God’s Spirit (5:22–23) instead of by the standards of the sinful world around them (6:14).
Preaching from Galatians
Galatians is about the gospel, the good news that God the Father, Creator of all that is, has displayed his grace and mercy to his sinful human creation through the atoning, redemptive death of his Son and the renewing, enabling gift of his Spirit. An expositional series of sermons on Galatians will
- introduce the gospel to people that may have never understood it,
- remind those who are already Christians of how important it is to live out their commitment to the gospel day by day, and
- clarify the gospel for those whose view of its basic tenets is distorted.
From a practical perspective, Galatians has the advantage of explaining the gospel and its implications concisely, so that an expositional sermon series could work through the whole book in, for example, twelve weeks of Sunday morning sermons, or six weeks of Sunday morning and evening sermons. In churches where Sunday School classes, or other special periods of instruction, last for a quarter of the year, the teacher can neatly cover the six chapters of Galatians in a single quarter.
Galatians also has the practical advantage of a thrilling backstory. We walk with Paul through his dramatic, life-changing conversion. We stand with him in Jerusalem and Antioch as he courageously defends the freedom of Gentile Christians not to adopt Jewish cultural norms. We ache with him as he describes the loss of his once warm friendship with the Galatians because of the false teachers’ underhanded tactics.
Despite these advantages, Galatians also presents challenges to the preacher. It is easy to preach and teach Galatians in a lopsided way. The letter is both about justification by faith alone through God’s grace alone apart from any human effort and about the evil of wedding a particular culture to the gospel and then imposing the resulting mix of culture and gospel on everyone else. Both sides of this message are important, but it is easy to focus only on the grace-works antithesis if our congregation might find the cultural message of the letter offensive, or to focus on the cultural message in contexts where everyone applauds inclusivism but finds the doctrine of human depravity and salvation through Christ alone offensive.
Galatians affirms that every human being, whether he or she recognizes it or not, is in rebellion against God. This rebellion lasts until he or she receives forgiveness through Christ’s death and release from sin’s dominion through both union with Christ’s death and the Holy Spirit’s power. The letter also affirms that this message is necessarily adaptable to many different cultures and that God’s plan for the re-creation of the earth involves assembling “a great multitude . . . from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9) to be his people. Faithfully preaching both sides of this message requires the same courageous faithfulness Paul exhibited in Jerusalem and Antioch. A congregation that grasps this message, however, will not only understand the gospel well but will also live it out with a warm welcome to all and a culturally sensitive zeal to see all kinds of people embrace it as well.
Interpretive Challenges
Because Paul wrote Galatians to deal with a particular pastoral problem in a specific time and place, and because it is a short letter, its argument sometimes makes avoiding interpretive mistakes difficult. Awareness of three challenges, however, will help the student of the letter to avoid these pitfalls.
First, in preaching and teaching this text, it is important to avoid unwarranted speculation about the circumstances lying in the background of a particular passage. In the end, we do not know who the false teachers were or even whether they came to Galatia from outside the community. We do not know the precise shape of their message or how they used the OT to make their message persuasive. In preaching Galatians, it will often be necessary to refer to these false teachers, but it is best to stick to what Paul says explicitly about them rather than building a case for a particular approach to a passage based on a speculative reconstruction. One way to avoid chasing speculative rabbits is to interpret the text first on one’s own by reading it carefully with Genesis, Acts, and Romans at one’s elbow, and only then turning to the commentaries (including this one!) for clarification.
Second, to understand Galatians correctly, it is important to think clearly about what Paul is attacking. Interpreters have sometimes turned the letter into a repudiation of the OT and Judaism, but this is very far from the truth. The letter is about the right interpretation of the OT, including the Mosaic law, and not about the rejection of any part of the OT as Christian Scripture. Moreover, Paul is attacking not Judaism generally in the letter but a particular type of Jewish Christianity that insisted on imposing Jewish culture on non-Jewish Christians. Paul was himself a Jewish Christian who retained a deep respect for the traditions of Israel, including circumcision (6:16; cf. Rom. 3:1–2; 4:11; 9:1–5; 10:1–2), and nothing he says in the letter should be understood in an anti-Jewish direction.
Third, it is important to interpret Galatians as a personal letter from Paul to people he knew, who were in great theological danger and needed an urgent warning against apostasy. Paul’s argument, then, lacks the nuance he displays in some of his longer letters. For example, his statements about the Mosaic law in Galatians 3:15–26, which might seem to distance the law from God, need the clarification of Romans 3:10–20 and 7:5–8:8. There Paul shows clearly that the law is holy and righteous and good (Rom. 7:12) but that its purpose was to shine a diagnostic spotlight on human sin. Once again, interpreting Galatians through the lens of Paul’s other letters and what we know of Paul from Acts will prevent us from taking Paul’s particular emphasis on a subject in Galatians as necessarily stating his full position on that subject.
Outline
I. The Letter’s Opening: Paul’s Concern for the Galatians (1:1–9)
A. The Sender: Paul, the Apostle (1:1–2a)
B. The Recipients: Christian Assemblies in Galatia (1:2b–5)
C. An Apostolic Warning (1:6–9)
II. Paul Defends His Apostolic Authority (1:10–2:14)
A. Paul’s Thesis: The Divine Origin of His Gospel (1:10–12)
B. Paul Explains His Thesis (1:13–2:14)
1. Paul’s About-Face as Evidence of the Divine Origin of His Gospel (1:13–17)
2. Fifteen Days with Cephas and Fourteen Years in Syria and Cilicia (1:18–24)
3. A Strategy Meeting in Jerusalem (2:1–10)
4. Paul Defends the Gospel in Antioch (2:11–14)
III. Paul Defends the Gospel in Galatia (2:15–6:10)
A. The Essence of the Gospel (2:15–21)
B. Paul Reminds the Galatian Believers of Their Conversion (3:1–5)
C. Paul Shows That the Gospel Is Consistent with the Scriptures (3:6–5:1)
1. Faith Rather Than Law Defines Abraham’s Offspring (3:6–29)
2. Believers Are God’s Adopted Sons (4:1–11)
3. A Personal Appeal to the Galatian Believers (4:12–20)
4. An Allegory from Scripture (4:21–5:1)
D. The Ethical Results of the Gospel (5:2–6:10)
1. The Results of Submitting to the Law (5:2–15)
2. The Fruit of the True Gospel (5:16–6:10)
IV. Paul Summarizes His Concern: The Letter’s Closing (6:11–18)
A. The Importance of the Letter’s Central Concern (6:11)
B. The False Teachers’ Motives (6:12–13)
C. Paul’s Contrasting Motives (6:14–17)
D. A Prayer for the Galatians to Experience God’s Grace (6:18)