The Letter to the Galatians

A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY  Read Galatians 1:1-12

   Paul makes it crystal clear at the outset of this great letter that he is not addressing the churches of Galatia because some group or some other apostle asked him to do it. He holds no ecclesiastical portfolio and carries no credentials. He waves no dossier before them. He repudiates all such trappings, for his qualifications come neither from men nor through men, but rather through Jesus Christ and God the Father.

   His greetings are brief because a matter of tremendous urgency is at stake. I am thunderstruck [Paul says] to learn that you have been listening to legalistic troublemakers from Jerusalem. You have turned away from the truth I taught you, at the behest of men who would turn all the Gentile Christians of Galatia into observers of Jewish law and ritual. What are you implying? That my gospel is erroneous? Believe me, brethren, I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

MY ONLY TEACHER WAS CHRIST  Read 1:13-24

   You don't know what you are getting into with these "Judaizers," but I do. In times past I was more legalistic than most of the Jews I knew, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions

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of my fathers. I even went after the Christians. But when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I sensed at once that he was calling me to preach Christ to the Gentiles.

   Did I confer about this matter with the apostles in Jerusalem? I did not. From Damascus I went into the Arabian desert. Three years after returning to Damascus I came to Jerusalem and spent fifteen days with Peter. At that time I recall that I saw none of the other apostles, with the exception of James the Lord's brother. Then I went off to Syria and Cilicia.

   Listen! In Judea the Christians did not even know what I looked like. All they knew was that a man who once had tried to destroy the church now preached the church's faith, and they glorified God in me.

WE DID NOT GIVE AN INCH  Read 2:1-5

   Fourteen years passed before I got to Jerusalem again, accompanied by Barnabas and Titus. This time I took pains to share with the pillars of the church — Peter, James, and John — the nature of the gospel I had been preaching among the Gentiles. But they did not compel Titus to be circumcised, Greek though he is; nor did we give an inch of the liberty which we have in Christ Jesus when it came to the free proclamation of the gospel.

THE RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP  Read 2:6-10

   The result was that when they realized that the gospel of the uncircumcision had been committed to me, as the gospel of the circumcision had been committed to Peter, they extended to Barnabas and me the right hands of fellowship. It was agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews. The only request they added was that we might send back something to help the destitute Christians of Judea, and I was more than eager to do that.

I HAD TO REBUKE PETER  Read 2:11-14

   However, when I met Peter later at the church in Antioch, I took him to task because he changed his habits after a delegation came from James. He had been eating with the Gentiles, but now he stopped. But not Peter alone — the other Hebrew Christians

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and even Barnabas withdrew from the table. The whole thing was contrary to the gospel, and I finally said to Peter before them all, "You, a Jew, do not object to living as a Gentile. Why then do you expect the Gentiles to live like the Jews?"

CHRIST MAKES US RIGHT, NOT THE LAW  Read 2:15-21

   Don't you see? The gospel is not just for Gentile sinners, but for all men. When we who are born Jews come to Christ, we find that we too are sinners, condemned by the very law we labor to observe. We believe in Jesus Christ in order that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, since by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. We die to the law so that we might live for God alone.

   Were I to achieve righteousness by observing the law, Christ would have died in vain. But I am crucified with Christ, and yet I am still alive. It is because Christ now is alive in me. Being alive now means that I live by the faith of God's Son and am clothed in his righteousness, since he loved me and gave himself up for me.

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?  Read 3:1-9

   You witless Galatians, has someone put a hex on you? Answer me this: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Now that you have begun in the Spirit, will you be made perfect by the flesh? This is not the teaching of scripture. Abraham was not justified by the law. He believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And we are told that in Abraham all nations shall be blessed. There it is: those who have faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

OUT FROM UNDER THE CURSE  Read 3:10-14

   You must distinguish between the law and faith. To be under the law is to be under a curse. In Deuteronomy it is written that if a single item of the law is neglected, the curse falls. But Jesus Christ took away that curse forever, being made a curse for us upon the cross, in fulfillment of scripture. So we know that the

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just shall live only by faith in Christ, and that through faith we receive the promise of the Spirit.

THE PROMISE WAS NEVER BROKEN  Read 3:15-20

   Take a human analogy: an agreement between men, once confirmed, is not considered breakable. Recall then that God made an agreement with Abraham 430 years before Moses received the law, and that agreement was never annulled. It had nothing to do with law; it was a promise. God gave it. Later, because of human transgressions, the law was instituted to serve until the fulfillment of the promise in Jesus Christ.

WE HAVE GRADUATED FROM SCHOOL  Read 3:21-29

   Don't misunderstand me: the law nowhere contradicts God's promise. It's purpose was to point up sin, to show us all to be sinners. The law served as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, through whom we are justified by faith.

   Now that faith has come, we have graduated from school and have put on Christ. What difference does it make any more whether we are Jew or Greek, slave or free man? Really none! What difference do distinctions of sex make? Not any! We are all one in Christ Jesus, and heirs of the promise given to Abraham.

IN CHRIST WE ARE GROWN SONS  Read 4:1-7

   A son and heir is under obedience, just as a slave is, but only until he grows up and reaches a time fixed by the father. Then he is free. So we were in childlike bondage to the elements of the world until God, in the fullness of time sent his Son to redeem us and adopt us as full-grown sons.

HOW CAN YOU TURN BACK?  Read 4:8-15

   Now what I cannot understand is, how can you Galatians, who know God and are known of him, turn back to this beggarly, legalistic, kindergarten business of observing days, and months, and times, and years? Have I been wasting my time with you?

   Don't imagine that I am nursing some "wrong"; I remember all

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too well the wonderfully kind way you looked after me in my time of affliction. You welcomed me to Galatia as you would welcome an angel of God or Christ Jesus himself. And what about that great blessing you spoke of when I was with you?

THEY REALLY WANT YOUR ENVY  Read 4:16-19

   But cannot one be frank without being hostile? It is a good thing when people want what you have, providing you have something worth exporting. But these Judaizers don't really want what you have, they just want you to drool over what they have. That is quite a different thing, and I am deeply burdened in the expectation that Christ might be formed in you.

JUST LISTEN TO THE LAW  Read 4:20-25

   If you are so obsessed with keeping the Jewish law, perhaps you will listen to what it says: Abraham had two sons, one by a slave, the other by a free woman. Ishmael was born naturally, and Isaac supernaturally by God's promise. This is a true story which should be interpreted as an allegory, for Ishmael's mother, the slave Hagar, who was driven out, stands for Moses and Mount Sinai, and the covenant of the law, and Jerusalem which is today enslaved by Rome.

WE ARE FREE CHILDREN OF SARAH  Read 4:26-5:1

   Sarah, the mother of Isaac, was on the other hand a free woman. She is a symbol of the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ, and of the liberated Jerusalem which is above. This Jerusalem is the true mother of us all, whether we be Jew or Gentile. We are the children of promise, as Isaac was, for our mother is the free woman (grace), not the cast-out slave woman (the law). Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and don't put your neck back into the yoke of religious enslavement.

DEPEND ON GRACE, NOT LAW  Read 5:2-10

   Listen to what I am saying: if you Gentiles insist on becoming circumcised, Christ can do you no good whatever. If you want

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to observe the law, you must come under its requirements in each detail. And if that is the way you seek to be justified before God, then you have fallen away from grace. We depend not on circumcision but on Christ alone. This is the faith that works by love.

   You were coming along splendidly; who blocked your path? It doesn't take much for trouble to start. I know the Lord will set you straight, but somebody must be brought to task for this.

CHRIST CALLS US TO LOVE  Read 5:11-18

   Do some of these people claim that I myself recommend circumcision? Then why do they keep on persecuting me? I'll tell you why. It is because I preach not circumcision, but the cross, and this is a scandal and an offense in their eyes. Christ calls us to spiritual freedom and to love of neighbor, not to legalistic curbs upon the flesh. If the Spirit of God leads you, then you are neither under the law nor controlled by the desire of the flesh.

THE LAW VERSUS THE HOLY SPIRIT  Read 5:19-26

   Fleshly behavior consists of adultery, sexual immorality, envyings, quarrelings, murders, drunkenness and so on. And let me repeat that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Who needs a law to practice these things? So brethren, if our flesh is crucified so that we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

CHRIST'S LAW IS TO WALK IN THE SPIRIT  Read 6:1-10

   Walking in the Spirit means that when one of you is found doing wrong, the rest should remember their own weaknesses and deal gently and constructively with him. It means bearing each other's burdens and not putting on airs. We are to "check out" our own work and carry our own loads, so to speak, but we also are to share what we have with him who does the teaching.

   The law of Christ tells us that whatever a man sows, that he will also reap; and that if we sow to the Spirit, doing good

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to all without becoming weary, or faint, God will see to our reward.

CIRCUMCISION IS JUST A SHOW  Read 6:11-14

   The first part of this letter was dictated, but now I, Paul, am writing the conclusion in my own hand (note the large letters). I say again, all this emphasis on circumcision is simply an appeal to the flesh and an effort to evade persecution for the cross of Christ. Hypocrisy is evident from the fact that your Judaizing friends don't really keep the law at all. They just want to make a showing. But I will do my boasting in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

WHAT MATTERS IS A NEW CREATION  Read 6:15-18

   Circumcision or uncircumcision — who cares, anyhow? What counts in Christ Jesus is a new creation. So, troublemakers, leave me alone; I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. As for you Galatians, may his grace be with your spirit. Amen.

   Galatians has been called the Magna Carta of the human spirit. By using Old Testament illustrations, Paul emphasizes the uniqueness of the Christian message and makes an everlasting distinction between God's law and God's grace.

   Try to visualize the debate in the early church, particularly among Hebrew Christians, over such subjects as diet and circumcision. Note that Paul's commission to the Gentiles was part and parcel of his conversion experience (see Acts 9:15). Ask yourself this question: If Paul did not receive instruction from the other apostles, how did he obtain his gospel?

   In chapters 3 and 4 Paul reaches the heart of his message. If you can follow him here, you have mastered his argument, for the distinction between law and grace is set forth in classic style. Galatians makes very clear that the message of the New Testament is eternally different from the traditions and religions of mankind.

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   There are concepts here not familiar to everyone: "curse" . . . "elements" . . . "circumcision" . . . "allegory" . . . "covenant." These require explanation. Use a Bible dictionary, concordance or subject index. It is also helpful to attend a Bible class where commentaries and expert teaching will throw further light on the text.

   Galatians offers a magnificent opportunity to contrast the whole panorama of man's religious effort with the grace offered by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Take any religion you wish, old or new, of the East or the West. Examine its natural development; see how it seeks inevitably to build a stairway, a scala sancta, from man to God.

   Then study Galatians and learn how hopeless are all the stairways, ladders, seances and dreams that man uses to try to reach the "beyond." This letter makes it clear that "bootstrap religion" never gets off the ground; and the symbol of bootstrap religion, to Paul, was circumcision.

   Genuine contact with the divine is made, Paul says, not when man tries, with a lot of religious claptrap, to inch himself upward toward God, but when God reaches down to man in forgiving grace. And this He does at the cross through Jesus Christ — alone.

   You will never have a better chance to examine the sheer, clean beauty of the New Testament as it shows man how to get rid of sin, fear and superstition.

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