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You foolish Galatians!
Paul’s letter to the Galatians is highly autobiographical in nature.
Writing around the year 54 to a group of Christians whom he converted,
the apostle deals with a controversy that arose within the community since
his departure. Apparently there are others who are preaching a different
form of the gospel than that preached by Paul. They are also challenging
his apostolic authority. This other gospel requires obedience to the Law,
including circumcision, even of converts from the gentiles. But the gospel
Paul preached to them does not require this.
Hearing of this problem, Paul writes to the churches in Galatia, most
likely while in Ephesus, to remind them of the gospel he preached to them
and to warn them of the dangers of conforming to this “different gospel”
(1:6). He goes on to defend his apostolic authority as rooted in “a revelation
of Jesus Christ” (1:12); it is not something he received from human agents
but directly from God. In order to defend himself, Paul narrates his own
call to preach the gospel. He reminds the Galatians that he was “advanced
in Judaism” and “far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (1:14),
and because of this zeal he “was violently persecuting the church … and
was trying to destroy it” (1:13). But then, Paul writes, “God … was pleased
to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles”
(1:15–16). With this encounter on the road to Damascus, Paul becomes a
new man.
Paul goes on to narrate how he proceeded to preach the gospel among
the gentiles without first consulting with the apostles in Jerusalem, and
he tells of the success his preaching met: “They glorified God because
of me” (1:24). Finally, after 14 years, he says, he went up to Jerusalem
and then to Antioch, where he met with the apostles. Here he opposed Cephas
(Peter) for requiring the gentile converts to submit to the Law of Moses.
We know from other texts (for example, Acts 15) that this issue was heavily
debated among the early Christians. Paul’s argument, ultimately the winning
one, is that obedience to the Law does not lead to salvation; rather, faith
in Christ does. “No one will be justified by the works of the law,” he
writes (2:16). Through debate and discernment, the Holy Spirit guides the
apostolic community to this conclusion, and they communicate this decision
to their fellow believers in a letter.
Paul reminds the Galatians that our salvation is a gift from God; it
is not something we earn by obedience to the Law. Out of love for us Christ
died for us, and through his death and resurrection we achieve salvation.
In accepting this “new gospel” being preached by Paul’s opponents, the
Galatians are denying the validity of the gospel message of salvation through
God’s grace. “If justification comes through the law, then Christ died
for nothing,” he argues (2:21). He reminds them that they received the
Spirit not as a result of their works but through the grace of God, and
so they are straying from the faith God gave them.
His frustration with them is such that he calls them “foolish Galatians!”
asking, “Who has bewitched you?” (3:1). Paul reminds them that Abraham,
who was promised to be a source of blessing to the nations, received God’s
blessing before the Law was given to Moses and so, he argues, grace comes
apart from the Law. Therefore the requirements of the Law, including circumcision,
are no longer binding. Paul’s anger at his opponents leads him to say,
perhaps with a bit of sarcasm, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate
themselves!” (5:12). For, he writes, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
is anything” (6:15).
But being free from the Law does not mean that we are free to do anything
we want. Paul warns the Galatians that they face the danger of thinking
that because they are no longer under the yoke of the Law that they are
at liberty to “gratify the desires of the flesh” (5:16). This freedom,
won for us by Christ, is a freedom that calls us to walk in the way of
Christ. Paul sums up what he means here by saying, “The whole law is summed
up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’”
(5:14).
Having been ransomed by the blood of the Lamb, may we come to walk more
closely in the ways of God. ML
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