Galatians Part Two Deep Dive
TO CUT OR NOT TO CUT? PART TWO | DR ADAM WHITE
We left off last time with some new Gentile Christians in Galatia feeling compelled to listen and go along with a certain group of travelling Jewish Christians, presumably sent and endorsed by the 12 in Jerusalem, who are insisting that the Galatians add to their faith in Christ certain Mosaic requirements. The most pressing of these requirements being circumcision. The Galatians, moreover, felt themselves in no position to argue with such obvious authorities. Paul has got wind of this situation and quickly responded with his first (as we have it) letter.
From this point, there are several ways we can approach the letter. For the sake of covering all the content, I will offer a very broad framework of each of the key arguments and then encourage you to go and read it yourself … in one sitting! Why in one sitting? Because Galatians was written to be read aloud in one sitting. I have already discussed in my Philemon post about the practice of the early church listening to letters, rather than reading them privately. Paul’s letters were written to function as speeches that were performed before the congregation, and Galatians was no exception.
This is such an important point to remember when we deal with letters like Galatians and Romans: we are meant to read them start to finish in one go. Modern Christians, however, read them in a piecemeal fashion, a chapter here, a verse there, depending on our devotional schedule or level of effort in sermon prep. But this automatically severs whatever we read from its context—the context being the whole letter. Imagine it this way: you give a 30-minute presentation on a topic that moves through several important stages of argument, each one building on the previous and each one essential to the overarching point, all moving towards a grand conclusion. Then, someone who heard the presentation takes out a small section of one of your arguments and presents it as your whole point. At best, your point may still come through in their retelling; at a neutral, you’re made to say something that you didn’t but it’s not controversial; at worst, you’re a heretic, or a bigot, or a <insert minority group>phobe, or whatever other slander can be thrown at you. Sadly, this is how Paul is often characterised based on precisely this kind of reading.
So, how should we understand Galatians? What sort of framework should we utilise that will guide us through its developing argument? One thing to understand is that this is what we call an “occasional letter”. That means that the letter was written at a certain time in history to deal with a very specific set of issues. So, in order to understand it, we need to reconstruct that situation. In the last post, we saw the timing of the letter and the core of the problem, that being the intruders in Galatia. The next thing we need to determine is what exactly are they saying to the Galatians. We can reconstruct this somewhat from Paul’s response, like listening to one side of a phone call. With that as our approach, here is a generally agreed upon summary* of the key issues:
1:1–10: Paul always opens his letters with a standard ancient greeting (Paul, recipient, grace) followed by a prayer for the recipient, which is the ancient equivalent of “How are you?” You don’t really care how the person is doing, it’s just convention. This is the case in all of Paul’s letters except in Galatians. Here, he skips the prayer altogether, which is the first clue that he is miffed. Instead of the formalities, it’s: “anyone who preaches another gospel can go to hell!” That pretty much sets the tone for what’s to come.
1:11–2:10: this is a very personal and very specific to the situation. Paul is responding to an accusation from the judaizers that he is not a real apostle, or only a half-apostle. They have told the Galatians that Paul is not really an authority because he is not one of the 12 and so therefore not commissioned directly from Jesus. Moreover, he did all his study with the 12 in Jerusalem but then when he went out to the Galatians, he watered down the message, leaving out the key points of the gospel such as circumcision and obedience to various aspects of Torah. Paul responds with the ancient equivalent of “nah-ah”. His point is to say that he had almost nothing to do with the 12, that he was already preaching this circumcision-free message for years before he saw them, and when he did finally see them, they added nothing to it.
2:11–21: this is fun. It’s likely that the intruders are citing Peter as some sort of endorsement for their own ministry, or at the very least, are holding him up as the true head of the church. Paul says, “Hey, let me tell you a little story about the time Peter came to Antioch, when even he was afraid of what these Judaizers thought.” By distancing himself from the Gentiles at the meal, Peter was saying to them that they needed to be Jews to be Christians, i.e. circumcised. Paul says, “Even when Peter tried to undermine my message I got in his face; how much more do you think I will to these intruders?!”
3:1–5:12: this is a long and complex argument, but the gist of it is a response to the claim that to be the people of God, you need to be in the promise of Abraham, which means that you need to be his sons and daughters. To do this, you need to be circumcised. Paul’s response is to show from several different angles that the promise came to Abraham by faith, not circumcision. That is, God promised Abraham he would be the father of nations and it was ratified as a contract when Abraham believed God by faith. Then, many years later, God gave Abraham circumcision as a sign of the promise, but it was not the promise itself. It added nothing to the promise that had already been ratified by faith. So, the logic runs like this: “Galatians, Abraham received the promise by faith, not circumcision. How did you receive salvation, i.e. the promise?” “Um, through the Spirit by faith in Christ.” “Right. So, if circumcision added nothing to the promise back then, what do you think it will add to you now?” “Good point… Okay, so, if we have received salvation by faith in Christ, not circumcision, and we have therefore received the Spirit as a seal of this salvation, what evidence is there that we are truly in Christ? I can see circumcision; how do I see the Spirit in my life?” “I’m glad you asked!”
5:1–6:18: which one of these descriptions best fits you? The flesh or the Spirit? How you answer that is a clear indication of the Spirit’s work in your life. We know we are in the promise because we have the Spirit. We know we have the Spirit because we look more and more like Christ. Nothing we can do to our bodies, no external religious formality, no ritual, or anything else like it will add or take away from what only the Spirit of God can do. And that is how we can be certain that we are in Christ.
A letter like Galatians deserves several more posts and then some. But can I encourage you to go and read it for yourself, in one sitting, with this as your framework. Let it speak to you on its own terms and watch the transformation.
*There are countless commentaries on Galatians that all differ on minor points; but the majority of them agree on the big picture framework that I am presenting here.
recommended
An Introduction to the Old Testament
Galatians part One
Galatians part Two