Galatians Commentary

Is a person saved by faith alone, or by a combination of faith plus works? Paul’s letter to the Galatians proclaims that salvation is through faith alone. It also emphasizes freedom in Christ to live by the power of the Spirit, knowing that our relationship with God is not based on our performance but on the finished work of Jesus Christ. So we are truly free, not to serve our sinful nature, but to love and serve our Lord and others.

Setting

When Paul and Barnabas set out from Antioch of Syria on their first missionary journey, they headed across the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea through Cyprus, across the Taurus Mountains of Pamphylia, and into the south of the Roman province of Galatia. There Paul and Barnabas established churches in Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:13–14:28). Many believed the Good News, but the message also aroused opposition and persecution. Paul and Barnabas then returned to Antioch of Syria, reporting on what God had accomplished “and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too” (Acts 14:27).

From the results of Paul’s ministry in Galatia and from Peter’s experience with Cornelius and his household in Caesarea (see Acts 10:1-48), it became clear that salvation was available to Gentiles as well as Jews on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to become full members of God’s family. They had only to put their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

Even so, in the period before the council in Jerusalem (AD 49 or 50; Acts 15:1-41), controversy over the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the church became more heated. When Peter returned to Jerusalem from his groundbreaking work among Gentiles in Caesarea, he faced immediate criticism and pressure from Jewish compatriots who opposed his eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. He answered with an account of the Spirit’s work, which temporarily stilled the criticism (Acts 11:1-18).

Some Jewish Christians continued to believe that Gentiles should practice Judaism in order to be Christians. Those who believed this are often referred to as “Judaizers.” Some of these Judaizers went to Galatia and began claiming that Paul’s teaching about the Good News was inadequate. They denigrated Paul’s status as an apostle, declaring that he had learned the Good News from the “real” apostles in Jerusalem. They asserted that Paul had changed the message, and that his version of the gospel had never received the apostles’ sanction. The Judaizers argued that Paul’s law-free gospel was incomplete, and they claimed that the real gospel required Gentiles to be circumcised and to keep other aspects of the law. Largely in response to the challenge brought by the Judaizers, Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians.

Summary

After briefly identifying himself and greeting his recipients (Gal 1:1-5), Paul launches directly into his thesis: The Good News that he preaches is the only true Good News (1:6-7), he is a genuine apostle of Christ (1:1, 10), and his opponents will suffer God’s judgment for their false message (1:8-9). The rest of the letter centers around these assertions.

Paul first demonstrates that he is a genuine apostle of Christ, preaching the true Good News (1:11–2:21). To this end, Paul reminds the Galatians of the kind of person he used to be (1:13-14) and recounts his conversion experience and his calling by God (1:15-16a). Paul received the Good News as a direct revelation from Christ (1:11-12) rather than from the other apostles in Jerusalem (1:16-24). Still, the other apostles recognized Paul’s apostleship and message (2:1-10), and they had nothing to add or change. Further, Paul displayed his genuineness in an instance when Peter and some others compromised the Good News contrary to their own principles (2:11-21).

Paul then makes an argument that his presentation of the Good News is scriptural and true (3:1–5:12). The Galatians had experienced the Spirit by faith (3:1-5), so they—like all who have faith in Christ—would experience the same blessing that Abraham received (3:6-9). By contrast, trying to be righteous by keeping the law only brings a curse (3:10-12). Christ rescued us from that curse and made God’s blessing available to all who have faith in him (3:13-14). God’s promise to Abraham shows that the promise is given on the basis of faith, not law (3:15-18). God’s demand for righteousness was fulfilled by Christ, not by keeping the law, and those who have faith in Christ become recipients of God’s promise to Abraham.

The law’s purpose is not to make people righteous or to make them recipients of God’s promises. Instead, it brings awareness of sin and points to Christ and faith in him (3:19-22). Now that Christ has come, those who have faith in him are God’s children and heirs of his promises (3:23–4:7). In light of this, the Galatians’ return to trusting in the law was a dreadful return to slavery (4:8-11), so Paul personally appeals to them to reconsider (4:12-20). He draws an analogy between Hagar and Sarah and the old and new covenants, showing that Christ brings freedom, not slavery (4:21-31). God’s people must live in freedom (5:1), reject a reliance on obedience to the law for salvation (5:2-4), and live by faith (5:5-6), because a message of salvation through the law is not from God (5:7-12).

Finally, Paul shows the Galatians that Christian freedom is not a license to sin, as some might claim. Instead, it is the only way to overcome sin, to live in Christ’s love, and to experience the Spirit’s power (5:13–6:10). Freedom provides an opportunity to love rather than to sin (5:13-15), and the only way to overcome sin is to live by the power of the Holy Spirit (5:16-18). Living by human effort cannot overcome sin, because the sinful nature can produce only sinful actions (5:19-21). By contrast, living in the power of the Holy Spirit produces good fruit (5:22-23). Paul gives several examples of the Spirit’s leading in the lives of God’s children (5:24–6:10).

Paul ends his letter with a postscript in his own hand (6:11-18). He appeals again to the cross of Christ, reiterates his central message, bestows God’s mercy and peace on those who follow his teaching, reasserts his apostolic authority, and closes with a benediction that extends “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” to the recipients of his letter.

Author

Galatians has always been recognized as a genuine letter of Paul. It harmonizes well with the account of Paul’s mission in Acts and the other letters, and it authentically reflects Paul’s conflict with Jewish Christians who sought to make keeping the Jewish law a necessary element of Christian faith for Gentiles. Galatians has a message similar to that of Romans, but as an earlier letter, Galatians gives us a glimpse at the early stages of this intense, personal conflict. Here we feel the heartbeat of Paul’s care for the church.

Recipients

Some biblical scholars believe that Paul wrote to an ethnic group called “Galatians,” who lived in north central Asia Minor and were related to Gauls and Celts. Others believe that the recipients of Paul’s letter were groups of churches within the Roman province of Galatia, a much larger area than ethnic Galatia. The Roman province included in its southern districts a number of cities that Paul visited on his first missionary journey (Antioch of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe).

Paul does not seem to have spent extended time in ethnic Galatia to the north (see possible references in Acts 16:6; 18:23), whereas we do have record of extensive and repeated missionary activity by Paul in the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia (Acts 13:13–14:25; 16:1-5). The available evidence suggests that the Galatians to whom Paul wrote this letter were most likely those whom Paul evangelized on his first missionary journey.

Date

Paul wrote Galatians either shortly before the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29) in AD 49 or 50, or sometime after the council, perhaps during his third missionary journey (AD 53–57).

Traditionally, scholars saw 2:1-10 as Paul’s description of the council at Jerusalem. However, close examination reveals serious differences between ch 2 and Acts 15:1-41. It is hard to reconcile Paul’s account of two visits to Jerusalem (2:1) with the fact that the council in Acts 15:1-41 was really his third visit. Neglecting to mention his second visit (Acts 11:30; 12:25) would seriously weaken Paul’s argument that he had minimal contact with the apostles in Jerusalem. Furthermore, if this letter were written after the council, it would be hard to imagine why Paul doesn’t mention the council’s decision, which directly addresses the issue in Galatians. After the council, in fact, Paul gladly carried news of its decision to the churches he visited (Acts 16:4). It is thus difficult to believe that Galatians 2:1-10 describes Acts 15:1-41 and that Galatians was written after the council at Jerusalem.

By contrast, there are relatively few difficulties in identifying the occasion described in Galatians 2:1-10 with Acts 11:30 and 12:25. This would suggest that Paul wrote Galatians shortly before the council, perhaps in AD 48 or 49, right at the time when the controversy over circumcision was escalating in the church (see Acts 15:1-2).

Meaning and Message

The problem that arose in Galatia was a familiar one in the first-century church, and it remains a problem in the church today. Are we truly saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, or is something more necessary on our part?

Paul’s letter to the Galatians establishes the completeness of the Good News—that salvation is available to all purely by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and not by observing the law. It also establishes the unity of God’s people: No division exists between Jews and Gentiles or between other classes of people. We all come to God and gain new life by the same means: through faith in Christ. Galatians establishes our liberty in Christ: We fulfill Christ’s law not by human effort but by living in faith and love by the Holy Spirit. Finally, the letter establishes our need for the grace of God, which rescues us from the curse of sin, gives us new life and the promised Holy Spirit, and makes us God’s children, empowered to fulfill Christ’s law of love.

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians

This epistle of Paul is directed not to the church or churches of a single city, as some others are, but of a country or province, for so Galatia was. It is very probable that these Galatians were first converted to the Christian faith by his ministry; or, if he was not the instrument of planting, yet at least he had been employed in watering these churches, as is evident from this epistle itself, and also from Act 18:23, where we find him going over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. While he was with them, they had expressed the greatest esteem and affection both for his person and ministry; but he had not been long absent from them before some judaizing teachers got in among them, by whose arts and insinuations they were soon drawn into a meaner opinion both of the one and of the other. That which these false teachers chiefly aimed at was to draw them off from the truth as it is in Jesus, particularly in the great doctrine of justification, which they grossly perverted, by asserting the necessity of joining the observance of the law of Moses with faith in Christ in order to it: and, the better to accomplish this their design, they did all they could to lessen the character and reputation of the apostle, and to raise up their own on the ruins of his, representing him as one who, if he was to be owned as an apostle, yet was much inferior to others, and particularly who deserved not such a regard as Peter, James, and John, whose followers, it is likely, they pretended to be: and in both these attempts they had but too great success. This was the occasion of his writing this epistle, wherein he expresses his great concern that they had suffered themselves to be so soon turned aside from the faith of the gospel, vindicates his own character and authority as an apostle against the aspersions of his enemies, showing that his mission and doctrine were both divine, and that he was not, upon any account, behind the very chief of the apostles, Co2 11:5. He then sets himself to assert and maintain the great gospel doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law, and to obviate some difficulties that might be apt to arise in their minds concerning it: and, having established this important doctrine, he exhorts them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, cautions them against the abuse of this liberty, gives them several very needful counsels and directions and then concludes the epistle by giving them a just description of those false teachers by whom they had been ensnared, and, on the contrary, of his own temper and behaviour. In all this his great scope and design were to recover those who had been perverted, to settle those who might be wavering, and to confirm such among them as had kept their integrity.

THE internal and external evidence for Paul's authorship is conclusive. The style is characteristically Pauline. The superscription, and allusions to the apostle of the Gentiles in the first person, throughout the Epistle, establish the same truth (Gal 1:1, Gal 1:13-24; Gal 2:1-14). His authorship is also upheld by the unanimous testimony of the ancient Church: compare IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3,7,2] (Gal 3:19); POLYCARP [Epistle to the Philippians, 3] quotes Gal 4:26; Gal 6:7; JUSTIN MARTYR, or whoever wrote the Discourse to the Greeks, alludes to Gal 4:12; Gal 5:20.

The Epistle was written "TO THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA" (Gal 1:2), a district of Asia Minor, bordering on Phrygia, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia. The inhabitants (Gallo-grÃ&brvbrci, contracted into Galati, another form of the name Celts) were Gauls in origin, the latter having overrun Asia Minor after they had pillaged Delphi, about 280 B.C. and at last permanently settled in the central parts, thence called Gallo-grÃ&brvbrcia or Galatia. Their character, as shown in this Epistle, is in entire consonance with that ascribed to the Gallic race by all writers. CÃ&brvbrsar [Commentaries on the Gallic War, 4,5], "The infirmity of the Gauls is that they are fickle in their resolves and fond of change, and not to be trusted." So Thierry (quoted by ALFORD), "Frank, impetuous, impressible, eminently intelligent, but at the same time extremely changeable, inconstant, fond of show, perpetually quarrelling, the fruit of excessive vanity." They received Paul at first with all joy and kindness; but soon wavered in their allegiance to the Gospel and to him, and hearkened as eagerly now to Judaizing teachers as they had before to him (Gal 4:14-16). The apostle himself had been the first preacher among them (Act 16:6; Gal 1:8; Gal 4:13; see on Gal 4:13; "on account of infirmity of flesh I preached unto you at the first": implying that sickness detained him among them); and had then probably founded churches, which at his subsequent visit he "strengthened" in the faith (Act 18:23). His first visit was about A.D. 51, during his second missionary journey. JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 16.62] testifies that many Jews resided in Ancyra in Galatia. Among these and their brethren, doubtless, as elsewhere, he began his preaching. And though subsequently the majority in the Galatian churches were Gentiles (Gal 4:8-9), yet these were soon infected by Judaizing teachers, and almost suffered themselves to be persuaded to undergo circumcision (Gal 1:6; Gal 3:1, Gal 3:3; Gal 5:2-3; Gal 6:12-13). Accustomed as the Galatians had been, when heathen, to the mystic worship of Cybele (prevalent in the neighboring region of Phrygia), and the theosophistic doctrines connected with that worship, they were the more readily led to believe that the full privileges of Christianity could only be attained through an elaborate system of ceremonial symbolism (Gal 4:9-11; Gal 5:7-12). They even gave ear to the insinuation that Paul himself observed the law among the Jews, though he persuaded the Gentiles to renounce it, and that his motive was to keep his converts in a subordinate state, excluded from the full privileges of Christianity, which were enjoyed by the circumcised alone (Gal 5:11, Gal 4:16, compare with Gal 2:17); and that in "becoming all things to all men," he was an interested flatterer (Gal 1:10), aiming at forming a party for himself: moreover, that he falsely represented himself as an apostle divinely commissioned by Christ, whereas he was but a messenger sent by the Twelve and the Church at Jerusalem, and that his teaching was now at variance with that of Peter and James, "pillars" of the Church, and therefore ought not to be accepted.

His PURPOSE, then, in writing this Epistle was: (1) to defend his apostolic authority (Gal 1:11-19; Gal 2:1-14); (2) to counteract the evil influence of the Judaizers in Galatia (Gal. 3:1-4:31), and to show that their doctrine destroyed the very essence of Christianity, by lowering its spirituality to an outward ceremonial system; (3) to give exhortation for the strengthening of Galatian believers in faith towards Christ, and in the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:1-6:18). He had already, face to face, testified against the Judaizing teachers (Gal 1:9; Gal 4:16; Act 18:23); and now that he has heard of the continued and increasing prevalence of the evil, he writes with his own hand (Gal 6:11 : a labor which he usually delegated to an amanuensis) this Epistle to oppose it. The sketch he gives in it of his apostolic career confirms and expands the account in Acts and shows his independence of human authority, however exalted. His protest against Peter in Gal 2:14-21, disproves the figment, not merely of papal, but even of that apostle's supremacy; and shows that Peter, save when specially inspired, was fallible like other men.

There is much in common between this Epistle and that to the Romans on the subject of justification by faith only, and not by the law. But the Epistle to the Romans handles the subject in a didactic and logical mode, without any special reference; this Epistle, in a controversial manner, and with special reference to the Judaizers in Galatia.

The STYLE combines the two extremes, sternness. (Gal. 1:1-24; Gal 3:1-5) and tenderness (Gal 4:19-20), the characteristics of a man of strong emotions, and both alike well suited for acting on an impressible people such as the Galatians were. The beginning is abrupt, as was suited to the urgency of the question and the greatness of the danger. A tone of sadness, too, is apparent, such as might be expected in the letter of a warm-hearted teacher who had just learned that those whom he loved were forsaking his teachings for those of perverters of the truth, as well as giving ear to calumnies against himself.

The TIME OF WRITING was after the visit to Jerusalem recorded in Act 15:1, &c.; that is, A.D. 50, if that visit be, as seems probable, identical with that in Gal 2:1. Further, as Gal 1:9 ("as we said before"), and Gal 4:16 ("Have [ALFORD] I become your enemy?" namely, at my second visit, whereas I was welcomed by you at my first visit), refer to his second visit (Act 18:23), this Epistle must have been written after the date of that visit (the autumn of A.D. 54). Gal 4:13, "Ye know how . . . I preached . . . at the first" (Greek, "at the former time"), implies that Paul, at the time of writing, had been twice in Galatia; and Gal 1:6, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed," implies that he wrote not long after having left Galatia for the second time; probably in the early part of his residence at Ephesus (Act 18:23; Act 19:1, &c., from A.D. 54, the autumn, to A.D. 57, Pentecost) [ALFORD]. CONYBEARE and HOWSON, from the similarity between this Epistle and that to the Romans, the same line of argument in both occupying the writer's mind, think it was not written till his stay at Corinth (Act 20:2-3), during the winter of 57-58, whence he wrote his Epistle to the Romans; and certainly, in the theory of the earlier writing of it from Ephesus, it does seem unlikely that the two Epistles to the Corinthians, so dissimilar, should intervene between those so similar as the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans; or that the Epistle to the Galatians should intervene between the second to the Thessalonians and the first to the Corinthians. The decision between the two theories rests on the words, "so soon." If these be not considered inconsistent with little more than three years having elapsed since his second visit to Galatia, the argument, from the similarity to the Epistle to the Romans, seems to me conclusive. This to the Galatians seems written on the urgency of the occasion, tidings having reached him at Corinth from Ephesus of the Judaizing of many of his Galatian converts, in an admonitory and controversial tone, to maintain the great principles of Christian liberty and justification by faith only; that to the Romans is a more deliberate and systematic exposition of the same central truths of theology, subsequently drawn up in writing to a Church with which he was personally unacquainted. See on Gal 1:6, for BIRKS'S view. PALEY [HorÃ&brvbr PaulinÃ&brvbr] well remarks how perfectly adapted the conduct of the argument is to the historical circumstances under which the Epistle was written! Thus, that to the Galatians, a Church which Paul had founded, he puts mainly upon authority; that to the Romans, to whom he was not personally known, entirely upon argument.

Next: Galatians Chapter 1