An Overview of Galatians

by David Gooding

The biblical authors used the literary conventions of their day to convey their message. These included structures and patterns less obvious to us in our modern age. David Gooding brought his expertise in ancient literature to the biblical text, and these study notes represent his thinking about the structure, patterns and thought-flow of Galatians.

When speaking to groups of Bible students, he often said, ‘When it comes to Bible study, there is structure, pattern and thought-flow, and the greatest of these is thought-flow. Here are the thoughts of God expressed. Our job is to follow the thought-flow’. He taught that the most important thing to grasp in biblical interpretation is the way the author develops his message, and that discerning structure and patterns within the text should always be directed towards that end.

David Gooding developed these study notes over many years and distributed them at public and private talks. The study notes are not meant to be the last word on the book, and may not cover it entirely. The Myrtlefield Trust offers them to Bible students, preachers and teachers in order to stimulate further thinking about the book, so that its message may be better understood.

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Study Notes

The Structure of Galatians

A Study of the Different Kinds of Argument Used by Paul in His Defence of the Gospel of Justification by Faith

1. The argument from apostolic authority (Gal 1:1–10).
2. The argument from early church history (Gal 1:11–2:21).
3. The argument from the experience of conversion (Gal 3:1–5).
4. The argument from the explicit statements and legal provisions of Old Testament Scripture (Gal 3:6–14).
5. An argument from sound legal practice (Gal 3:15–29).
6. An argument from analogy (Gal 4:1–7).
7. Another argument from the experience of the effects of conversion (Gal 4:8–20).
8. An argument from an Old Testament prototype (Gal 4:21–5:1).
9. The argument from the implications of the false doctrine which Paul rebuts (Gal 5:2–12).
10. The argument from the fact that the gospel of justification by faith does make provision for holy living, and from what that provision is and involves (Gal 5:13–6:10).
11. An argument based on an exposure of the unworthy motives of the false teachers compared with the marks of true apostleship displayed by Paul (Gal 6:11–18).

Section One: The Argument from Apostolic Authority (Gal 1:1–10)

The Source of Paul's Apostolic Authority (Gal 1:1)

Negatively: not from men—as to its source. nor through man—no man was used by God as a channel to convey apostolic authority to Paul.

Positively: but through Jesus Christ: apostolic authority was conveyed directly to Paul through Jesus Christ. and through God the Father, who raised him from the dead—without the resurrection of Christ, there would be no gospel. But the same God who raised Christ from the dead and so made the gospel possible, appointed Paul as an apostle, to define that gospel (see Acts 9:1–19).

Paul's Authority Recognised and Corroborated (Gal 1:2)

By all the brethren that were with him.

Paul's Apostolic Greeting—the Gospel in Miniature (Gal 1:3–5)

1. It consists of grace and peace.
2. It comes conjointly from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself . . . There is no grace and peace from God apart from the work of Christ on the cross.
3. There is no deliverance from this evil world except by the death of Christ for our sins.
4. Christ's death was the way that God himself had willed for our deliverance.
5. Christ's death was sufficient to fulfil the will of God.
6. The credit and the glory for our deliverance is due solely to Christ and God.

Paul's Apostolic Anathema (Gal 1:6–10)

1. The issue at stake: nothing less than the fundamental doctrine of the gospel.
2. The essential and distinctive mark of the true gospel: it preaches the grace of Christ (cf. Eph 2:7–8; Rom 11:6).
3. Any departure from 'salvation by grace' is a perversion of the gospel of Christ.
4. The seriousness of preaching any other gospel than what Paul preached or than his converts received.
5. It brings down God's anathema on such preachers, no matter who they are.
6. The meaning of anathema (see Josh 6:17–7:26 and Digression 1).
7. Paul is not free to change the gospel, because it is God's gospel: his task is to persuade men to believe and accept it; not to try to persuade God to change it. His task, as an apostle, is not to please men, but to please the one who appointed him.

Section Two: The Argument from Early Church History (Gal 1:11–2:21)

Introduction

The point at issue: Did the church or the other apostles give the gospel to Paul; or correct his understanding of the gospel in any way; or add any significant element to the gospel which he preached? Answer: No! Paul did not receive the gospel from any man. No man taught him the gospel. He received it by direct revelation from Christ. The evidence for this claim: Four periods of history.

Events Leading up to and Immediately Following Paul's Conversion (Gal 1:11–17)

Before his conversion

1. His persecution of the church
2. His extreme zeal for Jewish religion and traditions.

His conversion: all of God, not from men, not even from Paul

1. God's timing: 'when it pleased God'.
2. God's predestination: (of Paul to be an apostle) before he was born (cf. Jer 1:5).
3. God's call of Paul: by God's grace.
4. God's purpose: to reveal his Son in and through Paul so that Paul should preach the gospel of Christ (not Judaism) to the Gentiles.
5. Paul's reaction during the next three years: he did not consult or confer with other Christians. He did not go to Jerusalem. He went to Arabia and then back to Damascus.

What Happened Three Years After Paul's Conversion (1:18–24)

Paul's first visit to Jerusalem

1. Purpose of the visit: to get to know Cephas.
2. Length of the visit: only fifteen days.
3. Scope of the visit: he saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother (compare Acts 9:26–30).
4. Then after fifteen days (as a result of plots on his life) he left for Syria and Cilicia.
5. Result of the visit: still unknown by face to the churches of Judaea, though they had heard his fame and glorified God in him.

What Happened Fourteen Years After Paul's Conversion (2:1–10)

Paul's second visit to Jerusalem

Reason for the visit: he was not summoned by the other apostles: he went because of a direct communication from God that he should go.

His companions

In addition to Barnabas who was his fellow-worker, Paul deliberately took with him an uncircumcised Gentile believer, Titus. This would raise the issue: is circumcision necessary for salvation or not? Is an uncircumcised believer to be accepted and recognised as equally and fully saved as a circumcised Jewish believer?

The people to be encountered in Jerusalem

1. Those who were of repute: James, Cephas, John (Gal 2:2, 6, 9). They were known throughout the Gentile churches as the leaders of the faith in Jerusalem.
2. False brothers.

The situation

The false teachers had probably spread a rumour around the Gentile churches that the leaders in Jerusalem disagreed with Paul's gospel (cf. the later situation in Acts 15:1, 24–29). If not refuted, this rumour could have undermined or even destroyed Paul's work. Paul therefore explained in detail to the leaders at Jerusalem the gospel which he preached, not because he had any doubts about it himself, but because he wanted them to know exactly what he preached, and in the light of that to refute the rumour that they disagreed with him. He did this privately, so that the leaders would be able to consider these doctrinal matters calmly without constant interruptions and pressure from the false brethren.

The reaction of the false brethren

They are described as 'having been smuggled in' and as 'having sneaked in'—they were not true believers. Their motivation was to spy out the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. They apparently tried to insist that Titus be circumcised. Paul did not for one moment yield or submit to them. Paul's motive was 'that the truth of the gospel might continue [uncompromised] with you' (Gal 2:5). Had Paul submitted and agreed that Titus must be circumcised, the Galatians could no longer have been certain what exactly the gospel was. Neither could we.

The reaction of the leaders

1. They did not demand that Titus be circumcised.
2. They added nothing to the gospel which Paul preached.
3. They simply exhorted Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor—which they did anyway.
4. They were happy that we had been entrusted by God to take the gospel to the Gentiles, while they themselves took the gospel to the Jews.
5. They signified their total confidence in us and their unreserved fellowship with us.

What Happened When Cephas Came to Antioch (Gal 2:11–21)

Paul had to resist him and rebuke him publicly to his face.

Peter's fault (Gal 2:11–13)

1. He feared the Judaizers, who said they came from James. He 'dissembled', that is, he acted as a hypocrite; he pretended, by his behaviour, that he did not believe what in fact, in his heart, he did believe; and so he misled even Barnabas.
2. What Peter did believe: that Gentile believers in Christ, although uncircumcised, were justified by faith, and were fully and truly Christians. As such he had been prepared to have table-fellowship with them.
3. Peter's hypocritical behaviour: by discontinuing table-fellowship with Gentile believers, Peter gave the (false) impression that he did not believe that they were fully justified, purified and accepted by God. Their faith in Christ was not enough: they needed also to be circumcised and do the works of the law.

Paul's reaction to this false behaviour (Gal 2:14)

1. He perceived that their behaviour was disastrously inconsistent with the truth of the gospel.
2. He publicly exposed the inconsistency between Peter's normal behaviour (though a Jew, he lived as the Gentiles) and his present behaviour (he would compel Gentiles to live as Jews).

Paul's detailed argument (Gal 2:15–21)

By Jewish standards Gentiles were gross sinners: they did not have the law, and they made no attempt to keep it. But we Jews (Peter and Paul and other Jewish Christians) had come (at our conversion) to realise that no flesh, no human being, either Jew or Gentile, can be justified by the works of the law. In consequence, even we Jews had put our faith for justification solely in Christ, and not in the works of the law.

But if faith in Christ left even Jewish believers still sinners subject to God's wrath, and needing to keep the law in order to avoid damnation and gain acceptance with God, then Christ was no saviour at all. He left people where he found them: still lost, condemned sinners. Christ thus was 'a minister of sin'.

These implications of Peter's false behaviour were outrageous. In abandoning the works of the law for salvation Peter and Paul were 'destroying' their old beliefs and practices. If they now re-introduced the works of the law for salvation, they were 'building again the thing which they formerly destroyed'. And in doing so, they showed themselves transgressors for, the law condemned them as sinners to death. The only way for them to honour the law was to consent to die. To behave as if they could earn salvation by keeping the law, was to go clean contrary to what the law decreed.

Paul, for his part, consented with the law's decree and died. He thereby passed out of the law's jurisdiction, so that he might be free to live unto God. Paul explains how this death to the law took place: he has been crucified with Christ. The source of his 'life unto God' is 'Christ lives in me'. The principle and motivation of this new life: 'I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me' (2:20).

By contrast, if justification and acceptance with God could be gained by the works of the law: There would be no need for God's grace and the death of Christ was unnecessary.

Two Important Practical Lessons

The Implications For Us of the Fact That No Human Being, Not the Other Apostles, Nor the Church, Gave Paul the Gospel

Some people claim that the church gave us the Bible and therefore we must let the church interpret it to us. We cannot come direct to the Bible ourselves, read, understand and believe it and so be saved. We must take what Paul says to us in Galatians and Romans to the church and let the church interpret it in the light of all the traditions which the church has added in the course of the centuries.

But this claim is false! If we had gone to Paul in Arabia, and had asked him how we could be saved, he would have told us by word of mouth what he writes in his epistles. We could have listened to him, understood, believed and been saved there and then. There would have been no need for us to go to the church in Jerusalem either to check whether Paul's gospel was true, or to get the church to interpret it to us. We can do the same today with Paul's writings. The church did not give us the Bible. The Bible was given to the church (see further, Digression 2).

The Lesson to be Learned From Paul's Rebuke of Peter's False Behaviour

It is not enough to believe the gospel in our hearts. We must always see to it that our behaviour is consistent with the truth of the gospel. We must never give the impression by our behaviour that we do not believe what in fact we do believe. If we believe that justification is solely by faith in Christ, we should never give the impression by our behaviour that we believe that the works of the law, and religious ceremonies, sacraments and rituals are necessary for salvation, or contribute to salvation. We must receive all whom God has received by grace through faith in Christ.

Digression One: An Old Testament Illustration of the Principle Enunciated in Galatians 2:18

'If I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor' (Gal 2:18). Joshua pronounced a curse on anyone who should rebuild Jericho which the Israelites had just destroyed at God's command (Josh 6:26)

The Judgment of God on Jericho

The sin of Jericho was so great that God put Jericho under his curse (Hebrew = herem; Greek = anathema). Nothing was to be spared. All was to be destroyed. What could not be destroyed had to be handed over to God. The Israelites were forbidden to salvage for themselves or for their profit anything that was under his curse. If they did, they would-bring his anathema on themselves.

Achan's Sin

He did try to salvage certain things which were under God's curse for his own profit. He 'troubled' himself and Israel by bringing the curse upon himself, and also on Israel until Israel judged him and dissociated themselves from his action.

God's Curse in Galatians

Human transgression and failure to keep God's law is so serious that God's verdict is: 'cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the law, to do them' (Gal 3:10). Since all fail, 'as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse'. We cannot, therefore, deliver ourselves from this curse by trying to keep the law; for that would only intensify the curse. The only way Christ could deliver us from the curse of the law was by becoming a curse i.e. bearing and suffering the curse for us (Gal 3:13).

The Teaching of the False Brethren in Galatians

They did not accept God's verdict that all those who take their stand on the works of the law are under a curse. They tried to salvage some of the works of the law, like circumcision, and to enforce them as necessary, along with faith in Christ, as the ground of man's justification and acceptance with God. They thus brought God's anathema on themselves (1:8–9). They 'troubled' God's people (Gal 1:7; 5:10, 12; 6:17) as Achan 'troubled' Israel (Josh 6:18; 7:25–26).

Peter's Mistake

He had abandoned faith in the works of the law for salvation and had put his faith solely in Christ crucified and risen again. But at Antioch he behaved as if the works of the law were, after all, necessary for justification and could earn acceptance with God. He was in danger of building up again those things which he had destroyed.

Digression Two: The Old Testament Canon

Questions to be Asked

Why do some Bibles contain the Apocrypha (or the deuterocanonical books as some people call them) and some Bibles do not?

Who decided which books should be included in the Old Testament and which should not? In answer to this second question some would say: 'The church gave us the Bible; therefore it is for the church to tell us which books should be included in the Bible and which should not. But the Old Testament existed before the church came into existence. The writers of the Old Testament were not Christians. Therefore it is not true to say that the church gave us the Old Testament.

So we must ask another question: On what grounds can we nowadays decide whether the apocryphal books should be included in the Bible or not? Let us begin by looking at some facts.

The Hebrew Canon

Its contents and three-fold division

1. The Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
2. The Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
3. The Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles. (This third group is sometimes referred to as 'The Psalms' because the book of Psalms stands at the head of this division.)

When Was This Collection Closed so That No Books Were Added Thereafter?

The first division, containing the books written by Moses was obviously closed very early. The books of the second and third divisions were probably arranged by Judas Maccabaeus (about 165 bc), who after the persecution of the Jews and the destruction of their holy books by Antiochus Epiphanes, 'collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war and they are in our possession' (2 Macc 2:14). From this time onward the canon would have been regarded as closed and no further books added. Some evidence for this:

1. The author of 1 Maccabees (late second century bc) indicates that by his time prophets had long since ceased to appear (1 Macc 9:27; see also 4:46).
2. The author of the Prologue to the Greek translation of The Wisdom of the Son of Sirach (soon after 132 bc) repeatedly refers to the three groups: the Law, the Prophets and the other books of our fathers.
3. Philo (c.30 bc–ad 45) refers to the three divisions of the Hebrew canon (De Vita Contemplativa 25).
4. The Lord Jesus refers to the three-fold division of the Scriptures: the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).
5. The Lord Jesus refers to 'all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar' (Matt 23:35). Abel is mentioned in Genesis (Gen 4), the first book in the Hebrew canon; and Zechariah in 2 Chronicles 24:20–21, the last book of the Hebrew canon. This suggests that the Hebrew canon was already in its present form in the time of Christ. (In Chronicles Zechariah is said to be the son of Jehoiada, his grandfather. Jehoiada lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred and thirty, and was probably succeeded not by his son, who may by then have been dead, but by his grandson.)
6. Josephus, writing just before ad 100 (Contra Apion 1.8) says that all the books of the Hebrew Bible have been accepted as canonical from time immemorial.
7. The commonly held view that the third division of the Hebrew canon was not closed until the Council of Jamnia (about ad 90) rests on a misunderstanding and does not fit the historical evidence.

What is the Nature of the Books of the Apocrypha?

1. First and Second Maccabees are valuable—but not always reliable—historical works, much laced with propaganda.
2. The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach are books of moral instruction.
3. Judith, Tobit, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon are unhistorical, moralistic novels.
4. The Prayer of Azariah, the Song of the Three Young Men, and the Prayer of Manasseh are imaginative inventions. So is the Letter of Jeremiah.
5. Baruch purports to have been written by the prophet Jeremiah's secretary. It is written in two different styles, suggesting double authorship. It is pseudepigraphical.
6. First Esdras and the Additions to Esther are highly embellished retellings of biblical narratives.
7. Second Esdras purports to be an apocalypse revealing the future. Its author denounces imperial Rome, and attempts to deal with the problem of evil.

Why Did the Jews Not Regard These Books as Part of Their Bible?

1. Because none of them claims to be the inspired word of God. The phrase 'thus says the Lord', so typical of the books of the Hebrew canon, is strikingly absent from the apocryphal books.
2. Second Maccabees, far from claiming to be divinely inspired, says: 'So I too will here end my story . . . If it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do' (2 Macc 15:37–38). God inspired writers do not speak like that.
3. Second Maccabees and the Wisdom of Solomon were not even originally composed in Hebrew, but in Greek. No Jew is likely to have regarded such Greek books as canonical.

When, How and by Whom Did These Books Come to Be Included in Some Bibles?

1. Not by the Jews. Among the Jews the books of the Bible were written on individual scrolls; they were not collected together in one book. The Jews had other religious books, of course; and they too were written on individual scrolls. Then from about 280 bc onwards the books of the Bible were translated into Greek. Similar translations were made of the other religious books. These too were all written on scrolls.
2. Not by the Christian apostles or the first Christians. Our Lord and the New Testament writers frequently quote the canonical books of the Old Testament as the inspired, authoritative word of God. But they never quote the apocryphal books as the word of God.
3. But by later Christians. The early Christians started the practice of collecting the books of the Bible into one or more volumes instead of writing them out on individual scrolls. But by the second century ad onwards few Christians knew Hebrew; and Christians in general lost contact with Jews. The Christians, therefore, could only read the Greek translations of the Jewish scrolls; and when they came to transferring the contents of these scrolls into book (codex) form, they mistakenly put together in the same volume Greek translations of the canonical books, Greek translations of non-canonical books and Greek religious books that had never existed in Hebrew, without making any distinction between them. But the big early codices of the Bible in Greek do not all contain the same number of apocryphal books: some have more, some have less. There was no fixed number of apocryphal books. As the centuries went by many Christians, not knowing Hebrew, simply assumed that all the books in any one codex were all part of the Bible.
4. Then came Jerome (c. ad 340–420). He learned Hebrew from Jewish rabbis. Abandoning the Greek translations of the Old Testament and the Latin translations that had since been made from the Greek, he made a fresh Latin translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. Discovering that the apocryphal books were never part of the Hebrew canon, he repudiated them and also those parts of the Greek translations of the canonical books which did not agree with the original Hebrew. (His Latin translation subsequently became known as the Vulgate.) On the other hand, Augustine (ad 354–430) knew no Hebrew and was not able to check what Jerome said. He tried to argue therefore that all the Greek translations were inspired by God, and should be regarded as part of the Bible, whether they agreed with the original Hebrew or not (De doctrina Christiana 2.11.22).
5. The division in Christendom. Scholars like Melito, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Epiphanius and Gregory of Nazianzus distinguished, like Jerome did, the books of the Hebrew canon from the rest, as alone acknowledged to be inspired; but others made no distinction. None of the ecumenical councils ever pronounced upon the matter. But in 1546 the Council of Trent issued a list of inspired Scriptures which made no distinction between the books of the Hebrew canon and the Apocrypha, and anathematised those who did not accept its decisions.

What Should Our Attitude be Today?

All Christians should follow the Lord Jesus and his apostles in accepting only the books of the Hebrew canon as the God-inspired Old Testament.

Why Does it Matter?

1. Because 2 Maccabees 12:39–45 commends the false and unbiblical practice of offering prayers and sacrifices to make atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin.
2. Because some of the apocryphal books contain absurd, so-called miracles and silly religious stories. Susanna borders on the salacious.
3. Because only books inspired by God should be regarded as holy Scripture.

Digression Three: Scripture and Tradition With Special Reference to the New Testament

Confusion 1: The Church Gave Us the Bible

Some Christian writers are in the habit of saying: 'The church gave us the Bible'. Strictly speaking this does not make sense. The term 'church' ought to mean 'all true believers in Christ from Pentecost onwards'. Then, if 'all true believers' gave us the Bible, who is the 'us'? Non-Christians? Hardly. Christians, then? But what sense would it make to say that all true Christians have given all true Christians the Bible?

Perhaps the statement means to say: 'the church of the first century ad gave all subsequent generations of Christians the Bible'. But that would not be true either. It was not the church of the first century that wrote the New Testament, nor was it the church at, say, Colossae that gave us the Epistle to the Colossians. It was Paul who gave this epistle to the church at Colossae, and it was the nine inspired authors of the New Testament that gave the New Testament to the church of the first century, and of all succeeding centuries.

The statement: 'the church gave us the Bible' can at most mean that the church has preserved and handed on the New Testament to succeeding generations.

Sometimes people speak as if by placing certain books into the New Testament canon, the church gave these books their spiritual authority. But that is not true. The church has never imparted any authority to any book of the New Testament. Each book of the New Testament derives its authority from the fact that it was given by the inspiration of God. Each carried its divine authority from the very moment it left the pen of its inspired writer. Nothing that the church could do could either add to, or take away from, the divine authority inherent in the books of the New Testament.

It is not true therefore to say that inclusion in the New Testament canon is what confers authority on the books so included. It was the other way round. It was because these books already possessed divine authority, and were already recognised as such by Christians in general, that they came to be placed in the canon.

Confusion 2: Scripture and Unwritten Traditions

It is often said that the church has preserved not only what the New Testament writers wrote, but in addition many oral traditions of what Christ and his apostles said which were not written down at the time. It is further argued, therefore, that no one can properly interpret and understand the New Testament by itself; to get a proper understanding we must allow the church (which for all practical purposes here means a comparatively few bishops) to interpret the New Testament writings in the light of all the unwritten traditions which it has preserved and developed all down the centuries.

How should we treat this claim? First of all we should notice that church traditions are not necessarily bad in themselves. Some are good. But when traditions and traditional interpretations offered by the church conflict, as they often have done, with the plain straight-forward written statements of the New Testament, we need guidance to know how to settle this conflict. And we have such guidance in the written New Testament itself.

Jewish Traditions in the Time of Christ

The Old Testament says that God communicated to Moses the laws, the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances. But many rabbis claimed that Moses wrote down only some of these; the rest were handed down orally from generation to generation, and were only later written down. These oral traditions plus generations of traditional interpretations were eventually written down in the Talmud; and to this day orthodox Jews regard The Talmud as equally, if not even more, authoritative than the Old Testament itself. No one can understand the Old Testament rightly, so they say, except in accordance with the traditional Talmudic interpretations.

But in the time of Christ, as the Gospels constantly point out, such traditions often contradicted, or perverted, the plain straightforward statements and teachings of the written word of God. When that was so, Christ sternly rebuked the rabbis, and rejected their traditions. See, for instance, Mark 7:8–9, 13: 'You leave the commandments of God, and hold fast the tradition of men . . . you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition . . . making void the word of God by your tradition'.

For Christ the supreme authority was the written word of God. He constantly reiterated the phrase, 'It is written'. He would not allow traditions and traditional interpretations to be regarded as equally authoritative as God's written word, and certainly not as more authoritative. Tradition must always be judged in the light of Scripture. In this, then, Christ is our guide today. All the church's traditions and traditional interpretations must constantly be tested and judged by the written word of God in the New Testament. Any traditions that conflict with the New Testament must be abandoned.

Section Three: The Argument from the Experience of Conversion (Gal 3:1–5)

The argument is simple and straightforward. Paul asks them to go back in thought to their conversion and to recall how and by what means it was brought about and what was involved in it.

How Were They Reconciled to God? (Gal 3:1)

Once they were alienated and enemies to God, standing under his divine displeasure as guilty sinners. Then there came a moment when they repented, believed, were reconciled to God, forgiven, justified, accepted and at peace with God. Can they not remember it?

What brought it about? What effected this radical change? Was it circumcision? No! Was it doing the works of the law? No! It was Paul's preaching, his placarding before their eyes Christ crucified. It was the work of Christ on the cross that had made it possible for God to forgive and accept them. It was the preaching of the cross that had reached their hearts and brought them to repentance and faith.

Having experienced the reality of conversion and of peace with God through Christ crucified, how could they now be so bewitched as to think that they must be circumcised and do the works of the law before they could have peace and acceptance with God?

What Was Involved in Their Conversion? (Gal 3:2–3)

Nothing less than receiving the Holy Spirit, being born again, and becoming children of God. The Galatians had actually experienced this mighty work of regeneration by the Spirit of God. How could they now think that this work of God's Spirit was only a preliminary stage, inadequate by itself, and needing to be brought to perfection by circumcision, a physical operation performed by some man on a tiny part of their flesh, before they could become children of God?

The Result of Their Conversion (Gal 3:4)

Upon their conversion, and because of it, they had suffered persecution. But at the time they were not circumcised. If, then, it was true that circumcision was necessary for salvation, they were not even saved at that time. In that case they had suffered all that persecution for nothing!

Their Conversion from God's Point of View (Gal 3:5)

God had given them his Spirit, and done miracles among them to authenticate Paul's preaching as an apostle. What had moved God to do these things? Paul had certainly not preached circumcision, but solely the work of Christ on the cross. Yet God had miraculously authenticated his preaching. The Galatians had certainly not moved God to give them his Spirit by doing the works of the law; for they at the time had done no such works. Then what was it that moved God to give them his Spirit? It was the fact that they believed from their heart the message which they heard Paul preach, that Christ on the cross had done all the work that was necessary for their salvation.

Section Four: The Argument from the Explicit Statements and Legal Provisions of the Old Testament (Gal 3:6–14)

Paul has just stated in Galatians 3:5 that when God gave the Holy Spirit to the Galatians, he did so on the ground not of their works but of their faith; in response not to what they had done to keep his law, but to their putting their faith solely in God as a result of hearing what God had done for them through Christ on the cross. But someone might ask: on what authority does Paul say that God justified them on the ground of faith and not of works? Paul's answer is: On the authority of Scripture; and he now demonstrates that by citing, in quick succession, six explicit statements of Scripture that bear upon the topic. We should notice that these six quotations do not all simply repeat the same point. Each successive quotation answers potential objections that might arise to counter the force of the previous quotation. Notice also that each quotation is a statement of basic, and permanently valid, principle. As we watch Paul with this collection of quotations from Scripture at his fingertips, ready to cite them in quick-fire succession, we get a glimpse of how he doubtless conducted the endless discussions he had in the synagogues and market places and lecture halls that he visited.

We May Envisage the Discussion Proceeding as Follows:

First question

How do you know that God justifies people on the ground of faith and not of works? On what authority do you assert it?

Answer

On the authority of Scripture. Genesis 15:6 says 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.' Since God has no favourites, but treats all alike, God's justification of Abraham constitutes a legal precedent valid for all time. To try to earn salvation from God by one's works is to adopt an altogether false attitude towards God. It presumes that we have resources independent of God, such that put us in a position to pay for salvation; and such that, if only we pay the correct amount, God is indebted to us and obliged to give us the salvation we have earned (see Rom 4:4). The only true and right attitude that we can adopt towards God is one of faith in God, that is of complete trust in him and in his word, and complete dependence on him and not on ourselves; dependence one such as Abraham showed (see Rom 4:16–25). If people adopt the same attitude as Abraham, then they are truly spiritual sons of Abraham (Gal 3:7).

First objection

Granted that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; but Abraham was a Hebrew, head of that special nation which God chose and separated from all the other nations. How can you take a principle that applied to him and apply it to Gentiles, an altogether different set of people?

Answer

Because Scripture says to Abraham at Genesis 12:3, and similarly at Genesis 18:18: 'In you shall all the nations be blessed'. When God justified Abraham on the ground of faith, he foresaw that one day the same gospel would be preached on the same terms to all the nations; and therefore he announced this glorious fact to Abraham and had this promise written down in Scripture, so that when it happened we should not doubt its validity.

Second objection

I admit the principle that 'those who are of faith are blessed along with believing Abraham' (Gal 3:9). But I have great faith too. I believe that if I do my best to keep the works of the law, God will accept me too.

Answer

No, he won't, not on those grounds. Your 'great faith', as you call it, is based simply on your own opinion, and not on God's word. Scripture says: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them' (Deut 27:26). God's law demands perfection, all the time, and in every detail. Come short at any time, or in any detail, and the law curses you. You talk of 'doing your best'. But you have already come short of perfection and still do. You stand therefore under the curse of God's law.

Third objection

I know I have come short in the past and that at the present I still come short. But I still have great faith that with God's help I shall eventually be able to do God's law sufficiently well for him to be able to count me just and accept me.

Answer

But you are failing to understand what the Bible means by 'faith'. When the Bible says, as it does in Habakkuk 2:4, 'The righteous shall live by faith', it does not mean 'faith that God will help us to do the works of the law, and so qualify for acceptance with God'. 'Faith' in this context is the opposite of 'doing', the opposite of doing anything, even the works of the law, even with the help of God. To have faith means to stop your own doing and to rest in what God has done in Christ on the cross. The ground of our acceptance with God both now and eternally is not any work that we do, but Christ's finished work. To say 'I have great faith that if with God's help I do the works of the law, he will accept me', is a contradiction in terms. The law is not of faith (3:12). The Bible itself says so. Its principle is 'He who does them shall live by them' (Lev 18:5). Life, on this principle, depends on what you do. But the principle of justification as stated in Habakkuk 2:4, is the very opposite. Under this principle life depends not on doing, but on faith: 'the just shall live by faith'. And this, incidentally, is why a believer does not have to wait until the final judgment before he can know whether God will accept him or not, as he would do if his acceptance with God depended on his own works. The moment he puts his faith in Christ's finished work, he can at once be sure that he is accepted by God, both now and eternally.

Comment

Well, I do put my trust in Christ that he will forgive all my past sins, and will so help me to keep God's law in the future that I shall not fail and so fall under the curse of the law. But I still cannot say that I am sure that God has already accepted me.

Reply

Of course you cannot; for you cannot escape the curse of God's law, and inherit the blessing promised to Abraham, on those terms. If you live until you are one hundred, you will still have to admit: 'I have sinned in the past, and still do come short of the moral standards of God's law and therefore deserve its curse' (cf. Rom 3:23). Christ, then, does not save us from the curse of the law by helping us to keep the law and so avoid the curse of breaking it. No, he redeems us from the curse of the law first, by admitting before God that throughout our whole life we come short of his law's requirement and therefore deserve its curse and penalty; and then by bearing that curse and penalty for us, so that we can be freed from the curse, and inherit the blessing. It was this that Christ did for us when he died; and to make the significance of his death abundantly clear, God arranged that he should die, not by stoning or decapitation, but by being hung on a wooden cross. For the law had laid it down in Deuteronomy 21:23 that 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'; so that when Christ died hanging on a tree, it was made publicly evident that he was suffering the curse of God's broken law. Not, of course, for anything he had done himself, but for what we had done. He was bearing the curse for us. We are thus freed from ever bearing the curse of the law ourselves, and the way is now open for the blessing of Abraham to come upon us (Gal 3:14). What do we have to do to receive it? Simply what Abraham did: believe God. Put our faith in Christ as our substitute and redeemer. And when, in that sense, we believe, we receive the Holy Spirit promised by God (see Acts 1:4–5; Eph 1:13). He does his great work of regeneration within us; gives us new life, so that we live by faith; and unites us to Christ so that from now on we are in Christ. And he pours out into our hearts God's love for us and creates that deep, God-given assurance that having been justified by faith we shall most certainly be saved from the wrath of God through him (Rom 5:5–11).

Section Five: The Argument from Sound Legal Practice (Gal 3:15–29)

Up to this point in his epistle Paul has been arguing that justification is by faith. Now to prove his point even further, he proceeds to demonstrate that not only justification, but the covenant, the promises, and the inheritance are also by faith.

The covenant which he has in mind is the covenant which God made with Abraham in Genesis 15:1–21. By this covenant God gave promises to Abraham and to his seed that they would inherit certain territories in the Middle East.

Now any covenant is a legal instrument, and the interpretation of its terms and the fulfilment of its promises are subject, in good legal practice, to certain principles. In the ensuing paragraph, therefore, Paul takes some of these principles and applies them to the interpretation of this covenant which God made long ago with Abraham and his seed.

The First Principle

Once a covenant has been made, no one, and certainly no third party, may subsequently nullify it (Gal 3:15).

The first principle applied

No one can abrogate the covenant that God made with Abraham. God himself has never subsequently abrogated it; and no one else has the right to. Least of all may a Jewish or Christian theologian or exegete treat this covenant as though it did not exist, or as if it were no longer valid.

A Second Principle

Once a covenant has been made, no one may attach to the fulfilment of its promises conditions that were not explicitly specified when the covenant was drawn up and confirmed (Gal 3:15).

The second principle applied

When God made this covenant with Abraham, and confirmed it by a covenant-sacrifice, no statement was included in the terms of the covenant to the effect that the fulfilment of its promises depended on Abraham keeping the law. Indeed, the law was not given until four hundred and thirty years after the covenant was made. It would therefore be quite wrong, illegal in fact, for any theologian or exegete to teach that inheriting what God promised to Abraham and to his seed depended on Abraham or on his seed keeping the law.

And that, Paul points out (Gal 3:17–18), is enormously important. For like everyone else, Abraham could not keep the law as it should be kept. If, therefore, the fulfilment of the promise made in the covenant depended on keeping the law, the promise would never be fulfilled: it would come to nothing, and Abraham would never enjoy the promised inheritance.

The meaning of the term 'promise'

It is, therefore, important for us to bring our legal minds to bear on what Scripture means by the terms 'law' and 'promise' in Galatians 3:18. As used in this context, 'law' and 'promise' are two incompatible terms, so that if the inheritance is 'of the law', it cannot be said to be 'of promise', and vice versa.

Conditional and unconditional promises

Of course, in our everyday language, we can and do make people conditional promises. A mother can say to a child: 'I promise that if you obey me and do everything I tell you to do this afternoon, I will give you ice-cream for tea'. The promise is conditional; and if the child does not do what it is told, it forfeits the fulfilment of the promise, and does not get the ice-cream.

But if a mother simply told her child: 'I promise to give you ice-cream for tea', that would be an unconditional promise. If she failed to fulfil it, she would be breaking her word.

Now when in Galatians 3:18 Paul says that God has granted it [that is, the inheritance] to Abraham by promise', 'promise' means 'unconditional promise'. God simply said to Abraham 'I am going to give you this inheritance'. There were no strings attached, no conditions for Abraham to fulfil. The promise was unconditional. If God had said 'I will give you this inheritance if you keep the law', that, in our language, would have been a conditional promise; but in the sense in which the word 'promise' is used in Galatians 3:17–18, it would not have been a promise at all.

Let us, then, at this point, grasp this all-important fact: the inheritance was not given to Abraham on condition that he kept the law: it was given to him unconditionally. It was granted to him by promise.

A Third Legal Principle

In everyday life covenants can be of different kinds. One covenant can be a one-party covenant; another, a two-party covenant. In interpreting any particular covenant, therefore, it would be essential to recognise whether the covenant in question was a one-party covenant or a two-party covenant.

What is the difference?

One party covenant

An easy-to-understand example of a one-party covenant is a will. Suppose you have a very rich elderly uncle in the USA who decides that when he dies you are to inherit all his possessions. So he goes to his solicitor and makes out a will in which he states that he bequeaths to you all his possessions unconditionally. He signs the will, gets two or three people to witness his signature and that settles everything. You yourself don't have to sign the will, for you have no conditions to fulfil. It is a one-party covenant, by which your uncle promises that when he dies all his possessions will become yours. He, of course, has to sign it to validate the will as being the true expression of his intention to bequeath you all his possessions. When he dies, you inherit all his possessions according to the terms of this one-party covenant. No one can lay down any conditions which you must fulfil before you inherit his possessions, for no conditions were laid down by your uncle in his will. And no one has a right to change or to add anything to his will. Of course, if you do not want his possessions, you can refuse to accept them, or neglect to collect them. But if you want them, all you have to do is to believe the will, claim the possessions as your own, and receive them.

A two party covenant

Suppose you ask a builder to build you a house. You tell him in detail the kind of house you want him to build for you; and he tells you the price you will have to pay him for building it. If both of you agree, you may well decide to write out a contract, specifying the kind of house to be built, and the price to be paid. Both of you will have to sign it, for you both have conditions to fulfil. This is a two-party covenant. If he breaks his conditions and fails to build the house according to your specifications, the covenant is broken and you will refuse to pay him. If, on the other hand, he builds the house as specified in the covenant, but you fail to fulfil your conditions by refusing to pay him the agreed price, the covenant is broken and he will not give you possession of the house.

Ancient legal ceremonies for confirming a covenant

Now in the ancient world in which Abraham and (later) Jeremiah lived, when people wished to confirm a covenant they did not necessarily simply put their signature on a covenant document. What they did was to bring a sacrifice of animals and/or birds. The animals and birds were killed and were then cut up in pieces and the pieces were laid out on the ground in two rows with a space between the rows, and the birds likewise placed in those two rows. Then there followed a simple but solemn ceremony. The party, or parties, that according to the terms of the covenant had conditions or promises to fulfil, solemnly walked along the space between the pieces, from one end to the other. If the covenant was a two-party covenant both parties walked between the pieces, for both had conditions, or promises, to fulfil and by walking between the pieces they were binding themselves to fulfil these conditions. But if the covenant was a one-party covenant, only one party walked between the pieces, because only this one party had conditions and promises to fulfil.

An Old Testament example of a one party covenant (Jer 34:8–20)

This passage tells how the people of Judah made a solemn covenant before God in which they promised that they would free their slaves. They then confirmed the covenant by walking between the pieces of an animal which they had killed. Notice it was the people, the princes and the priests who walked between the pieces, because it was they who had to fulfil the promise set out in the covenant. God did not walk between the pieces, for in this case God had no promise to fulfil.

The Third Legal Principle Applied

First, the covenant which God made with Israel at Sinai on the basis of the law (Exod 19–24)

Galatians 3:18–19 are difficult verses and many different interpretations are given of them. But one thing is clear: they point to the fact that the Old Covenant of the law made at Sinai was a two-party covenant. This is made abundantly clear by the narrative of Exodus 19–24. God made promises to Israel; but the fulfilment of those promises was made conditional upon Israel's keeping of all the commandments of the law. God thus had his part to fulfil; but the Israelites also had their part to fulfil. When it came to the confirming of the covenant, the nation was, of course, too numerous to walk between the pieces of the covenant sacrifice. But it was made very clear to the people what conditions they had to fulfil; and they solemnly and deliberately bound themselves to fulfil all those conditions: 'All that the Lord has spoken will we do and be obedient' (Exod 24:3–8).

We know, of course, all too well what subsequently happened: Israel failed to fulfil their part of the covenant. They could not and did not keep the law, and the covenant was broken.

The covenant made by God with Abraham (Gen 15)

What, then, was the nature of the covenant made by God with Abraham? Was it a two-party covenant or a one-party covenant?

How can we tell? By studying carefully the details of the ceremony by which this covenant was confirmed (Gen 15:7–21). When God promised Abraham that he would give him the land to inherit it, Abraham enquired how he could know for certain that he would inherit it? God's response was to tell Abraham to prepare a covenant-sacrifice, and to lay the pieces out on the ground in the time-honoured way. Abraham did so.

But now the all-important question is: who walked between the pieces? The answer is beyond dispute: God, and God alone, his presence symbolised by the flaming torch (cf. Rev 4:5) that passed between the pieces (Gen 15:17). Abraham certainly did not walk between the pieces. He was, in fact, in a deep sleep by that time (Gen 15:12) and saw God's presence and heard his voice in a vision (Gen 15:13–17, 18–21). Not even in his vision did Abraham see himself walking between the pieces.

The reason why God walked between the pieces, but Abraham did not, was because it was a one-party covenant. Only God had conditions and promises to fulfil. Abraham had no conditions or promises to carry out.

And that is why and how Abraham could be so utterly sure that he would inherit what God promised him: the fulfilment of the promise depended altogether on God, and not on Abraham.

But how can we be sure that we are interpreting this covenant correctly?

By studying what Paul says on this same topic in Romans 4:13–16. 'For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world,'—(we notice that the inheritance promised in the covenant of Genesis 15 has here been increased. We shall come back to this in a moment)—'but through the righteousness of faith.' For notice the sequence of thought in Genesis 15:6–9:

Genesis 15:6: Abraham is justified by faith; Genesis 15:7: God promised him the inheritance; Genesis 15:8: Abraham asks how he can be sure of it; Genesis 15:9: God replies by making the covenant.

'For if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect: For the law works wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression' (Rom 4:14–15).

'For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed' (Rom 4:16).

If the inheritance depended on keeping the law, none of the seed could be sure of it (except Christ). But it was God's gracious wish and intention that all the seed should be absolutely sure that they would inherit. And so God has made it abundantly clear that inheriting what he has promised is not by law but by grace through faith.

A Fourth Legal Principle

Once a covenant has been confirmed, no one can subsequently add conditions that were not specified in the terms of the covenant. But either party is free to do or give to the other more benefit than was actually promised.

Suppose, for instance, you form a contract with a builder to build you a house, and you promise to pay him so much money for it. When the house is finished the builder may not increase the price which he and you agreed. But the builder may, if he pleases, build you not only a house but a holiday home in the country as well, so long as he does not charge you any more money for building you more than he originally promised.

The fourth principle applied

In his covenant in Genesis 15 God originally promised to give to Abraham and his seed certain territories in the Middle East. But in Romans 4:13 God has enlarged the originally promised inheritance so that it includes nothing less than the whole world (see Ps 2:8).

A Fifth Legal Principle

Once a covenant has been confirmed, one cannot add other names to the beneficiaries specified in the covenant.

Suppose, for example, a man bequeaths all his property to his nephew George, and when he does, another nephew, John, discovers that he has not been named in the will. John cannot then demand that his name be inserted in the will, and that he be given a part of the inheritance. If his uncle had intended to leave anything to John, he would have named him in the will. If he did not name him, John cannot claim anything.

The fifth principle applied

The covenant promises, says Paul, were made to Abraham and to his seed (Gal 3:16). But to whom does the term 'seed' refer? The answer is 'Christ'. Not Christ and such and such other people. Simply Christ.

How then can any of us ever have any part in the promised inheritance, if according to the terms of the covenant, the inheritance was promised solely to Abraham and to Christ?

We cannot simply add our names to the covenant. But then we have no need to. For as Paul explains, 'As many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ', as a great robe that covers you from head to foot, and, for these legal purposes, obliterates all other distinctions. You are now in Christ. You are 'of Christ'. And if you are thus of Christ, and in Christ, says Paul, then as far as the terms of the covenant are concerned you are what the covenant means by Abraham's seed: you are heirs according to promise (Gal 3:27–29).

The question arises, then, 'How exactly do we qualify for being baptised into Christ and for putting on Christ? But before we answer that question we must retrace our steps to verse 19.

The True Purpose and Function of the Law (Gal 3:19–26)

Paul has so far shown that justification and the inheritance are by grace through faith, and not by the law.

But we can well imagine one of the false teachers who opposed him raising an objection: 'What then is the law? You say that the law has nothing to do with God's covenant with Abraham or with the promised inheritance. But when all is said and done, God did give the law on Mount Sinai. It must have had some function and purpose. You cannot treat it as if it never existed.'

To this extent the false teacher would be right. Paul cannot just ignore the law. But, of course, Paul has no intention of ignoring the law, for he believes in the law, and accepts its God-given authority. What he does now, however, is to expound the true purpose and function of the law; and in doing so, he demonstrates that there is no conflict between the law on the one side, and justification and inheritance by faith on the other.

The law was a temporary measure (Gal 3:19)

It was only 'until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made'.

Its function was like that of a 'boy-leader' or pedagogue (Gal 3:24)

In the ancient world a pedagogue was not a teacher (as the meaning of the modern word pedagogue might suggest). He was a slave who was put in charge of his master's young son (or sons). His task was to escort the young boy to school, to force him to go to school if he did not want to go, to bring him home again, to superintend his general behaviour, to stop him getting into mischief and to chastise him, if necessary, for his bad behaviour.

So until Christ should come, the law was given to Israel 'for transgressions', that is, to control their behaviour, to restrain their misbehaviour and sins, and to warn them of the penalties that their transgressions would incur.

The law's limitation (Gal 3:21)

The law was not 'against the promises of God'. It was not there to stop the heirs of God's promise inheriting what God had covenanted to give them. It is unthinkable that God would solemnly promise to give them an inheritance and then subsequently give them a law which would make sure that they did not inherit it.

Indeed, if only the law could have imparted spiritual life to the people under its care, then righteousness, that is justification, and also the inheritance, could have been by the law. But the law could not impart life. Some other way of justification and life had to be provided.

The law's intended effect (Gal 3:22)

It was 'to shut up all things under sin', that is to bring home to the people that they were incorrigible sinners, guilty before God, with no way of escape open to them through their efforts to keep the law. They might thus be brought at length to open their eyes and recognise that the promise of God was never made on the condition of their keeping the law. The promise was made to those who would put their faith in Christ. Seeing this they might then abandon their faith in their efforts to keep the law, and learn what it means 'to believe', that is, to put their faith solely in Christ.

Eventual freedom from the law (Gal 3:23–26)

A 'boy-leader' in the ancient world was put in charge of his master's child until that child became a grown-up son. Then the son was freed from the control of the 'boy-minder'.

In the same way, Paul explains, until the gospel of justification by faith was fully revealed in all its glorious fullness and clarity, we Jews were kept under guard by the law, channelled strictly along a narrow road that would eventually lead up to this faith. So until Christ came the law was, so to speak, our 'boy-leader'.

But now the gospel of faith has come, we no longer need the 'boy-leader'; for we are no longer small boys who have to be forced to behave by strict laws and threats of penalties and punishments. Through faith we have become, in Christ, grown-up sons of God, who possessing the Spirit of God, are guided by the Spirit to live in accordance with their Father's character (cf. Rom 8:14–17).

And with this we come back to our earlier question: 'How exactly do we qualify for being baptised into Christ, for putting on Christ, for becoming Christ's, and so being Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise of God's vast inheritance?'

The answer is no small whisper, indistinct and difficult to catch. It is thunderously clear. All the way through this long and detailed chapter Paul has repeatedly proclaimed it and proved it to the hilt: 'by faith alone!'

Section Six: An Argument from Analogy (Gal 4:1–7)

At Galatians 3:24, as we have already seen, Paul described one of the functions of the law as that of a 'boy-teacher', whose duty it was to supervise the general behaviour of the children committed to his care, and in particular to take them to school. The metaphor was vivid and illuminating. It helped us to grasp what this function of the law was meant to be; and to understand that while it was both good and necessary, it was never intended to be more than temporary. A state of things had now in fact arrived when the 'boy-leader' was no longer required.

In Galatians 4:1–7 he next appeals to the way children in the wealthy families of the ancient world were brought up and uses it as an analogy to help his readers to understand the difference in status between Israelite believers, in days gone by, under the law, and Israelites who have now believed in Christ and are no longer under the law.

His purpose in this short paragraph is the same as it is in the rest of the epistle. His Gentile converts had never been 'under the law' as the Israelites had been (and still were, most of them). And now through faith in Christ these Gentiles were already free, adult, sons of God. The absurd thing was that the false teachers were trying to force these Gentile adult sons of God back into that infant stage of spiritual life in which Israelite believers had lived before Christ came. And Paul was concerned to save his Gentile converts from this dangerous absurdity.

Moreover Paul was anxious not to be misunderstood. He used strong and vivid descriptions of what life was like for Israelite believers under the law: they were like prisoners in custody; they were not free; they were like slaves. (We should remember that in the ancient world slaves were not necessarily down-trodden and oppressed. Some of them held high positions in wealthy families, such as teachers and doctors; some even rose to high office in the emperor's administration. The point was that however high their position, they were not free; they were still slaves.) But in pointing out that Israelite believers under the law were like slaves, Paul was not insulting the great Old Testament heroes of the faith, like David, Isaiah and Jeremiah, nor the ordinary humble Israelite believers either; and he was certainly not denying that they were in any sense children of God.

So now for Paul's further explanations and clarifications based on an extended analogy with what life was like for a child in an ancient wealthy family.

The Difference Between an Infant and a Grown-Up Son

1. Physically, there would be a big and obvious difference; and likewise intellectually, morally, and emotionally.

2. Legally, however, the situation was that the moment the baby was born and the father recognised it as his child, the baby would be the father's heir; and that simply on the ground of being the father's acknowledged son. It would make no difference that this son was still only an infant. Heirship depended not on growth, or maturity, but solely on birth; which is what Paul is referring to when he says that even while the heir is still an infant he is already by birth and title owner of all his father's possessions.

3. Status, on the other hand, would be a very big difference between an infant son and a grown-up son. The infant son, though legally the heir to all his father's estates, would be treated very little differently from a slave. The father would place him under the care of guardians and stewards who would have authority to tell the child what to do and how to behave. They would order him about, demand obedience, and have the right to chastise the child if he disobeyed. Moreover the child would not be given actual possession of all the wealth that one day would be his; nor even entrusted with the running of the estate. And certainly he would not be told that because he was the child of his father, he had the right to ignore his guardians and stewards, and that if he disobeyed them there would be no penalty or punishment. Far from it. His chastisement by his guardians would be all too real.

In these respects, therefore, he was no different from a slave.

The Analogy Applied

First of all to Israelites in their infancy

'So we also', says Paul; and he is using the pronoun 'we' very precisely. He is talking as an Israelite and he is thinking of all Israelites who were true believers in God in the centuries before Christ came. They were heirs of the promises made to Abraham; but they had not yet come into the good of them. As another New Testament writer puts it: 'they did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance' (Heb 11:13). They were only infants, not full-grown sons.

'So when we were infants', says Paul, 'we were held in slavery under the rudiments of the world' (Gal 4:3).

But what does Paul mean by rudiments? The word in Greek is stoicheia. It can be used to denote the letters of the alphabet (A.B.C., etc.) Then it comes to mean the elementary facts and principles of any branch of learning (the A.B.C. of some subject). It is used in this sense in Hebrews 5:12: 'The rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God'; and it refers to all those elementary and preparatory teachings that God gave Israel in the Old Testament to prepare their minds for the coming of Christ.

'But if that is what the word stoicheia means,' says someone, 'why does Paul refer to these elementary and preparatory teachings, which God himself gave Israel, as "rudiments of the world"?' Because many of these preparatory lessons were taught by means of material and physical things: circumcision, food-laws, rituals, animal sacrifices, incense, priestly vestments, and a tabernacle (subsequently a temple) which was, as Hebrews 9:1 and 24 put it, 'of this world', 'made with [human] hands'.

Special note

Some commentators are unhappy with this interpretation of the word stoicheia. They admit that this is its meaning in Hebrews 5:12, but they are unhappy about giving the word this meaning in Galatians 4:3. Their argument is this: Certainly this teaching which God gave Israel was elementary and physical. But if it came from God, how could Paul say that the Israelites were held in slavery under this God-given education?

Reply

1. This is the precise point that Paul intends to make by his analogy. The guardians and stewards were appointed by the infant's father; but as long as the child was under their care and authority, he differed nothing from a slave (Gal 4:1).
2. We should remember that Peter, in a context similar to that which Paul is discussing in Galatians, described circumcision and the law of Moses as 'a yoke . . . which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear' (Acts 15:10), God-given though that yoke undeniably was.
3. We should notice that Paul will in Galatians itself eventually describe circumcision, etc. as 'a yoke of slavery' (Gal 5:1).
4. Those who are unhappy to interpret stoicheia in Galatians 4:3 as 'the elementary teaching' which God gave Israel in the Old Testament, suggest an alternative translation: 'the elemental spirits of this world', i.e. evil spirits and demons. These are said to have perverted God's law in the minds of Israel, deceiving them into thinking that they had to keep the law to be saved, and so plunging them into slavery. But this translation scarcely fits the facts in general, or what Paul is talking about in this context, as we shall now see.
5. In Old Testament times all Israel, the godly as well as the ungodly, believers as well as apostates, were under the law. But it would be grotesque to think that even godly believers like David and Isaiah were deceived by evil spirits into thinking that salvation was by keeping the law. The 'guardians and stewards', who treated the infant heir like a slave, and insisted on his submitting to his elementary training, were not malicious deceivers: they were appointed by the father.
6. David, like many another, found forgiveness from God which was outside the law and its provisions (Ps 51:16–17). But though forgiven, he would not have been allowed, nor would he have dared, to enter into the most holy place in the 'tabernacle of this world'. He had no boldness and freedom to enter the presence of God, as we today have (Heb 10:19–22). He was an heir of all the promises made to Abraham (and a good many more besides); but he was still an 'infant': he was not yet a full-grown son. He still had to offer physical sacrifices. His conscience was not 'made perfect' (Heb 10:1–3).
7. Moreover, it would not be correct to say that when David discovered forgiveness through faith (as Psalm 32 witnessed he did), he ceased to be under the guardianship and stewardship of the law. This state of being under 'guardians and stewards' was ordained by the Father to last until God sent forth his Son to redeem those who were under the law (compare Gal 4:2, 4–5). With this we come back to Paul's application of his analogy to Israelites. We have seen how it explained their position in their spiritual infancy. He is now about to explain by what means God delivered them from their spiritual infancy and brought them into the wonderful liberty of adult sons of God.

The analogy applied to Israelites as adult sons of God (Gal 4:4–5)

But perhaps by this time we have forgotten the details of Paul's analogy. So let us recall that in the ancient family the infant son was placed by his father under guardians and stewards until the time set by the father. Until that time came, the infant son was no different in status from a slave. But when the time set by the father had fully run its course, then the father would release his son from this slave-status. The guardians and stewards would no longer have control over him. His father would publicly announce that the boy had come of age, and would give him the status and freedom of an adult son.

When Did Believing Israelites Attain the Status of Full-Grown, Adult Sons?

Their transition from infancy to adulthood, from slave status to freedom, was not simply a matter of spiritual growth on their part. It was not that they suddenly realised that they did not have to be subject to the guardians and stewards, if they did not wish to, and so decided to walk out of their control. No, to get out from being under the law, they had to be redeemed. God had to 'buy them out' (Greek: exagorazo). By their many failures and sins, they were 'in debt' to the law, and subject to its penalties. Before they could walk free from under the law, they had to pay their debts. And since the penalty to be paid was death, paying meant dying (see Rom 7:1–6).

Take an extreme illustration. Suppose a very wealthy man has a young son, and promises this boy that he shall one day inherit all his father's wealth. Meanwhile, however, the father sends the boy to school where he must obey the masters and be subject to the discipline of the school. Suppose, then, during the last year at school, in a fit of temper and resentment against the discipline of the school, he murders one of his masters. He cannot say 'I am grown-up now. I do not have to submit to the masters of this school any more. I will simply walk out, and inherit all the wealth my father promised me.' No! Before he can come into the possession of his inheritance, he must first pay for his grievous sin against the school.

So the godly in Israel, for all their godliness, had nevertheless sinned against the law; and, again for all their godliness, they could not pay the penalty themselves. God, therefore, had to buy them out from under the law (see also Heb 9:13). Animal sacrifices could not pay the penalty for them. God had to provide the sacrifice himself.

The Stupendous Grace and Infinite Cost of God's Redemption of Israel

God sent forth his Son

Not a 'guardian' or a 'steward'. Not a 'boy-leader'. His Son. Here was a 'sonship' infinitely higher than the sonship which Israelites in their spiritual infancy enjoyed when by God's grace they were allowed to regard themselves as God's sons and daughters (Deut 32:19). This was the eternal sonship of the one who was ever with God and was God (John 1:1; Phil 2:6).

He was born of a woman

He was sent forth, but not as angels are sent to visit, guide and instruct human beings; for they never became human themselves. His sending forth involved his incarnation. But it involved more.

He was born under the law

He was not born a Gentile. He was born a Jew. He was born under the law. Son of God, though he was, he was sent to the same school as Israel, put under the same guardians and stewards, took the badge of the school and was circumcised as an infant (Luke 2:21–24); took on the form of a slave (Phil 2:7), and became obedient to the extent of dying the death of the cross. Incurring no debts himself, he paid the debts of his people, that he might buy us out, says Paul the Jew, us who were under the law, that we might receive the adoptions of sons; that is, the status and freedom of adult sons of God.

Something more was necessary

To be bought out from under the law, and to be given the legal status and freedom of an adult son of God required the death of God's Son: to have the character and spiritual resources to live as adult, mature, sons of God their Father (see Matt 5:44–48), would require nothing less than that upon being redeemed, the believing Israelites should receive the Spirit of God's Son.

But now when Paul comes to talk of this second wonderful provision, his grammar changes. Hitherto he has said 'we': 'we Jews', who were under the law and have been bought out by Christ so that we might receive the adoption of sons. His Gentile converts, however, had never been under the law in quite the sense that Israel had been. They had, of course, been morally accountable to God; they had had the light of creation and of conscience. They had had the law written on their hearts. But they had never been under the law of Moses; never been required to be circumcised; never put under the food laws; they had never in their spiritual infancy been heirs of the promises made to Abraham; they were aliens, and strangers from the covenants of promise. Never had God called them, as he had called Israel, my sons and daughters. They had never been infant sons (though with the status of slaves) in that family at all. They had sins enough of their own from which they needed to be redeemed. But they had never had to be bought out from under the law in quite the same sense that Israel had been.

Yet the glorious thing was this, that through faith in Christ they not only had redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins; they had been given immediate status as full, adult sons of God along with redeemed Israelites. And simultaneously and equally as believing Israelites, these Gentiles had received the Spirit of God's Son.

And so at this point (Gal 4:6) Paul changes once more (cf. the similar change at Gal 3:26) from 'we' to 'you', and from this point onwards, when he reverts to 'we', this 'we' will include Gentile believers along with Jewish believers: 'And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts'.

The sending forth of the Spirit (Gal 4:6–7)

1. First, God sent forth his Son, as Galatians 4:4 has just reminded us; sent him forth through Mary into the human race; sent him at last to Calvary, and through death and resurrection to the ascension.
2. Secondly, at Pentecost God sent forth the Spirit, not only into the world but into the heart of everyone that believes and receives God's Son as Saviour.
   • The Spirit is sent forth to believers because they have been given the legal status and freedom of adult sons of God (Gal 4:6). No longer under the guardianship and stewardship and slavery of the law; yet if they are to live as genuine adult sons of God, they will need a power and a motivation greater than what the commands and threats of the law could provide.
   • The Spirit is the Spirit of God's Son, so that the very life and nature of the Son of God shall be in the believer producing and forming the character and life-style of the Son of God.
   • The Spirit is sent forth into believers' hearts: unlike the law which was merely a collection of commands and prohibitions written externally on stone tablets, the Spirit is a person, a member himself of the Godhead, come to live the life of God in and through his people (see 2 Cor 3).
   • The Spirit creates a living relationship between the sons of God and God himself, so that naturally–as naturally as the Son of God, if we may say so reverently–they spontaneously know and address God as Abba, Father, just like Jesus did.

The Implications of All This

1. You—you Jewish believer are no longer a slave, but an adult son; and you Gentile believer, the status which God has given you through faith in Christ was never intended to be that of a Jewish infant child, nothing different from a slave; don't listen to these false teachers, don't submit to their slavish, Jewish laws, regulations and rituals; or, if you have, renounce them.
2. You are—every one of you, Jewish or Gentile believer—are already an adult son; and if a son, then, on that ground, an heir through God.

Section Seven: Another Argument from the Experience of the Effects of Conversion (Gal 4:8–20)

In the previous paragraph Paul talked about Israel's spiritual infancy, when, as he put it, speaking as an Israelite himself, 'we were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world', the elementary, physical, preparatory disciplines under which God put Israel until the coming of Christ. Paul's purpose was to alert his Gentile (and Jewish) converts to the folly it would be if they surrendered their new-found freedom as adult sons of God, and put themselves under the slavish regulations of Israel's spiritual infancy. But now he reminds his Gentile converts of Gentile pre-Christian experience, which was far worse than that of pre-Christian Israelites.

Paul's Reminder

Howbeit at that time, not knowing God (Gal 4:8)

Unlike Israel, they were 'separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world' (Eph 2:12).

Worse still, they were in bondage to those who by nature are no Gods

This could not have been said about the faithful in Israel in their pre-Christian days. Spiritual infants they were, but not idolaters. (True, during the centuries there were many Israelites, sometimes indeed, a majority, who apostatized and went off into idolatry; but there was always a core, sometimes a very large core, who were faithful to the one true God.)

And their religions consisted for the most part of weak and beggarly rudiments (Gal 4:9)

At Galatians 4:3 Paul had described Israel's pre-Christian rituals and ceremonies as 'rudiments of the world'. They were elementary, fit for spiritual infants. They were 'of the world', since they were for the most part physical: sacrifices of literal sheep and bullocks, circumcision, food-laws, a tabernacle made with hands, priestly vestments and incense, etc. But they were imposed on Israel by God; and Paul did not describe them as 'weak and beggarly rudiments'.

The Gentiles certainly had moral codes, as evidenced when Romans 2:14–15 declares that they had the work of the law written in their hearts. But they had no clear idea of the way of salvation; and their religions were not just elementary: they were a lot of empty nonsense, 'lying vanities', as the Old Testament describes them (Jonah 2:8). Worse than that, they contained many gross superstitions which kept people in fear and dread. They believed, for instance, that the sun and the moon and the stars were either gods themselves or ruled by astral deities. Eclipses of the sun and moon terrified them. Worse still, there was in those religions a good deal of sheer demonism. And the combination of all these things held people in bondage as they still do millions in many parts of the world today. They were indeed weak and poverty-stricken rudiments.

Paul's Amazement (Gal 4:2)

The thing that not only distresses Paul but amazes him is this: how could the Galatians, after having come to know the true and living God—or rather after having been known by God and taken into a personal relationship with him—how could the Galatians turn back again to these weak and poverty-stricken rudiments and actually be willing, consent, desire and determine to be in bondage to them all over again? How could a person who has once tasted real bread consent to eat sawdust, or poisoned flour? How could anyone, having experienced freedom, voluntarily go back to prison? How could a grown man or woman, having experienced adult realities, willingly go back to childhood's toys and make-believe?

An objection

'But surely', says someone, 'the Galatians were not proposing to go back to their old pagan religions: they were merely proposing to adopt time-honoured, originally God-given, Jewish observances. Those observances may have belonged to the infant stage of the Jewish religion but what actual harm was there in them? It might be surprising to see an adult woman playing with dolls like a child; but it could not be said to be either evil or dangerous, could it?'

Answer

Well, take the example which Paul quotes as causing him a great deal of anxiety: 'You observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour on you in vain' (Gal 4:10–11). Israel's religion certainly had a long list of special days and seasons which they were called on, in their spiritual infancy, to observe: Sabbaths, new moons, new years, harvest times, jubilee years, Passover, Day of Atonement, Festival of Tabernacles, etc. (see Lev 23, 25; Num 28–29). The Christian attitude to these observances is given in Colossians 2:16–17: they were but shadows of the coming good things. Those good things arrived with the coming of Christ. He is the reality to which they pointed. Those who have the reality will no longer need the shadows. No one needs or uses a candle in broad daylight. Jewish Christians who still feel conscience-bound to maintain these observances because they were commanded in the Old Testament, must have their conscience respected by their fellow-Christians (Rom 14–15). But increased knowledge and maturity will lead to their abandonment (Col 2:16–17). But to impose Jewish observances on Gentile converts to Christ runs a double danger.

Danger 1

It runs the risk of confusing them about the fundamental principle of the Christian gospel. Gentiles were never commanded by God to keep these Jewish observances. So why should Gentile converts be told, or even commanded, that they must keep them? The ever-present danger is of giving them the impression that these observances are necessary for salvation, or at least that they contribute to salvation. And that is perilous. 'I am afraid of you', says Paul. And well he might be. Why did they now feel they had to keep these observances? Paul had taught them that salvation was by faith alone. Religious observances were not necessary to salvation and could contribute nothing to it. Add religious observances to faith, as necessary for salvation, and you have ruined the gospel; and what is worse, you are left with no salvation at all. People who profess to have trusted Christ, but still feel the need to keep religious observances to be saved, are at best highly confused, and probably not saved at all.

'I am afraid of you' says Paul. 'I preached to you the gospel of Christ crucified as the sole means of salvation. I preached it plainly enough. You professed to believe that gospel and to be saved. But your insistence on these religious observances raises most serious doubts in my mind. Did you really understand the gospel? Did you really believe it? Or has all my work been in vain?'

Danger 2

The second danger lay in the fact that their pagan religions which they practised in their pre-conversion days also had their special holy days and religious festivals. Unlike Israel's, they were not commanded by God. They were in fact full of superstition and idolatry, accompanied often by immorality, black magic and demonism. To impose on converts from such paganism Jewish religious festivals and holy days, was to run the all too real danger of confusing the two sets of practices in the people's minds.

It is notorious, for instance, that in modern Mexico so-called Christian festivals and holy days are all mixed up with pagan Indian practices and beliefs. And in many European countries at Easter or on All-Saints Day the practice of visiting the cemeteries, eating and laying food on the graves of the departed, praying for the dead and/or of having special feasting at home at which the spirits of the dead are honoured, or even thought to attend: all this is a survival of pre-Christian pagan practices, such as are still observed in, for instance, Malaysia on the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts.

And all such practices are in direct conflict with the Christian gospel. Someone who professes to be a Christian and yet offers what he thinks is Christ's body and blood as a sacrifice on behalf of the dead, is doing something that is not Christian at all, but pagan; and like the Galatians, his practice would raise the gravest of doubts as to whether he had really understood the gospel.

Paul's Appeal (Gal 4:12–20)

Paul the model convert and the model evangelist

'I beseech you, brethren, be as I am, for I am as you' (Gal 4:12). According to 1 Timothy 1:16, Paul's conversion was designed by God as an example for all those who should thereafter believe in Christ for eternal life. And when Paul was converted to Christ, he threw away all his religious attainments in Judaism, Jew though he was, and counted them rubbish. His sole desire was to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own based on his keeping of the law, but the righteousness of God given to those who simply put their faith in Christ (Phil 3:5–9).

Paul was also a model evangelist (1 Cor 9:18–23). In order to bring the gospel to Gentiles effectively and not create unnecessary obstacles against their receiving it, and with it salvation, Paul was prepared to put aside his Jewish cultural and non-essential religious traditions, and live like a Gentile (remember Gal 2:14?).

It was in no small part due to this attitude of Paul's that the Galatians had been converted. Why then could they not follow his example? Why could they not, as converted Gentiles, be content to be as he was? Why must they take on Judaistic practices which he, a Jew, had abandoned? Mediaeval (and modern) Christendom could be asked the same question.

The Galatians' initial response to Paul (Gal 4:12–15)

When Paul first visited them he appears to have been suffering from a disease that made him physically repulsive to look at. In spite of that the gospel that he preached was so powerful and effective, that they received him as if he were an angel, as if he were Christ Jesus himself. And such was the joy and gratitude that the gospel produced in their hearts, that they would gladly have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him, if that had been possible and necessary.

The change in the attitude to Paul produced by the false teaching (Gal 4:16–18)

But under the influence of the false teachers the Galatians' attitude to Paul had changed. They no longer liked him when he told them the truth, because they did not like the truth he was telling them.

It is, we may observe, an infallible guide to the truth or otherwise of any doctrine, and the rightness or otherwise of any practice: if that doctrine or practice, once received, makes people less keen on Paul and on his teaching, that doctrine and that practice are wrong.

The false teachers had made a lot of the Galatians, and the Galatians had doubtless enjoyed being made a lot of. There was nothing wrong with that either, as long as it was in a good cause. But the motives of the false teachers were definitely not good. They wanted to shut Paul out from any influence over the Galatians and to establish their own exclusive power over them so that they should become the sole authority for them. Paul was now gone: they tried to ensure he would be forgotten (Gal 4:17–18).

And it is the melancholy fact that all down the centuries it has been Paul's doctrine of justification by faith that has been attacked, excluded, suppressed and forgotten, and his teaching on church order that has been ignored, more than any other apostolic doctrines.

Paul's true concern for his converts (Gal 4:19–20)

'My little children', says he; for he was their spiritual father. It was he, not the false teachers, that had begotten them in the gospel (cf. 1 Cor 4:14–16). With pain, struggle and self-sacrifice he had brought them to faith in Christ; and he still agonised over them. Not so that he might dominate them to the exclusion of all other teachers, or that they should idolise him; but so that the life of Christ who was in them, and had been in them since their conversion, might be developed and fully formed within them. And since that development was now threatened, his fatherly instinct as their spiritual parent, made him long to be with them again, to talk to them face to face, as lovingly and yet as straightly as a concerned father will talk to his children, lest they should be carried away by the blandishments of the false teachers, and their spiritual growth be irretrievably stunted.

Section Eight: An Argument from an Old Testament Prototype (Gal 4:21–5:1)

In this paragraph Paul takes a narrative from the book of Genesis, points out the principles that underlay the behaviour of the people in the narrative, deduces a powerful and authoritative lesson from those principles and applies that lesson to the spiritual situation in which the Galatians found themselves.

We ought to notice at the beginning that many commentators feel uncomfortable with Paul's argument here. They suppose that Paul is treating the Genesis narrative as an allegory, when it was never intended by its author as an allegory. They hold, therefore, that his allegorical interpretation is not, strictly speaking, valid. They suggest that Paul may have used this kind of argument because the Jewish rabbis of the time thought that allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament was acceptable. But nowadays, they imply, we know that such allegorical interpretation is not valid, and therefore we cannot attach much weight to Paul's argument.

But this will not do. God would not have inspired Paul to use an argument that was in actual fact invalid, even if his hearers would have thought that it was valid, and would have been convinced by it. God never uses invalid arguments to convince people and to lead them to faith. If Paul's argument is in fact invalid, Paul was not inspired.

But Paul's argument is not invalid. In the first place, his interpretation of Genesis is not allegorical. He treats the narrative as straightforward history, as we shall now see.

First, the Historical Facts of the Story (Gal 4:22–23)

Abraham had two sons, one by the slave girl, Hagar, the other by the free woman, Sarah. There is no allegory here: just plain history.

But equally plain, straightforward history (if we read the whole context in Genesis) is the attitude of Abraham and Sarah that led to Abraham's taking the slave girl, Hagar, and fathering a child, subsequently named Ishmael, by her.

The fact was that God had promised Abraham a son and heir (Gen 15). Abraham at first believed God's promises, but a little later he acted quite inconsistently with his faith. It happened this way: Sarah was infertile; so for her to have a child would involve a miracle on God's part. But Sarah could not persuade herself that God's promise was an unconditional promise, and that he would fulfil that promise even if it meant performing a miracle. So she persuaded Abraham that when God promised them a son, he did not mean it as an unconditional promise. He meant it rather as an exhortation that they were to do the best they could and to use all the means they had, and then God would help them to have a son. So, being infertile, Sarah suggested that Abraham should take the slave girl, Hagar, and father a child by her. Abraham did so, and Ishmael was born (Gen 16).

But God objected (Gen 17:15–22; 18:9–15). He was not prepared to accept the slave girl's son as the fulfilment of his promise, in spite of all Abraham's pleading. And he was not prepared to accept Abraham and Sarah's attempt to fulfil the promise by using Hagar, as an act of faith. It was in God's terms the very opposite of faith. It was works: their own human wisdom and effort to bring about the fulfilment of God's promise and blessing through their own strength. God insisted that his original promise was a genuine unconditional promise; and that faith meant putting their trust solely in God and his word, and not relying on their own effort.

Moreover, to make sure that Abraham and Sarah learned their lesson thoroughly God made them wait. Sarah had been infertile right from the start; but Abraham at that time was able to father a child. But now God made them wait until Abraham was as good as dead. And then, when all their trust in themselves and in their own resources was gone, God did a miracle. He gave them a son, and proved that his original promise was after all a genuine unconditional promise to be accepted simply by faith.

Now none of this is allegory. It is but a statement of the attitudes, first false and then true, that Abraham and Sarah adopted in their own literal and historical situation. And when Paul comments (4:23) that the son by the slave girl was born after the flesh, this is not allegory either. By 'after the flesh' he does not mean simply that Ishmael was born in the ordinary way. He means that Ishmael was born as a result of Abraham and Sarah in their foolish independence and self-reliance attempting by their own efforts to bring about the fulfilment of God's promise. And when Paul remarks that Abraham's son by the free woman was born through promise, he means that Isaac was born when Abraham and Sarah had at last learned to abandon faith in their own effort and trust solely in God's unconditional promise.

Paul's Application of the Historical Facts to the Galatians' Situation

At this level the application of the story to the Galatians' situation is so obvious that Paul for the moment does not stay to point it out. From what he has already said in the epistle it is obvious that the Galatians were in danger of adopting exactly the same false attitude towards God as Abraham and Sarah did in producing Ishmael. Initially they had been content simply to believe the gospel and put their faith solely in Christ and his finished work. But subsequently, under the influence of the false teachers, they had begun to think that they had to contribute to their justification and salvation and to the fulfilment of the promise of the inheritance by their own effort: by being circumcised and by their performance of the works of the law. And God, of course, was bound to reject this false attitude on the part of the Galatians even as he rejected it with Abraham and Sarah.

Paul's Supposed Allegorical Interpretation (Gal 4:24–28)

First, we must be careful not to mistranslate Paul's Greek in Galatians 4:24: hatina estin allegoroumena. It is true that the Greek verb allegoreo can mean 'to speak allegorically'. But Paul's interpretation of Genesis is of an altogether different kind from, say, Philo's famous allegorical interpretation of Genesis. If 'allegorical' is the proper label to put on Philo's work, then Paul's interpretation is certainly not allegorical.

We can best describe what Paul means by allegoroumena, by analysing what he now proceeds to do. Take first Galatians 4:28: 'Now we [some manuscripts have 'you'], brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.'

In what sense, then, was Isaac a child of promise?

Well, certainly not in a literal sense: 'promise' was not the name of his physical mother! It is a short way of saying that Isaac was born as a result of Abraham and Sarah believing God's promise. As a modern example of the same way of talking, we may say of a child born to a black father and a white mother in South Africa: 'this infant is a child of the new anti-apartheid policy in that country'. This is a vivid way of speaking, but it is not allegorical.

And in what sense are we believers children of promise after the pattern of Isaac?

Well, again not literally in the sense that promise is our physical mother. Nor literally in the sense that ours is a physical birth as Isaac's was. Ours is a spiritual birth, giving us eternal, spiritual life. But there is a clear similarity between our spiritual birth and his physical birth. Both births are the result of the exercise of faith in the promise of God. In Isaac's case the faith was exercised by his parents; in our case by ourselves. But none of this is allegory. Isaac's parents in their day were historical personages and their exercise of faith was an historical fact. So were the Galatians historical personages, and their faith in God's promise was an historical fact. And the same is true of us.

But does not Paul say that these two women, Hagar and Sarah, are (i.e. represent) two covenants? And is that not allegorical interpretation? (Gal 3:24)

Yes, he does claim that; but, no, it is not allegorical interpretation. I can say that Chairman Mao and Margaret Thatcher represented two political systems. Everybody will understand what I mean. No one will suppose that I am speaking allegorically. I simply mean that these two persons lived and worked according to the principles of these political systems.

Hagar, according to Paul, represents the covenant made between God and Israel at Mount Sinai. Now the covenant at Sinai was, as we earlier saw, a two-party covenant. Under its terms Israel's enjoyment of its blessings depended on Israel's effort to keep the law. According to this principle life depended on their doing: 'He who does these things shall live by them' (Gal 3:12). And this principle placed on Israel a yoke too heavy to bear. This covenant from Sinai 'brought forth children unto slavery', says Paul (Gal 4:24), which is a metaphorical way of saying that it reduced to slavery all who attempted to gain eternal life by keeping the law.

Now this evaluation of the nature of the Sinai covenant and of its effect on those who tried to keep it, is not a conclusion which Paul has drawn from the Hagar story. It is his own doctrinal and theological exposition of the principle and effect of the Sinai covenant, an exposition which he has already established by explicit, straightforward statements of Scripture (Gal 3:6–14).

But now, in the light of this already established effect of the Sinai covenant, Paul finds it to be more than a coincidence that when Abraham and Sarah attempted to fulfil God's promise by their own effort, it was a slave girl that they used for their purpose. Hagar was a slave girl to begin with, but even after the birth of Ishmael she never did become anything more than a slave girl, nor did Ishmael become anything more than a slave.

And incidentally, here lies an answer to those Jews who say that, contrary to what Paul claims, they have never found the effort to keep the law a slavery. They enjoy keeping the law. The fact is that Abraham may have enjoyed the process of fathering Ishmael on Hagar; and he certainly loved Ishmael and would gladly have made him his heir. But God would not accept him as the promised heir (although God blessed him). Ishmael remained a slave-boy in Abraham's house: he never had the status of a free-born son.

But having said that Hagar represents the Sinai covenant, how can Paul now say that she 'answers to', or 'stands for' the city of Jerusalem? Is this not allegorical interpretation? And when he adds that though Jerusalem now is in slavery along with her children, is this not allegory taken to extreme?

Well no, and no again! First of all, Paul, literally translated, says that Hagar 'is in line with [Greek: systoichei] Jerusalem'. He means no more or less than that Jerusalem is in the same condition as Hagar was: Hagar was in slavery, so is Jerusalem. Hagar's child was a slave, so are Jerusalem's children. Hagar's slavery was literal; Jerusalem's is spiritual. But both are slaveries, and both are real and equally historical.

Hagar's child was her literal, physical child. Jerusalem's children are metaphorical. But this metaphor, by which a city's inhabitants are referred to as a city's children, is very common in the Bible (cf. Luke 13:34), and throughout the world. It is figurative language, but hardly allegorical.

And the reason why Paul identifies contemporary Jerusalem and her citizens with the slave Hagar and her son, and with the Sinai covenant, is simply (but sadly) because in his day the majority of Jerusalem's citizens and her religious leaders, priests and theologians all thought and lived as if their acceptance with God depended on their keeping of the law.

But from where did Paul get the idea that there is 'a Jerusalem above that is our mother'? (4:26). Was this not a little piece of allegorical invention on his part?

Well, if it was, it was not his own private and personal invention. According to the note on this verse in the niv Study Bible, 'Rabbinical teaching held that the Jerusalem above was the heavenly archetype that in the Messianic period would be let down to earth (cf. Rev 21:2)'.

Again, we may cite the fact that Moses was instructed to make the tabernacle according to the pattern that was shown him in the mount. The earthly tabernacle that he made, therefore, was understood to be 'like in pattern to the true'; and the 'true' tabernacle was thought to be the greater and more perfect tabernacle in heaven into which Christ at his ascension entered (see Heb 8:1–5; 9:11, 24). And John in Revelation 21:2–3 unites the idea of the heavenly Jerusalem with that of the heavenly tabernacle.

But in our present passage, when Paul talks of the Jerusalem above, states that she is free, and says that she is our mother, he proceeds to quote Isaiah 54:1: 'For it is written, Rejoice, you barren that bears not; break forth and cry, you that have laboured not: for more are the children of the desolate than of her which has the husband'.

In this famous passage God, through the prophet, is addressing the historical Zion, the earthly city of Jerusalem. Her citizens had been unrepentantly wicked, and God had therefore sent them into exile. Jerusalem city in consequence had been left ruined and empty, like a mother bereft of her children. God, her maker and husband, had forsaken her, and left her grieved and ashamed.

But in the larger context of this passage Isaiah has begun to comfort and encourage Jerusalem by calling on her to remember her national, physical and spiritual origins: 'Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you: for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many' (Isa 51:1–2).

Well now, suppose we ourselves do what Jerusalem is here called on to do, and look back to Abraham and Sarah. Suppose then we ask: 'By what process did God take Abraham when he was one solitary, childless man, and turn him into the father of a multitude of nations?' (Gen 17:5). We are immediately back with the story of Sarah and Hagar. Abraham complained to God that he was childless and heirless. God promised him seed. Sarah, in her unwise independence of God, suggested that Abraham take Hagar; but found to her great annoyance and resentment that she was despised by Hagar, because Hagar was the mother of Abraham's son, and barren Sarah was not, and could not be, a mother. But eventually God intervened and Sarah, the barren and displaced woman, learning to put her faith solely in God and his promise, became the mother, not only of Isaac, and not merely of one nation, but of a multitude of nations, with far more than Hagar and Ishmael had (Gen 17:15–16).

If, then, Jerusalem of Isaiah's day had become desolate and childless because of her past sins, she could take comfort from Sarah's experience. She too as a city would be restored to God's favour on the same terms as Sarah, and re-populated with an abundance of citizens.

Now this prophecy was partially fulfilled at the return of Israel from the exile in Babylon. It will find far greater fulfilment in a day to come. The earthly city of Jerusalem shall not forever be trodden down by the nations (Luke 21:24). Israel, as a nation, shall yet come into the good of the new covenant that shall set her free from the slavery of the old, when they learn to walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision (Rom 4:12).

But God's original promise to Sarah and Abraham was that they should be parents, not just of one nation, but of many. And in fulfilment of that promise Abraham and Sarah have become the spiritual parents of the multi-millions, from every nation, 'who believe even though they are not circumcised', and have never been or become Jews (Rom 4:11). This vast company of Abraham and Sarah's spiritual descendants form, and shall form for all eternity, the citizenry not of the earthly but of the heavenly Jerusalem; all of them free, because they have discovered like Abraham and Sarah that justification and acceptance with God depend not on works but on faith.

The Practical Up-To-Date Application of the Story of Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4:29–5:1)

Ishmael, the son born after the flesh, eventually persecuted Isaac, who was born much later, but born not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. That much is plain history. The record of it is in Genesis 21. 'It still is happening now', says Paul speaking in the first century ad; and he is referring to the fact that unbelieving Jews persecuted him and his Jewish converts in many cities of the Roman Empire.

But the same thing has gone on throughout the subsequent centuries. True believers, who have stood for justification by faith, have been opposed and persecuted, not merely by pagans and atheists, but by great ecclesiastical institutions and their political supporters who have denounced the doctrine of justification by faith as heresy.

But Sarah was concerned, not only with the question of acceptance with God, but with the further question of the promised inheritance. She was determined that the son of the slave girl should not inherit along with Isaac, the son of the free woman (Gen 21:10). She urged Abraham to cast out the slave woman and her son. Abraham demurred at first; but God insisted and Abraham complied.

This drastic step was necessary for the development and freedom of the as-yet infant Isaac. But in God's wisdom it was necessary also to lay down the principle right from this early stage for the instruction of believers of all subsequent centuries: the God-promised inheritance, like initial justification, depends not on the works of the law, but on grace through faith.

And so the clarion call comes to us with all the authority of God's word from one end of history to the other: 'For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage' (5:1).

Final Note

Go back to Galatians 3:15–19. 'What then is the law? It was added . . . until the seed should come to whom the promise has been made'.

Then in the light of this statement consider the following comparison between two periods of history, the shorter and the longer.

The Shorter Period

|Genesis 15 |Genesis 16 | |Genesis 21| |1. God promises Abraham seed; the inheritance is promised to Abraham and to his seed. |2. The angel of the Lord himself sends the slave girl, Hagar, back into Abraham’s home and family, where Ishmael is born. |UNTIL |3. The promised seed, Isaac, is born; and thereupon God himself, agreeing with Sarah, commands that the slave girl and her son be cast out; and then the promised seed is offered on the altar (Gen 22).|

The Longer Period

|Genesis 15 |Exodus 19–24 | |New Testament| |1. God promises Abraham seed; the inheritance is promised to Abraham and to his seed.| 2. The law is imposed on Israel from Mount Sinai four hundred and thirty years after the Abrahamic covenant. |UNTIL |3. The promised seed, Christ, comes, and is sacrificed; after which we are no longer to be under the law.|

Section Nine: The Argument From the Implications of the False Doctrine Which Paul Rebuts (Gal 5:2–12)

It is often so that believers will embrace a false doctrine because on the surface it seems good, godly, spiritual and attractive. They will embrace it without working out its implications. If only they perceived its implications, they would abandon it at once, for the implications are destructive to the gospel. A case in point is that of the Corinthians. Some of them had adopted the idea that there is no such thing as resurrection, without perceiving its disastrous implications. If it were true that there is no resurrection it would mean:

1. That Christ himself was not risen;
2. That the apostles were liars for they had affirmed that Christ was risen;
3. That there was no salvation, no forgiveness of sins;
4. That there was no hope beyond this life.

Paul, therefore, had to spend a long chapter (1 Cor 15) pointing out these implications to them, in the hope that when they saw how destructive of the gospel they were, they would abandon their false doctrine.

Paul now does a similar thing in this paragraph for the Galatians. The false teachers had begun to persuade them that to be truly and fully saved they must be circumcised. The argument would have seemed very simple and compelling: 'Had not God commanded his people in the Old Testament to be circumcised? Was it not obvious that those who claim to believe in God must obey his commandments? All the great saints of the Old Testament had been circumcised. Why should the Galatians think that they need not obey God's command?'

Enticed by this kind of argument, the Galatians may well have thought that circumcision was after all only a small matter; and if refusing to submit to it was going to create a lot of unpleasantness and division, it was better to submit. For what harm was there in it?

Paul, therefore, must now show them what harm there was in circumcision, and he does so by pointing out its implications both for the gospel message itself and for those who knowingly embrace the false doctrine and deliberately persist in it.

He begins by appealing once more to his apostolic authority:

'Behold, I Paul Say unto You' (Gal 5:2)

The false teachers were not apostles; Paul was. Like the other apostles, he had authority from the Lord Jesus to lay down the terms and conditions which people must fulfil to be forgiven; and to define what attitudes would make it impossible for people to be forgiven (see John 20:21–22; Acts 26:13–18). To be a Christian, and to find salvation through Christ, one must accept not only the authority of the Lord Jesus but also the authority of the apostles whom he appointed. To reject them is to reject him (Luke 10:16).

With apostolic authority, then, he proceeds to point out the serious implications of the false doctrine that circumcision is necessary for salvation, and/or that it contributes to salvation.

'If you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing' (Gal 5:2)

Christ is not merely the only Saviour: he insists on doing all the saving. He will not share the work of saving with any other person or with any ritual, or institution. If you are going to depend on circumcision to contribute something to your salvation, you will have to depend on circumcision to do all the work of saving you without the help of Christ. He will not co-operate with circumcision in the work of saving you. Never will he allow you to think or say: 'It was being circumcised and trusting Christ that saved me.' Who was it that was crucified for you? Only Christ? Then only Christ can save you. To suggest that Christ's finished work on the cross can be, or need be, supplemented by circumcision in order to save you fully, is a dire insult to Christ. When it comes to gaining acceptance with God you must choose either Christ to gain it for you, or circumcision: you cannot have both.

'Every person who receives circumcision . . . is a debtor to do the whole law' (Gal 5:3)

The law is one indivisible whole. If you are going to make your salvation depend on keeping the law, you must keep the whole law, not just one of its commandments. Suppose a man has poisoned his business rival and shot the local bank manager. It would be absurd for him to think, 'The court will not condemn me because I always keep the law and drive on the correct side of the road'!

So it is with circumcision. Anyone who receives circumcision with the idea that he must be circumcised in order to be saved, is thereby admitting that he must keep the whole law in order to be saved. He is thereby condemning himself to eternal perdition, for he has not kept the law in the past, and cannot keep it fully in the present. Without Christ, then, he must pay the law's penalty himself.

'You are estranged from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace' (Gal 5:4)

Here we face both the doctrinal implication of the false doctrine and its effect on a person's relation to Christ.

The doctrinal implication

'You have fallen away from grace'. In contexts like these, 'grace' is by definition the opposite of 'works'. So when the Bible says positively 'by grace you have been saved through faith', in order to make the meaning of 'by grace' indisputably clear it adds the negative 'not of works' (Eph 2:8–9).

Similarly, Romans 11:6 says: 'But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works: otherwise grace is no longer grace.'

If something is a genuine gift, you cannot pay anything for it. The moment you pay for something, however little, it ceases to be a gift. It may be very cheap; it may be a very good bargain; but it is not a gift if you have to pay something for it, or earn it in any way.

Similarly, in contexts like these 'faith' is the opposite of 'works'. If you are saved through faith, you are not saved through works. You cannot be saved by faith and works.

So, add the rite of circumcision as necessary for salvation, and you completely destroy the Christian doctrine of salvation by grace through faith; and your gospel becomes 'another gospel which is not a gospel at all' (Gal 1:6–7).

Its effect on a person's relationship to Christ

Why is the doctrine of the gospel important? Because doctrine affects a person's relationship with Christ. In the Old Testament God insists that man puts his ultimate trust solely in God. To put one's trust in God and someone or something else, is a form of idolatry. 'Look unto me and be saved', says God, 'for I am God, and there is none else' (Isa 45:21–22). So Christ, the Son of God, is the only Saviour. The only true, and acceptable, attitude towards him is trust in him and in him only. To put your trust in something else besides Christ, or in Christ plus something else, totally perverts your relationship with Christ: 'You are estranged from Christ, you who would be [are trying to be] justified by the law'. Faith in Christ and in something else for salvation, is not faith in Christ at all.

Here then lay the seriousness of the false doctrine for the Galatians. They had professed to be believers in Christ; but their readiness to receive circumcision as necessary for salvation, raised the question whether they were true believers at all. Perhaps they had not perceived the implications of the false doctrine, and so had not realised that their present behaviour was fundamentally inconsistent with their profession of faith in Christ. If so, now that Paul pointed out these implications, they would at once renounce the false teaching, and show themselves to be true believers in Christ. But if not, they would demonstrate that they were not believers, they did not have 'faith' in the gospel sense of that term.

What Then is the Mark of True Believers?

The contrast between Galatians 5:4 and 5:5 is stark:

Galatians 5:4: 'you are estranged from Christ, you who would be justified by the law: you have fallen away from grace'.

Galatians 5:5: 'For we . . .' Yes, 'we' stands in vivid contrast to the 'you' of the previous verse. For 'we' refers to Paul and to all true believers; and what follows in this verse is the mark and description of the attitude of true believers: 'For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.'

The verse speaks not merely of the believer's initial justification—though of course it does mention that; for 'the hope of righteousness' means 'the hope that arises from the fact that we have been justified and already have the righteousness of God by faith'. Compare Paul's language in Romans 5:1–2: 'Having been justified by faith . . . we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' The hope is that at the second coming of Christ we shall be fully conformed to the image of God's Son (Rom 8:29); and it is spoken of as a hope, not because there is any uncertainty about our attaining it, but simply because that glorious goal is future, and we have to wait for it patiently (Rom 8:24–25).

What Then is the True Believer's Attitude as He Waits for the Goal of His Justification?

'We wait for it', says Paul; not we must qualify for it, earn it or pay for it. No! Simply, wait for it. The word he uses (Greek: apekdechometha) is the same as the one he uses in Philippians 3:20 to describe our attitude towards the second coming of Christ: 'We wait for the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour'. We do not have to earn his coming: we simply wait for him to come.

It is by the Spirit that we wait for the hope of righteousness, not by circumcision or the works of the law. It is the Spirit of God who engenders within the believer the longing expectation and waiting for the coming of the Lord as Saviour to change our bodies so that they are like his glorious body (Rom 8:23; Phil 3:20–21).

And this is all 'by', or 'as a result of', or, 'on the principle of faith',—and faith in the sense previously defined, i.e. faith not works. And that is why, because it is the result of faith, not works, that when the Lord comes, all believers, without exception, shall rise to meet him: none will be left behind: all will see him, and seeing him will be like him (1 John 3:1–2). There will be no such thing as a 'partial rapture'.

Of course, while salvation, past and future, does not depend on works, it leads to works. If the owner of a petrol-pump gives me a tank full of petrol free, all I have to do is to believe him, take the petrol and thank him for it. I do not have to earn the petrol by driving the car so many miles. It is a gift. But, of course, with a tank full of petrol, I shall proceed to drive my car, not to get the petrol, but because I have got it.

And in the same way, a believer receives salvation by faith as a free gift without works; but once he has it, it leads to works. Indeed faith, in this biblical sense of the word, is the only thing that will produce works that please the Lord. By contrast, the works of the law cannot justify, neither can they sanctify, anyone. 'For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love' (Gal 5:6).

Not only is the false teaching exposed by its disastrous implications for the doctrine of salvation, but:

The False Teachers are Exposed by the Effect They Have Had on Paul's Converts

They have, at least temporarily, hindered Paul's converts from obeying the truth. The gospel is a message that has to be not only believed, but obeyed. As we saw in Galatians 2:14, a believer is responsible always to behave in a way that is consistent with the basic principles of the gospel. At Antioch, even Peter acted inconsistently with the gospel he believed; and now the Galatians too were likewise acting inconsistently with the gospel. Their running of the Christian race had been impeded and had become uncertain. It was obvious, therefore, that this persuasion had not come from the one who had originally called them through the gospel. It was not from God.

Circumcision might seem a little thing; but 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump'. Add this little thing as a necessary qualification for salvation, and it would eventually permeate their whole belief-system and their behaviour, and ruin both. Like dry-rot in timber, its effect might not at first seem too serious or extensive; but in the end it would be completely disastrous.

But in spite of the danger Paul finally expresses his confidence:

Paul's Confidence Regarding His Galatian Converts (Gal 5:10)

His confidence was based not in them, though he was confident about them. His confidence was in the Lord. The Lord had called them; and it was the Lord who had by his word created the faith within them that had so vigorously manifested itself in their behaviour immediately after their conversion (Gal 3:13–15). That being so, the Lord by his intercessions would maintain their faith, as he had maintained Peter's faith in spite of his temporary lapses and inconsistencies (Luke 22:31–32).

Moreover, the faith of those new converts was so precious to the Lord that he would not stand idly by and simply watch while false teachers destroyed that faith. He would bring down his judgment on those false teachers whoever they were (cf. Matt 18:6; John 17:11–12). And then finally,

Paul's Own Attitude Towards the False Teachers (Gal 5:11–12)

The false teachers had apparently misrepresented Paul by claiming that on other occasions and in different places he still taught that circumcision was necessary (Gal 5:11). That was not true. When people taught, as the false teachers were teaching, that circumcision was necessary for salvation, Paul everywhere, always and uncompromisingly, resisted and denounced them. For the gospel was at stake (see Gal 2:3–5; Acts 15:1–11). On the other hand, if a Jewish believer, like Timothy, was quite clear that circumcision was not necessary for salvation, Paul was quite happy for him to be circumcised solely for the purpose of not offending the conscience of the Jewish community (see Acts 16:1–4); for in this case the gospel was not at stake. It is easy to see how the false teachers could misrepresent Paul to the Galatians.

Paul's answer was short, but effective. He was still being persecuted by Jews wherever he went. Why? Precisely because everywhere he went he preached that circumcision and the works of the law could not gain acceptance with God. Only through the cross of Christ could people be saved. And that message undercut their whole religious system. Hence their persecution of Paul. Had he preached that circumcision was necessary and effective for salvation, the persecution would have ceased.

Paul's indignation against the false teachers (Gal 5:12)

The false teachers must have known that they were misrepresenting Paul. For himself he did not mind. But they were doing it to unsettle his converts. And that heated Paul's indignation white-hot. For religious teachers to tell lies about an evangelist in order to break the faith of his converts was in Paul's eyes an execrable sin. 'I would that they who unsettle you would actually emasculate themselves.' That is strong language; but the Lord Jesus felt as strongly as Paul did over religious people who pervert the gospel and impede people's salvation; and without apology he denounced them in the strongest possible language (Matt 23:13–15, 33).

Section Ten: The Argument from the Fact That the Gospel of Justification by Faith Does Make Provision for Holy Living, and From What That Provision is and Involves (Gal 5:13–6:10)

Perhaps the commonest objection against the gospel of justification by faith runs as follows: 'You say that we are accepted by God not on the ground of how well we behave (our works) but solely on the ground of grace through faith. You further claim that here in this life we can know for certain that we have been accepted by God and that we will be so at the final judgment and remain so for all eternity, again not on the ground of how well we have kept God's law, but simply because we have put our faith in Christ. But if this were really so and we could know it, it would mean that it would not matter how badly we behaved in this life, we should still be accepted by God. This in turn would lead to gross moral laxity. This doctrine of justification by faith and not by works, therefore, cannot be right. We need the law and the threat of its ultimate sanction of eternal perdition to keep us persevering in an honest attempt to lead a holy life; and the fact that we cannot be sure whether by life's end we shall have done enough to qualify for God's acceptance (we can only hope we have) is a good and necessary thing: it saves us from becoming careless in the way we live.'

In This Paragraph Paul Will Answer This Objection

1. He will show that it is not true that being justified by faith means that it does not matter how you subsequently live. It does matter.
2. He will show that the gospel of justification by faith does insist on holy living and makes adequate resources available for it.
3. He will show, however, that the urge to live a holy life is not supplied by the threat of the law's penalty for failure; for the threat of the law's penalty is in fact altogether unable to produce a life of holiness acceptable to God.
4. He will show that the reason why the gospel of justification by faith actually produces true holiness is that upon believing the believer is forthwith and forever thereafter indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And it is he who provides the urge and the power to lead a life of holiness.

The Main Elements in Paul's Argument

The freedom which justification by faith gives is not a licence to sin (Gal 5:13)

It is the fact that God has called us to freedom. But freedom to sin is not freedom. The practice of sin makes us slaves to sin (cf. Rom 6:16; John 8:34). Freedom is freedom from our innate self-centredness, freedom to love God and our neighbours. Believers, therefore, are not to abuse their freedom as if it were an opportunity and incentive to indulge the flesh. On the contrary, believers are expected through love to serve one another. Here admittedly is a paradox, for the word Paul uses for serve is the word he has used all through the epistle for slavery (cf. Rom 6:14). But, of course, there is a world of difference between a slavery that is imposed by the threat of the law's dreadful sanctions, and a slavery that is willingly undertaken under the compulsion of love. And the experience of God's unconditional love that led him to give his Son to die for us while we were yet sinners, produces in the believer a reciprocal love that will make him desire to serve his fellow-believers.

God's intention, in justifying us by faith, is that the moral and spiritual demands of the law shall be, not abrogated, but fulfilled in us (Gal 5:14)

The question is not whether they shall be fulfilled, but how. The whole requirement of the law can be summed up in its command: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself'. But love cannot be produced by threats of the law's penalties. Threats of penalties may produce a slavish kind of obedience to rules and regulations: but they cannot produce genuine love. And that is why true holiness cannot be produced by the law; some other motivation and power is needed.

At the same time, while the believer is free from the penalties of the law, he is subject to the consequences of sinning (Gal 5:15)

'But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed by one another.'

There is a difference between penalty and consequence. Penalty is the punishment meted out by the law for transgressing one or more of its commandments. Consequences are the suffering and damage caused by the actual transgression itself.

Romans 8:1 declares that 'there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.' The penalty of their transgressions of the law has already been paid by Christ to God's and the law's complete satisfaction. Believers will therefore never have to suffer the penalty of sin.

But believers should remember that there are consequences of indulging in sin. Paul here cites an example: if instead of loving one another you bite and devour one another, there will be no penalty; but there will be practically unavoidable consequences: you will be consumed one of another.

Moreover the consequences of low-living and poor work can be eternal. First Corinthians 3:10–15 reminds us that poor work which does not gain the Lord's approval at the judgment seat of Christ will be burned up. The believer who produced that unworthy work will himself be saved; for his salvation never did depend on his work. But he shall be saved 'so as by fire', and he will suffer loss and get no reward for his work.

True holiness, then, motivated by love, is produced, not by the law, but by the indwelling Spirit of God (Gal 5:16–18)

The believer is not sinlessly perfect. He still is assailed by the desires of the flesh. But it is not left to him and to his own unaided will-power to resist and subdue the desires of the flesh. If he thinks it is, or if he lives as though it were, experience will soon show him that 'the good that he would do, he does not do; and the evil that he would not do, that he does' (see Rom 7:7–25).

No; if the desires of the flesh are often so strong that they make the believer unable to do the good he would do, or to abstain from the evil that he would not do; then the opposite is true as well: the desires of the Holy Spirit, whom he has received by faith (Gal 3:5) and who resides permanently within him, are so real and strong that the believer is led to do good things which he would not otherwise do, and to refrain from evil which he would otherwise commit.

There are, then, desires and powers in the believer which are not in the unbeliever. They do not originate with the believer: they originate with the Holy Spirit. They do not turn the believer into a choiceless machine. He must constantly and actively allow himself to be led by the Spirit, to follow the Spirit's urgings and guidance, and so deliberately to walk along the lines of behaviour that please God. But as he does so, the Holy Spirit will provide him with the power to deny, resist and overcome the desires of the flesh.

Here then is the secret of a believer's practical holiness: it is 'being led by the Spirit'; and it is an altogether different process from being driven, slave-like by the threats of the law's penalties.

The implications of constant, unrepentant, practice of the works of the flesh (Gal 5:19–21, 24)

'The works of the flesh are manifest', says Paul, and he proceeds to list them. And then he makes a very solemn statement: 'I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.'

We must not try to lessen the force of what Paul says. Those who constantly, of the set manner of their life, unrepentantly practise the works of the flesh are not believers. Paul has categorically asserted in Galatians 3:29 that those who are Christ's are heirs according to the promise. If those who practise the works of the flesh shall not inherit the kingdom of God, it is clear that they are not Christ's.

Moreover Galatians 5:24 is about to assert that 'they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.' If this is what those that are Christ's have done, then those who constantly and unrepentantly practise the works of the flesh and allow the flesh to reign unchecked, are by definition not Christ's: they are not true believers. A machine that has no wings and no engines, and never attempts to overcome gravity and fly is not an aeroplane, whatever else it may be.

Those who are Christ's are not sinlessly perfect. In many things they come short. But at their conversion when they were justified by faith, they also repented. They acknowledged that their flesh with all its passions and lusts must be put an end to. Speaking metaphorically they put it on a cross and nailed it there, determining by God's grace and power to keep it there for the rest of their lives.

When from time to time they yield to temptation and compromise with the flesh, then sooner or later they repent, confess and are forgiven (1 John 1:5–2:6); and once more they renew their resolve to keep the flesh crucified and unable to fulfil its desires.

A person who has not crucified the flesh in this way, and does not seek to keep it subdued but deliberately lets it have its head and run free—such a person is not a believer, is not Christ's. His sinful behaviour cannot, therefore, be blamed on the doctrine of justification by faith.

By contrast, the fruits of the Spirit are undeniable and beyond criticism (Gal 5:22–23)

There is no law against them, says Paul. Obviously not. Critics and opponents of the gospel of justification by faith cannot condemn its fruits. How then will they condemn the gospel? Indeed, such critics have in fact a different kind of problem to solve: how is it that the gospel of justification by faith produces—and Paul is an example of it—such quality of behaviour that a religion of works is normally unable to match?

The gospel of justification by faith cuts the root of self-centred pride and a holier-than-thou attitude (Gal 5:25–6:5)

1. As believers, we owe our life and all its potential to the Spirit of God (Gal 5:25). But we received him not on the ground of our attainments but on the ground of faith. We have nothing to boast about. Therefore, says Paul, let us walk by that same Spirit, remembering that the credit for any progress in holiness that we have ever made, or shall make, is his.
2. There is, then, no room for boasting that provokes others and leads to envy (Gal 5:26).
3. Even if we come across someone who has been overtaken in some transgression or other, true spirituality will move us in all meekness to try to restore him, remembering that we too might be tempted one day, and in an unguarded moment might fall (Gal 6:1–2). We are not to think ourselves superior, therefore, to those who struggle under burdens and difficulties: rather we are to come alongside and put our shoulders under their burdens and help them to bear them.
4. To think oneself to be something when one is nothing is self-deceit (Gal 6:3–5). On the other hand we are not called upon to devalue or to deny our own spiritual progress or the work that the Spirit of God has enabled us to do. There is room for rejoicing and glorying, not in any imagined superiority over others, but in a sober, and private, assessment of our own lives. For the responsibility and progress for our own lives is ultimately ours. No one else can carry that assignment for us. We shall have to answer for ourselves at the judgment seat of Christ. Let us not, then, wait for him to test our lives and work then; let us honestly examine them now, rejoice in what God has done in us, and adjust what still needs to be adjusted.
5. Finally, God has given us his Spirit, and spiritual life, and physical and material benefits with all their potential (Gal 6:6–10). But to reap the maximum profit from these potentials we must invest our resources, and invest them wisely.
   • We should invest time, and money, and energy in learning the word of God; and we should support those who teach us (Gal 6:6).
   • As opportunity presents itself we should do good to all men, and especially to the household of faith (Gal 6:10).
   • And we should remember what we saw earlier, that while there is for the believer no penalty of the law to be suffered, there are consequences.

'God is not mocked: what we sow we shall reap' (Gal 6:7). This is a principle that applies in the spiritual realm as well as in the physical.

Let us take an analogy. Suppose God, for some reason, told a Christian farmer to sow wheat in his field. Suppose, however, that this farmer yielded to some temptation, disobeyed God and sowed barley. Suppose also that when the crop was full grown, the man repented and asked the Lord's forgiveness. What would happen? He would be forgiven; there would be no penalty. But the barley would remain barley. It would not somehow miraculously become wheat. For God is not mocked. We reap what we sow.

That unchanging principle is a warning: don't let us sow to the flesh, for if we do, we shall of the flesh reap corruption. At the same time, that unchanging principle serves as a great encouragement. If we sow to the Spirit, we shall of the Spirit reap eternal life. That does not mean that we have to earn eternal life after all. But eternal life is not something like gold, which we can put in a box. It is, what its name declares it to be, life. And like physical life, it has to be developed and its potential realised. Sow to the Spirit, and we shall reap an ever larger development of eternal life.

So then, let us not give up. We have God's own unchangeable guarantee: nothing that we invest in doing good will fail to yield an eternal dividend. In due time we shall reap, if we do not faint.

Section Eleven: An Argument Based on an Exposure of the Unworthy Motives of the False Teachers Compared with the Marks of True Apostleship Displayed by Paul (Gal 6:11–18)

We should notice at once that this is the last in Paul's string of arguments in this epistle. Only when he has shown by many arguments from many points of view that their teaching is false, does he finally expose the fact that the motives of the false teachers are false as well.

His Charge (Gal 6:1–2)

These false teachers, in trying to compel the Galatians to be circumcised were wanting to make a fair show in the flesh. And their motive for that was that they might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. It was the cross of Christ that was to the Jewish religious mind a stumbling-block. It pronounced that all their much beloved rituals, and the law on which they prided themselves, were powerless to save them. This whole religious system of works left them bankrupt sinners deserving only to be crucified and cursed by God. Their only hope of salvation was in Christ and his cross. Understandably this message of the cross provoked intense resentment on their part. It proclaimed their religious rites and ceremonies valueless. Hence their persecution of Christians who preached it. If only, then, the false teachers could persuade Paul's Gentile converts to submit to circumcision this would give the impression that the Jewish religious rituals were still valid and necessary, and the persecution would cease.

The Evidence That His Charge Was True

The false teachers, who had of course been circumcised themselves and exhorted others that they must keep the law to be saved, did not in fact keep the law themselves. In the absolute sense, they could not; and like the Pharisees whom our Lord denounced (Luke 11:39), they may well have been very lax when it came to their attempts to keep the law.

Why then did they urge the Gentiles to keep that little bit of the law: circumcision? Simply to boast over their achievement in making these Gentiles conform to their religious, ritualistic system.

The Marks of Paul's Own True Apostleship (Gal 6:17)

He points the Galatians to his body, bruised, broken and twisted as a result of the many persecutions he had endured for the sake of Christ and for the sake of the salvation of the Gentiles. They are, he says, the brand-marks of a slave, that proclaim for all to see that he is the property and true representative of Jesus.

But in Saying This, Was Not Paul Himself Boasting and Glorying in His Superiority over the False Teachers?

No! Boast he did. But it was not in his own religious asceticism, not in his prowess and attainments in Judaism. It was in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that had been the means of crucifying the world to Paul, and of crucifying Paul to the world. He took no credit for that. His glorying was solely in the cross of Christ.

And sensibly so. Cutting off a bit of flesh in the ritual of circumcision does nothing to save a man from love of this evil world. Nor for that matter does the mere fact of remaining uncircumcised. The only thing that avails to lift a man above the wickedness of worldliness is becoming a new creature in Christ.

His Last Words (Gal 6:16, 18)

But, stern as his exposure of the false teachers has been, his last words pronounce peace on followers of the cross of Christ, and on all true Christ-believing members of Israel. It had been necessary for him to fight for the truth of the gospel. But the gospel he preached was a message that called on men to be reconciled to God through the death of God's Son, and so to enjoy peace. Good ambassador for Christ that he was, Paul was at heart a man of peace.

And finally: 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren'—and with yours too, who read these notes.

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