Galatians
Exegetical Study Notes on the Greek Text
PDF eBookThese exegetical notes are available for download in the form a 225p A5 PDF eBook Commentary on the Greek text of the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Follow the link at the bottom of the page.
Introduction
The thesis of Paul's letter to the Galatians may be summed up with the words "Christ supplemented is Christ supplanted", Hendriksen.
In this letter, Paul sets out to demolish the heresy of nomism (the heresy which looks to dependence on the law to facilitate divine blessing) by establishing the grand truth that the appropriation of God's promised blessings rests on what Christ has done for us and not on what we might do for God. The fullness of new life in Christ, life now through the renewing power of the Spirit, is wholly ours when we rest on what Christ has done for us on the cross. There is nothing we can do to improve on the riches of God's grace in Christ. So, Paul asks us, as he asked the Galatians, "Are you so senseless that having begun your Christian journey by means of the Spirit you are now trying to bring yourselves to perfection by means of law-obedience?" Gal.3:3 - to supplement Christ is to supplant Christ..
The structure of Galatians
Prologue
1. Introduction, 1:1-10
Background
2. Historical survey, 1:11-2:14:
i] Paul's apologia, 1:11-2:10
ii] Paul's confrontation with Peter at Antioch, 2:11-14
3. Paul's thesis, 2:15-21
The gospel, of itself, apart from the law,
facilitates new life in Christ
Argument Proper
4. Arguments in support of the proposition, 3:1-4:7
i] New life in Christ is not dependent on our faithfulness, 3:1-5
ii] Those who inherit God's promised new life are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, 3:6-9
iii] It is not possible to inherit the blessing of new life through obedience to the law, 3:10-14
iv] The promise is independent of the gift of the law, 3:15-18
v] The function of the Mosaic law is to promote death until everything is put right by Christ, 3:19-24
vi] The evidence of a worldwide people united before God, apart from the law, 3:25-29
vii] In Christ we now have the full, free enjoyment of sonship in God, with all its associated blessings, 4:1-7
5. Exhortations, 4:8-6:10:
Introduction: You are slipping back into slavery, 4:8-11
i] Strengthen the bonds between us, 4:12-20
ii] Stand firm and do not submit again to the slavery of the law, 4:21-5:1
iii] Do not cut yourself off from Christ by submitting to the Mosaic law, 5:2-12
iv] Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for sin, but let your lives be guided by the Spirit, 5:13-18
v] Be led by the Spirit and not by the flesh, 5:19-25
vi] Care for one another, 5:26-6:10
6. Postscript, 6:11-18
Excursus I and II. Key Greek terms in Galatians, and the New Perspective on Paul.
The structure of Galatians reflects its literary form, namely, a personal letter which, due to the fact that it is intended to be read at a congregational meeting, adopts rhetorical form. As a letter it has a prescript, 1:1-5, and a postscript or conclusion, 6:11-18. Betz argues that the body of the letter presents as an example of forensic / judicial rhetoric, a defensive apologetic, although many commentators argue that it is more likely an example of deliberative rhetoric where the author / speaker seeks to persuade his audience concerning a particular point of view. It does seem likely that Paul is trying to persuade the Galatians that faith has superseded law as the means of progressing the Christian life, and so the letter leans more toward deliberative rhetoric than forensic. Of course, Galatians, as with the other New Testament letters, is not a technical example of rhetoric, so it cannot be strictly classified, but none-the-less, it does reflect the accepted conventions of the day for progressing an argument. Betts proposes the following rhetorical structure:
Exordium - the introduction, where the subject matter is raised and personal links established, 1:6-11;
Narratio - background facts related to the subject matter, 1:12-2:14;
Partitio - the proposition / thesis is to be proved, 2:15-21;
Probatio - arguments in support of the proposition, 3:1-4:31;
Exhortatio - exhortations, 5:1-6:10.
Peroratio - Conclusion, 6:11-18.
The structure offered on this site adopts a rhetorical format, although not always in alignment with Betts.
The churches of Galatia
We are not at all sure which churches Paul addresses in this letter. Galatia can refer to two regions in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), both of which fall in the Roman Province of Galatia. There is the northern region where the Galatians themselves live, and there is the southern administrative area commonly known as Galatia. We have no record of Paul evangelising and developing churches in the northern region. We do know that during his first missionary journey he established churches in the towns of Pisidia (known as Pisidan Antioch, as distinct from the Antioch found in Syria), Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. These towns were made up of mixed Hellenised peoples, each with small Jewish communities. Paul's letter seems to be directed to such churches and so the majority of scholars today opt for the "South Galatian Theory". None-the-less, the "North Galatian Theory" is held by some, with support from Galatians 4:13. In this verse Paul says he preached the gospel to the Galatians "on an earlier occasion", but to proteron could mean "the first time". This may link with Acts 16:6-7 where Luke says that "they travelled through Phrygia and the Galatian territory, having been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in Asia." The suggestion is that Paul had a bout of illness and headed for Pessinus to recuperate, a well serviced Roman town in Galatia proper.
Date of writing
It is not possible to fix an exact date for Paul's letter to the Galatians, nor do we know where the letter was sent from. It was obviously sent after Paul's first missionary journey and most likely soon after the Jerusalem Council in 49AD, cf. Acts 15. The letter may have been written from Antioch (in Syria), a town that tended to be Paul's base-camp during his early years of ministry. If this is the case, it was written before his second missionary journey and is therefore one of his earliest letters, although probably after Thessalonians.
The purpose of the letter
Paul writes his letter to the Galatians to address a heresy promoted by members of the circumcision party - the judaizers. These, mainly Jewish Christians from the Jerusalem church, followed up on Paul's missionary work in order to correct his depreciation of the Mosaic law with his new Gentile converts.
The problem we face with Galatians is that at no point does Paul actually explain the heresy he is addressing, and this because his readers in Galatia know only too well the issue at hand. We, of course, are left in the dark. Most scholars, up till recent times, have taken the view that the issue bothering the Galatian church was some form of legalism, probably justification by obedience to the law. In more recent times, those commentators who accept the new perspective on Paul proposed by Wright, Sanders and Dunn, suggest that the issue bothering
14 the Galatian church is Jewish exclusivism - the imposition of Jewish religious culture (eg., circumcision) on Gentile believers. These notes propose a somewhat left-of-field theory, namely that the heresy promoted by the members of the circumcision party (the judaizers) in Galatia is sanctification by obedience, ie., nomism rather than legalism.
Nomism (nomistic / pietistic Christianity) is the belief that, although a person is justified (set right before God, judged covenant compliant) on the basis of Christ's faithfulness ("faith of Christ") appropriated through faith (faith in Christ), law-obedience ("works of the law" - obedience to the law of Moses) is essential to restrain sin and shape holiness for a believer to move forward in the Christian life and so appropriate the fullness of new life in Christ (the promised blessings of the covenant - new life, the gift of the Spirit, etc.). As far as Paul is concerned, the full appropriation of the promised covenant blessings is found in Christ alone, by grace through faith, apart from law-obedience. In Christ, a believer is gifted with the fullness of God's promised new life. A believer is not only right before God, they are holy before God, and eternally so, as such they now share in God's promised new life. A return to law-obedience to promote holiness, and thus blessing, serves only to undermine the basis of a believer's salvation, namely grace through faith.
Paul's Thesis
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but rather Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live, subject to the limitations of my human nature, I live in faith, that is to say, in the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and surrendered himself up to death for me", cf., 2:20.
The apostle proposes that a believer's reliance in faith on the faithfulness of Christ, of itself, apart from the law, facilitates their standing before God (made / accounted right and holy) for the full appropriation of the promised covenant blessing of new life. This proposition is encapsulated in Paul's key text, Habakkuk 2:4, as expounded in his general letter to the Romans.
Text: "The righteous out of faith will live", Habakkuk 2:4.
The righteous reign of God
(his setting all things right)
in justification
(in judging right / setting right a people before him),
out of FAITH
(based on Christ's faithfulness + our faith response),
establishes the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God's children
(covenant compliance),
facilitating God's promised covenant BLESSINGS
(the full appropriation of his promised new life),
and its fruit, the WORKS of the law
(a striving to keep God's law).
cf., Rom.1:16-17
The Pauline synthesis:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSINGS = WORKS.
Paul is not a libertine in stressing "apart from works" for he accepts that those in Christ naturally seek to live as Christ, and to this end he exhorts believers to be what they are. He stresses "apart from works" in response to the nomist heresy of his opponents who taught that:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS + WORKS = BLESSINGS.
James' synthesis:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSINGS = WORKS.
James is not giving undue weight to works of the law, as Luther thought, but is seeking to counter the argument of libertine believers who taught that:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSINGS - (minus) WORKS .
Luther's synthesis:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSINGS = WORKS.
Luther is Pauline in his view of justification, but his perspective is somewhat different to Paul because his opponents are not nomists, but legalists who taught that:
FAITH + WORKS = RIGHTEOUSNESS = BLESSINGS.
Luther focuses on how a person can be saved, but Paul focuses on how a person may fully appropriate the promised Abrahamic blessings / new life in Christ.
The New Perspective synthesis:
FAITH = RIGHTEOUSNESS - LAW = GENTILE INCLUSION.
This flawed synthesis proposes that Paul is not dealing with the issue of how a person appropriates the full blessings of the covenant, but rather how a Gentile can be included in God's covenant community, namely, by the removal of Jewish exclusivism, ie., the requirements of Mosaic LAW.
Terms defined:
FAITH: ek pistewV eiV pistin, "from the faith / faithfulness of Christ toward our faith response." Faith entails the linkage of eiV Criston Ihsoun episteusamen, "we have come to believe in Jesus Christ" (our faith / reliance upon the grace of God), and this operative dia pistewV Ihsou Cristou, "through the faith of Christ" / by means of the faith / faithfulness of Christ, Gal.2:16. So, FAITH = Christ's faith / faithfulness (his atoning sacrifice on our behalf) and our faith-response.
RIGHTEOUSNESS: Right standing before God, "covenant compliance", Dumbrell, "uprightness", Fitzmyer; "(the state of) rectification", Martyn. Being "right" before God entails the state of being set-apart for / holy before, God, which holiness is ours in Christ.
Gaining the condition of righteousness is expressed by the verb "justified", just-if-I'd never sinned, which word takes one or all of the following shades of meaning:
• "confer a righteous status on", Cranfield;
• judge as covenant compliant, "judged in the right with God", Dumbrell, "count/treat as right/righteous", Barrett;
• "set right before God", Bruce, "rectify", Martyn. (NP = a divine declaration of covenant membership).
BLESSINGS: The promised blessings of the covenant / the fullness of new life in Christ / eternity. The foretaste of this "life" in the present is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
WORKS: Paul, following Jesus' lead, uses the term to describe submission to the law of Moses to restrain sin and promote holiness for blessing, extending to respect of God's law in general (NP = Jewish badges of covenant membership, eg., Sabbath law, circumcision). God's law serves the following ends:
• to expose sin and so reinforce a reliance on divine grace expedited through faith;
• to guide the life of a child of God.
Critical Issues
It should be noted that scholars are divided on many important issues which affect the exegesis of this letter:
i] Nomism, or legalism?
Due to the influence of both Luther and Calvin, commentators have tended to treat Galatians as a theological treatise on faith as the means of salvation, rather than law-obedience. The approach taken in these notes is that Paul's opponents are not legalists, in that they do understand that their salvation rested on the faithfulness of Christ, in much the same way as any faithful Jew understands that their covenant standing rested on God's grace. Paul's opponents are nomists, as were most religious Jews at this time.
Paul's opponents, the members of the circumcision party in the early church, saw obedience to the Mosaic law as a necessary requirement for the suppression of sin to promote holiness for the full appropriation of the promised blessings of the covenant. They understood that, through faith in/of Christ, they were right before God, forgiven, but they also believed that it was necessary to promote holiness for blessing through obedience to the Mosaic law. For Paul, a believer, by grace through faith, is both right and holy before God and so already in possession of the promised blessings of the covenant, of life in all its fullness (the foretaste being the gift of the Spirit). Paul argues that to move beyond the faithfulness of Christ to make more right what is already right, to make holy what is already holy, serves only to undermine a person's standing before God.
ii] The New Perspective on Paul
The exposition of Galatians is in a state of flux with some commentators adopting the Dunn-Wright synthesis of the new perspective on Paul, while others continue to follow a traditional liberal or reformed synthesis. Take for example the latest commentaries published on Galatians: Don Garlington, A Reading from the New Perspective, 2002, rev. 2007, as opposed to Peter Barnes in the EP Study Commentary series, 2006, or Philip Ryken, in a Reformed Expository Commentary, 2005. The issues in this debate are central to an understanding of the book of Galatians.
iii] The date of Galatians
Although not overly important, commentators are divided as to whether the letter was written before or after the Jerusalem Council, cf. Acts 15. These notes proceed on the assumption that the letter was written after the Jerusalem Council and refers to Peter's actions in Antioch following the arrival of the circular letter from the Jerusalem church, Acts 15:20, (Gal.2:12, not "certain people came from James", but "certain instructions came from James").
iv] The circumcision party
Central to any understanding of Galatians is the actual identity of the judaizers, "the members of the circumcision party", who were undermining Paul's ministry in his mission churches, and whose activities Paul focuses on in this letter. Some commentators regard them simply as unconverted Jews, but it is more likely that they were believers, many being converted Jews, all of whom were committed to the Torah, outwardly expressed in the sign of circumcision.
v] Works of the law
Crucial to an understanding of Galatians is how both Paul, and the members of the circumcision party, view the law. Both do seem to be speaking about the law of Moses, the Torah, but from totally different perspectives.
For Paul, the primary role of the law is to expose sin and thus drive the sinner to seek a righteousness that is apart from law-obedience, a righteousness found in Christ's faithfulness. At a secondary level, the law does serve to guide the life of faith, but it cannot promote holiness for blessing, and this because the riches of God's grace are found in Christ alone. For a believer to use the law as a mechanism to promote holiness for the appropriation of the blessings of the Christian life, serves only to place themselves again under the curse of the law, and thus, under judgment.
Clearly, the members of the circumcision party saw the law in quite a different light, although, since we only have Paul's critique of their position, it is not easy to know exactly what they taught. Most commentators regard these judaizers as legalists, that is, they taught that obedience to the law earned a person their salvation, it justified them, but this seems unlikely.
It is more than likely that the judaizers were influenced by 2nd temple Judaism. A faithful Jew understood that a person's covenant status was a gift of God's grace, a gift of his covenant mercy. Yet, when it came to the maintenance of covenant standing, they mistakenly treated the regulations of the Mosaic covenant as if binding codicils which serve to restrain sin and promote holiness for blessing. So, for the judaizers, a person is right before God by grace through faith, but is holy before God by faithful obedience to the law.
The judaizers, and probably most Israelites, had failed to recognise that the prime function of the law is to expose sin and thus compel Israel to seek a righteousness like Abraham's, a divine approval that rests on God's covenant mercy (grace), a mercy appropriated through faith. Note how Jesus used the law in his many confrontations with law-bound Jews. He constantly pushed the law into the area of ideals such that it was impossible for them to claim that they were right and holy before God under the law. In the parables of The Rich Young Ruler and The Good Samaritan, the Law is presented as an ideal for which divine mercy is the only way forward.
It is claimed by some commentators that the judaizers were simply arguing for the maintenance of Jewish traditions, in particular, circumcision, but again, this seems doubtful. It is more likely that they were nomists - Paul is confronting nomism, not the problem of Jewish exclusivism.
vi] Sanctification
Sanctification has always been a hotbed of debate in Christian circles. Sanctification is often viewed as the process of making holy, a process advanced by a faithful attention to God's law, both to restrain sin and so promote holiness. Yet, as far as Paul is concerned, in Christ we are already holy, nothing can progress our standing further; in Christ, we are fully justified before God, "just-if-I'd never sinned", perfectly right and holy. Of course, Paul then faced the obvious retort, "why not sin that grace may abound?". If we are already holy in Christ, why bother living a holy life? In fact, why not live a totally selfish life and promote God's grace in return? Of course, as Paul pointed out, a person in Christ will naturally strive to life like Christ, irrespective of the demands of the law. God's grace makes us gracious.
A popular definition is that sanctification is the progressive realisation of what we are in Christ. I like this definition, but the word "progressive" has always bothered me, even though we do generally progress in the Christian life - two steps forward, one step back! The definition leaves open the means of progress when there is progress! Too often, believers look to moral faithfulness as the means to progress their Christian life, when perseverance in faith is the way forward.
So, I propose the following definition: sanctification, as a product of justification, is a state of holiness, which, in the renewing power of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, we seek to realise in our daily life, albeit, always imperfectly.
vii] Justification
Paul promotes what we might loosely call "full justification". Often, justification is understood as a declaration of righteousness (of right-standing before God) at conversion, which must then be maintained by a faithful attention to God's law. Yet, it is likely that this is the very heresy that Paul is addressing. For Paul, justification is the divine act of rectification, the bestowal of an eternal righteousness, holiness, perfection before God, which state is a gift of divine grace appropriated through faith (Christ's faithfulness and our faith response). It is because we are in this state in Christ that we possess the fullness of God's promised new life, and this all apart from law-obedience.
Reformed commentators have divided on the declared, or made right issue, although we probably need to accept that what God declares so is so. If God declares that we are covenant compliant, then we are that way. Of course, just because we stand eternally approved before God does not mean that we should lose sight of the imperatives so evident in scripture. Paul certainly doesn't, and it is particularly noticeable that he doesn't in Galatians. As far as Paul is concerned, in Christ we are perfect, so let us strive to be the perfect person we are in Christ. Of course, we never will; as Luther put it, "the old Adam retains his power until he is deposited in the grave". None-the-less, we press forward because God's grace impels us to be gracious.
Neither libertarianism, nor perfectionism has any place in Paul's understanding of justification.
Abstract
In the opening passage of his letter, 1:1-5, Paul dispenses with his usual thanksgiving and prayer on behalf of the church and begins with a condensed salutation. He then moves on quickly to denounce those who are promoting "a different gospel", v6-10.
Paul then goes on to relate the events of his life after his conversion, focusing particularly on his relationship with the apostles in Jerusalem, 1:11-24. This account serves to vindicate Paul's apostolic authority, as well as the validity of his gospel message. Paul then recounts the events surrounding the Jerusalem Council where both his apostolic authority, and the validity of his gospel message, is recognised by the leaders of the Jerusalem church, 2:1-10.
Paul's historical survey climaxes in 2:11-14, with the account of his clash with Peter in Antioch. This clash followed the arrival of the Jerusalem council's letter outlining the requirements for the maintenance of table fellowship between Jews and Gentiles. Paul confronts Peter when Peter legalistically applies the council's regulations and withdraws fellowship. Paul maintains the authority of his gospel of grace, even against Peter whose actions interfere with "the freedom we have in Christ Jesus".
In 2:15-21, "the central affirmation of the letter" (Longenecker), Paul outlines a theological argument appropriate to Peter's actions, an argument which similarly applies to the judaizers and those in Galatia who have adopted their false teachings.
First, Paul identifies with his combatants, stating a doctrine that all Jewish believers hold to be true, namely, that a person is justified (set right with God) on the basis of Christ's obedient sacrifice ("faith of Christ" = Christ's perfect reliance on the will of God = the faithfulness of Christ), appropriated by trusting Jesus rather than obeying the law, v15-16.
It is true that when a believer applies Paul's understanding of this doctrine in their Christian life, living under grace rather than law, it can seem that they disregard the law of God ("are sinners") and implicate Christ in their supposed apostasy, v17. Yet, the opposite is the case. It is the nomists' promotion of law-obedience to promote holiness for the riches of God's promised blessings, that actually leads to rebellion and death, v18. In the law we die, in Christ we live. The fullness of new life in Christ ("the unsearchable riches of Christ", Eph.3:8) is already ours in Christ apart from the law. A believer lives "in faith", that is, we appropriate the riches of this new life in Christ by resting on his faithfulness ("faith"), namely, his death on our behalf, v19-20. In v21 Paul rounds off his argument by categorically stating that his gospel does not set aside God's kindness in his gift of the law, and this because the law was never intended to make a person right and holy before God.
Paul now embarks on a series of arguments in support of his proposition that a person, who is in the right and holy before God on the basis of the faithfulness of Christ, experiences the fullness of God's promised new life apart from law-obedience, 3:1-4:7.
For his first argument, Paul draws on the personal experience of the Galatians, 3:1-5. Having experienced the renewing power of the Holy Spirit (a new heart within, Jer.31:33) through faith in Jesus Christ, the Galatians should have realised by now that their participation in the promised blessing of the Abrahamic covenant is based on Christ's faithfulness, not their faithfulness. It wasn't the law that made them who they are.
The truth stated in 3:5, that God's promised blessings rest on Christ's faithfulness, leads Paul to his second argument, one supported from scripture, 3:6-9. In this argument, Paul reminds his readers of Abraham, a man who stood right before God due to his reliance on the faithfulness of God, v6. Paul then exegetes this verse, aligning Abraham's trust in God with the trust of believers in his own day, identifying them as Abraham's true children and therefore recipients, in like manner to Abraham, of the promised covenant blessings, v7-9.
In his third argument, 3:10-14, Paul establishes from scripture that the promised blessing of new life is not a product of law-obedience. All that law-obedience does is inculcate the curse of the law, v10. The promised new life is not facilitated by a faithful attention to the law, rather, it rests on the faithfulness of Christ, Hab.2:4, v11, and this because the commandments must be "done" to find life in them, Lev.18:5, v12. The simple fact is that the promised Abrahamic blessing of life, now realised in this present moment through the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift experienced by Gentile believers as well as Jewish believers, rests wholly on Christ's atonement, v13-14.
In Paul's fourth argument, 3:15-18, he makes the point that the promise - a promise encapsulated in the covenant with Abraham and now realised in the gift of new life in Christ through the Spirit - is independent of the Mosaic covenant such that "the law does not have the power to specify and thus to alter the promise", Martyn. The giving of the law four hundred and thirty years after the establishment of the Abrahamic covenant, does not supplement, nor replace, God's agreement with Abraham.
The fifth argument is outlined in 3:19-24. Here Paul sets out to explain the role of the Mosaic law in relation to the Abrahamic covenant, and in so doing, he counters the notion that the Mosaic covenant supplements the Abrahamic covenant, ie., the promised blessings of the covenant, "life", are realised by both grace and law. Paul's argument is that the Mosaic law does not facilitate the blessing of new life in Christ, rather it is nothing more than an interim measure devised to support the promise.
Paul now develops his sixth argument, 3:25-29. It is obvious that the blessing of new life in Christ has nothing to do with our submission to the restrictive and oppressive supervision of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law, as a temporary measure designed to complement the Abrahamic covenant, is terminated in Christ. The promised blessing to Abraham of a worldwide people united before God, is even now unfolding before our very eyes, and this, not on the basis of law obedience, but on the basis of what Christ has done for us. We are all one in Christ, by grace through faith.
In 4:1-7 Paul outlines his seventh and concluding argument. Christ, "born under the curse of the law" ... fulfils all its requirements, absorbing its curse by his death on the cross", Dumbrell. "God's purpose [in all this] was both to redeem and to adopt, not just to rescue from slavery, but to make slaves into sons", Stott. Consequently, as adopted sons in Christ, both Jews and Gentiles receive God's promised blessings, a foretaste of which is the gift of his life-giving Spirit. So, a believer, as a son of God, is rightly an heir to the promised blessings of God [and this apart from law-obedience].
Paul continues with a series of exhortations ("the request section of the letter", Dumbrell), running through to the postscript, 6:11-18. Most of the exhortations address the nomist problem besetting the Galatian believers.
In 4:8-11, Paul introduces his exhortations by expressing his deep concern for the believers in Galatia. They are drifting back into the prescriptions and ordinances of religion to progress their Christian lives and so Paul has to face the terrible possibility that his ministry in Galatia "may have been wasted."
The first exhortation, 4:12-20, is in the form of a "personal appeal" (Garlington, Dunn) which seeks to re-establish the personal relationship that existed between Paul and the Galatians, cf., Bruce, Barnes..... Given the Galatians' defection, due to the influence of the members of the circumcision party, Paul pleads with his readers to establish again the strong personal trust and respect that once existed between them and their founding apostle. This exhortation, found in v12, is supported by the rest of the passage:
•iThe strength of the relationship that Paul has had with the Galatians, v13-16;
•iThe intentions of the judaizers to promote another gospel (namely, that the promised blessings of the covenant are appropriated through obedience to the law of Moses), 17-18;
•iPaul's tender desire that Christ again be the centre of their Christian life (rather than the law), v19-20.
In his second exhortation, 4:21-5:1, Paul uses the Hagar-Sarah story to make the point that the Galatian believers are confronted with a choice of two ways forward in the Christian life: the present Jerusalem / Mount Sinai, or Jerusalem above - flesh or promise; law or Spirit; slavery or freedom. Paul reminds the Galatian believers that they are the children of the free woman, the children of promise, v31, and that therefore they are to live out this reality, casting out the nomism of the judaizers, v30. It is necessary for the Galatian believers to reaffirm the freedom they possess in Christ by refusing to submit again to the slavery of a law-for-blessing heresy, 5:1.
In Paul's third exhortation, 5:2-12, he encourages the Galatian believers to resist the temptation to submit themselves to the Mosaic law as a means of promoting holiness before God for the appropriation of God's promised blessings. To choose this course of action will serve only to cut the Galatian believers from Christ and his gift of new life, a gift realised through the renewing work of the Spirit. As for those who are promoting this heresy, namely the members of the circumcision party, they "will pay the penalty"; their infection needs to be resisted.
Paul's exhortations to the Galatians up to 5:12 focused on the dangers associated with nomism - law-obedience for the purpose of restraining sin and promoting holiness for the appropriation of the fullness of new life in Christ. From 5:13 to 6:10, Paul focuses on the danger of libertarianism, reminding us that the Christian life is "at once free and holy", Allan.
In 5:13-18, Paul's fifth exhortation, he explains how love, the quality that sums up the ethical demands of the law, is realised in the life of a believer when they rest in faith on the indwelling-compelling of the Spirit of Christ. When we are in Christ, the love of Christ compels us. So, Paul encourages his readers that they "not let the possession of [their] freedom serve ... as an opportunity for yielding to the promptings of the lower nature", but rather that they "let [their] lives be guided by the Spirit", Cassirer.
In the sixth exhortation, 5:19-25, Paul gives an overview of the "works of the flesh" and "the fruit of the Spirit". The sinful nature, stirred up and impelled forward by the law, promotes "the works of the flesh"; the renewed nature, impelled by the Spirit, promotes "the fruit of the Spirit." So, since we possess the fullness of new life in Christ, we must let the Spirit guide us - "walk by the Spirit".
Paul concludes his exhortations in 5:26-6:10 with a practical word on achieving unity between the "libertines" and "legalists" in the Galatian fellowship. He begins with a negative exhortation in 5:26, and then follows this up with an exposition on "exercising our freedom to serve each other, with the contrasting warning added to avoid proud attitudes. By so doing, they will fulfil the law of Christ amid the present tensions in Galatia", Dumbrell.
In the final verses, Paul summarises the main points of his letter: he denounces the members of the circumcision party; he states clearly that circumcision (and what it stands for - law-obedience for blessing) is of no value whatsoever; and he again declares that the cross is the means by which we gain the fullness of God's promised new life.
English Bible Commentaries on Galatians
Level of complexity:
1, non-technical, to 5, requiring a workable knowledge of Greek.
Deceased: D. For publications no longer in print
Other identifiers: Recommended R; Greek Technical G; Theology T
Allan, Torch, 1951. 1D
Barnes, EPSC, 2006. 3
Betz, Hermeneia, 1979. 5
Bligh, Greek notes, University of Detroit Press, 1966. GD
Bligh*, St. Paul Publications, 1969. 4D
Boer, NTL, 2011. 4
Bruce, NIGTC, 1982. 3R
Burton, ICC, 1920. 5D
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