Galatians: The Christian Standard Commentary

By Timothy George

Galatians is part of The Christian Standard Commentary (CSC) series. This commentary series focuses on the theological and exegetical concerns of each biblical book, while paying careful attention to balancing rigorous scholarship with practical application.

This series helps the reader understand each biblical book's theology, its place in the broader narrative of Scripture, and its importance for the church today. Drawing on the wisdom and skills of dozens of evangelical authors, the CSC is a tool for enhancing and supporting the life of the church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087724300

Timothy George

Timothy George (PhD, Harvard University) is the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University. An executive editor of Christianity Today, Dr. George has written more than twenty books and regularly contributes to scholarly journals.

Book preview

George is a faithful interpreter with a passion for exegesis and application. George offers a wonderful mixture of exposition combined with insights gleaned from church history. This commentary will serve preachers well for a generation or more.

Michael F. Bird, Academic Dean and Lecturer in Theology, Ridley College

"George creates such a strong sense of time and place for the text that one often feels transported to the first century. And he draws deftly on the writings of Irenaeus and Augustine through Calvin and Luther to C. S. Lewis and Bonhoeffer, as well as of current scholars and exegetes. Erudite yet highly accessible, Galatians is a requisite gem for one’s commentary shelf."

Gwenfair Walters Adams, Associate Professor of Church History, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

This beautifully written, theologically rich reading of Galatians should be on every pastor’s shelf. Both the great interpretive tradition of the church and the best of modern scholarship inform George’s commentary from beginning to end. In addition, at every turn, he demonstrates how the letter’s powerful message can shape the lives of Christians today.

Frank Thielman, Presbyterian Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School

Putting his profound grasp of the Christian tradition in conversation with contemporary questions, George offers a thoughtful, scholarly, and thorough commentary on Galatians. The central themes and controversies are handled with charity that does not compromise differences and clarity that does not compromise complexities. Bristling with insight, George’s commentary allows the vibrancy of the text to speak and enables the reader to hear the ‘living voice of the gospel’ afresh in our current moment.

Todd Bates, Dean and Professor of Theology, Houston Baptist University

This is one of my favorite commentaries—not just on Galatians, but on any book of the Bible. It is sufficiently learned to serve as a credible guide to scholarly debates on Pauline theology, while at the same time accessible enough to serve the pastoral needs of ordinary congregations. Perhaps this book’s greatest strength is George’s grasp of how great theologians of the past have understood and applied the book’s gospel message. All of this makes George’s commentary indispensable for teaching and preaching Galatians.

Philip Ryken, President, Wheaton College

Written by one of our most prized thinkers and statesmen in the faith, this outstanding commentary on Galatians unpacks Paul’s argument, form, structure, themes, theology, and pastoral wisdom, and it does so in consistent conversation with the global and historic church. Every step of the way, the exegesis is sound, the theology precise, and the style engaging. Pastors, church leaders, and scholars alike will find themselves turning again and again to this commentary. Its faithful interpretations and astute insights are clearly outlined and immediately beneficial for expositional, doctrinal, pastoral preaching.

Christopher W. Morgan, Dean and Professor of Theology, California Baptist University

George’s commentary on Galatians has been a valuable resource for pastors for more than 25 years, so this new edition is a welcomed blessing. George’s fine theological and pastoral exposition continues in this edition, now enhanced by updated engagement with more recent literature including renewed interaction with the New Perspective, which is particularly valuable given George’s expertise in Luther. Expositing the text as Holy Scripture with an enduring message for the people of God today, this will be an excellent resource for pastors, students and anyone studying Galatians.

Ray Van Neste, Dean and Professor of Biblical Studies, Union University

The first edition of George’s commentary on Galatians was already exemplary in its exegetical acumen, attention to the interpretive history of the church, and pastoral perspective. This new edition evinces those same qualities while also adding fresh insight through its interaction with recent scholarship. This volume is a ‘must’ for the study of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia.

Matthew Y. Emerson, Dean and Professor of Religion, Oklahoma Baptist University

For more than a quarter century, George’s Galatians commentary has been a trusted resource for pastors and students of the Bible. In this newly revised edition, George employs exegetical acumen and his trademark theological clarity to address current trends in Pauline scholarship and produce one of the most readable and informative commentaries available today. This book is a gift to God’s church.

Rhyne Putman, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

General Editors

E. Ray Clendenen

Brandon D. Smith

Series Associate Editors

Old Testament

R. Dennis Cole J. Gary Millar Andrew E. Steinmann

Heath A. Thomas

New Testament

Darrell L. Bock David S. Dockery Darian R. Lockett Richard R. Melick Jr.

Christian Standard Commentary: Galatians

Copyright © 2020 by Timothy George

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978–1–5359–4641–4

Dewey Decimal Classification: 227.4

Subject Heading: BIBLE. N.T. GALATIANS—COMMENTARIES

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the Christian Standard Bible® Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009, 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture passages marked AV are taken from the Authorized Version, the King James Bible, which is in the public domain.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked Cotton Patch are taken from The Cotton Patch Version of Paul’s Epistles, copyright 1968 by Clarence Jordan, by permission of New Win Publishing, Inc., P. O. Box 5159, Clinton, NJ 08809.

Scripture passages marked ESV are taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®). ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved.

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Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1935 by Harcourt, Brace & Company and renewed 1963 by T. S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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Printed in China

RRD

Dedication

For

Charles T. Carter,

my beloved pastor and faithful friend,

on the forty-sixth anniversary of his divine call to preach the Word of God, and the

twenty-third anniversary of his pastoral

ministry at Shades Mountain Baptist Church,

Birmingham, Alabama

1994

For

Robert Smith Jr.,

beloved colleague, cherished friend,

and the Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity at

Beeson Divinity School

2020

Beare ye one anothers [burdens]: and so

fulfill ye the lawe of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

(Tyndale)

SERIES INTRODUCTION

The Christian Standard Commentary (CSC) aims to embody an ancient-modern approach to each volume in the series. The following explanation will help us unpack this seemingly paradoxical practice that brings together old and new.

The modern commentary tradition arose and proliferated during and after the Protestant Reformation. The growth of the biblical commentary tradition largely is a result of three factors: (1) The recovery of classical learning in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries. This retrieval led to a revival of interest in biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew). Biblical interpreters, preachers, and teachers interpreted Scripture based on the original languages rather than the Latin Vulgate. The commentaries of Martin Luther and John Calvin are exemplary in this regard because they return to the sources themselves (ad fonts). (2) The rise of reformation movements and the splintering of the Catholic Church. The German Reformation (Martin Luther), Swiss Reformation (John Calvin), and English Reformation (Anglican), among others (e.g., Anabaptist), generated commentaries that helped these new churches and their leaders interpret and preach Scripture with clarity and relevance, often with the theological tenets of the movements present in the commentaries. (3) The historical turn in biblical interpretation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This turning point emphasized the historical situation from which biblical books arise and in which they are contextualized.

In light of these factors, the CSC affirms traditional features of a modern commentary, evident even in recent commentaries:

Authors analyze Old and New Testament books in their original languages.

Authors present and explain significant text-critical problems as appropriate.

Authors address and define the historical situations that gave rise to the biblical text (including date of composition, authorship, audience, social location, geographical and historical context, etc.) as appropriate to each biblical book.

Authors identify possible growth and development of a biblical text so as to understand the book as it stands (e.g., how the book of Psalms came into its final form or how the Minor Prophets might be understood as a book).

The CSC also exhibits recent shifts in biblical interpretation in the past fifty years. The first is the literary turn in biblical interpretation. Literary analysis arose in biblical interpretation during the 1970s and 1980s, and this movement significantly influenced modern biblical commentaries. Literary analysis attends to the structure and style of each section in a biblical book as well as the shape of the book as a whole. Because of this influence, modern commentaries assess a biblical book’s style and structure, major themes and motifs, and how style impacts meaning. Literary interpretation recognizes that biblical books are works of art, arranged and crafted with rhetorical structure and purpose. Literary interpretation discovers the unique stylistic and rhetorical strategies of each book. Similarly, the CSC explores the literary dimensions of Scripture:

Authors explore each book as a work of art that is a combination of style and structure, form and meaning.

Authors assess the structure of the whole book and its communicative intent.

Authors identify and explain the literary styles, poetics, and rhetorical devices of the biblical books as appropriate.

Authors expound the literary themes and motifs that advance the communicative strategies in the book.

As an ancient commentary, the CSC is marked by a theological bent with respect to biblical interpretation. This bent is a tacit recognition that the Bible is not only a historical or literary document, but is fundamentally the Word of God. That is, it recognizes Scripture as fundamentally both historical and theological. God is the primary speaker in Scripture, and readers must deal with him. Theological interpretation affirms that although God enabled many authors to write the books of the Bible (Heb 1:1), he is the divine author, the subject matter of Scripture, and the One who gives the Old and New Testaments to the church, the people of God, to facilitate her growth for her good (2 Tim 3:16–17). Theological interpretation reads Scripture as God’s address to his church because he gives it to his people to be heard and lived. Any other approach (whether historical, literary, or otherwise) that diminishes emphasis on the theological stands deficient before the demands of the text.

Common to Christian (patristic, medieval, reformation, or modern) biblical interpretation in the past two millennia is a sanctified vision of Scripture in which it is read with attention to divine agency, truth, and relevance to the people of God. The ancient commentary tradition interprets Scripture as a product of complex and rich divine action. God has given his Word to his people so that they may know and love him, glorify him, and proclaim his praises to all creation. Scripture provides the information and power of God that leads to spiritual and practical transformation.

The transformative potential of Scripture emerges in the ancient commentary tradition as it attends to the centrality of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the One whom God sent to the world in the fullness of time, and about whom the OT anticipates, testifies to, and witnesses to. Further, he is the One the NT presents as the fulfillment of the OT promise, in whom the church lives and moves and has her being, and who the Old and New Testaments testify will return to judge the living and the dead and who will make all things new.

With Christ as the center of Scripture, the ancient commentary tradition reveals an implicit biblical theology. Old and New Testaments work together as they reveal Christ; Thus the tradition works within a whole-Bible theology in which each testament is read in dialectic relationship, one with the other.

Finally, the ancient commentary tradition is committed to spiritual transformation. The Spirit of God illumines the hearts of readers so they might hear God’s voice, see Christ in his glory, and live in and through the power of the Spirit. The transformational dimensions of Scripture emerge in ancient commentary so that God’s voice might be heard anew in every generation and God’s Word might be embodied among his people for the sake of the world.

The CSC embodies the ancient commentary tradition in the following ways:

Authors expound the proper subject of Scripture in each biblical book, who is God; further they explore how he relates to his world in the biblical books.

Authors explain the centrality of Jesus appropriate to each biblical book and in the light of a whole-Bible theology.

Authors interpret the biblical text spiritually so that the transformative potential of God’s Word might be released for the church.

In this endeavor, the CSC is ruled by a Trinitarian reading of Scripture. God the Father has given his Word to his people at various times and in various ways (Heb 1:1), which necessitates a sustained attention to historical, philological, social, geographical, linguistic, and grammatical aspects of the biblical books which derive from different authors in the history of Israel and of the early church. Despite its diversity, the totality of Scripture reveals Christ, who has been revealed in the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God (Heb 1:1; John 1:1) and the One in whom all things hold together (Col 1:15–20) and through whom all things will be made new (1 Cor 15; Rev 21:5). God has deposited his Spirit to his church so that they might read spiritually, being addressed by the voice of God and receiving the life-giving Word that comes by Scripture (2 Tim 3:15–17; Heb 4:12). In this way, the CSC contributes to the building up of Christ’s church and the Great Commission to which all are called.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

Much of the Christianity I know and still believe I learned from an old-fashioned, godly grandmother who could hardly read or write but who taught me to revere and love the Holy Scriptures as the infallible Word of the living God. I remember the long summers spent at her country home in rural north Georgia. When the day’s chores were done and the shadows of evening had lengthened, she would take down her large-lettered Bible and, with trembling hands and stammering lips, try to read several pages from that precious book. Although Aunt Bessie, as everyone called my grandmother, was a real Baptist through and through—duly dunked and camp-meeting certified—she would have agreed heartily with the words of the great Methodist patriarch John Wesley: The Scriptures, therefore, of the Old and New Testament are a most solid and precious system of divine truth. Every part is worthy of God and altogether are one entire body, wherein is no defect, no excess. It is the fountain of heavenly wisdom, which they which are able to taste prefer to all writings of men, however wise or learned or holy.¹

John Wesley and my grandmother shared a presupposition about the Bible that is sadly lacking in much contemporary discussion today: the Bible is the Word of God, and as such it deserves not only to be studied with utmost diligence but also cherished, obeyed, and proclaimed as the living oracle of a holy God. Much of the so-called historical-critical study of the Bible assumes that the Scriptures are a fortuitous collection of obscure texts from the ancient world which, if they have any value to us at all, must be interpreted solely in terms of our contemporary concerns and values. True enough, the Bible is not a lazy man’s book, and warmhearted piety is no substitute for the hard work of linguistic, exegetical, and historical analysis which any serious study of the Scriptures demands. However, the true purpose of biblical scholarship is not to show how relevant the Bible is to the modern world but rather how irrelevant the modern world—and we ourselves as persons enmeshed in it—have become in our self-centered preoccupations and sinful rebellion against the God who spoke and still speaks through his chosen prophets and apostles.

We do not come to the study of the Bible alone but in the company of the whole people of God, the body of Christ scattered throughout time as well as space. Thus, in approaching a document such as Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, it will not suffice merely to have our NT in one hand and the latest word from Bultmann, Käsemann, or Conzelmann in the other. In this commentary we have tried to give more than cursory attention to the important task of reading alongside the church fathers, schoolmen, reformers, and theologians of ages past. None of their interpretations is inerrant, and we must subject them all—including, a fortiori, our own—to the divine touchstone of God’s perfect revelation in Holy Scripture. But the Holy Spirit did not abandon the church with the death of the apostles. As we listen for what the Spirit is saying to the churches today, we will do well also to heed what he has been saying all along to the people of God throughout the history of the church.

To those acquainted with my previous work, it will come as no surprise that this commentary is in some ways little more than a footnote to the magisterial studies of this Pauline letter by Martin Luther and John Calvin in the sixteenth century. It is not that the reformers were more learned or more holy than others who came before or after them but rather that the decisive theological conflict of their age so closely paralleled that of the apostle Paul that they were able to interpret his writings with penetrating insight and extraordinary power.

In recent years scholars committed to what is called the New Perspective on Paul have challenged the Reformation paradigm as essentially misdirected and wrongheaded. In light of these revisionist studies, we cannot simply deracinate the reformers from the sixteenth century and bring them without remainder into our own. In any event, that kind of repristination would only be of antiquarian interest and would not serve the reformers’ overriding concern that the living voice of the gospel—viva vox evangelii—be heard afresh in every generation. However, when the writings of the reformers are compared with the attenuated, transcendence-starved theologies which dominate the current scene, they yet speak with surprising vitality and spiritual depth. Hans Dieter Betz is on target when he observes that Luther spoke as Paul would have spoken had he lived at the time when Luther gave his lectures. From first to last Galatians is a book about God—God’s grace, God’s sovereignty, God’s purpose, God’s gospel—that is, his good news of justification by faith in a crucified Savior. There is no better perch on which to stand to hear this God-intoxicated message than the broad shoulders of the great reformers whose legacy we can hardly celebrate in any better way than to listen to them again, for we still need desperately to hear what they have to say.

This commentary aims to be a work of theological exposition the primary purpose of which is to bring the dual disciplines of exegesis and dogmatics into the closest possible relationship. For too long biblical scholars have isolated themselves into their chosen cocoons of specialization leaving systematic exposition of the faith to those theologians. For their part, theologians have developed their own often fanciful interpretations of Christian doctrine with only minimal reference to the primary documents of the believing community for whom they should be writing. Throughout this commentary I have dared to ask the question, What was at stake theologically for Paul in his Letter to the Galatians? Not everyone will agree with the answers I have proposed, but I trust that in some small measure I have helped others see the legitimacy of the question. Theology must not be left to the theologians, nor biblical studies to the guilded scholars. True biblical theology is the task of every pastor and indeed every believer. God’s truth-telling Word is the treasure of the church, and to this audience the present work is especially directed.

Many people have encouraged me in the writing of this commentary, and to them all I owe a debt of gratitude. Luther referred to Galatians as my own epistle, to which I have plighted my troth; my Katie von Bora, a measure of the high esteem in which he held his wife Katherine. My Katie is Denise, whose love and support has not languished since we plighted our own troth twenty-five years ago in the little town of Chickamauga, Georgia. My son, Christian, and my daughter, Alyce Elizabeth, two wonderfully active preteens, have a way of bringing the most sublime theological thoughts down to earth. On more than one occasion they have asked, Dad, aren’t you finished with Galatians yet? President Thomas E. Corts of Samford University has given strong encouragement to my efforts to combine administrative and scholarly labors. The faculty and staff of Beeson Divinity School, my colaborers in kingdom work, embody the fruit of the Spirit in numerous ways that serve the upbuilding of Christ’s church. To one of them, especially, I owe much more than a prefatory acknowledgment can express. Mrs. Cecile Glausier, my wonderful administrative secretary, has worked long hours under stressful conditions to prepare this manuscript for press while also fulfilling her other demanding responsibilities at Beeson Divinity School with remarkable proficiency, poise, and grace.

It is my prayer that the Lord may see fit to use this commentary to encourage a renewal of sound doctrinal preaching and systematic expository study of the Scriptures within congregations of faithful believers throughout the evangelical community. Concerning my interpretation of Galatians, I ask no one to follow me any further than I have followed Christ, and I invite everyone to join me in earnestly seeking the wisdom of the Holy Spirit for a better understanding of this great book. In commending what I have written, I can do no better than to echo the sentiments of William Tyndale in the preface to his 1525 translation of the NT in English:

As concerning all I have translated or otherwise written, I beseech all men to read it for that purpose I wrote it: even to bring them to the knowledge of the Scripture. As far as the Scripture approveth it, so far to allow it, and if in any place the Word of God disallow it, there to refuse it, as I do before our Savior Christ and his congregation. And where they find faults, let them show it me, if they be nigh, or write to me, if they be far off: or write openly against it and improve it, and I promise them, if I shall perceive that their reasons conclude, I will confess mine ignorance openly.²

Timothy George, Beeson Divinity School,

Samford University, Ascension Sunday, 1994

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The history of Christian doctrine can be read as a series of Pauline eruptions. Like a volcanic stream bubbling along just beneath the surface, every now and then Paul’s theology will burst forth with the force of a geyser calling the church back to the central theme of his apostolic preaching: the radical doctrine of the free grace of God revealed in the gospel.

Paul’s ideas have always been controversial. They have been met with resistance from his day until ours. It was once popular to pit a frowning, dogmatic Paul against the sweet, gentle Jesus. Others have read him as a proto-gnostic, or as a charismatic leader, or as the real founder of Christianity. But somehow, despite these misreadings, the great good news Paul proclaimed will not go away. The greatest shapers of the church’s faith and life have been inspired and guided by the apostle born out of due time. Irenaeus, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Barth—to name only a few—have been drawn to Paul’s distinctive notion(s) about sin, salvation, faith, election, covenant, promise, hope, justification, and judgment.

Among Paul’s letters, Galatians stands out as perhaps the earliest and certainly the most passionate. St. Jerome once said that when he read Paul he could hear thunder.³ There is a thunderstorm on every page of Galatians. This is not because Paul was petulant or peevish but rather because so much was at stake: his own apostolic calling and authority and the truth of the gospel itself. If, as this commentary assumes, Galatians was written soon after what is called Paul’s first missionary journey, it gives us a red-hot version of his early apostolic preaching. The best commentary on Galatians is Romans, which was written years later and before Paul had yet visited the great Roman metropolis (Rom 1:10). The cryptic reference to the Israel of God in Gal 6:16 must be read in light of Rom 9–11. His doctrine of justification received a much fuller, less polemical exposition in Rom 1–8.

Much has been written about Galatians since the first edition of this commentary appeared in 1994. I have tried to take account of some of the current debates found in recent commentaries. Such is reflected in the notes and updated bibliography. My opinion has changed on a few exegetical and interpretive issues, but the main argument of the original commentary has been retained here.

The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) was already middle-aged when I first wrote on Galatians a generation ago. Perhaps now it is nearing retirement age, and its best exponents, such as N. T. Wright, speak in the plural of new perspectives.⁴ In 2004, I published an essay on the NPP, Modernizing Luther, Domesticating Paul: Another Perspective. This appeared in the two-volume symposium Justification and Variegated Nomism edited by D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid. I am grateful to the publisher Mohr-Siebeck for permission to incorporate part of that essay in this volume.

One of the most consequential and increasingly influential commentaries on Galatians is that of J. Louis Martyn published in the Anchor Bible. While I cannot follow Martyn in every respect, he has helped us all to read Galatians as a powerful expression of God’s apocalyptic revelation of Jesus Christ. Michael J. Gorman has offered one of the best synthetic overviews of Paul’s life and thought, and I have learned much from his Apostle of the Crucified Lord. My indebtedness to the classic commentaries of Lightfoot, Burton, Bruce, Betz, and Longenecker, and to the brief but brilliant interpretations of Barrett and Ebeling, will be obvious to all readers of this book.

For more than thirty-two years, Samford University and Beeson Divinity School have been my academic home. I am grateful for the colleagues with whom I have worked and the encouragement and support I have received for this and other scholarly projects. I am especially grateful to President Andrew Westmoreland, Provost J. Michael Hardin, and Dean Douglas A. Sweeney for their commitment to serious scholarship in the service of the church. Evan Musgraves, a graduate of Beeson Divinity School and my research associate, has provided valuable assistance in preparing for press this updated version of Galatians. I have dedicated this new edition of the commentary to Dr. Robert Smith Jr., my beloved friend, colleague, and partner in the Lord’s work.

Timothy George

Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

November 10, 2019

536th Birthday of Martin Luther

ABBREVIATIONS

Bible Books

EXTRABIBLICAL LITERATURE

COMMONLY USED SOURCES FOR NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES

Galatians

Introduction Outline

1 The Author: Paul and His World

1.1 Hebrew Religion

1.2 Hellenistic Culture

1.3 Roman Rule

1.4 Conversion and Calling

1.5 Eschatology and Mission

2 Who Were the Galatians?

2.1 Galatia before the Time of Paul

2.2 North or South Galatia?

2.2.1 North Galatia

2.2.2 South Galatia

2.3 The Date of Galatians

3 The Problem in Galatia

3.1 The Tübingen School

3.2 The Two-Front Theory

3.3 Gnostics in Galatia?

3.4 Jewish-Christian Syncretism

3.5 The Gentile Theory

3.6 Paul’s Characterization

3.7 Jewett and Martyn

4 Galatians as a Pastoral Letter

4.1 Letter or Epistle?

4.2 Structure and Form

5 Galatians in the History of Christian Interpretation

Excursus 1: Luther, Paul, and the New Perspective

Outline of Galatians

INTRODUCTION

Jerome once said that when he read the letters of the apostle Paul he could hear thunder. Nowhere in the Pauline corpus is such stormy dissonance more evident than in the Epistle to the Galatians. Though written from prison, Philippians is a love letter on the theme of joy. Romans reflects the considered objectivity of a master theologian reveling in the doctrines of grace. Ephesians is an uplifting commentary on the body of Christ. Even the Corinthian correspondence, though obviously written out of great personal anguish and pain, revolves around the great triad of faith, hope, and love, with Paul’s hardships and concerns set over against his greater confidence in the God of all comfort who causes his children to triumph. In 2 Cor 13:12 Paul could admonish the believers in Corinth to greet one another with a holy kiss.

But Galatians is different. From beginning to end, its six chapters of 149 verses bristle with passion, sarcasm, and anger. True, there is a touch of tenderness as well; once in the midst of the letter Paul referred to the Galatians as my children (4:19). As the context reveals, though, this was the tearing tenderness of a distraught mother who must endure all over again the pains of childbirth because her children, who should have known better, were in danger of committing spiritual suicide. Paul was astonished and perplexed by their departure from the truth of the gospel. He feared that they had been bewitched(NIV 1984) and deceived. In frustration he dubbed them, as J. B. Phillips translates it, dear idiots (3:1).

What was so decisively at stake for Paul in Galatians? Why does this letter strike us like a lion turned loose in the arena of Christianity?⁵ Who were the opponents against whom he complained with such vehemence? How did the Christians in Galatia react to Paul’s letter? How is it related to his other writings and to the account of his life and ministry that Luke gives us in Acts? How has Galatians fared through the ages in the history of Christian interpretation from Paul to the present? What is its message for us believers today who, no less than the Galatians long ago, have been called to salvation in this present evil age of wickedness (1:4 NET)? We will attempt to answer these questions throughout the commentary. First, though, by way of introduction, we will focus on the author, the churches, the occasion, the genre, and the history of interpretation.

1 The Author: Paul and His World

Few facts related to the history and interpretation of Galatians have virtual unanimity among all scholars everywhere. But here is one: Galatians was indeed written by Paul the apostle as its opening verse attests. In the nineteenth century F. C. Baur and his disciples in the Tübingen School pushed many NT writings, including most of Paul’s letters, into the mid-second century, thereby calling into question their genuine apostolicity and historical trustworthiness. This radical criticism was based on a hypothetical reconstruction of early church history that denied to the apostolic age the kind of highly developed Christology found, for example, in Colossians and the Pastoral Epistles. For all this, even Baur himself recognized the genuineness and integrity of Galatians and included it, along with Romans and the two letters to the Corinthians, among what he called the Hauptbriefe, the four great Epistles of the Apostle which take precedence over the rest in every respect.⁶

Who was Paul? What were the influences that shaped his life and worldview prior to his writing Galatians?

1.1 Hebrew Religion

Galatians contains one of the most important autobiographical reflections anywhere in the writings of Paul. Here he spoke of his former way of life in Judaism, his ardor for the traditions of [his] ancestors, and his surpassing zeal as a persecutor of the Christians (1:13–14). These statements are borne out in his other writings as well. He told the Philippians (3:5–6) that he belonged to the tribe of Benjamin (as had King Saul, his biblical namesake), that he had been properly circumcised on the eighth day, and that he held to a strict Pharisaic position on the law.

In none of his extant letters did Paul refer to the city of his birth. However, on five occasions in Acts (9:11, 30; 11:25; 21:39; 22:3), he is identified as a native son of Tarsus, the chief metropolis of the Roman province of Cilicia (in what is today eastern Turkey). Once Paul referred to his hometown as an important city (Acts 21:39). In fact, Tarsus was a major center of commerce, culture, and education with a university so renowned that it could be spoken of, so the geographer Strabo tells us, in the same breath with that of Athens.⁷

Paul was thus brought up in a Jewish family of the diaspora. An estimated 4.5 million Jews were scattered throughout the Roman Empire at this time. There may well have been more Jews in Rome than in Jerusalem. It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that all diaspora Jews were as far removed from the strict traditions of Judaism as they were from its cultic center and official headquarters, so to speak, in Judea. Indeed, Paul’s family likely maintained strong personal ties with Palestinian Judaism. Writing from Bethlehem in 492, Jerome recorded an ancient tradition claiming that Paul’s hometown was the Palestinian village of Giscalis.⁸ While no historical credence can be given to this tradition, it may well be that Paul’s father was originally associated with this village and then migrated to Tarsus sometime after the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BC.⁹ This would help explain the fact that Paul apparently had relatives, including a nephew and (presumably an older) sister, who were residents of Jerusalem during the episode of the Jewish conspiracy against his life there (Acts 23:12–22). In any event, Paul clearly identified himself with the Aramaic-speaking Jews of Palestine, as his self-description, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, evidently means.¹⁰

After he had learned the trade of tentmaking and completed his basic education at the local synagogue in Tarsus, Paul was sent to Jerusalem, where he became the prize pupil in the Pharisaic school of Rabbi Gamaliel. Gamaliel, whose surname was the Glory of the Law, was a renowned teacher and grandson of the even more famous Hillel. From Gamaliel, Paul learned that subtle and intricate manner of biblical interpretation he was to put to such good use in Galatians and elsewhere.

Prior to his conversion, however, Paul was not merely a scholar; he was also an activist. One of the primary reasons Judaism had spread so extensively throughout the Roman Empire was the ardent missionary spirit that guided its zealous adherents at this time. The Pharisaic Judaism of Palestine, to which Paul was committed heart and soul, was especially known for its aggressive proselytism. Jesus himself referred to this policy in his rebuke of the Pharisees: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as fit for hell as you are! (Matt 23:15). There is reason to believe that Paul, in his desire to advance in Judaism beyond many contemporaries among my people (Gal 1:14), already had committed himself as a full-time missionary, perhaps even with a special orientation to the Gentile world, prior to his encounter with the risen Lord on the Damascus Road. Only then he was a missionary of the Jewish faith intent on winning as many converts as possible to the obedience of the law including, no doubt, the requirement of circumcision.

Paul’s opponents in Galatia may in fact have alluded to his preconversion proclamation in their efforts to embarrass him and denigrate his law-free gospel. To this charge Paul replied: "Now brothers and sisters, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished (Gal 5:11; emphasis added). Bornkamm has given a plausible interpretation of this verse: This most probably means that had he continued in the kind of missionary preaching that the Judaizers were now propagating, but with which Paul had long also broken, he would have been spared persecution at the hands of the Jews—but at the cost of the gospel of the cross."¹¹ If this hypothesis is true, then Paul may well have been retracing his earlier missionary itinerary as he persecuted and pursued the followers of Jesus on various journeys even into foreign cities (Acts 26:11–12).

1.2 Hellenistic Culture

We have seen that while Paul was a diaspora Jew from Asia Minor, he belonged inwardly to Palestine, the primary setting of his rabbinic training and early religious activism. This fact, however, should not obscure the even larger context in which Paul and indeed all of the NT writers fulfilled their calling and mission, namely, the reigning culture of Hellenism.

The Hellenistic age refers to that period dating from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC through the consolidation of the Roman Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era. This age was characterized by a historical transformation that gave to the Mediterranean world a common intellectual culture and eventually political unity. At the same time, a new form of the Greek language, the koiné or common tongue, came into general use. Greek philosophical concepts drawn from the teachings of Plato, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Neo-Pythagoreans, and others became the common possession of educated people throughout the empire, providing the basis for an interpretation of reality in objective and rational terms.

The impact of Hellenism on the Jewish faith is most clearly seen in developments at Alexandria, a major center of culture and learning at the mouth of the Nile. Here under the sponsorship of the Ptolemaic king of Egypt, the most influential of the Greek versions of the Hebrew Scriptures was produced in the third century BC. It is called the Septuagint (LXX) because of the tradition that seventy-two scholars had completed the translation process in seventy-two days. Early Christian writers including Paul inherited the Septuagint and commonly quoted the OT passages from it. During the time of Jesus, Philo, a Jewish thinker and exegete of great ability in Alexandria, produced a remarkable synthesis between Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion through the allegorical interpretation of the OT. Philo has been called a none too distant cousin of St. Paul, and one certainly can point to a number of parallel passages in their respective writings, due largely to Paul’s ability to draw on the language and thought forms of Hellenistic Judaism. However, the contrasts between the two are equally striking, as seen, for example, in the different ways they both employ allegory in the story of Hagar and Sarah.¹²

Paul no doubt was acquainted with the major currents of Greek philosophy and could appeal to its tenets in presenting the gospel to a pagan audience, as he did with great finesse in his famous address before the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16–34). On three occasions Paul incorporated quotations from Greek poets in his speeches and letters (Menander, 1 Cor 15:33; Epimenides, Titus 1:12; Aratus, Acts 27:28). At the same time Paul’s appeal to the learning of the Greeks is altogether different from that of such later Christian writers as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, who may rightly be said to have achieved for Christianity what Philo did for Judaism: a synthesis of revealed religion and pagan wisdom. By contrast, Paul warned the Colossians to beware lest they be deceived through philosophy and empty deceit (Col 2:8). By these words Paul was not completely rejecting the Greek philosophical tradition in toto, but he clearly was subordinating it to the wisdom of God(1 Cor 1:24 ) and to the gospel of grace he received by a revelation from Jesus Christ (Gal 1:12).

When Paul set sail from Selucia on his first missionary journey, he was entering a world marked by a great longing for redemption and filled with many new religious options to supply it. Chief among these were the various mystery religions, originally tribal cults imported into the empire through the Hellenizing of the East. From Syria came the cult of Adonis, from Egypt that of Isis and Osiris, from Phrygia that of Cybele and Attis. Each of these religions offered salvation of the soul and immortality through a secret rite of initiation by which the initiate was mystically united with the savior-god. In these ceremonies the myth of the dying and rising deity was reenacted through baptism and participation in a sacred meal.

Understandably, many of those who heard the first Christian sermons understood the movement as simply another mystery religion from the East. Thus when Paul preached Jesus and the resurrection, some believed he was introducing a new deity, the god Jesus and his female consort Resurrection (Anastasis, a feminine word in Greek). A similar view has prevailed in modern scholarly circles as well. Thus P. Tillich wrote, These mystery gods greatly influenced the Christian cult and theology.¹³ The most substantial scholarly treatment of Paul from this perspective was that of W. Bousset, who argued that Paul’s attribution of the title Lord (Kyrios) to Jesus reflected his transmutation of the primitive Christian message into the categories of the Hellenistic mystery cults.¹⁴

However, two crucial aspects of the Christian message Paul proclaimed stood in irreconcilable contrast to the mystery religions: its historicity and its exclusivity. Unlike the gospels of the mystery gods, the death and resurrection of Jesus were not timeless events detached from a specific historical context. As the Apostles’ Creed confesses, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and raised from the dead on the third day. Moreover, unlike the syncretism and pluralism of Hellenistic religion, Christianity required an undivided loyalty to only one Kyrios; for just as there is only one God, so also there is only one mediator between God and humankind, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5).¹⁵

1.3 Roman Rule

In the year AD 410 the Visigothic barbarians invaded and sacked the city of Rome. When news of this disaster reached Jerome, who was living in Bethlehem at the time, he exclaimed, The lamp of the world is extinguished, and it is the whole world which has perished in the ruins of this one city.¹⁶ In the same year Augustine began his massive City of God in which he reviewed the long history of the Roman Empire and placed both its success and its imminent demise in the larger context of God’s providential purposes in history. The cause of the greatness of the Roman Empire, he argued, was neither chance nor destiny. . . . Without the slightest doubt, the kingdoms of men are established by divine providence.¹⁷ For Jerome, Augustine, and their contemporaries the fall of Rome brought to an end the Pax Romana, an epoch of relative peace and stability that had witnessed the appearance of the Messiah and the birth of the Christian church. This way of reading history can be traced back to Paul himself, who told the Galatians that God had sent his Son into the world when the time came to completion (4:4).

Under Caesar Augustus and the emperors who succeeded him, the Roman Empire was fused into a unified political entity with one common language, a centralized military organization, a shared legal system, a uniform mail and transportation service, a single monetary currency, and an interconnected pattern of trade and commerce. Never before or since have all the shores of the Mediterranean been under one single rule. The earliest heralds of the Christian gospel coursed along the major highways and well-developed sea routes of the Roman Empire as they continuously gossiped (cf. Phillips translation of Acts 8:4) the story of Jesus in all of the great urban and commercial centers of the known world. Nearly two hundred years after Paul’s death, Origen reflected on the significance of the Pax Romana for the expansion and development of Christianity.

There is abundance of peace which began at the birth of Christ, God preparing the nations for his teaching, that they might be under one prince, the king of the Romans, and that it might not be more difficult, owing to the lack of unity between the nations due to the existence of many kingdoms for Jesus’ apostles to accomplish the task laid upon them by their Master, when he said: Go and teach all nations.¹⁸

As the Roman Empire assimilated the Hellenistic kingdoms of the East into a new political structure, the right of Roman citizenship was gradually extended to those in the provinces who had distinguished themselves by education, wealth, or some form of extraordinary public service. In one of these ways we may assume that Paul’s father acquired the status of civis Romanus that he passed on as a hereditary right to his son. This privilege meant two important things in Paul’s missionary career. First, it served as a kind of universal passport that gave Paul access to Roman institutions and permitted him to travel with minimal difficulties from one end of the empire to the other. Second, it enabled Paul to appeal to Caesar before being condemned to death for a capital offense. Paul exercised this right in his trial before King Agrippa (Acts 25:23–25), who sent him on to Rome. There, according to ancient tradition, he was beheaded in the first imperial persecution against the Christians, which took place in the tenth year of Nero’s reign in AD 64.

Thus while Paul was a citizen of the Roman Empire and urged obedience to the civil authority, he also knew that the Christian’s prior political allegiance (politeuma, cf. Phil 3:20) was to that heavenly commonwealth, the Jerusalem above (Gal 4:26). There is no evidence that Paul ever conceived of Christianity as providing the social and religious basis for imperial consolidation and stability, the soul which might give life to the body of the empire,¹⁹ as a historian of an earlier generation put it. The Pax Romana was based on violence and oppression, and Paul, despite his legal status, had to endure harsh treatment at the hands of Roman officials as well as Jewish authorities. The peace with God that Paul proclaimed to Jew and Gentile alike was based not on the changing fortunes of political structures but rather on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the expectation of his coming again in judgment and glory.

1.4 Conversion and Calling

The conversion of the apostle Paul is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of Christianity. How was it that the brilliant, urbane, and unrelenting persecutor of Christians became, almost overnight, the devoted advocate and protagonist of the faith he had endeavored with all his might to eradicate? In Galatians, Paul answered that question with tantalizing brevity. God, he said, was pleased to reveal his Son in me (1:15–16).

Actually, six passages in the NT together present a composite picture of this historic event; three in Paul’s letters (1 Cor 9:1–2; 15:3–11; Gal 1:11–16) and three in Acts (9:1–7; 22:6–10; 26:12–16). Luke related the conversion as a sequel to the stoning of Stephen, at which Paul was present and over which he may well have exercised some judicial oversight, indicated by the fact that the witnesses who stoned Stephen deposited their garments at his feet (Acts 7:58). The execution of Stephen signaled a new wave of harassment and persecution against the Christians, with Paul pursuing the Jesus believers house after house (Acts 8:3). So successful was this effort that many Christians were forced to flee from Jerusalem carrying the gospel into Samaria and beyond. With the dispersal of the church in Judea, Paul received permission from the high priest to take his campaign of holy terror on the road. His new target: Damascus. His aim: to ferret out followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.

Luke said that Paul was approaching the ancient city of Damascus along with his party of fellow travelers—perhaps members of the Levitical temple guard assigned to accompany the persecutor as bloodhounds would a hunter. Suddenly they were beset by a light from heaven, brighter than the Syrian sun at midday, which knocked them all (Acts 26:12–14) to the ground. Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified Messiah, appeared in his risen and ascended glory and spoke to Paul in his native tongue: "Shaûl, Shaûl, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? Paul asked in reply. I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. Later before King Agrippa, Paul recalled his response, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19). Blinded by the dazzling light, Paul stumbled in darkness toward his original destination. The irony is profound: he who had gone to Damascus to take others captive was himself led, helpless and blind, to one of the disciples he had intended to subdue. After three days of fasting, Paul received a visit from a believer named Ananias. In quick succession he was healed and baptized and, to the astonishment of all who heard him, immediately began to proclaim in the synagogues his first sermon as a Christian: Jesus is the Son of God!

Through the centuries various attempts have been made to discredit the authenticity of Paul’s conversion.²⁰ According to the early Christian apologist Epiphanius, an early Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites circulated a fantastic slander about Paul that was widely believed in their circles. According to this tale, Paul was not really a Jew by birth but rather the son of Greek parents. Paul’s father had come to Jerusalem and had fallen in love with the daughter of the high priest there. In order to obtain the girl, he became a Jewish proselyte and submitted to circumcision. When this ruse fell through, however, he took revenge by attacking circumcision, the Sabbath, and the law itself with all the fury of an unrequited lover.²¹ While this story has no historical basis whatsoever, it does show what great pains were taken to manufacture an explanation of the radical change Paul underwent from a zealous proponent of strict Pharisaic Judaism to the premier Christian apostle to the Gentiles.

In modern times myriads of naturalistic and psychological explanations of Paul’s conversion have been set forth by various scholars who refuse to accept what Paul himself asserted, namely, that he had a personal encounter with Jesus the Messiah and actually heard him speak in words that could be looked up in a dictionary. Some have claimed that what Paul mistook as the voice of Christ was really nothing more than the crash and lightning of a Syrian thunderstorm. Others have attributed the vision to some serious physical ailment, perhaps a burning fever or a fit of epilepsy. Still others have opted for the theory of psychological self-delusion: what Paul thought he saw as Christ was merely a Freudian projection of his own inner conflict and guilt feelings over the death of Stephen. In 1866 the French philosopher and skeptic E. Renan brought together several of these theories in one of the most romantic castings of Paul’s conversion ever written:

Every step to Damascus excited in Paul bitter repentance; the shameful task of the hangman was intolerable to him; he felt as if he was kicking against the goads; the fatigue of travel added to his depression; a malignant fever suddenly seized him; the blood rushed to the head; the mind was filled with a pitcher of midnight darkness broken by lightning flashes. It is probable that one of those sudden storms of Mount Hermon broke out which are unequaled for vehemence, and to the Jew the thunder was the voice of God, the lightning fire of God. Certain it is that by a fearful stroke the persecutor was thrown on the ground and deprived of his senses; in his feverish delirium he mistook the lightning for a heavenly vision, the voice of thunder for a voice from Heaven; inflamed eyes, the beginning of