Bible Commentaries
Galatians 1

Verse 1

GALATIANS IntroductionBy Dom B. ORCHARD

Authenticity and Genuineness— Suffice it to say that the Epistle itself and its attribution to St Paul have been accepted by all the ancient ecclesiastical writers and by all modern critics, save certain radical members of the discredited Dutch School of Bauer and his associates, and by Loisy in his later years. Our Epistle is certainly quoted by St Ignatius of Antioch, St Polycarp and St Justin; it is explicitly attributed to St Paul by St Irenaeus and his contemporaries, and is already found in the Muratorian Canon and in all the catalogues drawn up by the earliest Councils. Moreover the internal evidence reveals in every line the unique hand and personality of St Paul, as every serious reader will agree.

Date and Destination— The researches of Professor Sir William Ramsay (cf. op. cit.) have proved that in the time of St Paul the Roman Province of Galatia straddled Asia Minor from north to south and embraced not only the basin of the R. Halys (Galatia strictly so-called) but also the territory of the ancient countries of Lycaonia and Pisidia, as well as a great deal of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia. At the end of the 3rd cent. the Province of Galatia was divided by Diocletian, only the northern portion retaining the name of Galatia. It was probably ignorance of this fact that led St Jerome and other 4th cent. writers to believe that the letter was addresse to the Galatians of North Galatia. It is certain from the itinerary of Ac 13-14 that Paul did not visit northern Galatia on his first journey, and the later narrative of Ac ( 16:6-8; 18:23) does not suggest that he ever did so during his second or third journeys. If Galatians can also mean the south Galatians, evangelized on the first missionary journey, and if the internal evidence of Gal can be harmonized with the data of Ac, then there is an overwhelming case for accepting the modern view that it was written after the first missionary journey but before the Council of Jerusalem ( a.d. 49). For the epistle is so obviously concerned with the circumcision question debated and settled at the Council of Jerusalem, Ac 15, that it is most embarrassingly difficult to date it after this event.

Moreover all the internal evidence of the Epistle favours the view that it is dealing with that same controversy—all, that is, except Galatians 2:3-5, which seem to constitute an obvious reference to St Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem at the time of the Council. If we admit this reference then, of course, we are bound to date the letter after the Council (with all the attendant difficulties of explaining why there is no reference to the decrees of the Council in the Epistle, and so on). If, however, we take Galatians 2:1-10 as an account of events that occurred during St Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem (recorded in Acts 11:29-30), with a couple of parentheses and a reference to ’false brethren’ inserted in view of the controversy raging when he wrote the epistle, then there is no longer any serious objection to accepting the early date of Gal. Full discussion of this important point is impossible within the scope of the present commentary, but the outline of the exegetical argument will be found below in the comments on 2:1-10. The view adopted here, therefore, is that Gal was addressed to the converts of St Paul’s first missionary journey, being despatched probably whilst on his way up to Jerusalem for the Council in a.d. 49, cf.Acts 15:3. (For details see my article in JRB ( 1944) 154-74.) Gal is thus the earliest of St Paul’s epistles, and throws most valuable light on Ac 13-16.

Occasion and Object— The occasion of the Epistle was the news that his Galatian converts (mostly Gentiles, as it would appear from Ac 13-14; Galatians 4:8) were being won over by certain false brethren to the doctrine that circumcision and the Mosaic Law were as necessary to salvation as faith in Christ, 2:16; 5:2. Acceptance of this doctrine would logically result in the conclusion that faith in Christ, and therefore the redemption on the Cross, was insufficient to justify a man without adherence to the Law of Moses; in other words, all converts to Christianity were bound to Judaize, i.e. live as Jews. This would have been a mortal blow at the universality of the Church and clean contrary to the teaching of Christ and the subsequent instruction to St Peter, Ac 10-11.

These Judaizers, Acts 15:1, Acts 15:5, Acts 15:24, had gone down to Antioch and there, it seems, had wrongly alleged the authority of the Apostles for their doctrine. Not content with causing mischief at Antioch, some of them had secretly, 2:4, gone into southern Galatia to attempt to win over Paul’s converts to their way of thinking.

Their chief arguments were the agreed fact that the Law of Moses was divinely instituted and that Christ had said he came ’not to destroy but to fulfil the Law’, Matthew 5:17. To overcome any scruples of the Galatians they declared that their teaching had the support of the Twelve whose authority was in any event superior to that of Paul, who (they claimed) was probably also in agreement in his heart of hearts. Paul’s reaction was swift and violent. Stirred to his depths and quivering with just indignation he at once dictated this passionate vindication of his apostolic authority and crushing denunciation of their wicked error and of all who followed or favoured it. He put the true issue to the Galatians with unmistakable force and clarity: ’If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing’, 5:2. We know that in the main his appeal succeeded because not only did the Council of Jerusalem fully endorse Paul’s policy and action but there is also no hint of any dissidence when a short time afterwards he again passed through the southern Galatian region ’delivering unto them the decrees for to keep that were decreed by the apostles and ancients that were at Jerusalem’, Acts 16:4.

Doctrine—Like all the letters of Paul, Gal is embarrassingly rich in dogmatic content not only directly but also by way of countless allusions to doctrines which he presupposes his readers to know thoroughly. Thus We have his allusion to the peculiar and pre-eminent position of St Peter, whose example is sufficient even to detach Barnabas from his allegiance to St Paul, 2:13, his assumption of the existence of one authoritative Church, universal in extent, entered by baptism, one in doctrine, and ruled with infallible and absolute authority by the Apostles, Galatians 1:9, Galatians 2:9; Galatians 3:27, Galatians 3:28; Galatians 6:16. There are also invaluable references to the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity (1:3; 3:2, 5, 14; 4:6) and to that of personal union with Christ, and of our union with one another in Christ, 2:20; 3:27, 28; 4:19; 6:15. But its main teaching concerns the general economy of salvation for all, Jew and Gentile, based on faith in God’s promises, and the relation of the Law of Moses to it.

It has been well said that the starting point of this epistle as of St Paul’s theology is his vision of the glorified Christ on the road to Damascus, 1:16. In the splendour of that vision he knew Christ to be the only begotten Son of God who became man to redeem the world and who by his sacrificial death on the Cross and resurrection from the dead compensated in his own person for the sins of the whole world and merited pardon for sin, sanctifying grace and the promise of eternal life for all who believe and obey him, without distinction of race, class or sex, 1:4, 3:20, 28; 4:5.

The Judaizers, however, insisted that in order to participate in the benefits of the redemption every catechumen must observe the Law of Moses, including the rite of circumcision, and asserted that salvation was impossible without it. Now these Christian Pharisees were affected by the strongest school of thought in contemporary Judaism, the school that esteemed the Law of Moses as eternal and immutable even, it would seem, identifying it with the divine wisdom and regarding it as the source of grace and life, of joy and peace ( J. Bonsirven, Le Judaïsme Palestinien, Paris, 1934, I, 302-3). But though he admitted the Law to be divinely given, 3:19, St Paul refused to allow it any redemptive power or power to justify, for. that would be to put it in the place of the unique and utterly sufficing sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, 3:21. The error was fundamental and had to be instantly crushed, for compromise was impossible without nullifying the Cross of Christ, 2:21. So in this Epistle, while showing that for all men for all time salvation has been, is, and always will be based on belief in Christ and his justifying grace, he devotes more space to showing the Galatians why the Law cannot justify and what its true place in the economy of salvation is.

For St Paul there are three stages in the religious life of the world from the time of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish race and the greatest hero and saint of ancient Israel: (1) from Abraham to Moses: during which justification came through faith in God’s promises, without any positive law properly so-called (circumcision being only the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, Genesis 17:11); (2) from Moses to Christ: during which justification came through faith in the promises, but with the obligation besides of keeping the Law positively given on Sinai (faith, not Law, justifying); (3) since Christ: justification by faith in him and at the same time by the keeping of the Law of the Gospel (which is much more than a new and improved edition of Judaism).

Christianity is not so much an addition to and a completion of the imperfect OT regime as a positive religion of pardon, justification, salvation and life through Christ and in Christ, prolonging beyond the interlude of the Law of Moses the covenant concluded by God with Abraham and his posterity. In this Epistle the extrinsic, adventitious and transitory character of the Mosaic Law clearly appears. It is emphasized by the fact that the Law was promulgated by the mediation of angels and of Moses and under the form of a bilateral contract which the apostasies of the Jewish people could render inoperative. The promises, on the contrary, were made to Abraham directly and unilaterally; they are by way of favour, are without any condition (circumcision was only imposed later as a sign and seal of the covenant) and concern all the peoples of the world. For St Paul the essential thing for every human being is the establishment and promotion of the divine life in the soul through union with Jesus—which cannot be done by adherence to the Law, 3:20, 21. This divine life Abraham received by faith in God’s promises independently of the works of the Law and by a pure favour of God, 3:6-9. Justification (d??a??s???), which means for St Paul the passage from the state of enmity with God resulting from original and actual sin to the state of sonship in which we possess the divine life of Christ in ourselves, is always the free gift of God to us in virtue of the gift of faith. Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, are now the true sons of Abraham and heirs of the promises because they too have received justification by faith in the Son of God, likewise entirely out of God’s liberality. Christ by dying on the Cross as the representative of the whole human race satisfied for the sins of the whole human race whether committed explicitly against the Law of Moses or against the natural law. Like Christ the Christian must die to the Law through the Law so that he may live to God, 2:19. This mystical death to all the impulses of his lower nature which the Christian undergoes in baptism makes him live on a new plane in which he ’walks in the Spirit,’ 5:25 f., and so is no longer under the Law, 5:18. This liberty of the sons of God comes from the doing to death of the vices and concupiscences of the flesh; he is a new creature, 6:15, whose life, being the life of Christ, of whom he is a member and also of whom he is a temple, 2:20; 3:6; 1 Corinthians 6:15, 1 Corinthians 6:19, shows forth the fruits of the Spirit, 5:22-23, against which there is no law, the life of faith that worketh by charity, 5:6.

The True Nature of the Law of Moses— Since justification has never at any time in the religious history of mankind come through the observance of the Law but only through faith in the promises, what is the position of the Law in the history of the Jews?

The Law imposed a curse on all who were subject to it, yet failed to keep it, but did not supply the means to keep it; it merely provided a standard or code by which the Jews were judged and by which their transgressions were revealed (and even increased because of their failures to keep the Law), 3:19. The Law was like a prison, for it revealed the unhappy servitude of the human race and itself offered no means of escape, 3:22; but it did at the same time perform the useful function of isolating the Jews from pagan vice and idolatry, did in fact keep them together and directed them towards the future Messias, 3:22. In this sense before the coming of Christ, mankind was a minor and a pupil, and the Law was his pedagogue and tutor, 3:24. Now that Christ has come the task of the pedagogue has ended; the Jews are no longer under his authority but have entered into full sonship and inheritance, 4:5-6. Thus the part of the Law in the history of the Jews was that of a provisional and transitory dispensation suitable for the adolescence of the human race and destined to pass away when the coming of Christ inaugurated its full maturity. There is now in consequence no distinction between Jew and Gentile, 3:28.

St Paul gives the following proofs of the abrogation of the Law of Moses and of its powerlessness to justify,

2:16-21: (1) The Apostles and faithful have always acted on the assumption of its powerlessness; (2) Scripture itself declares it, Ps 142( 143):2; (3) the abandonment of the Law on the strength of the sufficiency of the redemption would, if the Law still retained its obligatory character, be sin, the blame for which we should have to place upon Christ—which would be blasphemous: whilst on the contrary those who are putting themselves again under the yoke of the Law must admit the sin of having abandoned it in the first place; (4) the Christian, being mystically crucified, has died to the Law with Christ; (5) since the death of Christ, which is the source of all graces, has infinite value, to set up another means of arriving at perfect justice is to deny the redemptive power of the Cross of Christ (cf. Prat, op. cit., I, 198-9); (6) the characteristics of the regime of Law are incompatible with those of the Promise; for whereas the Promise is the source of freely given spiritual goods, the Law always offers a quid pro quo, a measured recompense for a measured service, 3:12; (7) Christ by his death on the Cross, in which ’he became a curse for us’, 3:13, redeemed us from the curse of the Law by fulfilling in his Person all the requirements of the Law perfectly and at the same time making complete and perfect satisfaction for all the transgressions of the Jews (and mankind in general) against the Law. The Law thus satisfied has no further claims on him nor on the rest of the human race in so far as they are united to him by baptism. The Law therefore has no further power over him or over us and hence Paul can say, ’For I, through the Law am dead to the Law, that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the Cross’, 2:19.

(8) To conclude his argument St Paul gives the famous allegory of Agar and Sara, representing the two testaments. Agar the slave represents the synagogue; Sara, the free-woman, symbolizes the Church. Their respective sons take after the condition of their mothers. Therefore those who wish to Judaize rank themselves with Ismael, the son according to the flesh, and renounce the patrimony given to Isaac, the son of the promise, which is also that of Christians who are the true spiritual heirs of Abraham. The point of the comparison is that the lesser and imperfect testament must give place to the new and perfect one, for the two are incompatible, and cannot co-exist: ’Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman’, 4:30; Genesis 21:9-13. This is one of the best examples of the use of the spiritual sense of Scripture to prove a thesis, cf. Amiot, op. cit. 202, Note 1; J. Bonsirven, Exégèse Rabbinique, 275, 309-10, Prat, op. cit. I, 221-2; Lagrange, op. cit. 118-22. For further treatment of the Law and Justification cf. commentaries on Rom and Heb, and art. ’Christianity in Apostolic Times’.

Verses 2-24

I 1-II 21 Vindication of his Apostolic Authority— The haste in which this Epistle was composed is shown by the abruptness of the beginning and the deferment of any greeting to his correspondents till v 3.

I 1-5 Introduction— 1. From the first word Paul claims the fullness of the apostolic authority, for his, too, is from God (unlike that of false apostles which is ’of men’); and like the Twelve he has been commissioned not by the mediation of men (’by man’) but directly by Jesus Christ, (Acts 9:3 f., and so by God the Father, who thus constituted Paul a true witness of the Resurrection. 2. ’All the brethren who are with me’ probably refers to his small band of companions ’The churches of Galatia’ refer to the local churches founded during the first missionary journey, Acts 13:14 f.; the omission of all commendation of them is pointed.

3. These words of greeting are found in all the epistles of St Paul save Hebrews, and they clearly show that the Galatians believed without question Paul’s teaching of the complete equality of the Son with the Father. K????? (Lord) is always a divine title with St Paul (cf. J. Lebreton, Histoire du Dogme de la Trinité, 19277, I, 368, and 1 Corinthians 8:6).

4. Paul will later show them that their readiness to accept circumcision demonstrated their failure properly to value the atoning death of Christ.

5. Doxology. The everlasting character of God’s Kingdom is contrasted with the present evil age.

6-10 A Stern Rebuke for their Apostasy— 6. According to the view of the date and occasion of the Epistle taken in § 893c-d no more than a few months had elapsed since Paul had left them; cf.Acts 14:22 f. Lightfoot notes that this is the sole instance in which St Paul omits to express his thankfulness for their faith in addressing any Church, substituting for it this indignant expression of surprise. ’I wonder that you are so soon in process of abandoning him (God) . . . for another gospel—which is not another’.

7. There can be no other gospel: it is merely a matter of certain men (Judaizers) presenting a false teaching utterly incompatible with the true gospel. 8. Any such teacher should be regarded as given over to destruction, utterly excluded from the Kingdom of God (anathema), and hence by inference excommunicated also. The Church in its Councils has taken over the use of this same formula.

9. His solemn anathema clearly shows that he regards himself as infallible, and Christianity as a religion of authority. 10. Clearly his Judaizing opponents had falsely accused him of compromising and of lack of consistency in the past; cf. 5:11.

I 11-II 21 The Mission of St Paul by God the Father himself—The Judaizers of Galatia maintained that their gospel came from Christ through the Twelve Apostles, but Paul declares that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was directly revealed to him by God the Father in the same way that St Peter himself received it, Matthew 16:16 f., Galatians 1:16 (cf. Chapman, RBn 29 ( 1912) 133-47); hence his gospel is as authoritative as that of Peter and identical with it.

11-12. His gospel is not a man-made doctrine, nor has it been transmitted through a man but it came, as Chapman says, ’by a revelation of Jesus Christ, which taught me who He is’ (rather than Lightfoot’s subjective genitive, ’by a revelation from Jesus Christ’). 13 f. He begins explaining in detail how his Gospel teaching has always been independent of, though fully in accord with, that of the Twelve.

13. ’Conversation’: i.e. manner of life. ’Beyond measure’: far móre than the other Jews.

14. Cf.Philippians 3:5-6. He advanced more quickly in knowledge and authority than any of his contemporaries, because of his greater zeal for the traditions (added to the Law by the Pharisees); cf. Mt 23 passim. 15. There is perhaps here a play on the meaning of the word ’Pharisee’. Paul, already ’a Separated One’ from his birth, had been in a more profound sense ’separated’ or pre-destined before his birth (cf.Jeremiah 1:5) to his Christian vocation. 16. The reference here is primarily to his conversion, Acts 9:3 f. ’Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood’: this revelation of the Son to him by the Father was so all-sufficing that he had no need to seek further enlightenment even from the Twelve, including St Peter. 17-24. He now gives a list of his movements in subsequent years to prove that his few contacts with the Twelve had not been for the purpose of obtaining doctrinal information.

17. ’The apostles who were before me’, i.e. the Twelve, chosen in point of time before him. ’ Arabia’ probably means the country south of Damascus, the kingdom of the Nabataeans, rather than the district of Sinai. We have no record of what happened during these three years, but while the opinion of the Fathers is that he immediately started preaching, many now prefer to think that he devote himself to a life of prayer and meditation similar to that of St Benedict at Subiaco. 18. ’After three years’, i.e. three years from his conversion according to the Jewish mode of reckoning; cf.Matthew 16:21. On the date of St Paul’s conversion, cf. § 895c. ’to see’ (?st???sa?): to make the direct official acquaintance of Peter, cf.Acts 9:26-30.

19-20. Paul declares on oath that of the Twelve he saw only Peter and James on this visit. ’James’ is most probably James the Less, the first bishop of Jerusalem, a cousin of our Lord; cf. §§ 672-3.

21. Paul now evangelized the regions near his native city of Tarsus in Cilicia and around Antioch in Syria; cf. Acts 9:30: 11:25. 22-24. Outside Jerusalem he was not known in Judaea at that time save by reputation, though he was to become much better known to the Churches of Judaea during his next visit, the Famine Relief visit, Acts 11:29-30.