In his chapter on The Letter to the Galatians Luke Timothy Johnson writes, “In Paul’s letter to the Galatians we find the apostle at his most difficult and exhilarating. In the face of opposition and rejection, he pushes the scandalous implications of the gospel to their limits, leaving Christianity its “charter of freedom.” Here he moves beyond an apparently narrow parochial problem to the deepest questions concerning life before God. In the process, he allows his own and the community’s personal religious experience to reshape their shared symbolic world view in a radical way.”

As a letter, this part of scripture can be unclear.  Letters are one-sided communication.  It’s like overhearing someone make a phone call without being able to decipher what the person on the other end of the line is saying.  In that case, and when we read any of the letters in the Bible, we are working with incomplete information.

Paul writes this letter to the churches he founded in Galatia. We learned a lot about Paul when we read Acts in April and May.  Paul was first a Pharisee who persecuted Christians.  In Acts 9 we read about his experience on the road to Damascus when Jesus appeared to him.  After this experience he became a follower of Jesus and founded churches amongst the Gentiles.

We understand from the letter that there are agitators among the Gentile Christians in Galatian who campaign for circumcision. From what Paul writes in the letter we are able to identify what the agitators are trying to do. Johnson writes, “The agitators have two interrelated complaints.

“First, like the rivals in Corinth, they question Paul’s apostolic credentials. Paul is not one of the original apostles but is dependent on Jerusalem. He is inconsistent in his teaching and practice, trying to please people rather than God.

“But second, just as Paul’s apostolic credentials are deficient, so is his ‘good news.’ He has preached only of God’s work in the crucified Messiah. He therefore delivers to the Galatians an incomplete, inadequate form of Christianity. In order to be truly righteous—to be in proper covenantal relationship with God—it is necessary as well to observe the commandments of the Torah… Obedience to the gospel without obedience to Torah’s commandments is, according to Paul’s opponents, a superficial and distorted version of Judaism.”

It’s important to note, though, that the agitators are Christians themselves.  This is an intra-Christian dispute.  The agitators are Jewish-Christian missionaries urging the Galatian Christians to take the “next step” by being circumcised.  Paul argues there is no need for that, that there is no two-step process to becoming a Christian.

Richard B. Hayes writes, “the identity of the newly established mission churches was up for grabs:

• Were they to be understood as branches on the tree of Judaism, or were they to be understood as belonging to a new and distinctive community, neither Jewish nor pagan?
• Were Gentile converts bound to accept Jewish practices and values?
• In what ways were they free to maintain their former ways of life?

By the middle of the first century CE the struggle over such questions had burst into open conflict. Paul visualizes the struggle for identify formation of the Galatian churches in a vivid image: As the apostle whose preaching had brought these communities into being, he is like a mother in the throes of labor until they are fully formed according to the image of Christ (4:19).”

Paul’s salutation to the churches in Galatia reiterates that God authorized Paul’s mission and message. He calls himself an apostle (one who is sent) and emphasize that he was sent from JESUS, not any institution or any other person.

He starts the letter in the usual way, sender to receiver and greeting.  In many of his other letters he includes a paragraph of thanksgiving.  Not in this letter!

Paul sends grace and peace to the Galatians. Hayes writes, “this may be understood either as a prayer for the readers or as a performative utterance that actually conveys the blessing of God’s grace to them. Either way, it highlights a truth fundamental to Paul’s gospel: God has graciously taken the initiative to bring peace and reconciliation. The grace-and-peace formula stands as a reminder of this truth, even at the beginning of a letter as severe as this one.”

As readers of Paul’s other letters, we expect to find that thanksgiving paragraph after the greeting. We only find rebuke. He is shocked that they are abandoning God. Hayes writes, “The ‘grace of Christ’ is closely linked with Christ’s death. ‘Grace,’ therefore, is not to be understood merely as God’s kindly disposition; rather, grace is embodied in God’s powerful and costly action for the salvation of the world through Christ’s self-giving on the cross. God’s calling of the Galatians took place through the event of Christ’s death and through Paul’s proclamation of that death to them (3:1). Insofar as they have now turned their backs on that proclamation, they have turned themselves against God.”

Paul wants the Galatians to know—his message is not of human origin, it is of divine origin! Paul writes, “I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” Hayes says, “This picture of the gospel as a powerful, in-breaking word is consonant with the meaning of ‘revelation’ [apokalypsis in Greek]. Revelation is God’s activity, an act of disclosure initiated from the divine side that reorients all human perception and knowledge.”

Paul tells his history—how he persecuted the church because of his zeal for the lawn. But then God, who set Paul apart before he was born, revealed Jesus to him.  His response was to go away and then three years after his call he met with Peter and James, and no other apostles. Remember, the agitators claim that Paul is dependent on Jerusalem.  So, this is Paul reiterating that he and his message are only dependent on God and Jesus.

Here Paul uses the word “circumcised” and “Jewish” interchangeably. Same with “Gentile” and “un-circumcised.” At this time and in this place, circumcision was a marker of Judaism, so if someone was circumcised it meant they were Jewish.

Paul gives an account of his meeting with the leaders of the Jerusalem church, how they recognized the grace that had been given to Paul, and how they decided that Paul should spread the gospel amongst the Gentiles and they amongst fellow Jews. But there is a third group at this meeting, the ‘false brothers and sisters.’ They demand circumcision of Gentile converts.

Hayes writes, “Galatians 2:1-10 leaves us with many unanswered questions. Parts of the passage are difficult to follow, for Paul is so agitated that he has written convoluted and incomplete sentences. We can virtually hear him sputtering with anger as he writes; his butchered syntax reflects the strong passions that still swirl around the controversy.” This meeting is probably the one written about in Acts 15.

This section starts with the description of a meeting in Antioch. Antioch was a large and prosperous city in northern Syria, the third largest city in the Roman Empire (after Rome and Alexandria).

Paul describes “people from James” pressuring Peter to stop eating with Gentile believers.  We get the story of Peter’s first time eating with Gentiles in Acts 11.  Hayes writes, “The Law of Moses contains no prohibition of eating with Gentiles. The people of Israel were commanded to abstain from unclean foods and from meat or wine tainted by associate with idolatry; but as long as certain fundamental dietary precautions were observed, there was no reason why even strictly Torah-observant Jews could not share table fellowship with Gentiles.”

We don’t know why the “people from James” pressure Peter to stop eating with Gentiles. E. P. Sanders gives a hypothesis, “Close association might lead to contact with idolatry or transgression of one of the biblical food laws…James worried that too much fraternization with Gentiles would have bad results, and that Peter’s mission [to the circumcised] would be discredited if he were known to engage in it himself.”

The second section is all about how Jews and Gentiles are all rectified the same way- through Christ’s death. The word justify is used often in this section. Hayes writes, “the crucial verb ‘to justify’ (dikaioo) appears here for the first time in Galatians. To be “justified’ is to be declared in the right or placed in right relationship to God.”

Justify or justification might be a familiar word to you, as a United Methodist.  We talk about grace in three waves- prevenient grace (grace that goes before), justifying grace, and sanctifying grace (grace perfecting us).

 Bishop Kenneth L. Carder writes, “Prevenient grace prepares us for justifying grace. "Justification," said John Wesley, "is another word for pardon. It is the forgiveness of all our sins, and ... our acceptance with God." Justifying grace is the assurance of forgiveness that comes from repentance, from turning toward God's gracious gift of new life. It is being reconciled and realigned with God and the acceptance of God's

There are a lot of references to Abraham in this chapter. You can find Abraham and Sarah’s story in Genesis 12 and following chapters. Paul here quotes Genesis 15:6, this is part of the covenant God makes with Abraham and Sarah, that their descendance would be numerous, that they’d be given land, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through them.

This promise to Abraham and Sarah happened many years before Exodus and the giving of the law. The law was helpful for a time, until Christ died, to free us from the necessity of the law. The law was good and necessary, but only temporary.

Faith and law are set against each other. When Paul says, “law” he is talking about Mosaic law, not laws in general.

Chapter 3 ends with those famous verses, “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” We are all children of God through faith, just as Abraham operated through faith, not the law (which was not yet conceived of).  The Gentiles belong to Christ, they belong to Abraham, without ever having to observe Mosaic law.

In chapter 3 Paul argued that the Gentile Christians are Abraham’s children and are thus heirs of God’s promise. Here again Paul, “refers to their experience of the Spirit as proof that they are children, not just of Abraham, but of God. The Spirit is the sign that they have been adopted into God’s family. Paul contrasts this experience of familial relation to God to the Galatians’ former state as slaves of cosmic powers and makes the astonishing assertion that, should they place themselves under the Jewish Law, they would be returning to the same state of slavery they had previously known as pagans” (Hayes).

The system of inheritance at this time was very different than our own. Paul describes the situation of a male heir who, while not old enough to inherit was not yet able to manage the inheritance. When he says that the heir is “no better than slaves” he is “employing rhetorical exaggeration” (Hayes). In this situation Paul describes the heir as temporarily unable to manage the inheritance and that someone else sets a time for that to come to an end.  So too did God set the time for Jesus to come into the world and make them no longer subject to the Law.

We (and the Galatians) are living in an in-between time—the fullness of time has come, Jesus has come, and we wait for him to come again. The spiritual forces to whom the Gentile Christians used to be enslaved are still active in the world. Hayes writes, “Paul repeats the reminder that during this period of ignorance they were enslaved to ‘beings that by nature are not gods’ [stoicheia in Greek]. This expression shows that Paul does not think of the stoicheia merely as rudimentary religious principles that have now been superseded. Instead, they are personified forces that once exercised hostile dominion over the lives of his readers. Paul elsewhere acknowledges the reality and presence of spiritual powers in the world, called by various names, such as ‘gods,’ ‘lords,’ ‘demons,’ and ‘rulers of this age.’ Such powers are no threat to the sovereignty of the one God; indeed, through Christ God will ultimately destroy or subdue them.”

This reminds us of our membership vows in the United Methodist Church.  Among other things we promise to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of our sin.

In the beginning of this section, you can hear Paul’s sadness that the people who once were so pleased with him and his message have been turned against him.  He says, basically, “remember when you’d have done ANYTHING for me?! And now, this!”

Then Paul uses the story from Genesis about Hagar and Sarah.  Read more about these two in Genesis 16, 18, and 21. God promised Abraham and Sarah those three things we talked about last week – descendants, land, and that all the families of the earth would be blessed through them. But when Sarah was not pregnant soon after the promise was made, they took things into their own hands.  Hagar was made to bear a child, Ishmael, for Abraham. Sarah eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away. And Isaac inherits the promise. Paul uses this story to reiterate his point about slavery and freedom.

Paul says, “You are free! You have been set free through Christ! Why submit yourselves to anything other than God?”

Can you tell Paul is mad? I can!  In the first part, Paul warns the Galatians of the consequences of following the agitators’ teaching.  Then in the last three verses he offers an alternative vision for community that lives in love.

For the first time in the letter Paul gets down to the nitty-gritty of why he is sending the letter.  This is about circumcision.  The agitators want the Gentile Christians in Galatia to be circumcised. Paul argues that if they believe they must do this then they’ll be subject to all the other parts of the law as well.
 
Paul is not saying that Jewish folks who are circumcised cannot be Christians. Rather, as Hayes writes, “Paul is saying that Gentile converts to the Christian faith must not allow themselves to be circumcised. Why? Circumcision, as an entry to living under the Law, is a backward step to an earlier stage of the story, a step that leads to slavery… Paul posits a fundamental incompatibility between Law and Christ; they represent separate spheres of power, such that anyone who chooses to enter the Law’s sphere of power has been cut off from access to Christ. One’s allegiance must rest in one sphere or the other; no compromise is possible. To choose circumcision voluntarily is to deem Christ insufficient and thereby to abandon his sphere of influence.”  This is clear in verse 4, “You who want to be reckoned as righteous by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.”

What does it mean to fall from grace? Hayes tells us, “‘Grace’ is conceived here (like freedom in v. 1) as a location, a sphere from which the Galatians will exile themselves if they go forward with the action they are contemplating.”

We get a sports metaphor in verse 7 – they were running well, but these agitators are tripping them up. The NIV translates it as, “Who cut in on you?”

We really see Paul’s frustration in verse 12, “ I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” Hayes writes, “It is a crude joke: ‘if they are so eager to start cutting on the male sexual organ, I wish they would just castrate themselves.’ One imagines that when the letter was read in the Galatian churches, this bold swipe would have elicited a few gasps from the congregation, followed by laughter from Paul’s partisans and outrage from his detractors. We may feel that this sort of coarse humor hardly commends Paul’s argument, but here, as elsewhere in the letter, Paul is exploiting the rhetorical techniques available to him to persuade his readers to take his side of the argument.”

This section finishes with the vision for a community that lives in love. We don’t know the agitators’ arguments, but we might assume that they were telling the Galatians Christians that Paul irresponsibly baptized them, without giving them the Law, which, as Hayes writes, “was necessary to hold humanity’s sinful impulses (the flesh) in check. The Law provides guidance (like a yoke) to keep us from going astray into sin and error.”  This is what the agitators were probably communicating.

Paul’s argument is that the Law was a temporary custodian, until Jesus came. And we now get to do something different. Paul uses the rest of chapter 5 into chapter 6 to describe that vision of a community founded not on Law, but on love. We still must deal with the problems of “the flesh” but we don’t deal with those problems with the Law. Hayes writes that “flesh” or sarx in Greek can be used to describe the body or what the physical body is made of, or, as used here, it can “refer to a sinful power resident in human existence that opposes God.” To counteract “flesh” Paul tells them to become slaves to one another.  This is rather shocking since Paul so forcefully argues against becoming slaves to the Law. Hayes writes, “The Galatians are to use their freedom to become slaves! Paul does not speak of becoming slaves to God or Christ, or even of ‘righteousness.’ Instead he says, they are to serve one another as slaves.”

Remember, “the flesh” as Paul uses it here refers to a sinful power resident in human existence that opposes God. How will they deal with the problems of “the flesh” without the Law? Paul tells them. Hayes writes, “The central point of verses 16-18, then, is that the Spirit provides strong leadership and direction in a world that is described as an eschatological war zone. Those who say the Law is sufficient to overcome the Flesh do not recognize the time of crisis in which the church walks; those who charge that without the Law the Galatians will be left undisciplined and confused do not know the power of the Spirit.”

Paul says the works of the flesh are obvious, we don’t need the Law to tell us. He then lists fifteen works, not an exhaustive list, but an illustration. You can see similar lists in scripture in Mark 7:21-22; Romans 1:29-31; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 2 Corinthians 12:20. Hayes writes, “the list is in some respects conventional. It begins with three terms identifying sexual offenses, continues with two words for idolatry and occult magical practices, and concludes with two terms for self-indulgent partying. The most interesting feature, however, occurs in the middle of the list: a lengthy catalog of eight words that highlight dissension and offenses against the unity of the community—enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, and envy. Paul’s concentration on these community-destroying behaviors shows that his primary concern is for the unity and peace of the Galatian churches. It also reinforces the point that ‘works of the flesh’ are not just sensual vices. The meaning of walking according to the flesh is articulated by Paul’s question to the divided Christians at Corinth: ‘As long as there is jealously and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh and walking according to human inclinations?’ (1 Cor. 3:3).”

So those are works of the flesh.  In contrast the Spirit produces “the fruit of a community characterized by the gracious qualities listed in these verses. We should not interpret this fruit as referring only to character qualities of the individual; Paul is primarily concerned with the way in which the Spirit’s work is made manifest in community. This catalog, like the foregoing list of fleshly works, should be understood as illustrative rather than comprehensive. Paul offers different lists of gifts and workings of the Spirit in Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthains 12:7-11. Here in Galatians, his emphasis is on the peaceful and community-building character of the Spirit’s work” (Hayes).  

So the fruit of the Spirit is what we have together, as a community.

Paul gives the Galatians counsel in what it might mean for a community to walk by the Spirit.

He commends mutual correction of one another, self-examination, and financial support of the community’s teachers.

Mutual Correction: Paul says, “you who have the Spirit,” so that means everyone, not just leaders. Everyone has an identity that ought to be shaped by the Spirit.  Paul is concerned about how the words of correction are spoken. In verse one Paul writes, “Take care that you yourselves are not tempted.” Tempted to sin like the one corrected? Or tempted to have an attitude of pride and condescension?  Paul doesn’t specify, so he’s probably referring to both because mutual correction is fraught with the dangers of prideful abuse. We all share in common human frailty. Hayes writes, “We may be most harshly condemning of those failings to which we ourselves are the most susceptible….To fulfill the Law of Christ, then, is to play out over and over again in the life of the community the pattern of self-sacrificial love that he revealed in his death.”

The agitators are telling the Galatians that in order to be Christ’s people, authentic children of Abraham, they must be circumcised and obey the commandments of the Mosaic Law.  But Paul says, by contrast, that if they bear one another’s burdens, becoming slaves of one another through love—correcting one another gently instead of competing viciously as the agitators have led them to do—that is how they will fulfill the Law as Christ has redefined it.

Self-examination: Why must all “test their own work?” Maybe Galatian Christians who started following the Laws of Moses were boasting about it.  Maybe they considered themselves better than others. Paul tells them to conduct a sober self-assessment and keep their boasting to themselves. Paul is convinced that authentic faith manifests itself in action and that Christ and the Spirit empower such faithful action. Thus, to test one’s work is to examine whether it really embodies the loving character of Christ.

Financial support of the community’s teachers: this is in verse 6. Hayes writes, “The sort of teaching that Paul has in mind is not an academic exercise; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given by God for building up the body of Christ for its work of service (Romans 12:7; 1 Corinthians 12:28).

Paul then says to bear one another’s burdens but also to carry your own load. Well, which is it?  “Bear one another’s burdens” is directed to the community.  “Carry your load” is directed to the individual. We are all personally accountable to God. And we are called to form communities in which we help one another through mutual corrective admonition.

Sowing what you reap: Paul writes, “you reap whatever you sow.”  Actions have consequences. To sow to the flesh means to place one’s confidence and hope for the future in something destructive.  Remember “the flesh” refers to a sinful power resident in human existence that opposes God. Paul tells them not to place their confidence and hope for the future in circumcision, in the law, but in God. Verse 8 is a summary of what Paul has already written.  Warning against placing confidence in anything that belongs to the realm of the merely human—particularly circumcision.  Paul insists that only the Spirit of God has the power to confer life.
 
To finish out the letter Paul adds a PS without dictating.  He addresses the change of handwriting in verse 11, “See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand!” In his own hand Paul attacks the agitators. In the eyes of Paul, the former Pharisee, those who merely practice circumcision and observe some of the feasts cannot claim to be living fully in accordance with everything the Law requires.  There can be no partial or selective observance of the Law.

Paul doesn’t know how the Galatian Christians will respond to the letter, so he makes his last blessing conditional- to “those who follow this rule.”

Paul says he bears the marks of Jesus on his body. Hayes writes, “This expression refers to the scars that he has incurred in the course of his apostolic labors. By his own testimony Paul suffered numerous floggings and beatings, and he was once stoned. Such abuse would no doubt have left his body battered and marked by scars.”