New International Bible Commentary 2Co 13:11 : Galatians

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GALATIANS F. Roy Coad The letter to the Galatians is happily free from critical problems concerning authorship, scholars having been virtually unanimous in endorsing it as a genuine work of the apostle Paul. The problems which do exist relate to the date of composition of the letter, and to the location of the churches to which it was addressed. In the middle of the first century, the Roman province of Galatia covered a great tract of central Asia Minor. The north-eastern part of the province, centred upon the three tribal capitals of Pessinus, Ancyra and Tavium, was controlled by a people of Celtic or Gallic descent (hence the name Galatia—cf. Gaul and Galicia), who had entered the land some three hundred years before and established dominance over the earlier inhabitants. Their lands lay away from the main trade and travel routes of that time, although they were to come brilliantly into their own in later centuries, after Constantinople had become the centre of imperial rule, and the main highways passed through Ancyra (modern Ankara). In contrast, the south western part of the province was based on the Roman coloniae of Pisidian Antioch and Lystra (a third of its cities, Iconium, also became a colonia at a later date). Through it ran the highly important roads to Syria and the East from the Greek towns of the western seaboard of Asia Minor, and the native inhabitants (Phrygian around Antioch and Lycaonian around Lystra) had come strongly under the influence of foreign manners: of the Greeks who had followed Alexander, of the Jews who had been settled there by the Seleucid kings, and then of the Roman conquerors. Debates concerning the destination and the date of the letter are closely involved with this division of the country. We may distinguish three main views. i. That it was written to churches supposedly founded by Paul in the northern part of Galatia. This is the oldest view, but it has lost much ground since the researches of Sir W. M. Ramsay, in the late years of the nineteenth century, into the history and peoples of Asia Minor in classical times (see pp. 1360, 1365). ii. That it was written to the churches which were undeniably founded by Paul in Southern Galatia during his first missionary journey, but that the letter was written at some time after one of his later visits to those churches. iii. That it was written to those same churches, but immediately after the first missionary journey, and before the apostolic council of Acts 15. The third view is that adopted in this commentary, and an explanation of this view is desirable at this point. The destination of the letter Acts names Galatia (or, more accurately, Galatic territory) twice in its accounts of Paul’s journeys: once in 16:6, on the outward stage of the second missionary journey, and again in 18:23, on the outward stage of the third missionary journey. Until the end of the nineteenth century this Galatia was commonly held to be the northern region of the Roman province of that name, the only part in which dwelt persons strictly by race Galatian. The southern part of the province had later been severed from Galatia, and thus the fact that it was part of Galatia in the apostle’s day tended to be overlooked. Thus, on each of these journeys, Paul was held to have deviated from the direct westerly and north westerly route across Asia Minor to visit this region. He certainly did not visit North Galatia on his first journey. The churches which he established in this northern part of Galatia, it was held, were those to whom this letter was written. This view presented three major difficulties. First, there are no other known indications that Paul established churches in North Galatia, which lay well away from the Aegean centres of his work, and from the roads to them. Such foundations also seem out of keeping with what we know of Paul’s missionary strategy. Second, if the letter was not written until the later journeys of the apostle, it must have been written considerably after the council of Ac. 15, when the very question at issue in the letter was deliberated upon in Jerusalem. On that occasion an agreed and authoritative statement had been issued by that church, under the authority of James, the apostles and the elders. In such circumstances, it is inconceivable that this letter should make no reference to that decision, even while it is arguing the whole issue out afresh. (It is no answer to point out that no reference is made to the council’s decisions in 1 C. 8 or 10. The question there discussed, that of food sacrificed to idols, was indeed covered in the findings of the Jerusalem council, but it was peripheral to the debate: nor were the Jerusalem findings on the whole relevant to the issues at Corinth. On the other hand, the letter to the Galatians deals with the whole issue of the Jewish obedience, which was precisely the crux of the Jerusalem council.) Third, this view is normally associated with the identification of the visit of Paul to Jerusalem described in Gal. 2 with that of Ac. 15: a view which leads almost inevitably to the conclusion that one or other of the accounts is inaccurate (see commentary on Gal. 2:1-10 below). As against this view, then, many commentators look for the destination of this letter to the churches established by Paul on his first missionary journey in the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia. Although Luke does not use the term in his account of that journey in Ac. 13 and 14, they lay within Galatic territory. The work of Sir W. M. Ramsay at the end of last century established convincing reasons, based on a profound knowledge of the political and social conditions in Asia Minor in the first century, for believing that the

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letter was addressed to those churches. Such a view accords convincingly with other Biblical data and has been widely adopted by British and American scholars. The date of the letter Even if this second view as to the recipients of the letter is accepted, its date must still be determined. Many commentators, impressed by the similarity of the thought and style of the letter to that to the Romans, consider that it must have been written at much the same time, probably during the third missionary journey. Others see it as written just before that journey (this was Ramsay’s original view, but he later dated it before the Council of Ac. 15). (See also Hogg and Vine, p. 7.) But this view still leaves us with the second of the difficulties referred to above, and normally with the third as well. An attempt to explain the second difficulty, the lack of reference to the Jerusalem decrees of Ac. 15, is made by suggesting that Paul’s own actions relating to those decrees, described in Ac. 16, had themselves lent colour to the allegations of his opponents. He had taken care to deliver the decrees to the South Galatian churches, thus causing the churches to conclude that his apostolic authority was subject to that of the Jerusalem leaders. He had also circumcised Timothy, and thus strengthened the circumcision party. Thus, on this view, we account for the expression ‘even if we’ in Gal. 1:8, and for the allegation that he himself preached circumcision (referred to in Gal. 5:11). These two matters, Paul’s authority and the teachings of the circumcision party, are the two main themes of the letter. Yet such a view surely renders the lack of direct reference to the very decrees which had given rise to the misunderstanding, still more inexplicable: particularly when the non-circumcision of Titus is specifically discussed (2:3 ff.). A reference to the incident concerning Timothy would have been inevitable, on this hypothesis. Both difficulties are removed by the belief that the letter was written before the events of Ac. 15 had taken place. It is of interest that Calvin came to this conclusion purely on the internal evidences (see his commentary on 2:1-5), although he did not follow through the implications as to the destination of the letter. The situation then becomes plain. Paul, returning from his first missionary journey to Antioch, finds himself in controversy with the Judaizing teachers from Jerusalem who, we know from Ac. 15:1, visited the city at that time (see also Gal. 2:12). While he is engaged in this very controversy, news reaches him that similar teachers, following hot-foot in his steps, have visited the newly founded churches of his first journey (Ac. 13 and 14), and are succeeding in betraying his work. The result is this letter written white-hot with urgency, and under great emotional stress. The issues which it raises were, a few weeks later, to produce the Council of Jerusalem. If this third view is adopted, it has important results for NT chronology, and for the understanding of the progress of doctrine within the Testament. Galatians becomes the first of the writings of the NT, written in A.D. 48 or 49, less than twenty years after the crucifixion. Following the data in the letter itself, we must then place Paul’s conversion in approximately A.D. 33. The view has other far-reaching results, which cannot be discussed here: one notable difficulty, concerning Paul’s Damascus visit, is referred to in the commentary on 1:18-24. ANALYSIS I INTRODUCTION (1:1-5) II THE OCCASION OF THE LETTER (1:6-9) III THE AUTHORITY OF PAUL AND OF THE GOSPEL HE PREACHED (largely biographical) (1:102:21) IV THE GOSPEL EXPLAINED AND EXEMPLIFIED (largely doctrinal) (3:1-4:31) V THE OUTWORKING OF THE GOSPEL (largely practical) (5:1-6:10) VI CONCLUSION (6:11-18) I. INTRODUCTION (1:1-5) 1, 2 a. From the profound mystery of Deity, the Word had spoken. Such was the certainty which had gripped and inspired the soul of Saul of Tarsus. Within that wonder, lay another: the knowledge that he himself was an instrument of that divine Word. In Jesus, God had appeared: the resurrection had established that fact beyond doubt. Now Saul of Tarsus was the bond-servant and the deputed legate of the Lord Jesus Christ: Paul an apostle, by direct divine appointment. There were men who did not understand it so. They, too, professed the name of Christ—but to them the message which Paul was preaching was a betrayal of the ancient ways of God. Nurtured in the tradition of the ancient covenants, and gripped by the Jewish Law, as the divinely appointed way of life, they could not easily adapt themselves to the thought that these things were now to be laid aside. Moreover, they could claim proud, if strictly unsanctioned, authority: the credentials of Jerusalem, the church of the apostles and of James the brother of the Lord. To them Paul was but an upstart from Antioch of Syria, and they did not hesitate to emphasize it. So Paul takes pains, as he opens his letter, to assert the basis of his authority. Did his opponents claim the authority of men of note? His authority needed no such mediation, but came directly from the God who had spoken decisively in Christ, raising Him from the dead. Yet, even among men, he was not alone. With him were

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the devoted companions the Galatians knew. [Note: from men and by man: the prepositions imply respectively the primary source and the intermediary source of authority.] 2 b. Who, then, were these churches in Galatia? The answer to that question has been discussed in the introduction: this commentary takes them to be the churches founded in South Galatia by Paul on his first missionary journey (Ac. 13 and 14). 3-5. In challenging Paul’s authority the Jewish teachers had an ulterior motive: to discredit the gospel which he preached. So, in his salutation, Paul re-affirms the essentials of the gospel. It was a self-giving for our sins and a deliberate movement of the will of God: a free act of divine grace, unquestionable by man, to which it is an impious presumption to add any further requirement. To emphasize this the transcendence of God is stressed. The will of Him whose glory extends to the aeons of the aeons (for ever and ever) has moved to deliver us from this single evil aeon (the present evil age). The deliverance is His act in which He delighted; a deliverance, as it were, for Himself (on the significance of the use of the middle voice see Vine, Expository Dictionary of NT Words, ‘Deliver ’ 8). If Christ gave Himself, dare we add a further requirement? We must not overlook the importance of this passage at this extremely early stage of Christian teaching. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is already coupled in equality with that of God our Father: a fact the more striking in view of the intense Jewish feeling which surrounded the whole subject matter of this letter. Moreover, His self-giving is for our sins: the redemptive purpose of the death of Christ is already established as the basis of the Gospel in this very early surviving formulation. Here, then, we have the earliest and most essential elements of Christian preaching. II. THE OCCASION OF THE LETTER (1:6-9) Something of the teaching which was brought by the Judaizing teachers to Galatia can be learned from later references in the letter. It accepted the Messiahship of Jesus, but added another requirement to that of faith in Christ: acceptance of the Jewish obedience, particularly as symbolized in circumcision and the keeping of the ethical and ceremonial law (Ac. 15:1; Gal. 3:2, 10; 4:10, 21; 5:2; 6:12, 13). To Paul also it was axiomatic that faith in Christ exercised a radical effect upon conduct (5:19-24). But the place which the Judaizers gave to the law was not, for him, only a different emphasis. It perverted his message, was a different gospel, and other than the one we preached to you: a reversal (metastrepsai, v. 7) of the gospel. The reasons for that antagonism are worked out in detail in the letter. The new teaching was retrograde, a return to bondage (5:1; see Ac. 15:10). Behind it all lay yet a deeper reason. To surrender to the Judaizers was to reduce the way of Christ to merely another of the quarrelling Jewish sects, and inevitably to throttle at birth the universal message of Christ. Paul himself must have realized this: but it was a vision far beyond the horizons of the narrow sectaries of Jerusalem, concerned as they were with the minutiae of observance and with the fear of the only persecution which the Church had yet known (6:12;). The apostle keeps his counsel, but his realization burns in the passion of his words. Here, if ever, was an issue where to hasten slowly, to be insufficiently radical, was to defeat the purposes of God: was to desert the one who called you. [Notes: i. 8. eternally condemned: anathema. ii. 6, 7. a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all: There are different views on the precise sense here, which are reflected in different versions. Was Paul implying that the Judaizers’ message was no gospel at all; or that it was not a different message, but merely a perversion of the true? The difference arises from contrary views of the force of the Greek words heteros and allos taken e.g., by Lightfoot and Ramsay. (The NIV takes the first option.) iii. 8. even if we: Paul’s own divine authority is valid only while his message remains authentic. Cf. Peter (Gal. 2:11). iv. Notice the change from a remote possibility, if we...should preach (8) to a contingency only too really present, if anybody is preaching (9).] III. THE AUTHORITY OF PAUL AND OF THE GOSPEL HE PREACHED (1:10-2:21) 1:10. The AV translated the first question literally: ‘For do I now persuade men, or God?’ By the sheer incongruity of any other reply, this demands the answer ‘men’: but it is felt that this does not conform with the context, and most other translations follow the course of the RSV and translate the Greek word peithō (persuade) by win the approval of or a similar expression (see Ac. 12:20). The question is thus parallel to that which follows: am I trying to please men? The whole verse takes a side-glance at the charge that Paul was watering down his message to win men over—the very charge which he later brings against his opponents (6:12). This rendering of peithō is accurate and well attested. Yet the AV rendering may express a deliberate ambiguity in the original. Paul, reared an ardent Pharisee, had bowed before the unanswerable act of God. What was his opponents’ case? Faced with God’s unquestionable act, they were virtually insisting that God could work in their way, and in no other. So, ironically, Paul may be asking—does he, like his opponents, seek to persuade God to bow to his ideas, or men to bow to God’s? The

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obvious answer is that suggested by the AV—‘men’. The renderings of most other translations, of course, require the answer ‘God’. See 2 C. 5:11; cf. Ac. 17:4. The emphatic ‘now’ would suit this interpretation. Paul, the persecutor, had now bowed to the irresistible act of God (notice also the ‘still’ in the latter part of the verse). [Note: The Gk. places an article (‘the’) before ‘God’, but not before ‘men’. On this Lightfoot draws attention to a similar construction in 4:31 (‘not of a bondwoman’, i.e. of any bondwoman, ‘but of the freewoman’, i.e. of the only lawful spouse), suggesting a similar sense in this passage.] 11-17. Paul now commences the first section of his argument, and develops it until the end of ch. 2. It concerns the basis of his own authority, and therefore that of his message. He sets out to demonstrate his direct dependence upon God for the gospel which he preached: an approach which requires him to avoid both horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, he must show that his teaching was not derived from any human agency: on the other, that it was no idiosyncrasy, but had been acknowledged and recognized by his fellow-apostles. His conversion was the first and most telling evidence in his favour. He can offer the only convincing explanation for that dramatic reversal of the whole tenor of his life: an unveiling (apok alypsis) of Jesus Christ. He emphasises that there was no question of human influence at the sensitive stage immediately following this revelation: he did not consult any man, but retired (into solitude?) to Arabia. This information adds to the knowledge we derive from Ac. 9. The precise time that he was in Arabia is not known, for the three years of v. 18 include the considerable activity in Damascus of which Ac. 9 informs us. What was the revelation by which Paul received the gospel (12)? The other revelation, of v. 16, was centred upon the dramatic experience on the Damascus road (see note ii), but the growth of understanding of the gospel was not necessarily of a supernatural nature. Paul’s own concern is to avoid the allegation of mere human speculation. The careful argument of this letter is evidence enough of the source of the revelation in Paul’s meditations upon the OT. We can deduce some of the passages which were most formative: the story of Abraham, Habakkuk, and the latter part of Isaiah were obviously prominent. Behind and confirming his convictions lay the consciousness of a divine overruling and shaping of his life (15; cf. Jer. 1:5 and Isa. 49:1). [Notes: i. With v. 12 cf. 1 C. 11:23; Eph. 3:2-12; Col. 1:25-29. Contrast 1 C. 15:3 and see Gal. 1:18. There is no contradiction. See Cullmann The Early Church, 1956, art. The Tradition, pp. 59 ff. ii. 16. to reveal his Son in me (en emoi): Other renderings prefer ‘through me’ (i.e. by Paul’s preaching; as Lightfoot), or ‘in my case’ (i.e. in distinction from others; as Hogg and Vine), or ‘to me’ (RSV).] 18-24. The visit to Jerusalem referred to here is also recorded in Ac. 9:23-30. From there we learn that Paul’s introduction to Peter was not easily accomplished, until Barnabas befriended him. Paul adds the following information to that which we gather from Ac.:— i. At Jerusalem ‘the apostles’ to whom Barnabas introduced him (Ac. 9:27) were two in number only (James, although not one of the twelve, fulfilled the requirements of apostleship) (v. 19). ii. Paul indicates that a meeting and consultation (historēsai) with Peter was a definite purpose of his visit to Jerusalem; a purpose on the part of the disciple of Gamaliel which pays eloquent tribute to the intellectual and spiritual capacity of the Galilean fisherman (v. 18). iii. Although Paul ‘went in and out among them at Jerusalem’ (Ac. 9:28), he had not been able to visit the Judean churches (v. 22). iv. Some allege a discrepancy between the fifteen days of v. 18 and the apparently longer period implied by Ac.: but the former period relates explicitly only to the duration of Paul’s actual residence with Peter. In 2 C. 11:32 Paul tells us that his escape from Damascus took place while that city was guarded by a governor of Aretas, king of the Nabateans. On the chronology discussed above, the date of Paul’s escape would be A.D. 35 or 36 (the inclusive mode of reckoning must be borne in mind). For the problems associated with this see the NBD articles Aretas, Chronology of the NT and Paul. Ac. also refers to the retirement to Syria and Cilicia, with the more specific information that Paul returned to his native Tarsus (Ac. 9:29, 30). The name Syria and Cilicia is that of the combined Roman political division, and does not necessarily imply that Paul visited Syria itself, although that is possible. Compare also Ac. 22:17-21, where we learn that the urgency of Paul’s brethren was confirmed in a personal vision. Paul then disappears from the account in Ac. for a period of some ten years, until Barnabas brought him from Tarsus in Cilicia to Antioch in Syria (Ac. 11:25, 26). That they were not years of idleness is shown by references in the other letters. Many of the experiences which Paul describes in 2 C. 11:23-27 may be dated to this period, including the beatific vision of 2 C. 12:2-4. Paul’s evangelization of his home district during this period, clearly implied in Gal. 2:2, would also account for his avoidance of Cilicia on his first missionary journey, when the missionaries travelled to the mainland by way of Barnabas’s native island of Cyprus. Paul’s anxiety to affirm the accuracy of his account (v. 20), indicates how important these facts are to his argument. He is still laying stress on his isolation from influence, other than that of Peter and James. The tacitly suggested unity with those two leaders, on the other hand, could only add strength to his case. [Note: 23. the faith: The use of ‘faith’ as a synonym for the gospel is of course in line with the whole exposition contained in this letter. See Lightfoot in loco.]

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2:1-10. With this section we reach a question which is crucial to the understanding of the place of this letter in the NT story. On which of Paul’s visits to Jerusalem did these incidents take place? The second visit recorded in Ac. appears at Ac. 11:30 and 12:25. The story of Paul’s contacts with Jerusalem and his fellow-apostles is essential to his argument, and we should not therefore expect him to omit any of his visits to Jerusalem. On the face of it, therefore, we have described here incidents of the famine visit of Ac. 11:30 and 12:25. Calvin, indeed, says in his commentary on these verses that ‘on any other supposition, the statements of Paul and Luke cannot be reconciled’. Two difficulties, however, appear. i. First and foremost is the difficulty of chronology. A casual reading of Ac. 12 suggests that the famine visit took place before the death of Herod Agrippa I in A.D. 44. The NIV rendering of Gal. 2:1 suggests that fourteen years elapsed from the first visit of Gal. 1:18: and that was three years after Paul’s conversion. No probable system of chronology could justify this, as Lightfoot saw (Commentary, p. 124) (although it has been suggested that ‘fourteen’ could be a copyist’s error for ‘four’). ii. There are certain apparent similarities between Ac. 15 and this chapter, which have led to a traditional identification of the visit of Gal. 2 with that of Ac. 15 (see p. 1363). Is this dilemma as serious as it appears? Further study suggests that the dilemma does not in fact exist, and that the visit of Gal. 2 is after all the famine visit of Ac. 11:30 and 12:25. i. It is known from Josephus (Antiquities xx. 5. 2) that the famine recorded in Ac. 11:28-30 took place during Roman governorships later than the death of Herod, and the most probable date for the famine visit is A.D. 46. The account of the persecution and of Herod’s death in Ac. 12 is in fact a flashback, picking up the account of what had been happening in Jerusalem while the events of Ac. 11:19-26 were taking place. (See F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, pp. 257 f.) Moreover, the fourteen years of Gal. 2:1 are not necessarily dated from the previous visit at all—it is just as likely that both periods (the three years of 1:18 and the fourteen of 2:1) are dated from the same starting point—Paul’s conversion. Now fourteen years back from A.D. 46 on the old inclusive reckoning would bring us to A.D. 33, a date for Paul’s conversion which is not at all out of the question. ii. The apparent similarities between this account and Ac. 15 tend to disappear on closer examination, and it is the discrepancies which become more obvious. Calvin’s suggestion of irreconcilability was not frivolous. Further support for the identification with the earlier famine visit is afforded by such hint as the passage contains of the situation within the Jerusalem church. By Ac. 15 the eldership had assumed a much more prominent position in the councils of the church than is implied here—a development accounted for by Peter’s (and possibly John’s) travels from Jerusalem in the interval (see v. 11 below). If Gal. 2 does in fact describe events during the visit of Ac. 15 we could not of course maintain that the letter was written before that visit, and the difficulties already described on any other hypothesis would again arise (see introduction). If, on the other hand, we identify Gal. 2:1-10 with the famine visit, all the pieces of the puzzle fall convincingly into place. Indeed, the revelation of v. 2 could be Agabus’s prophecy of Ac. 11:28, although this is not altogether in harmony with the tone of the passage in Gal. It is easier to assume that a personal revelation to Paul, coinciding with Agabus’s prophecy, led him to accept a delegation to a city which he had every reason to avoid. (See a similar combination of events in Ac. 9:30 and 22:18.) We can now return to the main theme of the letter. On this visit two events important to Paul’s argument occurred. First, he laid before the leaders of the church the gospel which he was preaching, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. It is uncertain whether this phrase implies a desire to ensure himself at length of the full fellowship of the Jerusalem leaders in the message committed to him, now that it had been thoroughly tested in practical evangelism in his native province (see Lightfoot in loco); or whether he wished to forestall the undoing of his work by a faction from Jerusalem. In either event, the result for his present argument was similar. Hitherto he had been dealing with one horn of the dilemma, and had emphasized his freedom from human influence. Now he was able to show that his gospel had been acknowledged and recognized by his fellow-apostles. The second event of the visit was unplanned. One of Paul’s companions on his visit was Titus, a Greek, who thus appears as one of the earliest, as he was to be one of the latest, of Paul’s fellow-workers. The question of Titus’s circumcision had been raised, apparently by a group described as false brothers (4). It would seem that the leaders, ‘the men of repute’ (6) (F. F. Bruce—there is nothing necessarily derogatory in the phrase) may have wavered. Paul, who was ready on appropriate occasion to become as a Jew in order to win Jews (1 C. 9: 20), and who would himself later circumcise Timothy, son of a Jewish mother and therefore, in Jewish eyes, himself Jewish (Ac. 16:3), and would himself submit to requirements of Jewish ritual (Ac. 21:20-26), realized that in this demand applied to a Gentile lay the crucial question of the future of the gospel (see commentary on 1: 6-9). Adamantly he had stood his ground, and with the indisputable facts of his own work to support him (7, 8), he had won his point. The very confusion, almost incoherence, of his language in this passage (a phenomenon which recurs in the letter) is evidence of what that struggle had cost him, and of how deeply it stirred him to find

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himself fighting the same battle yet again. Today, looking back at the long history of the Church, we can realize something of the immensity of the issues for which he contended, and can admire again the largeness and penetration of his vision. For the purpose of his present argument, Paul has said enough. One unanswerable fact faced any doubters: the grace given to me. With that evidence of God’s approval Paul, directly authorized by God, had also received the right hand of fellowship from the Jerusalem leaders. From that freedom given by the Jerusalem leaders what great things were to spring! How carefully Paul fulfilled the other part of the agreement, to remember the poor, is apparent from his other letters: was it not indeed the very purpose of this visit to Jerusalem (Ac. 11:29, 30)? [Note: The poorly attested variant reading of v. 5, which omits the negative, is surely incredible. It would require the emphasis in v. 3 to be placed on ‘compelled’: suggesting that Titus was circumcised, but voluntarily as a concession to the weaker consciences.] 11-21. Into the claims of the Judaizers the name of Peter was entering: Peter, who had himself suffered from the antagonism of the circumcision group, and whose experiences at Joppa and Caesarea had made him a natural sympathiser with Paul. What lay behind this? That the incident described in these verses took place some two or three years after the meeting of the preceding verses is probable. Peter had visited Antioch, apparently about the time of the return of Paul and Barnabas from their first missionary journey, only to be followed there by the circumcision party, suspicious of him as ever (see Ac. 15:1). These Judaizers claimed the authority of James (Gal. 2:12), but apparently without justification (Ac. 15:24). The brief unhappy incident which followed rings true to the experience of all who have seen the fruits of the jealous carping scrutiny of men warped by party spirit. Both Peter and Barnabas evoke our sympathy, for an excessive attachment to dogmatic strife on the part of lesser men will always batten upon the more honourable. If malice could drive such as these into prevarication, it behoves us to recognize the spirit of the heresy hunter and to shun it for the plague it is, however orthodox its trimmings. Ac. 15:2 indicates that Barnabas was soon rallied by his stronger companion, while Peter himself took well to heart the comments which Paul had made, taking them up and applying them decisively in Jerusalem soon after (cf. v. 14 with Ac. 15:10). The tenor of Paul’s reference to Barnabas indicates that the latter was known to the Galatian churches—a further indication that they were the churches of the first missionary journey. The historical survey is over, and Paul is able to turn to more congenial matter. Whether the closing verses of the chapter represent the gist of his discussion with Peter, or whether they are added for the purposes of the letter, is of little importance. In them Paul is able to restate the basic gospel, not in terms of the theological exposition which is to follow, but in terms of personal experience. It is clear that Paul’s opponents shared the common position of justification by faith, but the force of the repetition in v. 16 suggests that observing the law (not merely its ceremonial aspects) was added as an additional agent of justification. So Paul repeats his own experience. 16. we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that...: The Greek aorist corresponds to that in 3:6. It was a deliberate and permanent act, arising consciously and from reasoned knowledge: a personal committal to Christ, eis Christon Iēsoun, not a mere mental assent (and can therefore exist in company with a great deal of mental bewilderment or doubt). The third repetition, which closes v. 16, glances back to Ps. 143:2. The expression Gentile sinners in v. 15 ironically picks up the standard Jewish terminology. The verses which follow are confused and have been treated in very different manner by different versions. Sinners (17) appears to refer back to the same word in v. 15. If the gospel made empty the Jews’ privilege of the law, reducing them to the status of Gentiles without the law, was not Christ the agent of their reduction to the status of sinners? Paul was to answer this question in Rom. 3, at a later date, with the bold assertion that ‘there is no distinction’. Here he answers in a manner similar to that in which he will answer the charge of antinomianism (see commentary on 5:1). To attempt to justify myself by the law is to rebuild the very standard of judgment which I by my sin have destroyed, and which itself condemns me (18). In fact, I have received the sentence of death from the law itself: and by that very sentence the law has removed me from its jurisdiction (19). For the sentence of death has been executed—but executed in the body of Christ on the cross (cf. Rom. 7:4). Therefore, if I live now, it can only be by right of Christ, and in freedom from the condemnation of the law. My life can now be nothing but the life of Christ, maintained by the continuation of that once-for-all act of faith in Him (20). Have we here the beginning of that development of Paul’s thought on identification with the body of Christ which later leads to the doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ? Compare the link with the death of Christ as it is expressed in the Lord’s Supper (1 C. 10:15-17). To close the section, Paul turns his opponents’ argument against themselves. They had suggested that his gospel emptied the law of meaning. He shows that their doctrine, retaining the law but adding to it faith in Christ, simply emptied the cross of meaning. Wherein had the death of Christ changed the situation? On this basis the

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cross was a pointless excrescence on the scheme of salvation (21). [Note: Calvin’s commentary on vv. 17-20 is of particular importance and should be consulted.] IV. THE GOSPEL EXPLAINED AND EXEMPLIFIED (3:1-4:31) 3:1-5. The proof of his authority and that of his message is complete, and Paul turns to the positive task of expounding the gospel. The exposition proceeds by the following stages. 3:1-5. 3:6-14. 3:15-24. 3:25-29. 4:1-7.

An appeal to the Galatians’ experience. An appeal to Scripture. The relationship of law and the promise worked out. The f ull achiev ement of the gospel. Recapitulating with a history of redemption.

The argument from experience is simple and effective. The gospel had work ed: their own senses saw its evidence (hence the ‘senseless’ Galatians and the ‘bewitchment’ of v. 1). The Holy Spirit was an obvious possession of the new converts, without the outward tokens of the law. It is the same argument that had carried the day for Peter after Cornelius’s conversion (Ac. 11:17), and which he was to use as effectively at Jerusalem (Ac. 15:8, 9). In passing, we might acknowledge the insight which this argument gives into the life of those churches, and ask ourselves whether it would be as effective in our own churches today. The miracles (5) would probably have included those supernatural evidences of the Spirit which were common in the early churches (see Ac. 14 in relation to the S. Galatian churches). Yet no stress is laid upon such manifestations elsewhere in this letter: rather the working of the Spirit is seen in moral qualities (5:16-24), and the word here undoubtedly includes the patent moral transformation of many of the converts. Calvin applies it to ‘the grace of regeneration, which is common to all believers’. The gift of the Spirit is the continuous work of the Head of the Church: the Greek implies liberality (v. 5). [Note: 1. clearly portrayed: The sense is ‘placarded up, as on a public poster’.] 6-9. For his argument from Scripture, Paul goes directly to a verse which had unlocked for him a new understanding of the OT. In following the apostle’s exposition here and in Rom., a sympathetic mind can picture the OT blazing with a new light to him: there is little wonder that he spoke of that vision as a revelation from God, or that it has brought to birth a similar light in many a later soul. Yet the quotation in v. 6 was not unfamiliar in current Jewish exegesis. It is taken from a passage in Genesis (15:6) where, interestingly enough, Abraham’s faith was at a low ebb (Gen. 15:2, 3). At such a moment, God had seen the movement of faith in Abraham’s soul, and treasured it the more for the weakness from which it sprang. Abraham, in his weakness, became ‘the model man of justification by faith’ (Principal D. Brown): heir to a promise embracing all nations. The promise to Abraham had been threefold: a promise of descendants, of blessing to all nations, and of the land for an inheritance. In the second aspect, germane to the apostle’s immediate purpose, he sees the essence of the gospel (8). The blessing carried within it the promise of the Christ; but its scope made baseless the Judaizers’ attempt to limit it. The aspect of the seed is taken up in startling manner later in this same chapter, as in the parallel passage in Rom. 4:16-25, and the promise of the Christ is found yet more explicitly in that aspect. The aspect of the land is merely hinted at in v. 18 of this chapter, but appears in Rom. 4:13. To Paul and his Christian contemporaries its meaning could only be spiritual, a point made explicit by the writer to the Hebrews (Heb. 11:8-10, 16). The land was the temporal and material background to the mighty acts of redemption of which the whole promise spoke: but in Rom. 4:13 it becomes ‘the world’, while in the vision of the Apocalypse ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ is seen as an essential part of the ultimate state (Rev. 21:1). For, in man’s redemption, the redemption of man’s environment also is comprised (Rom. 8:19-23): while even in his redemption, man remains man, not aspiring to godhead, but limited still to appointed bounds (cf. Ac. 17:26) and maintained by the free grace of God. 10-14. The previous section contained the positive testimony of scripture to faith: this section contains the negative testimony to the law. First, the law on its principle of strict recompense cannot in the nature of things bless, but only curse. Second, Habakkuk had spoken of living on the principle of faith (Hab. 2:4—the original Hebrew had the sense of faithful endurance, but the context includes the Pauline sense, cf. Hab. 3:17-19): a principle which clearly excluded the legal principle of strict recompense. Then, by a daring use of the Deuteronomic curse on the hanged man (Dt. 21:23)—a curse much quoted by those Jews who rejected Christ—Paul reverts again to the thought of 2:20. There, the capital condemnation of the law on the sinner had been executed, but executed in the body of Christ. Here it is the curse on the sinner which is taken and absorbed on the cross. There the sinner, dead to the law, was alive to God: here, free from the curse, he is open to the promised blessing. That blessing is identified with the experience of the Spirit to which Paul has already appealed. [Note: It is of interest to notice that Paul also quoted from Habakkuk in his address at Pisidian Antioch, Ac. 13:41.] 15-18. At the next stage of his exposition, Paul turns to consider the true relationship between law and the promise. In an argument similar to that of Rom. 4, but with a significant difference, he argues from the priority of

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the promise. It is unthinkable that God should qualify a free promise by a condition imposed unilaterally, centuries later: still less is it possible that the condition should be such as virtually to nullify the promise, changing a free gift into something to be ‘earned’ by conformity to a law beyond man’s capacity. The reference to the inheritance (18) picks up the fact that the solemn ratification of the promise (see v. 17) in Gen. 15 related particularly to that aspect of the promise which concerned the land. In some versions covenant (v. 15) is rendered ‘will’, which causes an unnecessary difficulty by importing inappropriate associations with death (as Heb. 9:16, 17). The most helpful modern equivalent is that suggested by F. F. Bruce; a settlement of property (the purist would prefer an irrevocable settlement). Ramsay explains the passage by reference to Greek law by which members of a family only might inherit: to benefit a stranger in blood it was therefore necessary to adopt him into the family, the act of adoption itself being both irrevocable and constituting the title to the inheritance. Verse 16 is a parenthesis, but contains an important thought. The word ‘seed’ obscures the force of the original, for the original was a collective noun which would have been inappropriate in the plural. The argument is directed not so much to the distinction between singular and plural, as to emphasizing that a collective noun might equally have a purely singular meaning: in effect, that God deliberately used a word not normally used in the plural. Hence the word, apparently comprising the whole nation, is seen to have a deeper meaning referring to the single seed—Christ. The NEB reproduces the sense ingeniously by using the word ‘issue’ (RSV ‘offspring’). There also lies behind the verse the thought of the one seed chosen out of many as the true seed: Calvin pointing out the narrowing of the line of promise from the first generation of Abraham’s descendants. We have here, then, another pointer to that corporate capacity of our Lord which was implicit in His own use of the title Son of Man, and is related so closely to the doctrine of the Church as the body of Christ. [Note: 17. 430 years: From the LXX of Exod. 12:40.] 19-22. The argument from priority was particularly powerful to the Jewish mind (cf. Jn 1:30), but it raised an important question. What, then, was the purpose of the law?: The answer given is that the fulfilment of the promise would be dangerous until man has learned his own sinnership, and is prepared thus to welcome the Saviour-seed, in whom alone the promise is secure and mankind can find wholeness and unity (Col. 2:10); the offspring in whom the whole offspring would be one. because of transgressions thus has the sense of ‘to reveal’ rather than ‘to curb’ transgressions (see 1. Tim. 1:8-11). Verse 20 has attracted a vast number of interpretations: it is probable that the meaning is that the law, needing a mediator (which implies the existence of two parties), cannot be stronger than the weaker of those two parties, namely man. The promise, however, rests upon God alone and is unbreakable. It may be possible, however, that Paul is answering an objection unknown to us, so that the full significance of the words is lost. V . 21 reads as if intended to be a part of the argument, while the interpretation just given reads it as a fresh start in the argument. The opposition might have argued on these lines: the law was the product of mediation, implying a conflict. God was one; a gift implies no conflict. Was the conflict then between the promise on the one hand and the law, the righteousness of God, on the other? For then it was the law which was manifestly triumphant, and Paul’s argument from priority is turned back on himself. Whatever lies behind vv. 20 and 21, Paul’s reply is the same. If the law had been triumphant, then the cross of Christ would have been unnecessary: righteousness would certainly have come by the law (21). As this was manifestly not so, then the law was a stage in God’s purposes, preparatory to the full promise through faith in Jesus Christ (22). (For the Scripture see Rom. 3:10-18.) 23-29. So Paul triumphantly sums up the full achievement of the gospel. The law was the essential forerunner to faith: now, in Christ, the full freedom of the gospel’s achievement stands revealed. Here is a new relationship to God and man, transforming every possible social relationship. Verse 27 is important (and cf. Rom. 13:14). Baptism is a ‘putting on’ of Christ, a ‘clothing oneself’ with Christ (the middle voice implying a conscious and responsible act). The sign is spoken of as comprising the underlying reality which it symbolizes (cf. Gal. 2:20 with Rom. 6:3-11). Because it is a self-clothing with the one Christ, it is also a becoming-one-in-Christ on the part of all who share the experience. Thus it is a symbol of the miracle by which the single offspring can resume its collective sense. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. [Note: 24, 25. put in charge (paidagōgos): Not ‘teacher’ (‘schoolmaster’ as AV), but rather ‘supervisor and moral trainer’.] 4:1-7. In this section the story of the gospel is recapitulated in terms of simple soul-experience, and thus the eyes of the Galatians are turned (in preparation for the appeals which follow) from doctrinal disputation to their fulness in Christ. We may prefer to see the individual’s experience in this description; or (with Calvin) the generic experience under the old and new covenants. Both are valid applications. Verse 3 presents a difficulty (the basic principles of the world). The RSV translation ‘the elemental spirits of the universe’ introduces a Colossian nuance which is foreign to the atmosphere of this letter. The argument has previously remained entirely within a Jewish and OT context, and it is startling to assume that Paul equates

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these with the demonic powers of the stars which were then prominent in popular superstition, and are implied in the RSV rendering. The same problem arises in v. 9. Possibly the expression is deliberately ambiguous, hinting at the bondage of a materialistic Jewish rite, at current superstitions, and also at the persistent survivals of the ancient Anatolian religion, corruptly harnessing the most elemental instincts of life, which the Galatians would know so well. In contrast, see the grace of God in Christ!—born of a woman (but what a contrast to the corrupt religion of the goddess-mother), born under law (but He who came to deliver us from the slavery of the law). Here the Son of God comes to stand where we stand, that He might shoulder our curse, and raise us from out of it to the full rights of sons. [Notes: i. 4. sent (exapesteilen): ‘Sent forth from out of’. Precisely the same word is used in v. 6 of the Spirit. ii. 5. full rights: See commentary on 3:15 above. iii. Note the transition: v. 5 ‘we’, v. 6 ‘you’ (plural), v. 7 ‘you’ (singular).] 8-11. The doctrinal explanation of the gospel is now followed by a number of appeals to the Galatians. The first appeal is to the contrast between their old standing and their new. The passage again hints at the mixed Jewish and Gentile background of the Galatians (see commentary on v. 3), and harmonizes well with the account in Ac. 13 and 14 of the S. Galatian churches. That account also demonstrates that the detailed argument of the letter from the OT scriptures would not be unfamiliar ground even to the Gentile converts among them: it was precisely that familiarity which had smoothed the path of the Judaizers. Notice the careful correction in v. 9, pointing again to Paul’s intense consciousness of the sovereign act of God in the Gospel, and illuminating his sense of the impious nature of the Judaizers’ rejection of that act. [Note: 9. over again: Anōthen (as Jn 3:3).] 12-20. The second appeal is personal, and presents us with an insight into the warm heart of the apostle, and his intense self-identification with those whom he sought (cf. 1 C. 9:19-23). Ac. does not mention the ailment which had led to Paul’s first visit to Galatia (vv. 13-15): v. 15 might suggest a disfiguring ailment of the eyes, but this is mere speculation, and not a necessary meaning of the verse. Why should this incident have so impressed the Galatians? Did Paul make for the Roman colonia of Antioch to seek medical attention for his complaint? It is tempting to allow speculation to run on. There was one of Paul’s later companions whose knowledge of that district was so intimate as to suggest a resident’s acquaintance, and that companion was Luke, ‘our dear friend the doctor’ (Col. 4:14) (see Ramsay, Historical Commentary on the Galatians, pp. 205 f., 209, 215 ff., Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the NT, ch. 3). It was Luke who could give such a detailed account of Paul’s first visit to Pisidian Antioch (Ac. 13), and who joined Paul’s party on the second missionary journey at Troas, not long after he had passed through the same district (see the ‘we’ in Ac. 16:6-11). The self-effacing spirit of the author of Acts would then be sufficient explanation for the absence of reference to the illness in that narrative. But fancy is an unprofitable guide: moreover, tradition makes Luke a citizen of the Syrian Antioch, and Ramsay had yet another theory. Verses 17 and 18 are obscure, but suggest that the Judaizers had used both flattery and threats of excommunication in their discussions with the Galatians (but see F. F. Bruce ‘they simply want to cut you off from any contact with me...’). The closing verses of the paragraph are remarkable for the expression until Christ is formed in you, carrying still further the intense sense of the union of the risen Christ with His own which we have already remarked in the letter. What an indication they also give of Paul’s personal involvement with the spiritual struggles of his converts! [Notes: i. 13. first: The Gk. might suggest that there had been two visits to the Galatians (see Ac. 14:21). This is not essential in k oinē usage (see NEB text and footnote). ii. 14. Lit. ‘your affliction in my flesh’.] 21-31. The third appeal is made by way of allegory. This type of argument is uncongenial to the modern mind, but Paul is meeting on its own ground the method of debate which was urged against him by his opponents. Lest any might be tempted to slip too easily into this mode of eis egesis, it is well to observe that the apostle makes use of allegory only in relation to doctrine which he has already established by careful ex egesis! ‘Imagination and ingenuity are poor substitutes for apostolic authority’ (Hogg and Vine, p. 220). The passage contains two points of importance, in addition to its obvious teaching. First, the apparently incidental quotation from Isa. 54:1 (v. 27) is another sign of the influence exercised upon the formation of Paul’s understanding of the gospel by the latter part of that prophecy. This type of quotation is often of more significance in establishing such influence than the quotation of an obvious ‘proof text’. Second, this allegory marks a transition in the thought of the letter. Hitherto the contrast has been between law on the one hand and faith and the promise on the other. The letter now passes over into the contrast which had been hinted at in 3:2, 3, between flesh and the Spirit. Lightfoot remarked that Paul’s confident application of Scripture in v. 30 is a striking tribute to his prophetic insight: at that time it was, to human eyes, far from certain that the old Jewish system would be cast out from its inheritance.

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V. THE OUTWORKING OF THE GOSPEL (5:1-6:10) 5:1. This verse stands equally as the conclusion of what has gone before (some in fact attach part of it to the previous sentence), or as the commencement of the practical application which follows. It strikes the keynote of the letter. ‘The controversy relates to the liberty of conscience, when placed before the tribunal of God’ (Calvin). As Paul turns to the practical outworking of the doctrine he has expounded, he faces the worst misunderstanding of all: that of antinomianism, the idea that freedom from the law was freedom to disregard its precepts, and therefore to sin at will. Paul’s answer is bound up with two important features of his previous teaching. First, the new life of the believer is not his own life at all, but rather the life of Christ in him. So Paul had earlier replied to those who accused him of making Christ promote sin (2:17): far from reducing Jews to the status of Gentile sinners, Christ had lifted both Jew and Gentile alike to an entirely new plane. Both alike had died with Him and now lived in His new life (see 2:20 and 4:19). Developing this thought, he now shows that the freedom of Christ is not freedom for wilful thoughts and desires: paradoxically, that is the worst bondage of all, bondage to the flesh (the ‘sinful nature’). Rather, it is the holy freedom of Christ Himself becoming my own freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (It is noticeable that the verse contains no definite article before yoke: it is a yoke of slavery, and thus as applicable to the slavery of the flesh as to the bondage of Mount Sinai). Second, the result of faith is the enduement of the Spirit and the Spirit is the antithesis of the flesh (3:2, 3). The result of faith is not a theoretical or forensic change in its subject, but rather the practical and continuing ministration of the Spirit from the Source of all life (3:5). Where the Spirit reigns, the flesh cannot have the pre-eminence. This is developed in vv. 16-25 below. 2-12. First, there must be a warning. There could, at this point in history, be no compromise with those who would strangle the gospel of Christ in its cradle: nor, for its part, could the law demand other than total obedience. In evaluating vv. 2-5 we must remember this, and also that Paul himself circumcised Timothy (Ac. 16:3). It is not circumcision as an act which is in view (as v. 6 shows), but rather circumcision entered into as a deliberate commitment to the Jewish rite, or as relying on its efficacy for salvation. Verse 6 contains an equation which is of profound importance. It is the reality which matters, not the form; and faith, when worked out into practical and tangible reality, equals love. The parallel passage in 1 C. 7:18, 19 substitutes for faith expressing itself through love the words ‘keeping the commandments of God’. Is this to contradict the teaching of Galatians, and to reinstate the law upon its throne? Far from it, for Paul is to claim in v. 14 of this chapter also that the entire law is summed up in love (see commentary below). Rather, it is the first sign of a remarkable turn in the argument, which we will find made explicit in the next section of this chapter, and which finds the law and faith ranged on the same side in this new battle against the flesh and the antinomian heresy which is its fruit. Both passages must be read in the light of Rom. 13:8-10 and of 1 C. 13 (where the trinity of faith, hope and love which is contained in vv. 5, 6 of this chapter is developed in classic form). The confused and staccato conclusion to the paragraph, from v. 7, betrays the intense emotion under which the apostle wrote: small wonder, when even his own words were twisted against him (11)! Yet his touching confidence in his converts (10), and his sense of tragedy in their lapse (7), both reveal the warmth of his heart and explain the roughness of his denunciation of the false teacher or teachers. The passage ends with a mocking reference to circumcision (cf. Phil. 3:2) (but a reference to excommunication might be implied—see F. F. Bruce and W. M. Ramsay in loco) and the NIV hints at the play on words between the Gk. for cut in on you (enk optō) (7) and emasculate (apok optō) (12). Hogg and Vine link the verse with 4:17 ‘they want to shut you out’, but a different Gk. word (ek k leiō) is used there. [Note: 11. the offense of the cross: The Gk. for ‘offense’ is sk andalon, as 1 C. 1:23, and hence the phrase ‘the scandal of the cross’.] 13-15. Paul now turns to the first part of his reply to the antinomians (see commentary on 5:1). Paradox as that first reply was, it finds its expression in two further paradoxes, both products of the alchemy of love. True freedom finds its fulfilment in slavery—the slavery of love (13). Serve one another stands in emphatic contrast to the yoke of slavery of v. 1: cf. Mt. 20:26-28. Second, the equation of faith with love is further developed, as we anticipated in v. 6; and in love, the outworking of faith, the law finds its complete fulfilment (14). So, by a turn in the argument which is the achievement of inspired genius, faith and the law are seen no longer as antagonists, but as allies. It is a turn of thought for which the transition from the opposition of faith and law to that of flesh and Spirit had cleared the way (see commentary on 4:21-31). Something of a calmer frame asserts itself in the mind of the apostle, evidenced by the hint of wry humour in v. 15. [Note: 13. indulge: Aphormē, a base of operations in war.] 16-25. The second part of the answer to the antinomian perversion of Paul’s teaching is now developed. The answer lies in the place of the Spirit in justification by faith. The reception of the Spirit had been seen in 3:1-5 as the proof of the truth of Paul’s teaching. Now it is seen as its ultimate justification in experience. Hence there is a leap in his thought. The flesh (the sinful nature) appears in an altogether grosser sense

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than hitherto, while the conflict between faith and the law which has been resolved in the preceding section can be dismissed with a side glance (18). ‘Works’ are now seen as an essential part of the gospel of faith, but they are works expressing themselves as the inevitable fruit of salvation and of the reception of the Spirit, not works as forming a painful pathway to a salvation which it is beyond man’s power to win. Hence the apostle does not in fact use the word ‘works’ specifically: there are evil acts of the flesh (19), but the virtues are fruit of the Spirit (22). Where such works exist, the Law is irrelevant: against such things there is no law. Thus there appears in embryo a theme which is later to be developed in the Roman letter: the conflict between flesh and the Spirit (Rom. 7). In this letter there is no scope for argument as to whether the conflict exists in preor post-conversion experience, and debate over the passage in Rom. would have been avoided if more attention had been paid to its germ in this letter. It may be theologically inconvenient to be told that the convert is still liable to fulfil the desires of the flesh (or ‘sinful nature’) (v. 16 and 6:1), and in the same context that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God, but it happens to accord with experience. (For the kingdom of God see also Rom. 14:17.) It is noteworthy that the essential fruits and signs of the Spirit recorded in vv. 22, 23 include none of the ecstatic charismata with which they are so often identified (see commentary on 3:5). Beyond this, comment on these verses is superfluous. They stand with their peers in Christian ideal: Phil. 4:8; Jas 3:17; 2 Pet. 1:5-7; Rom. 5:3-5. (The evil list of vv. 19-21 also has its parallels: Rom. 1:29-31; 3:10-18; 1 C. 6:9-10; 2 C. 12:20.) Verses 24, 25 indicate respectively profession and practice. [Notes: i. 17. so that you do not do what you want: This could be read in two ways:— (a) ‘to prevent you from doing the evil things which you would otherwise wish to do’, or (b) ‘to prevent you from doing the good things which your conscience prompts you to do’. Hogg and Vine prefer the former, placing the words they are in conflict with each other in parentheses. The majority of opinion is, however, against them, as surely is the context. ii. 18. not under law: Calvin distinguishes between the directing capacity of the law and the penalty of the law. Its directing capacity remains, but grace frees us from the penalty. iii. 24. crucified the sinful nature: Compare and contrast the similar metaphors in 2:20 (‘I have been crucified with Christ’) and 6:14 (‘the world has been crucified to me’).] 5:26-6:10. These verses are their own commentary, in their essential simplicity and practicality. We might be in a different world from the stormy atmosphere of conflict which had provoked the letter. As in all his letters, Paul the pastor asserts himself over every other capacity. Here are the gentle and humane rules which are to regulate inter-personal relations. The absence of self-centredness, of pre-occupation with my own dignity and standing, is to be balanced by that true concern which places myself in the position of another, and acts to that other as I would then wish others to act towards myself (5:26-6:2). Yet this forgetfulness of self, this unselfconscious thought for others, can be expected only of one who has learned to live with himself; to accept his own abilities and calling, and the niche in which his own inherent gifts must place him. Only in this way can a man attain the quiet assurance and confidence of a responsibility taken and conscientiously fulfilled (6:3-5). Finally, there is the emphasis on generosity and unselfish stewardship of material possessions. Ranging from the needs of teachers (6) (not only visiting teachers, such as the apostles, but where necessary and appropriate the needs of local teachers such as the elders of Ac. 14:23 in these same churches), Christian concern is to reach to the whole family of believers, and then to all people (10). It is significant that the exhortation on sowing and reaping appears in the centre of this passage, flanked on both sides by instructions of practical kindness and well doing towards our needy fellows. We cannot limit its significance to this one aspect of Christian living, but, set as it is, it binds the ‘sowing to the Spirit’ inseparably and for ever with the practical expression of Christian mercy and kindliness. In this context, then, the expression his sinful nature (8) is doubly significant: this is not merely ‘flesh’ in the general sense, but also in the specific sense of self-indulgence in the face of others’ needs. [Notes: i. The warmth of the brothers in v. 1 is particularly pertinent to the letter. Cf. 4:12-20; 5:7-12. ii. 1. you who are spiritual (hymeis hoi pneumatik oi) refers not to any special order of ‘spiritual men’ (‘pneumatics’), but potentially to any believer who is fulfilling 5:25. iii. 2. the law of Christ: See commentary on 5:13-15, and cf. Jas 2:8. iv. The AV introduces an unnecessary difficulty in vv. 2, 5, by translating two different Gk. words by burden (the NIV has burden and load respectively). The verses have in mind, respectively, oppressive trials or difficulties (v. 2), and due responsibilities (v. 5). v. 7. mocked: A striking word meaning ‘to turn up the nose at’: vividly, ‘to cock a snook’.] VI. CONCLUSION (6:11-18) The argument is over, and the apostle takes the pen from his amanuensis to add a few final paragraphs in his own large letters (were these for emphasis, or because of impaired eyesight, see 4:12-15, or is it simply a humorous reference to an idiosyncrasy?). Something of the pain of the conflict creeps back into his mind (12-13)

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only to provoke an inspired outburst of loyalty which will live for ever in Christian hymn (14). Paul closes by reverting again to that irresistible and sovereign act of God which had transformed his life, and the life of a world beside: neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. What is the Israel of God (16)? That it is only a faithful remnant of the natural Israel is surely out of harmony with the letter: although it might be a generalized and non-exclusive reference to those Hebrews who, like Paul himself, had obeyed the truth in Christ. Is it, then, the Church? Potentially, perhaps. Yet the concept of the universal Church, however it arose in the churches at large, is as yet future in Paul’s own thought, to be developed from germs of thought such as those which we have traced in this letter, and not to reach full maturity until the Ephesian and Colossian letters of the closing years of his life (see Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, chs. 7-9, esp. p. 148). Nor does Paul use the term elsewhere of the Church. Who, then, constitute the Israel of God? The apostle himself supplies the answer—all who follow this rule: those who, by sharing the faith of Abraham, have become the sons of Abraham. We can have no closer definition. So we leave the apostle with the only glory he desired: on his body the stigmata (brandmarks) of Jesus. The debt which, under God, we and human history owe to him for his almost solitary vision we can only begin to understand. BIBLIOGRAPHY BARRETT , C. K., Freedom and Obligation (London, 1985). BETZ, H. D., Galatians. Hermeneia (Philadelphia, 1979). BRUCE, F. F., The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Exeter, 1982). BURTON, E. D., The Epistle to the Galatians. ICC (Edinburgh, 1921). CALVIN, J., Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (Pringle’s translation, Edinburgh, 1854). COLE, R. A., The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. TNTC (London, 1965). DUNCAN, G. S., The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. MNT (London, 1934). GUTHRIE, D., Galatians. NCentB (London, 1969). HOGG, C. F., and V INE, W . E., The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians (London, 1922). HUNTER, A. M., Galatians. Laymen’s Bible Commentaries (London, 1959). LAKE, K., The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul (London, 1911). LIGHTFOOT , J. B., Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (London, 1865; 1896 edn. quoted). LUTHER, M., Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Middleton’s edition, repr. London, 1953). RAMSAY, W . M., A Historical Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (London, 1899). RIDDERBOS, H., St Paul’s Epistle to the Churches of Galatia. NICNT (Grand Rapids, 1953). ROPES, J. H., The Singular Problem of the Epistle to the Galatians (Cambridge, Mass., 1929). STOTT , J. R. W ., The Message of Galatians (London, 1968).