Read an Excerpt

The Letter to the GALATIANS

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Chapter One

Complete Galatians PL 117

The Argument

To begin with, we should take a look at the introduction to this Epistle and find out why the Galatians bear the name they do. When the Greek province of Rex Bithynia was at war with its enemies, it sent a message to the Gauls who were living near the sea. It promised them that if they were to come to their aid, they would, having made a war pact and secured victory, then share the kingdom with them. When they did come and so achieved victory, they shared the kingdom with them just as promised. At first they were known as the Gallo-Greeks, thus Gauls and Greeks mixed. Part of the kingdom that they held was indeed called Gallo-Greece, for they were Gauls abiding in Greece. Later, however, as some scholars think, they were called Galatians on account of their white bodies, for in Greek the word gala means "milk." This is why the white zone in the sky, which in Latin is called the Milky Way, is known as the galaxias in Greek, as Martianus has claimed. Although they are the bravest of warriors, they are still foolish and prone to change their minds. Consequently, after they received the Apostle's word of preaching and he had taken leave of them in order to go on to others, they were then led astray by false apostles and Jews, who wanted them to abide by circumcision and legalistic sacrifices. For these people told them, "Although you are baptized and believe in Christ, you still cannot be saved through Christ's passion unless you are circumcised and offer up the sacrifices prescribed by the Law." When the Apostle heard these claims, he wrote this Epistle to them from Ephesus.

Chapter One

Paul's Apostleship

v. 1 Paul. He places his name at the head of all his epistles in order to indicate his authority, just as kings and princes are accustomed to doing these days. Apostle. This title of honor is Greek, although some say that it is Hebrew. There are four sorts of apostles. First, there is the one who is neither by human beings nor through a human being but from God alone. Among this sort were Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a great many other prophets, but not all were prophets. This type included even apostles sent by Christ, the man who, while a human being, was still true God. The second is certainly from God but through a human being, such as Joshua, who, by God's will, was sent through Moses (Josh 1:7). There are many others who, again in keeping with God's will, were chosen through popular election on account of their meritorious life. In these instances, therefore, the will of God and the will of the people coincide. The third sort is by human beings alone and not by God, as when some are chosen based upon the favor they have won with people rather than their upright conduct. Or there are those who pay to take another's place in the priestly ranks, of whom Saint Ambrose said, "O bishop, you surely would not be a bishop today if you had not paid a hundred gold coins!" The book of Kings states that in the time of Jeroboam, "Whoever filled his hand with gifts became a priest of the idols" (1 Kings 13:33). Such people must be counted among those of whom the Lord speaks through the prophet, "They were coming, and I was not sending them" (Jer 23:32). All those who have come this way are nothing but thieves and robbers. The fourth sort derives neither from God nor human beings but is self-appointed. These are the false prophets and pseudo-apostles who say, "The Lord says these things," when in fact the Lord had not sent them. We ought to bear in mind that among the prophets themselves some are of such great dignity that they are both prophets and apostles, such as Moses, Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the apostles themselves. Some, however, are only prophets.

Among the Galatians there were certain Jews who were saying that Saint Paul was not a true apostle of Christ, nor even a teacher of truth, since he had not been called and instructed by Christ as the other apostles had been. Thus the Apostle, wishing to establish the Galatians in his teaching and prove himself a true apostle and preacher of Christ, said that he did not receive his instruction and appointment from any mortal human being here on earth but rather from Almighty God in heaven. However, in doing so he did not deny Christ's true humanity but rather affirmed what he had accomplished in his immortal state. For the one who taught Peter by way of his presence on earth while still mortal later taught Paul from heaven as one now immortal. This is why Paul says, I was appointed neither by human beings as Matthias was chosen through lots by the apostles (Acts 1:26), nor through a human being, that is, one now mortal, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father because the operation of the Father and the Son is singular. To demonstrate that those two persons are of one dignity, the Apostle Paul placed the Person of God the Son before the Person of God the Father and at the same time destroyed the heresy of the Arians, who claim that the Son is a creature and thus less than the Father. Who raised him from the dead. God the Father raised his Son from the dead on the third day, and the Son raised himself by the power of the Word by which he was assumed.

v. 2 And who are all brothers and sisters with me. This refers to all fellow disciples and believers who hold the same opinion regarding circumcision. Why does the Apostle name some of his disciples in other epistles while here he mentions no one specifically but instead groups them all generally? Perhaps he did it so that this epistle would be of greater authority. Or he may have done it to express the suffering they were all feeling over the seduction of the Galatians and the agreement that they should not be circumcised nor offer sacrifices prescribed by the Law. Why is it that in this epistle he makes no mention of bishops, priests, and deacons, as he does in his other epistles? It is because they had no bishops nor any other leaders; and that is why they could be led astray so easily.

There Is Not Another Gospel

vv. 3-5 Grace and peace be with you by means of which we are reconciled to the Lord, who handed himself over to death for our sins, so that he might rescue us from the present evil age. An age is so called because of sequence, for it is always sequential and returns to itself. An age, therefore, cannot really be evil or bad since it always preserves its order and course in keeping with God's due arrangement with alternating days and nights. Yet just as a home is called evil, not because it is evil in and of itself but rather because it has wicked inhabitants, so an age or a time is called evil, not because it is evil in and of itself but because it contains the lowest and most wicked people in it. The Apostle aptly adds, according to the will of God the Father because it was the will of God the Father that the Son should restore the human race through his passion. Amen. The word Amen is Hebrew and is the confirmation of the epistle. Amen means "truly" or "earnestly," and "let it be."

v. 6 I am astonished that you are transferred so quickly. The Apostle says that he is astonished how mere words could have seduced them so quickly from the truth of the Gospel, thereby driving them from freedom into servitude. He marvels that they could be driven from the Gospel of Christ that he handed down to them and be changed and transferred to another gospel, that is, to another teaching. Not that there is another, referring to the Gospel for the sake of which I have preached. Gospel means "good tidings," and if there is some teaching that the Lord did not give through him or someone else, then it cannot be called the Gospel but error. You are transferred, which is to say, seduced or led away from him, namely, from God the Father, who called you in grace. In other words, he called them into the remission of sins that God the Father freely granted us, whether through the passion of his Son or through baptism, into another Gospel.

v. 7 There is not another Gospel except for Christ's. In keeping with the tradition and teaching of Jews the Galatians were saying that one should observe circumcision and the rest of the rites that the Law prescribes in the mysteries. Yet that practice proves to be erroneous after Christ has come. Except there are means that there are some who are creating trouble for you, that is, they are pushing you away from the rectitude of faith. And they wish to alter, meaning they want to change the Gospel of Christ from spiritual things to the fleshly. They are unable to do this, however, for it is unshakable and true. Indeed, if the Gospel were to be changed, it would no longer be the Gospel. Therefore, while there are some people who can be moved away from the rectitude of the Gospel, the Gospel itself remains forever unchangeable.

v. 8 But even if we, meaning the apostles of Christ, Peter, and the others, or an angel from heaven, Michael or Gabriel, were to proclaim a Gospel to you other than this Gospel, let them be accursed [anathema]. The word anathema has various meanings. Sometimes it refers to being killed, as when the Apostle says elsewhere, "I wished that I myself might be anathema for the sake of my brothers and sisters" (Rom 9:3). It is as if he were to say, "I desired to be killed bodily for their sake." At other times it can be taken to mean a curse, as found in the canons: If people were to do this or that, let them be anathema, meaning let them be accursed. Elsewhere it refers to being separated [from the Church], as it does here.

v. 9 Just as I have preached refers to when I was present, although I am now absent. Or just as I preached a little earlier in the preceding verse, so now I say again to you, [if people preach to you a Gospel] other than what you received, namely, from me [let them be accursed].

v. 10 Am I now persuading human beings or God? The sense of this is as follows. Do I persuade? That is, am I presently exhorting human beings to believe in Christ and to persevere in his faith, or am I persuading God to do something new by which all things past and future are made clear? The Apostle was persuading human beings to believe in Christ but surely not persuading God to do something new. He would be persuading God to do something new if he were the first to destroy circumcision. Yet because Christ annulled circumcision by fulfilling the Law, we see that the Apostle was not really persuading God. Instead, he was explaining that he pointed out what the Galatians ought to observe.

If I were still seeking to please human beings, which is to say, if I were trying to please Jews from whom I am descended by remaining in Judaism, or were trying to please evil people, namely, heretics, then I would not be a servant of Christ. All preachers should pay attention to this so that they might strive to make Christ and his preaching pleasing to their audience rather than to themselves. If both things happen, such that God and the preacher are both esteemed, that is all to the good. But if Christ does not please them, neither should preachers make themselves pleasing to them.

Defense of Apostleship

v. 11 I make known to you, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel proclaimed by me, that is, preached and proven, is not according to a human being. In other words, it does not belong to the tradition of the scribes and Pharisees. Any gospel that is said to be of human origin is no gospel at all. Every human is a liar, and whatever truth is found in humans is not from them but derives from God who works through them (Rom 3:4).

v. 12 Nor did I receive it from a human being, that is, from any of the other apostles. If Paul received it from the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, then it was immortal. There is a difference between receiving and learning the Gospel. When someone receives the Gospel as it is first conveyed, that person receives the Gospel's faith. A person learns, however, when one manages to penetrate those things contained within it, what the Lord has offered in enigmas and parables, whether one does so by way of divine revelation or human instruction. But through the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is to say that I have learned the Gospel by way of manifestation. What revelation is the Apostle speaking about? The Church's teachers tell us that Paul learned the fullness of evangelical teaching during that three-day period when the Holy Spirit was revealing it to him. When he remained in Damascus for three days, he saw neither the light of the sun nor day, and took neither food nor drink (Acts 9:8-9). Or perhaps he received it at that time when, as he himself says, he was in the temple one day caught up in a state of ecstasy (2 Cor 12:1-5).

v. 13 You have heard about my way of life, how I was living blamelessly under the Law as it seemed to me when I adhered to the Law and observed circumcision and the Sabbath, along with the rest of the things that the Law commands. That is why I did not recognize Christ. For beyond measure, more than all the other Jews, I was persecuting the Church of God, namely, the believers in Christ, and was attacking it. I was fighting vehemently against it.

v. 14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, that is, beyond all those of my own era and those who were my own age. I was advancing in the teaching of the Law according to the tradition of the Pharisees from whose class I was descended. Nobody could rival my zeal for the lessons and inquiries, nor indeed for the persecution of Christians. Thus, they could not match my status in the synagogue (Phil 3:5-6). Among my own people, the people of the Pharisees, [I was] more abundantly, to a greater degree, an ardent follower, meaning a diligent imitator, living to prop up the synagogue of my ancestral traditions, namely, of the Pharisees.

vv. 15-16 When it pleased the one [who set me apart] refers to the one who made me and caused me to be born from the maternal womb. This one set me apart in God's presence and separated me from my mother's womb for the preaching of the Gospel. Or from my mother's womb could mean God withdrew me from the fellowship of the synagogue. And called me through his grace, that is, through God's mercy for the sake of preaching his Gospel so that God might reveal the Son in me, that is, through me to the gentiles. That I would proclaim him among the gentiles immediately means that since it pleased God the Father to reveal his Son through me among the gentiles, I did not give assent to flesh and blood, that is, I did not agree to remain in Judaism. Or again, I did not give assent to flesh and blood could refer to the scribes and Pharisees from whom I am descended. Some wish to take this as a reference to the apostles, but that is erroneous. Saint Jerome consequently divided this verse in keeping with the meaning we have given above.

Peter and the other apostles, after having been called by the Lord, were not prepared to preach right away. They did not do so right after his resurrection but had to wait to receive the Holy Spirit and thus created something of a delay. Paul, on the other hand, immediately after he was baptized, entered the synagogue of the Jews and began preaching publicly without any delay. It is true that one can connect the "immediately" to what follows, but it is better to link it to his remark that "God revealed the Son in me," that is, through me. Put another way, the Word of God the Father, namely, the Son, together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, contains heaven and earth and fills all things. There is no place that the Son does not fill up through the fullness of his power. Because the Son is everywhere through the power of his divinity and fills all places, so he was also in Paul even if Paul did not realize it. Therefore, when God the Father gave the faith of his Son to Paul, it was at that time that he disclosed his Son to him. The Son himself was already present there, however, when the Father made this revelation. Just as, for example, the Son was already present in the womb of the Virgin Mary, where he assumed flesh.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from The Letter to the GALATIANS Copyright © 2011 by Ian Christopher Levy. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---