More details about Galatians

This letter is unique among Paul’s letters in that he was angry when he wrote it. Viewing a timeline will help to show what happened and why Paul was angry.

Who were the Judaizers? We have actually already discussed them, but now we can give them a name. A Judaizer was someone who believed in Peter’s original idea (before the Council of Jerusalem): that someone should undergo circumcision (if male), follow the Law of Moses, and believe in Jesus in order to be a Christian.

Why did Paul dislike the Judaizers' teaching? For two reasons:

• First, Paul did not think following circumcision (of males) and the Law of Moses added to the message of Jesus. Even more, he believed it confused the message of Jesus "fulfilling” the Law and the Prophets."
• Second, and this is the more important of the two: Paul believed this taught a “work's salvation” instead of a faith-based salvation, meaning that one had to work their way into pleasing God as opposed to having faith only to please God. The technical term for the second idea is called “Justification by Faith."
• What is Justification? It simply means being made right in the eyes of God.
• “Justification by faith,” therefore, means that a person is made right in the eyes of God or is pleasing to God only through faith in Jesus Christ.
• How is this different then “work's salvation”? Work's salvation means a person is made right in the eyes of God because of the many actions and “works” for God that they do. That is how Paul understood the Law of Moses. In order to please God by using the Law you had to follow a long list of do’s and don'ts. Remember that the Law included the 10 Commandments plus over 600 other laws and rules.
• Instead, after Jesus, God only desires people to have faith in Jesus. To be more specific, the Father desires that people believe that part of God came to earth as the Son, Jesus. And by believing in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will teach the believer how to live.
• That is the basic meaning of “Justification by Faith.” God demands faith and not action. Now, just to be clear because this can be confusing (it was to the Judaizers): God does want people to live godly moral lives. But the focus is on faith and not the action.
• Think about it this way: works salvation is the idea that I can do good actions/works that will please God. And if I do enough of them I will please God enough to go to heaven. So the focus on works salvation is on the works and not on loving God.
• Justification by faith focuses on faith or belief in Jesus. If I have faith in Jesus, then I will want to please God because of the love I have for God. So God desires godly moral lives, but only as a result of having faith in Jesus. The actions will naturally flow out of the love of God through Jesus.
• Therefore work's salvation is focused on what I can get out of this situation, whereas justification by faith is focused on loving God through faith in Jesus and wanting to please God.
• That was the reason Paul was angry at the message of the Judaizers, because they misled people into thinking they can work their way to heaven. Paul even called this “a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all.”

Examining how the situation developed

Now that we have covered the Judaizers, we can examine the timeline above in more detail.

1. Paul introduced Christianity to the cities mentioned above; the result was house churches in those cities. His message was that God only desires faith, known as “Justification by Faith," and that action would follow as a result of loving God.
2. Paul left for the Council of Jerusalem. There the Apostles agreed that God only desires faith and not circumcision or following the Law of Moses.
3. While Paul was gone Judaizers moved into the cities and preached that God required circumcision and the Law in addition to belief in Jesus.
• Why did they preach this message? We don’t know. It may be that they believed in the earlier idea of the Apostles and had not heard about the decision from the Council. It may be that they simply did not agree with Paul (nor the Council!) and truly believed God desired for everyone to be a Jew before they could have salvation. After all, some in Corinth may have believed that, and the Corinthian situation occurred more than five years later.
4. Paul left Jerusalem on his 2MT and traveled to the Galatian cities. He found out about the Judaizers and the impact they had on the Galatian Christians. For some reason Paul left the cities without resolving the issue.
5. Shortly after leaving the Galatian cities he became very concerned with the situation there. He did not want to turn around and go back, and so he wrote a letter instead in which he proved to the Galatian Christians that the Judaizers were wrong.

The three-step method Paul used in Galatians to prove the Judaizers were wrong

1. Paul described the decision reached at the Council of Jerusalem: The Council of Jerusalem, made up of Apostles and other church leaders, had agreed that Paul’s understanding of the message of Jesus was correct. Paul used this as a stamp of authority on his message against the Judaizers.
• 2:3-5, 7-9: “Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. [By trying to convince them that all men needed to be circumcised and everyone needed to follow the Law; therefore they were Judaizers.] We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. . . . On the contrary, they [The other Apostles and James] saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Peter, and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship [This is a sign that they agreed.] when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews.”
2. Paul confronted Peter at some point soon after the Council: This incident involved Peter being reluctant to follow through with the decision of the Council. As a result Paul confronted Peter and explained that he was wrong. Paul brought up Peter because the Judaizers would have looked to Peter, or I should say Peter’s view of the purpose of Jesus before the Council, as an example of how Christians should live. Therefore, Paul discussed a confrontation and correction with the person who represented the mentality that the Judaizers would have held.
• 2:11-16: “When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’”
3. Paul discussed Abraham and the Law of Moses: Paul said that Abraham was the prime example of a man of faith who gave the example of what God expects from people. As we saw in the lesson on Paul, Abraham had faith in God and was made part of the Covenant with God before he was circumcised. After he believed in God, then he was circumcised. Therefore, circumcision is unnecessary in order to please God. Paul then points out that Abraham could not have followed the Law of Moses because the Law came 400+ years later. Therefore, one does not need to be circumcized nor follow the Law of Moses in order to please God; all someone needs to do to please God is do what Abraham did: have faith in God. And since one does have faith in and loves God, then the person will want to live a life that is pleasing to God.
• Concerning circumcision and the Covenant: 3:6-9: “Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ [A quote from Genesis 15:6] Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel I advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ [A quote from Genesis 12:3] So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
• Concerning following the Law of Moses: 3:16-18: “[Concerning the Covenant] The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,’ meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The Law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the Covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance [of faith] depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise, but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.”

What good was the Law?

• This brings up a question: Why did God want people to follow the Law in the first place? What good did it do? Paul answers that the Law was necessary to show how sinful people are. Think about it this way: the Law consisted of over 600 different rules and laws. It is impossible for someone to follow all 600+ laws, and so Jews in the Old Testament period had to sacrifice frequently. Basically the Law showed how impossible it was to completely follow God by depending only on one’s actions. In Paul’s words:
• 3:19a, 24, 25: “What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of wrong actions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come [meaning Jesus] . . . So the Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has [in Jesus] come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.”
• So, before Jesus, God expected people to follow the Covenant with circumcision and the Law of Moses. But after Jesus they both were fulfilled and so were not necessary.

The second part of Galatians

The second part of most of Paul’s letters describes how to live as a Christian since the Gospels had not been written yet. In Galatians the first four chapters discusses the issue with the Judaizers, and the last two chapters describe how to live as a Christian. Examples:

• 5:13, 14: “You, fellow Christians, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire Law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
• 5:16: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
• Paul explains briefly how faith will lead to proper action through the guidance of the Holy Spirit: 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Comparing and contrasting Romans and Galatians

• Romans and Galatians basically have the same theme: that God wants a relationship with everyone through faith.
• In Romans Paul introduces this idea.
• In Galatians Paul had already taught this idea and so reassured them it was true.
• Attitude of letter.
• Romans is friendly.
• Galatians is angry.
• Visited the city/area before writing the letter?
• Romans: No.
• Galatians: Yes, Paul visited Galatia during his first missionary trip

Outline of Galatians

• 1:1-5: Greetings.
• 1:6-10: Paul criticizes the Galatian Christians for following the Judaizers.
• 1:11-24: Short autobiographical account.
• 2: Discussion of the Council of Jerusalem and a confrontation with Peter.
• 3-4: Paul defends “Justification by faith.”
• 5-6:10: How to live as a Christian.
• 6:11-18: Concluding remarks.