RELEASED TO LIVE

My Galatians

The letter is a kind of apogee of Paul’s gospel, when he could not refer to Peter and co. for authority to back his teaching that the gospel excels the law, and that it is self-defeating to hold the law as the standard when one comes to Christ. He traces the origin of his message to only his personal interaction with Christ, though at a point he returned to Jerusalem to present his message for verification (2:1-2).  He repudiated Peter’s ceremonial separation as contradictory to the gospel of Christ who embraces all nations without discrimination (2:18).

Paul asserts that those to whom the law was given could not uphold it perfectly and are therefore under the “curse of the law” (3:10). Salvation has therefore always been by faith, and not by the law which came several years after God’s covenant promise to Abraham.

The purpose of the law was therefore as caretaker until the empowerer came (3:18,21). If righteousness by the law could give life, there would be no need for Christ to come. Just as the Jews were held under the law till fulfillment of the promise, so were Gentiles held under the elemental forces (that are not divine), and both (Jews and Gentiles) are received by God as sons through Christ.

As adults who have received their inheritance, it is fruitless and infantile to return to the control of their guardians – the said guardians being the law and the elemental forces for Jews and Gentiles respectively. The Galatians, in Christ had already started living this “responsible adults” life in Christ (4:15), until false teachers came to exhort them to rather seek ceremonial righteousness under the law.

Using Sarah and Hagar as illustration, Paul states that, ironically, Israel rather is Hagar and her children slaves who persecute the free children of the Heavenly Jerusalem (4:9).

He tells the Galatians to observe the incapacity for righteousness of those who insist on ceremonial righteousness and contrast it with the exceedingly beautiful life in the Spirit, which springs untaught from within, and choose the latter