Is Law the Path to Blessing? Paul’s Letter to the Galatians

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the treasures of the Christian church. Martin Luther likened his affection to this epistle to his love for his wife.¹ The letter played an outsized importance in the writings of the Protestant Reformers as they sought to reform the church according to Scripture. Galatians continues to resonate with Christian readers today in its passionate plea for the gospel of grace.

This letter richly rewards careful attention. To that end, this article will consider

1. Introductory elements of Galatians. What do we know about its author, its audience, and the circumstances of its composition? What were Paul’s aims for writing this letter in the way that he did?
2. The theology and themes of Galatians. We will reflect on the two great concerns of Galatians: (1) Paul’s defense of his apostleship, and (2) Paul’s defense of the gospel.
3. The abiding relevance of Galatians. Galatians remains as relevant to the church today as it did for the churches in Galatia two thousand years ago. It sends us back to biblical truths that serve as the foundation of the Christian life. If we want to live the Christian life well, then we need to hear what Paul has to say to the Galatians.

An overview of Galatians

Audience

The author of this letter is the Apostle Paul (Gal 1:1), and he is writing to “the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2). Galatia in antiquity was located in Asia Minor (today Turkey). Commentators debate whether these churches were located on the south-central coast of Asia Minor or farther north, in the interior.² It seems likelier that these churches were located in the urban centers of the coast, where we know that there were sizable Jewish communities, and where we know Paul ministered early in his missionary career (see Acts 13:13–14:28).

It was through Paul that these churches were founded (see Gal 4:12–20). He reflects with fondness on the way in which they received his ministry in spite of his evident physical weakness (see Gal 4:13–14).

These churches were largely comprised of gentiles, that is, non-Jewish believers (Gal 4:8–9), a point confirmed by the fact that Paul is writing this letter to persuade them not to receive circumcision.

Date

It is difficult to say for certain when Paul wrote this letter. If the meeting in Jerusalem that Paul describes in Galatians 2:1–10 is the meeting that Luke describes in Acts 15:1–29 (the so-called Jerusalem Council) then Paul wrote this letter in the latter part of his apostolic travels.³

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Occasion

More important to the letter’s message—and contested among some modern interpreters—are the specific details relating to the controversy that occasioned this letter.

Paul has a definite set of opponents in mind, although they lie in the shadows of the letter. The opponents appear to have come into the church from the outside. Paul distinguishes them from the Galatians (e.g., Gal 4:17). They have had a destabilizing effect on the church. They “trouble” (Gal 1:7; 5:10) and “unsettle” the church (Gal 5:12). Their ministry is oriented not toward Christ but toward themselves (Gal 4:17; 6:13). In fact, the Galatians’ reception of their ministry has prompted the apostle to say to them, “you are severed from Christ … You have fallen away from grace” (Gal 5:4).

We do not have transcripts of these opponents’ sermons or writings. But we can faithfully reconstruct their teaching through a careful reading of Paul’s letter. Paul’s opponents have come to Galatia in order to impose the totality of the Mosaic law upon the churches. They are urging these believers to adopt a Jewish lifestyle (cf. Gal 2:14; 4:10) in order to secure blessing from God. In particular, they are trying to persuade the Galatians to take the first step in this direction, which is to receive circumcision (Gal 5:2). They appear to have argued that circumcision was a standing biblical requirement: God instituted it for Abraham and his offspring as an “everlasting” ordinance (Gen 17:13). The path to Abrahamic blessing, they argued, required circumcision. Refusal to be circumcised meant that one was a covenant breaker and under the curse of God. From this perspective, Paul’s insistence that the Galatians not receive circumcision struck at the heart of the Old Testament’s teaching.

Paul’s opponents also claimed for themselves some connection with the apostles in Jerusalem. The opponents, in turn, represented Paul as someone whose authority and message were derived from the Jerusalem apostles, but whose message had fundamentally departed from Jerusalem orthodoxy. The opponents presented themselves in Galatia to set the record straight. Paul, then, was being attacked on two fronts. His authority and credentials as an apostle were being brought under a cloud of suspicion, and his gospel was being characterized as unorthodox, maverick, and dangerous.

As for the Galatians themselves, they had fallen under the spell of Paul’s opponents (Gal 3:1). But while Paul viewed the situation in Galatia as dire, he did not view it as hopeless. The Galatians were recoverable. As Paul tells them, “I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view” (Gal 5:10).

This letter is, then, an exercise in persuasion. Paul is appealing to their knowledge of the gospel that he had earlier preached to them. He is also appealing to the faith in Christ that they had professed when they had embraced that gospel.

The message of Galatians

How, then, does Paul set out to persuade the Galatians to return to the gospel of grace?

1. In the first two chapters, Paul primarily defends his credentials as an apostle of Christ.
2. In the remaining four chapters, Paul primarily defends his gospel.

We will look at each in turn.

A defense of Paul’s apostleship (Gal 1:1–2:14)

In the first two chapters of Galatians, Paul’s primary concern is to defend his apostleship as having come directly and immediately from God. He states this concern in the letter’s opening words: “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (Gal 1:1). Paul insists in Galatians 1:11–12 that the gospel he brought to the Galatians was given to him by “revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:12). He did not “receive it from any man, nor was [he] taught it” (Gal 1:12). Paul goes on to show that he did not receive the gospel from his early training in Judaism (Gal 1:13–14), but he received it from Christ, who converted him and called him on the road to Damascus to preach the gospel to the gentiles (Gal 1:15–16).

After his conversion and call, Paul details his comings and goings, particularly among the Jerusalem apostles (Gal 1:17–2:10). His goal here is twofold:

1. Paul wants to show that he did not receive his gospel from these other apostles.
2. He wants to show that he was not laboring at cross purposes with his apostolic colleagues.

On the one hand, these “pillars … added nothing to me” (Gal 2:9, 6). On the other hand, all of the apostles warmly extended to one another the “right hand of fellowship,” each ministering the same gospel within different God-assigned spheres (Gal 2:9). The great confrontation between Paul and Peter in Antioch (Gal 2:11–14) illustrates the point. When the “truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:14) was at stake, Paul was willing to call out even the Apostle Peter in the presence of the church.

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A defense of Paul’s gospel (Gal 2:15–6:18)

In Galatians 2:15–21, Paul advances the thesis of the letter. Having established his apostolic credentials—his apostleship and his gospel have come directly from God—Paul is now prepared to expound and to defend the gospel. At the heart of the gospel is justification by faith alone: A sinner is counted righteous solely on the basis of the righteousness of Christ, imputed to the sinner, and received by faith alone. What Paul calls “works of the law”—deeds done in keeping with the requirements of the Mosaic law—play no part in the sinner’s justifying righteousness. Paul here no less testifies to the believer’s consequent new life in Christ. She is united with Christ in his death and resurrection (Gal 2:19, 20). The Christian life is the life of faith, lived in grateful response to “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

In the next section of the letter (i.e., Gal 3:1–4:7), Paul presents three sets of arguments to defend and to explain these claims. First, he appeals to the experience of the Galatians (Gal 3:1–5). When the gospel first came to them, they received it and its blessings by faith and not by works of the law (Gal 3:2, 5).

Second, he appeals to the testimony of Scripture (Gal 3:6–14). The blessings that God promised to Abraham are the blessings that we have received in Christ. As Abraham received those blessings by faith, we do also (Gal 3:9). In fact, the Mosaic law itself testifies that the one who tries to keep its commandments for justifying righteousness will find only cursing (Gal 3:10). But Christ has “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,” and he has delivered to us the “blessing of Abraham,” that is, the Holy Spirit (Gal 3:13, 14).

Third, Paul appeals to the various covenants that God made with his people(Gal 3:15–4:7). The Mosaic covenant was never intended to nullify or alter the Abrahamic covenant (Gal 3:15–18). Its purpose was to prepare sinners for the coming of Jesus Christ. Now that Christ has come, the Mosaic covenant is no longer operative (Gal 3:19–29). Under the new covenant, we are in a better place than believers were under the Mosaic covenant: They were as sons who had not yet come into their inheritance, whereas we are now both “son[s]” and “heir[s] through God” (Gal 4:7).

Paul then makes a series of appeals to the Galatians (Gal 4:8–31). He rebukes them for their return to spiritual slavery (Gal 4:8–11). He reminds them of their previous affection for him (and of his affection for them) and their reception of the gospel that he first preached to them (Gal 4:12–20). In the final section (Gal 4:21–31), he stresses to the “children of promise” (Gal 4:28) that they must have nothing to do with spiritual enslavers.

The last two chapters of the book (Gal 5:1–6:18) take up the second half of the thesis: the justified believer’s new life in Christ. In brief, this life is the life of freedom (Gal 5:1, 13), and it is life lived in the Spirit (the “Spirit of his Son” whom God the Father has “sent … into our hearts” [Gal 4:6]). Thus, we “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16), take up the “desires of the Spirit” (Gal 5:17), are “led by the Spirit” (Gal 5:18), bear the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22), “live by the Spirit,” “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal 5:25), and “sow to the Spirit” (Gal 6:8).

They may choose either circumcision or the cross, but they may not have both.

This life is the life of “faith working by love” (Gal 5:6), a love that commits itself to “serve one another” (Gal 5:13; cf. 6:10). And, since love is the fulfillment of the law (Gal 5:14), believers gladly take up the law’s moral demands (Gal 6:2). We do not obey the law in order to be justified. But we gladly and necessarily obey the law as those who have already been justified.

Paul concludes the letter (Gal 6:11–18) by setting a stark choice before the Galatians. They may choose either circumcision or the cross, but they may not have both (Gal 6:11–14). Only the cross brings “a new creation,” “peace and mercy,” and “grace” (Gal 6:15, 16, 18).

The significance of Galatians

We conclude with two aspects of Paul’s teaching in Galatians that speak to the church today.

1. The authority of the gospel

The gospel carries authority as a message that has been directly revealed from God. It has been brought to the church by apostles called and commissioned by Christ. It is the same gospel that God’s people received and believed from the Old Testament.

As in Galatia, so today, there are any number of plausible imitations that rival the genuine gospel for our attention and affection. In saying yes to the Bible’s gospel of grace, we necessarily say no to any and every other “different gospel” (Gal 1:6).

2. The sufficiency of the gospel

The gospel brings us Christ, crucified and raised from the dead for the sinner’s salvation. The righteousness of Christ that justifies the sinner is complete, sufficient, and admits of no additions (and certainly not any good works that we might do). The gospel is therefore a message of grace. To add (or take away) from the gospel is to “nullify the grace of God” (Gal 2:21).

Only the gospel, furthermore, gives us the resources to live in a way that is pleasing to God. We are united to Christ, supplied by the Spirit, and granted the “faith that works by love” (Gal 5:6). Our leading motive to living this life is not dread of judgment but gratitude to the Savior who has loved us and given himself for us on the cross.

Conclusion

Doctrine matters, Paul tells the Galatians. What we believe about Christ and the gospel has wide-ranging implications for our life and the life of the church.

The passionate persuasion of this letter has gripped the minds and hearts of Christians throughout the history of the church for the simple reason that the good news is truly good news!

Guy Waters’s suggested resources for studying Galatians

• Look for Guy Waters’s commentary on Galatians in the Reformed Exegetical and Theological Commentary on Scripture series, published by Crossway.

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