THE GALATIAN PROBLEM
1. It seems very clear that while Paul had
problems with some non-Christian Jews [see Acts 13:45-46, 1
Thessalonians 2:14-16 and elsewhere] he was not addressing them when he
wrote his scathing letter to the Galatians.
2. The people he was
so angry with were Christian Jews; that is, Jews who had received Jesus
as the Messiah and committed themselves to him.
3. The proof of
that is that they were offering “a gospel” to Galatians who were
already in Jesus Christ [Galatians 3:1-5]. In addition, Paul becomes
specific in 2:4-14 and levels an accusation against his fellow Christian
Jews [including Peter and Barnabas].
4. So what exactly was
Paul enraged about? It’s clear that Paul was called by God to a mission
peculiarly [not exclusively] to Gentiles as surely as Peter [and others]
were commissioned with the gospel to the Jews [Galatians 2.7-8]. What
troubled Paul was that some Christian Jews came into the region where he
had established churches among the Gentiles and they were demanding
that these Gentiles live as Jews. That is, to be Torah observant
[including being circumcised] if they were to be saved and blessed in
Jesus [Galatians 2:14b, 5:11-5 and compare Acts 15:1].
5. And
what was wrong with that? It’s usual for us to say that these Christian
Jews were teaching salvation by keeping “the moral law” rather than
requiring membership in the Jewish community. It’s
usual to hear that they were teaching salvation by personal virtue and
merit but neither of those proposals is what Paul talks about. Read
again the entire second chapter and see that it is about binding on
Gentiles the Torah, the Jewish law with the food laws, circumcision and
all that goes with it [compare also 4:17, 21-31 and 5:1-2].
6.
Yes, we’re told, but since the Mosaic Law required sinlessness then to
bring Gentiles under the Mosaic Law was in effect laying on them the
demand for sinlessness. [See 3:10-12 which is used to support this claim
that the Mosaic Law demanded sinlessness. Click here for a related piece.]
7.
But did these Christian Jews believe they were sinless? Did they
believe they were required to be sinless? Did they not believe that they
were sinners and aren’t the psalms filled with people who confessed sin
and asked for forgiveness and thanked God for graciously granting it?
The notion that the OT demanded sinlessness is false. Note Acts 15:11
and note again that Peter was indicted in Galatians 2.
8. So when the Jewish Christians who were disturbing the churches Paul had established independent of Jewish law observance demanded that Gentile Christians become Jews they were not asking the Gentiles to earn
their salvation by good works; they were not trying to bring Gentiles
under a law that demanded sinlessness. That wasn’t what enraged Paul.
9. Let me repeat, the Jews that Paul is angry with in Galatians are Christian Jews who believed in forgiveness of sins in Jesus. The problem was that they believed that everyone
had to be a Torah-observant Jew or turn to Judaism in order to get
forgiveness and blessing in the Messiah [see again Acts 15.1].
10.
This implied that all that God had been doing through Paul [and others]
among the Gentiles had not brought salvation or blessing. Paul’s divine
commission to the Gentiles [see again Galatians 2:7-8] was being
undermined and the Gentile saving relationship to Jesus was denied. In
effect, God had not and was not saving these people by the gospel Paul
proclaimed. The “true” gospel, these people claimed, was not Paul’s—it
was the gospel with an exclusively Jewish twist; a gospel Paul said was
no gospel at all [Galatians 1:6-9].
11. There was no necessity
for Jews to cease being Jews to find forgiveness and life in Jesus [see
Romans 10:9-10, Acts 21:18-26 and 1 Corinthians 9:20 but note Galatians
2:14].Nevertheless there was something fundamentally wrong about Jews
demanding that Gentiles become Jew in order to find life in the Messiah.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.
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