Paul of Tarsus, Letter to the Galatians (First Century C.E.)

Despite their immense power, Roman emperors faced various threats as they strove to maintain stability across the broad expanse of the empire. Palestine was especially troubled due to increasingly harsh Roman rule there. Jews were resentful of Roman authority in their homeland and many agitated for change. Jesus was among them, calling his fellow Jews to prepare for God’s kingdom. Paul of Tarsus (c. 10–65 C.E.), a Jew and a Roman citizen, actively persecuted Jesus’s followers for distorting the Jewish faith. Paul was transformed, however, by a revelation calling him to follow Jesus as the Messiah; he thereupon devoted his life to spreading Jesus’s teachings to both non-Jews and Jews throughout Asia Minor. Thirteen letters are attributed to him in the writings that came to comprise the New Testament. Below is an excerpt from his letter to a fledging community of converts in Galatia, who were embroiled in a crisis over whether non-Jewish converts to Christianity needed to keep the Jewish law. Paul reacted passionately to the situation by setting forth key principles that came to define Christianity as a distinct religion.

From The Jerusalem Bible: Reader’s Edition, ed. Alexander Jones (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 240–44.

Address

From Paul to the churches of Galatia, and from all the brothers who are here with me, an apostle who does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. We wish you the grace and peace of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in order to rescue us from this present wicked world sacrificed himself for our sins, in accordance with the will of God our Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. . . .

The Good News as Proclaimed by Paul

“Though we were born Jews and not pagan sinners, we acknowledge that what makes a man righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ. We had to become believers in Christ Jesus no less than you had, and now we hold that faith in Christ rather than fidelity to the Law is what justifies us, and that no one can be justified¹ by keeping the Law. Now if we were to admit that the result of looking to Christ to justify us is to make us sinners like the rest, it would follow that Christ had induced us to sin, which would be absurd. If I were to return to a position I had already abandoned, I should be admitting I had done something wrong. In other words, through the Law I am dead to the Law, so that now I can live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in this body I live in faith: faith in the Son of God who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake. I cannot bring myself to give up God’s gift: if the Law can justify us, there is no point in the death of Christ.”

Justification by Faith

Are you people in Galatia mad? Has someone put a spell on you, in spite of the plain explanation you have had of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Let me ask you one question: was it because you practised the Law that you received the spirit, or because you believed what was preached to you? Are you foolish enough to end in outward observances what you began in the Spirit? Have all the favours you received been wasted? And if this were so, they would most certainly have been wasted. Does God give you the Spirit so freely and work miracles among you because you practise the Law or because you believed what was preached to you?

Take Abraham for example: he put his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him.² Don’t you see that it is those who rely on faith who are the sons of Abraham? Scripture foresaw that God was going to use faith to justify the pagans, and proclaimed the Good News long ago when Abraham was told: In you all the pagans will be blessed.³ Those therefore who rely on faith receive the same blessing as Abraham, the man of faith. . . .

The Purpose of the Law

What then was the purpose of adding the Law? This was done to specify crimes, until the posterity came to whom the promise was addressed. The Law was promulgated by angels,⁴ assisted by an intermediary. Now there can only be an intermediary between two parties, yet God is one. Does this mean that there is opposition between the Law and the promises of God? Of course not. We could have been justified by the Law if the Law we were given had been capable of giving life, but it is not: scripture makes no exceptions when it says that sin is master everywhere. In this way the promise can only be given through faith in Jesus Christ and can only be given to those who have this faith.

The Coming of faith

Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law; we were being looked after till faith was revealed. The Law was to be our guardian until the Christ came and we could be justified by faith. Now that that time has come we are no longer under that guardian, and you are, all of you, sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Merely by belonging to Christ you are the posterity of Abraham, the heirs he was promised. . . .

Christian Liberty

When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. It is I, Paul, who tell you this: if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all. With all solemnity I repeat my warning: Everyone who accepts circumcision is obliged to keep the whole Law. But if you do look to the Law to make you justified, then you have separated yourselves from Christ, and have fallen from grace. Christians are told by the Spirit to look to faith for those rewards that righteousness hopes for, since in Christ Jesus whether you are circumcised or not makes no difference—what matters is faith that makes its power felt through love. . . .

Liberty and Charity

My brothers, you were called, as you know, to liberty; but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self-indulgence. Serve one another, rather, in works of love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in a single command: Love your neighbour as yourself.⁵ If you go snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, you had better watch or you will destroy the whole community.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS