Part of the life of the early church was that they participated in a communal meal called an “Agape Feast”, or “Love Feast”. Here the whole congregation came together to share a meal prepared from them pooling whatever resources they had. For some slaves, this may have been the only nice meal they had all week. It was a powerful statement of the togetherness of Christians in a very special way.

This is all very good. However, we must not forget that there were Jews who had very strict food laws and ceremonial laws, and that Gentiles who did not have these constraints. Jews literally believed (and it was true under the Old Covenant) that God only accepted people who identified with the Jewish people and submitted to their laws. A strict Jew was forbidden even to do business with a Gentile. So in Antioch, this posed a problem because the church had both Jews and Gentiles. If the old law was obeyed it would be impossible for Jews and Gentiles to sit together and eat a common meal.

When Peter first visited Antioch, he completely disregarded the old taboos in the glory of the new faith. But later some people came from the Jewish party in Jerusalem in James’ name. It is important that this does not imply that these people shared James’ views, or were actually sent by James. In fact, James says he did not send them. He says, “We have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instruction” (Acts 15:24).

Out of fear of them, Peter withdrew from the common meal. Then other Jews also followed Peter’s example, including even their pastor Barnabas. However, it gets worse. This meal probably ended with the Lord’s supper. If Peter joined the Gentiles during the meal, then surely he also participated in their remembrance of the Lord’s death by celebrating the Lord’s Supper together. So by not joining the Gentiles during the meal, he was also withdrawing from fellowship with them over the Lord’s Supper.

Peter should have known better. He heard directly from Jesus Himself, that the food we eat cannot defile us, because it just goes through our bodies and comes out again later. Jesus taught that true defilement originates in the heart, not in external things (Mark 7:14-23). Then he had another revelation from God regarding this, that prompted him to share the gospel with the Roman Gentile, Cornelius (Act 10:9-29). He later defended his actions with full conviction (Acts 11:1-18). This is why when Peter first went to Antioch he had no qualms eating with the Gentiles. However, because he was “fearing the circumcision party he withdrew and mingled only with the Jews (Gal 2:12).

Considering Barnabas, remember that he was the one who introduced Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 9:27), and Barnabas invited Paul to minister in the church at Antioch, which began Paul’s public ministry (Acts 11:25). Yet here, “even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy (Gal 2:13). Most likely for Barnabas it was a matter of love. He did not want to grieve the people who came from Jerusalem. But for Paul that was “peace at any price”. And Paul was not willing to buy peace on those terms.

Paul Confronts Peter and Barnabas (Gal 2:14)

At this point Paul decided to act very firmly and decisively, because he saw that a church ceases to be Christian if it contains class distinctions. If we are all children of God, then we need to be able to fellowship together. Paul considers the situation serious enough that he needed to deal with this in public. Paul was willing to oppose Peter as well as his friend because the truth of the gospel was at stake. Interestingly, Paul calls Peter “Cephas” here (his old name prior to being renamed by Jesus). This is a subtle reminder that Peter was not living in the light of his new life.

Peter may not have realized it, but by withdrawing from the Gentiles, he was implicitly saying that Jews were superior to Gentiles. In some ways the Gentiles lacked something the Jews had. Otherwise why would they separate? Now, if you pressed Peter to this point, he would no doubt have denied it. But Peter’s actions asserted it. Just because Peter did not do it consciously or deliberately, did not make it ok. His actions had serious consequences and he needed to be held accountable for his behavior.

Paul starts off by pointing out the basic inconsistency in Peter’s behavior. First Peter did not follow Jewish ceremonial law and ate with the Gentiles, thus “living like a Gentile”. Then by associating with the circumcision party, he was tacitly agreeing with them that in order to be a true Christian, Gentiles must live like Jews (Gal 2:14). But worse than inconsistency, Paul points out that this is hypocrisy. And Peter’s actions were not just personal, but he was misleading others as well.

In addition to using this incident as a means of showing how important the true gospel is, Paul was also showing through this that he was independent of the other apostles, and also had apostolic authority.

This is probably one of the watershed incidents in the history of the church, that God used to preserve the purity of the gospel to us. Imagine what would have happened if Peter and Barnabas’ actions won out. The church at Antioch would have stopped being a “missionary church”. They would have sent out their “missionaries” from the circumcision party that would have either consumed or divided the early church. But this issue did not become a crisis because of Paul’s swift intervention. We may not be here today, if Paul had not defended the integrity of the gospel so vigorously.

Peter’s Response

How did Peter respond to this confrontation? The Bible does not say. However it has to be that Peter acknowledged his sin and was restored to fellowship. When we read Peter’s two epistles you see that Peter teaches exactly the same gospel of grace in God as Paul does. The word “grace” is found in every chapter of Peter’s letter. Peter also makes it a point to say that he and Paul were in complete agreement (2 Peter 3:15-16). In fact, Peter calls Paul’s letters “Scripture” that “unstable people distort”. This is the highest praise for Paul by the apostle Peter, showing that this incident did not destroy their friendship and unity in Christ, but rather, strengthened it.

Why This Issue Was So Serious: Gal 2:15-21

This section continues with Paul’s confrontation with Peter, and we don’t know exactly when it becomes general teaching from Paul. It contains key words (“sin”, “works”, “justification”, “grace”, “the cross”, “faith”, “union with Christ”) which comprise the heart of the gospel. Here Paul first outlines the gospel, and then spends Galatians chapters 3 and 4, defending it.

Paul gives three arguments explaining why the integrity of the gospel was at stake.

1. The basis of our justification before God
2. Freedom from the law
3. The reason Jesus needed to die.

Justification by Faith (2:15-16)

This is the first appearance of an important word in this letter. “Justification by Faith” was the slogan of the Reformation, and we need to understand what “justification” means. Many of these thoughts have been taken from Theodore Epp’s commentary on Galatians.

Job asked: “How can a person be just before God” (Job 9:2)? God’s answer is “The just shall live by his faith (Hab 2:4). This truth liberated Martin Luther from religious bondage.

Justification is “The act of God, whereby he declares a believing sinner righteous in Jesus Christ”. It is a one-time act, not a process. No one christian is more “justified” than another. God is the one who justifies (Rom 8:33). By obeying the works of the law, no one can be justified. Paul explains later in this letter that the law’s purpose is to reveal sin, not to redeem us from sin.

In justification, God “declares” a person righteous. He does not “make” the person righteous. Of course justification leads to a changed life, which is what James 2 was all about. But justification is an act of God. Before a person was “guilty” before God, but the moment he trusts in Christ he is “not guilty”, and he can never be called “guilty” again!

Justification is more than “forgiveness”. If a person is simply forgiven and let go, he can do wrong again, and become guilty all over again. But once you have been justified by faith, you can never be held guilty before God.

Justification is also more than just “pardon”. A pardoned criminal still has a record. However, in God’s sight God no longer holds our sins on record (see Psa 32:102, Rom 4:1-8).

Finally, God justifies “sinners”, not good people. Paul says that God justifies “the ungodly” (Rom 4:5). The reason most sinners are not justified is only that they will not admit that they are sinners, or come to Christ. It is only such people who can be saved by Jesus.

This is why when Peter separated himself, implicitly implying that Jews were better, he was undermining the truth that all Christians stand equally justified before God due to no merit of their own.

Freedom From the Law (Gal 2:17-18)

The apostle Peter calls the Mosaic law a “a yoke that neither we or our ancestors were able to bear” (Acts 15:10). Here by his actions he was going under that yoke of bondage again.

Paul therefore says, “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor” (Gal 2:17-18).

This sounds complicated, but he is basically saying: “Peter, you and I did not find salvation through the law. We found it through faith in Christ. But now after being saved you are going back to the law. This means Christ alone did not save you, otherwise you would not have needed to go back to the law. Further, when you preached the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles you told them they were saved by faith and not by keeping the law. Now by going back to legalism, you are building up what you yourself had torn down. So by tearing it down you were also sinning. And this would lead us to conclude that Jesus caused you to sin, making Jesus a ‘servant of sin’”.

Putting it another way, Paul is reminding Peter of his own experience of the grace of God in his life. To now go back to Moses is to deny everything God had done for him.

“Crucified With Christ” (Gal 2:19-20)

For Paul, the “once-for-allness” of his conversion will not allow him to turn back. The law had taken him to the gates of death. He was a condemned criminal without any hope. In turning to Christ the darkness left him symbolized by his regaining his sight, and the light streamed in. So he was happy to let his past reliance on the law die. And he would never go back there.

He then says something very precious in Gal 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.

This is a powerful statement for the total sufficiency and efficacy of the work of Christ. The cross was for Jesus, a complete break from life. Paul is using this metaphor. In putting his faith in Jesus, he had died to his old way of life by trying to please God by following the law. He is dead to all claims that would commend him by way of the law. There went all his hopes. A lifetime of accumulation of “merit” was wasted. In a sense the old Paul died.

But Paul goes on to say something positive. “I have been crucified … yet I live”. Live in what sense? It is Christ living in him now. Every moment he lives in constant dependence on Him. He looks to Jesus for everything. This is a life that matters, and Paul cannot even consider the thought of going back.

He then says something absolutely mind blowing: He says Jesus “loved me, and gave Himself up for me”. This is so fantastic we fail to really believe it. Jesus’ love is intensely personal. Jesus did not die for the world in general. He looked through the portals of time, and saw you and me, and when He gave up His life, it was for “me”, personally. He set Paul apart before he even was born. He has done the same for us who know Christ. He has loved us even before we existed. Think about it. Put your name alongside the “me” in this verse. “The life I now live … I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, Peter, and gave Himself up for me, Peter”! Think of the magnitude of that love. Jesus saw you and me, and chose to give up His own life to save us!

Why Did Jesus Have to Die (Gal 2:21)?

Paul gives one final argument in this section. He just asks a simple question, namely this. If it is possible to please God by doing good things and being obedient, then why did Jesus have to die in the first place? This is beautifully captured in the song by the band Mercy Me called “Best News Ever”. Some of the lyrics go like this:

Some say, “He’s keeping score”
So try hard then try a little more
But hold up, if this were true
Explain to me what the cross is for

Think about it. Even before the incarnation, Jesus was the Lord of creation. He ruled the universe, and He chose to step down and be humiliated and mistreated, and cruelly murdered on a shameful cross. Remember in Gethsemane, He cried out to His Father that if it was at all possible that God would remove this “cup” from Him (Mark 14:36)? The Father did not remove that cup. This means the death of Jesus was absolutely necessary for our salvation.

When we think we can earn God’s favor, we are effectively insulting all that Jesus did for us and “nullifying the grace of God” (Gal 2:21). The fact that earning God’s favor is impossible is why Jesus came. He came because we couldn’t help ourselves. He came because we were horribly guilty and there was nothing we could do about it. So He chose to take away our guilt by bearing it on Himself. If we put our trust in Him, God looks at us and declares that we are “Not Guilty”. The transaction is completed. It is done. Nothing can change this. Is this good news or what!

Application

Have I been saved by the grace of God? This is a question we need to ask ourselves. Grace is “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”. Am I trusting in myself for my salvation? My morality? My good works? My religion? If so, I am not a Christian. A true Christian is one who trusts in Christ alone for salvation. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God – not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

Am I trying to mix law and grace? Law means I must do something to earn favor with God. Grace means God has already done everything for me through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Salvation is not by faith plus something. Salvation is by faith alone. While attending church and other religious activities have their place as good expressions of our faith in Jesus, they can never be added on to our faith to secure our eternal salvation. “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom 11:6).

Do I really believe that I have been justified in Christ? It has been said “justified” means “just as if I had never sinned”. This is correct. We have a right standing before God, and God does not hold us guilty for any of our sin. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:12). We need never fear judgment, because our sins were already judged on the cross. “There is therefore now no condemnation for us in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1). Do we really believe this? This is tremendously liberating.

Even Christian leaders can seriously sin. This incident about the apostle Peter shows that even though he was the leader of the Jerusalem Church, he also had feet of clay. This should be an encouragement to us. If Peter could make such a serious mistake and be restored, then there is hope for us. The gospel is tremendously freeing in this way. It frees us from the guilt and burden of sin.

I need to respond well to confrontation. Peter’s humility in response is also good for us to think about. He did not hide behind his reputation or his position in the church. The fact that Paul and Peter had a good relationship with each other after this says something about Peter’s humility. This is also a consequence of the freedom available to us in the gospel. We can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and acknowledge when we do wrong. We are fully “justified” before God, so there is nothing for us to prove. This security frees us to be vulnerable.

My relation with other Christians. Let us now think in terms of Christian fellowship. When we refuse to eat at the Lord’s table with one whom we yet acknowledge to be a fellow Christian, it can only be because we think we have something that the other has not. Whether it be membership of a certain denomination, or the mode of baptism, or apostolic succession or some other theological doctrine. This is what Paul opposed so strongly, because he will point out presently that our standing before God is only by faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross, and on nothing else.

Am I willing to defend the truth at all costs? On the flip side of this, when the fundamental truth of the gospel is being compromised by someone we know, “peace at any cost” is not worth the price. This was Barnabas’ approach. This incident also shows us the power of loving confrontation when a fellow believer is seen to be sinning. A Christian who loves God, will be grateful to receive criticism, because he sees it as God’s way of showing him things in his life that he may be blinded to. The Bible says, “The kisses of an enemy are profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Let us learn to encourage correction from Christians we trust. This is a tremendous tool God uses to help us grow in sanctification.

Relationship between faith and good works

So a question came up about why Jesus condemns people in Matthew chapter 25 based on their absence of good works: “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Matt 25:42-43). 

Here is an illustration to help us understand the point.

We will be seeing from Paul’s letter to the Galatians that the gospel has a very strong foundation that goes all the way back to a promise God made to Abraham. The entire gospel is God’s outworking of that promise, that reached its climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Gentiles (and that includes us) became “grafted” into faith because the Jews rejected Jesus and were “cut-off”. The universal church has grown out of that solid foundation of the apostles and the prophets and we are a part of it. There is no other gospel that can save us.

Our faith is the instrument of our salvation, and the outworking of our salvation is the “fruit of the spirit” as we will see later in this book, and “good works” that glorify Christ. Without new life through faith in Christ, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa 64:6). If there is genuine faith, the works will follow. Thus James says “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17) i.e., it was not faith at all. So Jesus can look at our lives for fruit. If he does not see any, He can say “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matt 25:41). If there is no fruit, we are not part of the tree that comes from the one true gospel, and we will justly fall under Christ’s condemnation at the final judgment.

Early Life of Paul After his Conversion

In today’s passage, Paul is going to show us how he was taught by God Himself. Let us now turn to Gal 1:11-24. Paul says three things about himself here.

People were questioning his authority, and the source of Paul’s teaching. They were accusing him of not preaching the same gospel as was preached by the apostles in Jerusalem. There were trouble-makers following Paul and discrediting Paul’s teaching, and saying Gentiles needed to be circumcised. So Paul explains why his teaching is from God, and also consistent with that of the other apostles.

Paul Was a Persecutor

Paul was a very learned “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee … as for righteousness based on the law, faultless” (Phil 3:5-6). He was “brought up … at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God” (Acts 22:3).

Paul approved of the execution of Stephen (Acts 8:1) and was “ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). Luke says that during this time he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), and at this time he “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1-2).

Then something unbelievable happened! Saul of Tarsus the persecutor of the church became Paul the Apostle, the preacher of the gospel. This change was not gradual. While he was on the way to Damascus, He met Jesus who stopped him in his tracks (Acts 9:3-6). The glory of Jesus blinded him temporarily, and his heart made a full turn. The man who was so zealous in persecuting the church was instantly transformed into a man who would expend his life teaching and building up the church, undergoing much suffering, and paying the ultimate price for doing so.

How did this change come about? Could his fellow jews have caused it? No, they were the ones encouraging him in his rampage.  Was it caused by the Christians he was persecuting? No! They were terrified to come near Paul when he went to Damascus. So if it was neither the Jews nor the Christians, who caused it? It had to have come about by God!

Paul Became a Believer

Thus Paul became a believer in Jesus. In Galatians he says several key facts about his conversion.

1. God did it (Gal 1:15)
2. Personally to Paul (Gal 1:16). God had “set Paul apart before he was born (Gal 1:15). God set His love on Paul and set Paul apart. God does this for each one of us as well. His love to us is not general but personal.
3. By grace (Gal 1:15). Paul did not deserve this revelation, but God gave it to him by His grace. Out of that grace, God “called” Paul. The effective call of God always comes because of the grace of God. The two go together.
4. Through Christ (Gal 1:16). Paul was changed because God “was pleased to reveal His Son in me”. To accept the gospel is to see Jesus clearly. Paul saw Jesus by physical revelation. We see Jesus with clarity in His Word through the illumination of the Holy Spirit by disciplined study.
5. For the sake of others (Gal 1:16). God did not change Paul just to save Paul, but also that he would be God’s instrument in saving others.
6. For God’s glory (Gal 1:24). Any true work of God will result not in praise of a person but in God being given glory.

Let us now ask a different question. Paul was an ardent student of the Old Testament, as we know. How had he completely missed the boat regarding Jesus until Jesus appeared to him?

Paul, just like all unbelieving Jews, had “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom 10:2). He says in 2 Cor 3:14 of all unbelieving Jews including himself, that whenever he read the Old Testament there was a veil over his face that blinded him from seeing the truth.

The veil that prevented Paul from seeing the truth was instantly stripped away from his heart. Suddenly the Bible of his day came alive to him in a way that it had never been before. So what do you think Paul did? He went away to Arabia for 3 years (Gal 1:17). Why? He wanted to sit at the feet of Jesus. Jesus told Paul on that Damascus road that he was to “witness to the things in which [he] had seen [Jesus] and to those in which [Jesus] would appear to [him]” (Acts 26:16). Did Jesus physically appear to him and teach him as is possibly indicated from Acts 26:16? We do not know for sure. However, that is not necessary for what followed. Do you remember one of the last things Jesus said to his disciples?  “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:12-13). So in Arabia, Paul unlearned all that he had learned, and relearned the truth through the Holy Spirit, along with some new revelations. And boy! Learn he did! And you know what? None of this came from any human being, but directly from God Himself (Gal 1:16-17).

God used Paul’s brilliant mind as well as his intimate knowledge of the Old Testament to help him understand and clearly formulate what it really meant. Remember, Jesus said the Pharisees had failed to recognize Jesus even though a proper reading of the Old Testament should have made it obvious? “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me” (John 5:46). Paul gets to clearly understand God’s grand plan of redemption spanning the history of humanity, completely harmonizing with the Old Testament. This is the wealth that we get when we study Paul’s writings in the New Testament, as we are doing now.

Paul is Now a Preacher

Let us now create a brief timeline of the initial 15 odd years of Paul’s life after his conversion.

• Initial preaching in Damascus (Acts 9:20-22).
• Deep private study in Arabia for 3 years (Gal 1:17).
• Brief visit to Damascus, then Jerusalem. He spent only 15 days in Jerusalem meeting Peter and James, being introduced by Barnabas. Likely the other apostles were too afraid of him to meet him. During these 15 days, he also did a lot of preaching (Gal 1:18-20, Acts 9:26-28). He did not have much time with Peter and James for them to have been able to teach him the “whole counsel of God”. 
• Back to Syria and Cicilia. He may have preached on the way there. Tarsus is in Cicilia. He remained in Tarsus for 7 years working privately and not preaching much. He apparently did not want to impose himself, but to allow God to confirm his calling through others. Being so far from Jerusalem, not many Christians knew him, other than rumors “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal 1:23).
• Persecution drove Christians out of Jerusalem, and some of them witnessed in Antioch, and many people became Christians (Acts 11:20). The church in Jerusalem sends Barnabas to pastor the new church in Antioch. Barnabas remembered Paul, and went to Tarsus looking for him and brought him to Antioch as its co-pastor (Acts 11:25-26). This is when Paul’s ministry as an Apostle officially began.
• Paul and Barnabas collect relief to the poor in Jerusalem due to their losses after the famine and persecution (Acts 11:30).
• Antioch church commissions him and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:2).
• Paul and Barnabas visit southern Galatia in his first missionary journey founding these churches in Southern Galatia – Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:13-52), Iconium (Acts 14:1-7), Lystra (Acts 14:8-19) and Derbe (Acts 14:20-23).
• Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch and give a report of their journey (Acts 14:24-26).

Paul Endorsed by the Apostles (Gal 2:1-10)

So Paul and Barnabas are back in their local church Antioch. However, some of the Judaizers go there and cause trouble, saying that Gentiles must be circumcised (Acts 15:1). There is a big conflict and debate between them and also Paul and Barnabas, and they are sent to Jerusalem to figure it out. They take Titus, a gentile Christian with them (Gal 2:1).

Paul meets the apostles privately to make sure they were all on the same page (Gal 2:2). There was some conflict because of “false brothers” who infiltrated the meeting (Gal 2:4), but Paul and Barnabas did not “did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved” (Gal 2:5). The results were huge. Titus was not forced to be circumcised (Gal 2:3). The apostles found nothing lacking or wrong in Paul’s teaching (Gal 2:6-8), and extended fellowship to them. Even more than that, they endorse Paul going to the Gentiles. The only thing they asked was that Paul was not just about theology but also about compassion (Gal 2:10), and that was exactly what Paul and Barnabas were already doing in Antioch (Acts 11:30).

Application

Zeal is Not Sufficient for Salvation. Paul said that Jews are lost apart from Christ, even though they have “zeal without knowledge”. Let us note that if this was true for Jews, it is also true for every non-Christian friend we have, even the most sincere, zealous ones. It is possible to be very sincere and very zealous and not be saved. Every one of our friends needs the gospel, or they will be eternally lost.

The entire Bible is the Word of God. Let us not think that the “red letters” in our Bible, which are the words of Jesus have more value than the rest of the Bible. Paul makes it clear that everything he has said came directly from God Himself. His words are no less inspired than the words of Jesus. What we have in the books of the New Testament after the four gospels, are the things Jesus knew His disciples could not bear at the time they were with Him, and promised that the Holy Spirit would remind them of his words (John 14:26). He would also reveal to them the things Jesus could not tell them yet (John 16:12-13). This covers Acts and all the epistles. The Holy Spirit would also reveal to them things to come (John 16:13). This includes the Book of Revelation. So if you have had questions about how we know that the New Testament is inspired, here it is!

The miracle that happened to Paul happens to everyone who becomes a Christian. All of us were spiritually blind before we knew Christ. The Bible says the gospel “is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:3-4). However, the Bible says: “when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (2 Cor 3:16). This is what Jesus calls being born again. It is a supernatural miracle that God performs in our hearts. So suddenly it is as if the lights are turned on. Paul likens this miracle to that when God said “Let there be light” during creation. “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6).

We See God’s Glory in Scripture With “Unveiled Faces”. Once this miracle happens in our hearts, Paul says “we all, with unveiled faces” are “beholding the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor 2:18), through the illumination of God the Holy Spirit. This is why you are all here in this Bible Study. The Holy Spirit is giving you glimpses of the glory of God and you are hungry for more. And as He satisfies that hunger while you gaze at the picture of the glory of Christ as revealed in Scripture, each of you “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18) through the power of the Holy Spirit! What a privilege each of us have to encounter God in this way!

I would like to encourage each of you who are not seeing these glimpses of the glory of God from His Word, the way I have just described. The indwelling Holy Spirit makes His Word alive to all whose hearts have been touched by Jesus Christ. So if you find the Bible to be a dry book, ask God to open your eyes, and to touch your heart. What happened to Paul happens to us – just as miraculously if not as dramatically! Jesus can really reveal Himself to you from his Word, and this is the most precious gift He gives us as believers – the unspeakable privilege of being taught the meaning of the Word of God by the Holy Spirit to enable us to grow in our knowledge and love of God.

We are beginning a new study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and today we will focus on what we can look forward to learning from this study.

Here is the first sentence in Cole’s commentary of Galatians. “The epistle to the Galatians is spiritual dynamite, and it is almost impossible to handle it without spiritual explosions”. This reminds me of the time I was in High School and loved dabbling with chemicals. I was too dumb to think about safety measures and had several explosive accidents due to my handling of the chemicals. God says that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom 1:16). The word there is “dunamis”, from which we get the English word “dynamite”. Galatians brings the true gospel to sharp focus, so no wonder Cole would make such a comment!

Martin Luther’s great spiritual awakening came as he studied this letter. It cannot be read in a detached manner without personal involvement. It challenges our present-day superficial faith and provokes our opposition. It was a controversial letter. As we wrestle with the implications of this letter in this study, it will also challenge some of our assumptions and bring us face to face with what the true gospel is and give us the tools to discern many of the counterfeit gospels that are prevalent around us today.

My desire during this study, is not to get into such great detail that we “miss the woods for the trees”. Galatians is different to James, in that there is a line of thought and a sustained argument in this letter. My goal during this study is that we understand the thrust of Paul’s argument, and not so much each and every nuance.

If we are to ask, how we should summarize this entire letter, it would be this. It is a succinct statement and defense of Paul’s understanding of the gospel.

Occasion and Purpose

The answer to this question is very simple as we read this letter. This letter was written as a response to people who were troubling Gentile Christians in Galatia by insisting that to be a “good Christian” one had to already be or become a “good Jew”. Circumcision and keeping some of the ceremonial Jewish laws were also necessary for salvation. In other words, salvation was not by faith alone and in Christ alone. It was faith in Christ plus obedience to the law. Paul fought passionately against this, insisting that it was in fact a serious denial of the very heart of the gospel itself. The stakes were very high. By adding to the gospel, it was no longer just a variant of the gospel, but it had corrupted it to such an extent that it had become heresy.

As we study this book, and see the issues involved that caused Paul so much concern, we will learn how to think in a similar way, to discern the truth preached by different preachers and churches today. This was the main reason I chose Galatians for us to study at this time.

Someone has described this letter as a “sword flashing in a great swordsman’s hand”. Both Paul and the gospel were under attack. If that attack succeeded, Christianity might have become just another Jewish sect. So, Paul resists this attack vigorously.

It will be good for us, as we study this letter, to take this to heart, and to evaluate what it is that we believe at its very core. Is it the true gospel as will be explained here? Have we added to it? These are critical questions that we need to wrestle with as we work through this letter.

Date of Composition

Scholars have tried to synchronize Galatians with Acts, and the date of this letter depends on which visits to Jerusalem as described in Acts are referenced here. That would determine whether this letter was written before or after the Council in Jerusalem in AD 49. I will not get into a detailed discussion right now, because we will see it in more detail when we study the second chapter.

But there is another reason based on the contents of the letter itself, that helps us deduce its approximate date, namely, that the letter does not reference the Jerusalem Council or the decisions made there. That was the watershed meeting of the early church leaders described in Acts 15, which dealt with what was to be expected of new Gentile believers. Some commentators call the absence of Paul mentioning the Jerusalem Council, a “deafening silence”. It would have been enormously helpful to Paul’s argument if he could have mentioned the decision of the Council, that Gentiles should not be circumcised. This, after all, was a major point of contention between Paul and the false teachers influencing the Galatians. So, it seems likely that Galatians was written before the Jerusalem Council, which would place it around AD 48-49!

This would imply that this is the earliest letter that Paul wrote. At this time in the church’s history, the early church had not yet fully wrestled with the theological implications of Christianity in the context of Gentile inclusion into the church, and the church’s Judaism roots. Paul’s letter to the Galatians represents Paul’s systematic reasoning about what those implications were. We see the conclusions and assertions in Galatians were officially ratified in the Jerusalem Council meeting described in Acts 15.

Galatians 1:1-2

The Recipients

The letter is addressed: “To the churches of Galatia”. He calls them Galatians in Gal 3:1, and he refers to them as the “churches in Galatia” in 1 Cor 16:1. There is some debate about what region is envisaged (there is the “northern hypothesis” and the “southern hypothesis”). Considering it was relatively easy for the Judaizers to get to the churches in this letter, and because the southern part of Galatia which was more accessible, it is likely that the “southern hypothesis” is more correct. This is also consistent with our deductions regarding the approximate year this letter was written

In particular, this would mean the churches referenced are in four major cities, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. These were places Paul evangelized during his first missionary journey and is described in Acts 13 and Acts 14. In each city was now a church. These were not different denominations, but different local congregations. Clearly there was a large Gentile contingent, but there were also some Jews there.

The Author

Paul begins his letter with a claim: “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal 1:1).

Why would Paul start this way? Does this not make him a braggart? No! It was because the truth of the gospel was at stake. So, he defended his apostolic authority in order to defend the gospel.

Paul was under attack. People were questioning whether he was a genuine apostle, so this is how he starts his letter. He is an apostle. Paul says that his calling was not a human calling but “through Jesus Christ and God the Father”.

“Apostle” means “one who is sent”. In Mark 3:14 says “he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach”. Apostles were specially called men.

The bible identifies them as the original 11 (other than Judas) who were disciples of Jesus. Matthias was added to complete the 12 as narrated in the Acts 1. Here the criteria for an apostle included being a witness of Jesus’s resurrection. Paul understands that by Jesus revealing Himself in the Damascus road, he had been commissioned to be an apostle.

He says in 1 Cor 15:8-10 – “Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am …”.

The secret to Paul’s zeal was that he knew that he had been directly appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is what enabled him to endure so much suffering in his life.

Now here is the stupendous implication of this truth. When we read Galatians, we are hearing Christ. An apostle speaks with the authority of the One who sent him. Galatians is the very word of the King of Kings. Isn’t it sad that we cry out to God for revelation and make almost no serious effort to understand the deep things of Scripture – the very Word of Christ.

We can now ask the question, “when was Paul called to be an apostle”. The answer is surprising. We find it in Galatians 1:15. In his own words, he says that God “set me apart before I was born” and called me by His grace and was pleased to reveal His Son to me in order that I may preach Him”.

I want you to digest this for a minute. God had set Paul apart before he was even born. Paul was born well before Jesus began his public ministry. This means the inclusion of Gentiles into the fold of Christianity, was not an after-thought in the mind of God, because the rejection by the Jews, but part of God’s eternal plan. Isn’t that a small mind-bender?

Here is another one! God allowed Paul to take an awful detour and persecute the church for years. He allowed Paul to participate in the murder of the first Christian, Stephen. What a detour that was! And then God called Him after all this! This shows how mysterious God’s ways are. He does not think the way we think. This gives us hope as we pray for loved ones and for those who are rebellious against God. God’s grace is more powerful than their resistance!

I would like to make a final comment in passing – maybe the first controversial application from our study! The Bible says that the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets” (Eph 2:20). Thus, it is clear that there are no apostles today. The foundation has already been laid! There is a movement called the “New Apostolic Reformation”, which advocates for the lost offices of prophet and apostle. However, that is not biblical.

Application

Galatians is a dangerous book. It exposes what is a popular substitute for spiritual living that we have in our churches today – legalism or if I may call it “moralism”. Many Christians think they are spiritual because of what they do or what they do not do, or because of the leader they follow, or the denomination they belong to. Galatians will expose how wrong this is.

Wiersbe says that as he studied this book he was humbled as well as challenged. Humbled because he realized God is not too impressed with our ministries no longer how impressed they may appear from a human standpoint. He was also challenged because it confronts us to start living deeper. We need to let the Holy Spirit have His way.

We need to allow the Holy Spirit to take over our lives. This will give is freedom, not legalism. Cooperation with other Christians, not competition. Glory to God, and not praise to man. Then Revival”!

So, this is a dangerous book. It was dangerous for Paul to write it. It was dangerous for the Galatians to read it, and it may be a dangerous book for us to study. Perhaps we may lose some friends, as we wrestle with the truths we are confronted with in this letter. But it would be worth it. Paul’s battle cry is “It was for freedom that Christ has set you free” (Gal 5:1). This is the heart of the message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Freedom in Christ! Freedom in service. Freedom in love. Freedom in forgiveness. Freedom from any kind of bondage. Jesus came to set us free.