Letter to the Galatians

LET’S KNOW THE BIBLE

 

At the same time that the apostle Paul was writing to the Philippians, he also wrote the splendid letter to the Galatians. Paul was in Ephesus, between the years 56 and 57, in a rather turbulent period of his life, and he received news about improper behavior of Christians living in the region of Galatia. This city was located in the center of Anatolia, what we now call Turkey, and it was probably the Christians who lived in the region of Galatia who were part of the communities founded at the beginning of the Pauline mission.

From the Acts of the Apostles we know the Christian communities born in Antioch of Pisidia, in Iconium, Lystra, Derbe. These are all cities that were administratively located in the region of Galatia and therefore could be called Galatians. Therefore, it is not a letter addressed to a specific community but to many churches that were located in the same region because, in several of these communities, a problem had arisen due to Judaizing Christian preachers, that is, someone who was very attached to the practices of the Jewish tradition and believed that, to be a Christian, it was necessary to be a Jew first.

This argument is also dealt with in the Letter to the Romans, written the following year, in a systematic way. Whereas when writing to the Galatians, Paul reacts quickly to the problem and with the fierceness of his character, he reacts by writing a fiery letter. Indeed, the Letter to the Galatians is a living treatise that is also full of invective towards the addressees, many of whom Paul knew well personally, he has formed them; he has introduced them in the preaching of the Gospel, and now he is surprised by their change.

The letter does not begin as usual, with a prayer, a thanksgiving, but with a rant: “I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel.” “I am amazed.” Paul underlines the strangeness of this change. They have moved on to another gospel. Pay attention because when Paul writes the word ‘gospel,’ he is not referring to a book as we are used to understand it, but to the preaching, to the global message. ‘Another gospel,’ therefore, means another way of understanding the message of Christ, of evaluating the very person of Christ. In reality, however: “(not that there is another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ.” They are under the impression that there is another, but it is not true.

Paul immediately highlights the problem of these preachers who have disturbed the community and are trying to subvert the Gospel of Christ. Why does he write? To defend his own Gospel, that is, his own way of presenting the Gospel of Christ. Paul believes that this is the only right way. Therefore, the entire letter to the Galatians can be considered as an apology of the Gospel, that is, a speech in defense of Christian preaching; and Paul does it mainly with two arguments.

First, with personal, autobiographical arguments; he defends the content of his preaching by recounting his own experience. Then with doctrinal arguments; finally, in chapters 5 and 6, we find the practical applications and this doctrine’s moral consequences. Precisely because he uses personal arguments in defense of the Gospel, in this letter to the Galatians we find practically the only autobiographical writing of the apostle.

It is the only occasion in which St. Paul recounts his own experience extensively. “For you heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” Probably, Paul’s adversaries had said that he was a free preacher; he was not an apostle, therefore, Paul must defend his own person, his own vocation, his own apostolic ministry. As he must defend his own reputation, his own vocation, and his own apostolic ministry he relates the radical change that marked his life, highlighting how this change was not due to a simple reflection on his part, but to an extraordinary intervention of God that changed him in depth.

I was, he says, a fierce opponent of Christianity. From the beginning, precisely because I was attached to the norms of Jewish law, I was a fierce opponent of Christianity. And progressed in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my race, since I was even more a zealot for my ancestral traditions.” He was a fierce defender of Jewish traditions. Then something happened in his life. “But when God, who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me….”

This is how he describes his vocation. We know from the book of Acts the story on the road to Damascus, of the apparition, of Paul’s trauma and then of his baptism. Here the apostle does not give any details, but the essential thing is that on that occasion God revealed his Son to him. It was an apocalypse. We already know that the word ‘apocalypse’ means revelation, and the verb ‘apocalyptus’ is precisely used here. God has revealed his Son to me; he has opened my eyes, has made me understand that Jesus is truly his Son. God was pleased; he was good enough to reveal his Son to me “so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles.” God has made me understand that Jesus is his Son so that I can make him understood to others.

At that time, “I did not immediately consult flesh and blood.” He says, without consulting flesh and blood, that is, without following instinctive human indications, linked to the human dimension, “nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas.” Paul always calls the apostle Peter by his Aramaic name, a nickname that Jesus himself had given him. In the year 39, three years after his vocation, Paul is in Jerusalem, consults Cephas, stays with him for 15 days, he also meets the other leaders of the community. Then he returned to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

He returned to Jerusalem 14 years later for what we call the Jerusalem Council, and in Paul’s account, he clarifies that the apostles, official guarantors of the Gospel of Christ extended their hands to Paul and Barnabas, acknowledging them as true apostles. They simply divided the field. They stayed to preach to the Jews and Paul and Barnabas took it upon themselves to take the Gospel to the non-Jews and everyone else. Therefore, Paul’s preaching cannot be accused of being different from Peter’s.

There is a substantial unity; therefore, the preachers who impugn Paul by leaning on Peter are mistaken. Those are the ones who create confusion, the impostors. Indeed, Paul recalls that on one occasion in Antioch when Peter hesitated and took a step back, that is, he did not dare to maintain the chosen option and did not have the courage to eat with the Greeks because the Jews had these distinctions at the table, and an observant Jew did not share the table with a foreigner. These ideas had entered the Christian community, and it was difficult to overcome them.

Paul, by his intelligence, was able to go beyond the racial schemes and Peter, on the other hand, struggled a lot and he was often dragged to one side or the other: on the one hand, the conservatives who wanted to maintain the Jewish strictness and, on the other hand, those who, like Paul, wanted to open themselves decisively to the newness of Christ. Paul says he confronted Peter; that is, he imposed himself by telling him that he was making a mistake. This is a direct type of speech that Peter heard directly from Paul. ‘We, you Peter and I Paul, are Jews by birth and not pagans. And we also acknowledge that we are sinners, do we not Peter that you are a sinner and me too? And yet we are not born Greeks, but Jews, and yet we acknowledge that we are sinners; that we also have been sinners, and we ourselves, know the works of the law do not justify a person, but by the faith of Jesus Christ alone. You, Peter, and I, Paul, believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by faith in Jesus Christ.’

The problem is this: if we kept the law to be satisfied with that, why did we believe in Christ? Because we believed that only he could save us. At different times in different ways, but we both overcame the Jewish mentality and adhered to Jesus Christ, and at this point, we cannot go back. If we, who seek justification in Christ, are found sinners, like others, perhaps Christ is the minister of sin, but this is impossible.

It seems a little complicated. Paul wants to say: You Peter and me Paul, we believed in Jesus Christ, being convinced that he could bring us salvation, full righteousness. Now, Jesus Christ has taught us that there is no difference between people, we should be open to all, welcome all, and eat with the Greeks because they are not unclean. How often has Jesus Christ contacted pagans and said that even a centurion had more faith than many in Israel?

So, if we believe that this behavior taught by Jesus Christ is a sin, it means that Jesus is teaching us to sin, but does it seem possible that we learn to sin by following Christ? This is impossible; “But if I am building up again those things that I tore down, then I show myself to be a transgressor.” We have demolished, and if we now rebuild what we destroyed, we show that we were wrong. We first made those racial divisions disappear, thinking they were obsolete if we now reintroduce them, we affirm that the choice we made before was wrong. If one knocked down a wall while the neighbors were telling him that it was not convenient because it was necessary, and at a given moment he rebuilt it, it is logical that the neighbors tell him, ‘we told you that it was good for you and that it didn’t have to be demolished.’

We gave up certain things, not because we were wrong, but because we are convinced of it, and that’s why we must continue in this coherence. “For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” This is one of the high points of the Pauline letters. Here the apostle speaks of himself in mystical communion with Christ.

The apostle so identifies himself with Christ that he personally died. He died when he was baptized, when he was put into communion with the death of Christ. Both died: Christ on the cross and Paul in baptism, and only one was resurrected: Christ. “Christ lives in me.” According to the law, Jesus was put to death; Paul is also considered dead to the law and therefore, if he died, he died to the law. Enough; the law condemned me to death, and I am dead. The law is no more. I died to the law, but I am alive for God. The risen Christ lives for God. Think of the expression: “I have been crucified with Christ.”

Paul considers himself crucified together with Christ, in solidarity with him, sharer in his cross. A crucified one dies; Paul died with Christ: “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” Paul died that Christ might live in him. “Insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” This is the only time in the entire New Testament that this statement is made in the singular; it is generally said that Christ died for all, for people, for us. Only here Paul personalizes it: ‘he died for me.’ If it is true that he died for all, it is also true in the singular, ‘he died for me;’ it is a discourse much more captivating and involving because it’s not a generic discourse; it’s a personal discourse that applies to the apostle; demonstrates this deep conviction.

‘I still live a life in the flesh, but I live it founded on the faith of the Son of God.’ That is, based on its solidity and that Son of God ‘loved me and gave himself precisely for me.’ “I do not nullify the grace of God.” The risk is that of vainglory for that transforming love of God. “For if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” This is a very important expression, which is also valid for us. If justification, right relationship with God, salvation depends on the observance of the law, Christ died in vain.

If it is enough to observe the law, the law existed before Christ. If it is enough to say: love thy neighbor as yourself, and that is enough, Christ died in vain. If there is anyone who can love his neighbor in his own strength because he observes the law, Christ died in vain. But to affirm such a thing is to nullify the grace of God. Some preachers run the risk of doing so by overemphasizing the person’s commitment, the will, the doing good, a law-abiding behavior. Righteousness does not come from there; it comes from grace, that is, from the transformation of the heart.

Paul was not able to love his neighbor, and neither was Peter. If they are now able to love, they are not able to love because they observe the law, but because they have obtained grace. Christ did not die in vain because he obtained by his death the ability to observe the law. Therefore, salvation comes only from Christ and is valid for all, and it is a salvation that derives from the faith of Christ, from the grace of Christ, not from the law.

Thus Paul, starting from the account of his own experience, arrived at this great theological synthesis and from chapter 3 onwards he will take up his treatment in a more systematic way: “O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you.” Who has taught you such a thing…. Who ate your brains? It’s a powerful, provocative speech. “Are you so stupid? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain?”

With two biblical reflections about Abraham and his children, the apostle tries to show how salvation is based on the grace of Christ. And he comes to a point, in chapter 4, to a vertex that we often read in the liturgy because it is an excellent summary: “And when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption. As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ It is the Spirit of the Son that has been given to us, “so you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” Not because of your own merit, not because you have overcome, but because it is given to you. God sent his Son so that we, the slaves, might become sons and daughters.

This is the great message of grace. This is the Gospel of liberation: we have been set free to remain free. Free from the flesh, free from sin, free from the law, transformed by grace to live what the Lord has given us.