Chapter 6

Book Overview - Galatians

by Arno Clemens Gaebelein

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS

Introduction

This epistle was addressed to the churches in Galatia. The authorship of this document has never been doubted and it has been well stated that “whoever is prepared to deny the genuineness of this epistle, would pronounce on himself the sentence of incapacity to distinguish true from false.” Like the Corinthian epistle this Galatian epistle has in every way the characteristic marks of the Apostle Paul.

Galatia was a prominent province of Asia Minor. The leading cities were Ancyra, Pessinus and Tavium. The inhabitants of Galatia were not Orientals, but Gauls or Celts. They had pillaged Delphi in the third century before Christ and had settled in the central parts of Asia Minor, which was then named Gallograecia or Galatia. Classical writers give a description of their character. “The infirmity of the Gauls is that they are fickle in their resolves and fond of change, and not to be trusted.” The leading characteristic seems to have been fickleness, which is also prominent in the opening chapter of this epistle. The apostle was greatly surprised by it. “I marvel that ye are so quickly changing from him who called you in the power of the grace of Christ unto another Gospel.” When the apostle had visited them for the first time, they had received him with open arms and had shown him much kindness. But when afterwards false teachers appeared amongst them, who preached another Gospel, they listened willingly to them and became cold and indifferent towards the Apostle Paul and the Gospel he had brought to them. They had received the Gospel and experienced its blessed power, but they were so unstable that they were about ready to give up the Gospel of Grace and to turn back to the weak and beggarly elements, to the law and its ordinances.

Paul had been in Galatia (Acts 16:6). He had preached the Gospel in this province and God had blessed the preaching, so that many were saved and a number of churches were founded. From Galatians 4:13-14 in this epistle, we learn something additional. “Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you, at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.” It seems he was then troubled with the thorn in the flesh. They had received him as a messenger of God and sympathized with his affliction that if it had been possible, they would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to Paul (4: 15). From this statement some have concluded that Paul’s affliction was the well-known oriental eye-disease, ophthalmia. Later he visited Galatia again and strengthened the disciples (Acts 18:23).

The Work of Judaizing Teachers

The men who had gone to the Galatian churches and disturbed them were Judaizing teachers. Their evil teaching consisted in a denial of the Gospel of Grace, so blessedly unfolded in the epistle to the Romans. They taught that a simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is not sufficient for salvation, that in order to be saved the keeping of the law is necessary and that a Christian must observe the precepts of the law of Moses. Circumcision was especially emphasized by them. They had been to Antioch and taught “except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). They had also constrained the Galatians to submit to circumcision (Galatians 5:2; Galatians 6:12). In order to establish themselves, they tried to undermine the apostleship of Paul and they attacked his authority. Peter evidently was in their eyes the great apostle of authority and as Paul was independent of Peter in his ministry and apostleship, as he had not been sent by Peter, they belittled him. It seems as if the fable of an apostolic succession was invented by these perverters of the Gospel of Grace.

The Object of the Epistle

The object of this epistle is the defense of the Gospel which Paul had received by the revelation of Jesus Christ. In order to do this successfully the apostle had first of all to defend his own apostolic authority. After he had done so he fully exposed the evil teachings by which the Galatians were being deceived and showed them the perniciousness of the doctrine to which they had listened. The work of Christ on the cross was at stake, “for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” The exposure is made by a number of contrasts between law and grace in which the apostle shows what the law could not do and what grace has done. The object of the epistle therefore is to defend the gospel, as he writes in the second chapter “that the truth of the gospel might continue with you;” to point out the seriousness of the false teaching which was, through Satan’s power, bewitching them, and in warning them to lead them back upon the foundation of grace from which they had fallen.

The Practical Value and Importance