Galatians 1

CHAPTER I

THE GREETING, 1:1–5

“Paul—to the churches of Galatia—grace and peace!” The writer’s name in the nominative, the recipients of the letter in the dative, the words of greeting exclamatory nominatives. It is the ancient form for beginning a letter but has two impressive Christian nouns instead of the secular χαίρειν. While it is so common when we compare Paul’s other letters, this greeting arrests attention because of the modifiers that are added to the first and to the third member and because of the lack of these in the case of the second member. The thoughts and the feelings of the writer reveal themselves with clearness in this greeting. It foreshadows the contents as well as the character and the tone of all that the epistle contains. The greeting is made of the same steel as the entire epistle. It is admirable in the highest degree.

Paul, an apostle not from men nor by means of man but by means of Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren with me:

To the churches of Galatia:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that thus he might deliver us for himself from the present eon (which is) wicked according to the will of our God and Father: to whom (belongs) the glory for the eon of the eons. Amen.

Printed thus, the unmodified character of the second member of the greeting strikes the eye with full force. Place no comma after “apostle” and make no parenthesis of the following phrases, for these phrases modify “apostle” most closely and directly. The force of the apposition is not that Paul is an apostle but that he is this kind of an apostle. The whole impact lies in the phrases. They meet a challenge, meet it head on. They are not an incidental, parenthetical appendix.

Paul’s father, strict Pharisee that he was, named his boy “Saul” after the one king that his tribe of Benjamin produced for Israel. This name was used in the old Jewish circles. As a Roman citizen of Tarsus the father gave the boy who was born into this citizenship a second, a Roman name, such as every Roman citizen bore: Παῦλος, “Paul.” The idea that at a later time Paul took this name, took it from Sergius Paulus mentioned in Acts 13:9, is probably incorrect. When as a lad Paul played in the streets of Tarsus, his father, when calling him home, shouted: “Saul, Saul!” but the Greek boys on the streets called him “Paul.” When Paul’s mission work among the Gentiles began in earnest, when in his travels far and wide his Roman citizenship became a valuable asset for him, the sensible thing for him to do was to confine himself to the use of his Roman name, which he also did.

When Paul calls himself “an apostle of Jesus Christ” in a letter heading, perhaps adds, “by the will of God,” he would indicate only that he writes officially, that he specifies his office as being ambassadorial and by direct divine appointment. Ἀπόστολος = one commissioned and sent. Paul says more here. Two unexpected negative phrases meet us at the very first glance, against which a double positive phrase is set in strongest contrast. To find this opposition and negation in a letter heading in connection with the writer’s own title is startling. There must be a reason for its use. There is.

The Judaizers had attacked Paul’s apostleship, had denied its direct origin from Christ. Their method was shrewd. In regard to one who is commissioned everything depends on who commissioned him. The value of what he brings is no greater than the power of him in whose name he is entitled to speak.

Paul is probably quoting the phrases of the Judaizers who maintained that, whatever his apostleship was, it was either altogether only “from men” or at best had come to him only “through man.” Whatever office he claimed he had was either altogether human or divine only in a secondary and thus more or less doubtful sense. Paul might claim what he pleased, the Judaizers pretended to have the facts in Paul’s case, and these facts, they maintained, proved that Paul’s gospel was not the genuine, original gospel, but one that had been highly modified, not indeed by Paul, but already at the source from which Paul had drawn it. They, the Judaizers, were bringing the genuine article to the Galatians.

Paul’s first drop of ink is a decisive, challenging contradiction: “Paul, an apostle not from men nor by means of man.” Men did not send and commission him. He is not the ambassador or representative of men. What he utters is not the word and the wisdom of men. The authority back of him and his message is not human.

We at once see that the Judaizers referred to the church at Antioch in Syria which sent forth Paul and Barnabas on that first missionary journey, in the course of which these two reached Galatia (Acts 13:1–4). At the end of the tour Paul and Barnabas also returned to Antioch and made report to the church that had sent them out (Acts 14:26–28). How easy it was to suppress the fact that the church at Antioch had acted only on direct orders from the Holy Ghost; to suppress also the direct call of Jesus at the time of the very conversion of Paul (Acts 26:16–18). How easy it was to make it appear that only one of the churches had sent Paul, that he was ἀπό only from a church, and that that was not even the old mother church at Jerusalem but an inferior Gentile church which had altered the genuine gospel by removing the ancient legal requirements just in order to attract the Gentiles. Paul, they said, was an emissary of this erring church at Antioch—men had sent him and not Christ.

“By means of man” is only a variation. The ἀπό phrase refers to the ἀπό in ἀπόστολος: sent from men, from a body of men, having only a human commission and message. Διά expresses medium. Paul might have obtained his commission from Christ through some human intermediary. In passing to Paul through that human medium the genuine gospel, the Judaizers claimed, was altered, adulterated, falsified. Paul had not gone to the source, he had dipped from the stream lower down where it was already contaminated and impure. He thought he had the pure article and the real office but he was sadly mistaken.

The unarticulated singular does not mean: “through some man,” i. e., an individual man. Some think of Barnabas who twice did much for Paul (Acts 9:27; 11:25). But even if this phrase could be referred to an individual, Barnabas could not be considered because he and Paul had worked together in Galatia, where Paul was the leader. It is unwarranted to think that the Judaizers even knew what Acts 9:27 and 11:25 contain; and if they did they could not claim that Paul was made an apostle “through Barnabas.”

The noun is generic; “by means of man” = “by means of human agency.” It is properly singular after the plural “men.” Paul regularly uses plurals and singulars in this way. One could be sent “from men” (some body of men) or “through man” (human agency of some kind). Οὐδέ does not make the phrases exclusive of each other. The stress is on the prepositions as alternatives and not on the nouns and their number, plural and singular. One could look at a human commission in two ways; as emanating “from men” (whoever they might be) or as mediated “through man” (whatever the human medium might be). Both phrases refer to Acts 13:3. They include both ways of looking at Paul’s commission when trying to make it human. The two phrases in Paul’s denial are used to indicate completeness.

In flat contradiction Paul asserts that he is an apostle in toto only “by means of Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.” Although it is only one phrase that has two objects, this phrase is of the highest possible importance. Paul uses only the second, διά, of the two previously employed prepositions. “Yes,” Paul says, “I did receive my apostolate through a certain mediation.” But he names the two divine persons themselves as the one medium. He purposely uses διά and not ἀπό nor μπό. For there is no one who is higher than these two persons who could use these persons as his medium. He could have said, “an apostle from or by Christ and the Father.” This would have left a loophole, namely the question: “by what means,” on which there might then have been quibbling. This is excluded by the use of διά, the lower preposition “through,” “by means of.”

“By means of Jesus Christ” refers to Acts 26:16–18, Paul’s original commissioning. He uses the ordinary designation for the person and his office. And lest someone think that another used Christ as a medium, he names “God the Father” as the joint medium with Christ. Both are thus placed on the same absolutely supreme level with no higher one remaining “by” (ὑπό) or “from” (ἀπό) whom Paul was commissioned; and at the same time with no lower one “through” (διά) whom Paul was or could have been commissioned. Masterly is this διά! Subordinationists claim that Paul really means: through Christ and from the Father. They invent the meaning they want and then substitute it for the plain meaning Paul himself sets down.

ΘεὸςΠατήρ, “God Father,” is a unit name exactly like “Jesus Christ”; neither term needs an article in the Greek. In the holy Trinity the first person is distinguished by the term “Father.” But was not Paul commissioned at Antioch by the Spirit (Acts 13:2, 4)? Undoubtedly. All the opera ad extra sunt indivisa aut communa. For Paul’s purpose, to contradict any and all allegations that his apostleship was merely a human and faulty thing, it was enough to name Christ and the Father as proof that his office was wholly divine.

The participial modifier attached to “God the Father” is highly significant: “he who raised him from the dead” (apposition). This connects the two. More than this: it is the risen and glorified Christ who commissioned Paul, the same risen Christ who commissioned all the other apostles. He appeared to Paul even more gloriously than he appeared to the other apostles during the forty days. He made Paul a witness of his resurrection and his glory equal to that of the others. It was, indeed, only Christ who appeared to Paul on the road outside of Damascus, changed his whole life, and appointed him an apostle, but the Father had raised Christ from the dead, and thus in Christ the Father was active in Paul’s call. Regarding ἐκνεκρῶν, regarding the absence of the article, and regarding the misuse which is made of this absence, see Matt. 17:10; Mark 9:9; Luke 9:7; John 2:22; Acts 3:16.

Galatians 1:2

2 In other epistles one or more of Paul’s assistants are named as joint writers with Paul; only in this epistle we have “Paul … and all the brethren with me,” not μετά, “in my company,” but σύν “with,” in the sense of supporting me. The idea is not that these brethren are joint writers who help to compose this epistle. We see that Paul alone writes; “I” runs through the letter. All these brethren are at Paul’s side, all of them know about the situation in Galatia, all of them know what Paul is writing, all of them agree with him and support him in all that he is writing. The Galatians are not to suppose that Paul is alone and writing by himself in a sort of private way. Nay, all the brethren with him, down to the last one, and “all” implies a goodly number, are backing Paul.

It is usually supposed that this refers to Paul’s assistants. Then “all” is too strong. If any assistants are included, those known to the Galatians (Silas, Timothy) are excluded, for Paul would have inserted their names.

“All the brethren with me” denotes Christian believers. If the deduction is correct that the Galatians had sent a delegation to Paul, Zahn is right, this delegation itself is included (see the introduction). Paul had fully and completely satisfied this delegation. These Galatians themselves subscribed to all Paul says in this epistle. When they go back with it they will support it and will tell that all the others who are with Paul give it the same support. Paul is happy to point the Galatians to this unanimity of all those with him.

May we not conclude one thing more? Paul’s assistants, at least those known to the Galatians, were not with Paul at the moment but were busy with their work. Paul says, “all the brethren with me,” and does not name a church at the place where he is writing; he also sends no greetings from a church. Does this not make the impression that he was in the early stages of his work at the place of writing? He had made converts, but a fully established church had not as yet been formed. If Corinth is the place of writing, the time must have been during the first weeks of his work there. Ephesus and Paul’s second stay at Corinth are excluded already for the reason that at least greetings would have been sent from the church at either place.

In sharp contrast with the first member of the letter heading is the second, the unmodified dative: “To the churches of Galatia.” Not one word more. No predicate of honor or esteem. No other epistle of Paul’s shows a phenomenon similar to this. Paul is not a hypocrite. He does not lower himself by pretending. The words of praise and esteem found in other epistles are not cheapened and made hollow by bestowal where none is deserved.

Paul’s was not a case of personal feeling in a private matter; nor was what we might call his official pride wounded. Paul’s concern is Christ and his gospel. His displeasure is due to the treatment the Galatians had begun to bestow upon the Lord who had commissioned him and upon the gospel which formed the burden of his commission. Paul would have been recreant to both if he had not used sternness.

See the introduction regarding “the churches of Galatia.” “Of Galatia” was the only term available to designate the churches in Lower Galatia.

Galatians 1:3

3 Luther is right regarding the third member of the heading: “See how he here turns all his words against the own righteousness (of man). Are they not all nothing but thunder crashes down from heaven against all men’s own righteousness and piety of all kinds?” Here there is no stinting. Paul wishes the churches of Galatia all that they so greatly need in order to be freed from the errors of the Judaizers who had gained a hold among them. “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ” is the same greeting that is found in other epistles, but in this instance it conveys the thought to the Galatians that grace and peace come to them from the two persons from whom Paul’s apostleship came. As an apostle of Christ and the Father he prays grace and peace from the Father and Christ for them. Paul is the apostle of this grace and this peace; all the brethren with him are recipients of this grace and this peace. The Father and Christ dispense these two fundamental gifts through the apostles they have called and not through the Judaizers who are false apostles.

“Grace” is fundamental, “peace” is its result. This order is never reversed. The grammars supply εἴη, the optative of wish: “May grace and peace be with you.” We prefer to supply nothing and regard the statement as an exclamation: “Grace to you and peace!” Χάρις is the undeserved favor Dei by which alone sinners are received and cleansed from sin and guilt. Its connotation is free, gratuitous pardon. When it is again and again bestowed upon those who already have this grace (John 1:16), it is still the undeserved pardoning favor which constantly frees us from sin but includes all the gifts of this favor which we need in order to build up our spiritual life. “Grace to you!” = “All the abundant spiritual gifts of grace to you in one ceaseless stream!”

Εἰρήνη is the Hebrew shalom in the sense of the German Heil‚ the condition of well-being when God is our friend and all is well with us. The condition of peace is objective, the peace established by God through Christ, but it produces also the corresponding subjective realization of peace, the rest, satisfaction, and happiness that flow from the possession of peace.

“From” conveys the idea that grace and peace flow down upon us. Here the names of the divine givers are chiastically reversed, the Father is named first, Christ, second, both are again equal, both together are the joint source. As the natural order in the calling of Paul was Christ and the Father, so now in the bestowal of grace and peace it is from the Father and Christ. The slight variants in the reading do not affect the meaning. We note only that the soteriological title “our Lord” is added to the name “Jesus Christ” used in v. 1. This is the full designation, which is full of solemnity, that is so frequently used. “Our Lord” is a confession: we belong to him, are wholly dependent on him. He has purchased and won us and made us his own (1 Cor. 7:23); he directs us in all things.

Galatians 1:4

4 The apposition: “he who gave himself for our sins,” etc., refers to the expiatory self-sacrifice of him who is now our Lord Jesus Christ. The substantivized aorist participle denotes the historical fact as such. “He gave” means by a voluntary act; “himself” is his own person and no less, and that means his life. The readings vary between ὑπέρ and περί, “in behalf of” and “concerning”; the difference is small, and the variation in reading appears in other similar statements. In what way our sins required this giving of himself is not stated, but it is perfectly clear from all Paul’s teaching. In the LXX περὶἁμαρτίας regularly denotes the expiation and removal of sins; and this is what the phrase means here. The reason that Paul attaches this apposition is plain.

Nothing removes sin save the self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross; through that sacrifice alone grace and peace are ours. The Galatians were listening to a different doctrine. The Judaizers could not make Christ’s expiation the sole fountain of grace and peace.

The addition of the purpose clause emphasizes the point still more: “that thus he might deliver us for himself from the present eon (which is) wicked,” etc. Ἵνα expresses simple purpose; ὅπως, purpose and manner combined, the manner being indicated in the governing clause. Christ’s purpose is that in the manner just mentioned, namely by giving himself for our sins, he might deliver us, etc. Note the middle voice of the aorist subjunctive (ἐξ́αιρέω): “take us out for himself,” i.e., to be his own. We should not think of the future deliverance at the end of the world or at the moment of our death. When the Scriptures speak of this they refer to the resurrection of Christ or to his exaltation. The deliverance connected with Christ’s expiation is the one effected now, in this life. The aorist is effective, it is an actual deliverance.

A greeting is not the place to expand and to teach in detail how Christ’s death accomplishes this purpose for us. This purpose was not accomplished already in the instant when Christ died. Paul writes of himself as an apostle, as one who preaches the gospel in order that men may be brought to faith and justification. All this is included in the accomplishment of the purpose of Christ’s death. The reconciling death involves the Word of this reconciliation, its proclamation, and the personal reconciliation of all those who are delivered by Christ (2 Cor. 5:18–21). “Might deliver us for himself,” is an effective aorist and at the same time constative. Each person is individually delivered, and with “us” Paul takes them all together and thus speaks of the act as being one. That is sufficient; we need not think of “us” as including all the saved of all the ages until the last day.

The great point that the Galatians are to note is the fact that grace and peace are ours through the merits of Christ’s self-sacrifice alone. All is due to his death for our sins. We are able to add nothing by any work of ours. We are not delivered by any observance of law. The whole epistle is aimed at this error; the foundation is laid already in the greeting.

Paul writes: might deliver us “from the present eon (which is) evil.” The idea of time in αἰών remains but is advancced to include what transpires during this eon of time, what thus marks and distinguishes the great era. Thus a modifier is added, here the predicative adjective: “(which is) wicked,” πονηρός, actively and viciously evil. We may use “world” in place of “eon” but only in the sense indicated. Instead of “the present eon” we sometimes have “this eon”; both are in contrast with ὁαἰὼνμέλλων, “the eon about to come,” i.e., that of the blessed eternity. Ἐνεστώς is the perfect participle which is always used in the present sense. The “present” eon is the one which began with Christ’s death and is thus now present; it is the final eon of the world which is to be followed by eternity. Satan rules it so that it is “wicked” through and through.

Our one hope is that Christ take us out of it for himself, and this he does by means of his death for our sins. These sins tie us to this world age. Being wicked, all of them, they hold us to this wicked world. Freed from them, we are delivered “out of” this eon. For the time being we, indeed, live in this world, but we are no longer of this world. Christ has made us his own. Our life in Christ separates us from this eon or world, in particular from all that is “wicked” in it. The Galatians were in danger of being drawn back into this present wicked eon by losing the deliverance of Christ, by trusting in the law and in works of their own.

The κατά phrase modifies the entire apposition “he who gave,” etc., plus the purpose clause. All this is “according to the will of our God and Father.” Θέλημα does not mean the act of willing but what God willed. When Christ gave himself he did what God wanted; when he delivered us he again did what God wanted. This is God’s good and gracious will (Luther). One article combines the two names “our God and Father” and designates one person. But in this combination “God” brings out all his greatness and his majesty, “Father” all his love and his tenderness to us who are delivered by Christ. “Our” modifies both nouns: he who in all his majesty and in all his love is ours in order to bless us for evermore.

In v. 1 and v. 3 “Father” indicates the trinitarian relation which as such is already soteriological; for God revealed himself as triune only in order to show us how all three persons work out our salvation. Here in v. 4 “Father” with the possessive “our” is likewise soteriological but at the same time confessional as in the Lord’s Prayer.

Galatians 1:5

5 The fact that Paul adds a doxology at the end of a greeting is exceptional in the highest degree and thus significant. The greeting is usually followed by a word of thanks to God for the good accomplished in the readers. But what can Paul say about the Galatians who had begun to forsake the gospel? Instead of adding a word of acknowledgment and appreciation regarding their faith and their faithfulness Paul looks up to God and praises him for his gracious purpose and will as much as to say to the Galatians: “Praise him with me by allowing that will and purpose to have full sway among you also!”

The copula is usually omitted in these doxologies, when it is written it is ἐστίν and not εἴη. Moreover, δόξα is often combined with other terms that denote actual possessions of God and not merely something that we bestow on him. So we do not translate Ehre but use the objective Herrlichkeit. Paul is not thinking of men’s bestowing glory and honor upon God but of God in his own eternal glory, the manifestation of his infinite attributes, especially as they shine forth in Christ’s death and the saving purpose connected therewith. Ἐστίν with the dative is one of the common ways of indicating possession; the relative used in doxologies is demonstrative: “he, he alone, to whom (belongs) the glory,” the sum of the divine attributes in their manifestation.

“For the eon of the eons” is a Hebraistic circumscription for eternity, the grandest of all found in the Greek, which multiplies the idea of “eon” indefinitely. How anyone can think of earthly eras is difficult to understand. In human language terms that denote time must necessarily be used to express what is in reality the opposite of time. “Eternity” is itself a term that designates time. We have no others. The Scriptures condescend to use such terms. Our minds are so tied to time and to space that even the philosophers cannot rise beyond them, cannot even form the concepts timelessness and spacelessnes except in a vague, negative approach.

Ἀμήν is only the Hebrew noun for “truth” or “verity” written with Greek letters; call it an adverbial accusative. It has been taken over into other languages unchanged. At the end of a statement, a doxology, or a prayer it solemnly confirms; it is like the affixing of a sacred seal. Jesus alone doubled it and used it as an introduction to his statements as is evident in John’s Gospel.

INTRODUCTION

The Denunciation, 1:6–10

Galatians 1:6

6 Instead of saying that he is delighted with this or that in the Galatians when he begins the body of his letter, Paul declares that he is shocked at what the Galatians are on the point of doing. The very first paragraph is stunning. Soft Melanchthonian methods are not in place; heroic measures are demanded. Here there is no error in life; the heart of Christendom is assailed. The foe is deadly. A cancer threatens the vitals; palliatives would be a fatal mistake, the remedy must destroy the ailment to the very roots.

The apostle not from men or by means of man but from Christ and God speaks, speaks in the power of Christ and of God. His words have a conquering ring. He speaks to the churches of Galatia who as churches are bound to hear and to heed every word unless they intend to cease being churches. The voice they hear is fearless and scorns to please men. This is the voice of the slave of Christ, the slave who knows only one obedience, that to his heavenly Master alone. This voice rings with divine authority and power.

The tone of this section is tense and dramatic. Paul is not swept away by passion. He writes with perfect self-control. He knows the weight of every sentence. Every statement is deliberate and straight to the point. The very first sentence reveals the fact that he is completely informed; all hesitation of uncertainty is absent. We have only one explanation for this decisiveness: not a mere report that has at last reached Paul, not a letter from Galatia that brought a certain amount of information, but a delegation from the churches, men whom Paul had questioned on all points and who had told him all the facts as they actually were. These facts the apostle meets with incisiveness.

The issue is nothing less than the gospel itself. That issue Paul states at once. I marvel that so quickly you are making a change away from him who called you in grace‚ (namely) Christ, to a different gospel which is not (even) another except in the sense that there are certain ones who are disturbing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

“So quickly.” That is the fact that causes Paul astonishment; he would not have believed it possible if it were not for the complete information that he has. The two adverbs are heavily reproving for the Galatians. The statement contains no point from which to reckon; hence we cannot translate “so soon” (A. V.) but must translate “so quickly” (R. V.). Paul had given the Galatians credit for more solidity and more fidelity.

He is deeply pained and hurt. His confidence has been misplaced. A conclusion is involved, namely the fact that when Paul last visited the Galatians, all was well with them. Then came the Judaizers, and instead of being promptly escorted to the door, all these churches began to listen to them and to find something attractive in their false gospel. This is what happened “so quickly.”

The middle μετατίθεσθαι is regularly used to express what the Germans call uebertreten‚ to change from one political party or from one philosophic school to another and thus from one religious conviction to another. There is nothing in the context that points to this being the passive voice, hence we regard it as the middle; to make a change of this kind is a voluntary act. Here we have a case in which the tense is vital. An aorist would mean that the change had been actually made; the present tense states only that the change had begun, is in progress but not yet completed. The cause is not yet lost although there is no time to lose. Paul is stepping in strenuously.

The defection in progress is “away from him who called you in grace.” Paul makes the charge personal by naming the person who had called the Galatians and not merely the gospel by which they had been called. At the same time he brings out the full aggravation of this unfaithfulness: the Galatians had been called “in grace.” The phrase has no article and is thus to be understood in the sense of “graciously,” i.e., without deserving it, yea, deserving the very opposite. “Into the grace” (A. V.) is incorrect. The aorist participle states the past fact.

In the epistles καλεῖν is always used with regard to the successful call and never only with reference to the invitatio which one has rejected. Whether the genitive Χριστοῦ is textually genuine or not, he who called the Galatians is Christ. The statement that it is always ὁΘεός who calls is unwarranted. Paul himself was called by Christ; Rom. 1:6 names the Christians as “called of Jesus Christ.” Here the gospel by which the Galatians were called is designated as “the gospel of Christ.” Χριστοῦ is in apposition to the substantivized participle; it does not modify χάριτι.

Nothing in the world should ever make the Galatians change away from him who had called them in grace and at the price of his death delivered them from this present world which was wicked and doomed (v. 4). They should have resisted the most powerful and the most persistent efforts to the last breath. Yet they are quickly beginning their apostasy! Paul might have used a stronger word than “I marvel.” He names the deadly thing the Galatians had begun to do: change away from Christ. The Galatians themselves would disavow this. They intended to stay with Christ; the Judaizers themselves taught Christ, yea, came as the genuine apostles of Christ (2 Cor. 11:13, 14).

Why, the Galatians were now getting Christ better than they ever got him! Any plea of that kind is silenced by the next phrase: “to a different gospel which is not (even) another” but so different as to be no gospel at all.

The point to be noted is that Paul does not say: away from Christ—to a different Savior. No other person exists who could be placed beside Christ. He says: away from Christ—to a gospel that is no gospel at all. By forsaking the true gospel and by accepting a substituted fake gospel the Galatians are losing the one Savior there is. That is the dreadful danger toward which they are verging.

The emphasis is placed on this fake gospel, on the adjectives which declare it a fake: “different—not another.” The A. V. confuses this: “another—not another.” The words ἕτερος and ἄλλος at times amount to the same thing; but here ἕτερον = οὐκἄλλο. This gospel is “different” because it is “not another.” A gospel might be “different” only because it is “another,” is couched only in “other” words but leaves the substance the same. But when it is “different” because it is “not another,” the very substance is changed; such a gospel is a fake, a mere pretense or sham. Its proponents call it a gospel only to gain its acceptance as brass is sold for gold; those who buy are cheated. This is the charge Paul launches.

See R. 747. The genuineness of the gospel is so vital because the true gospel is the one and only means by which Christ calls us, transmits his grace to us, in a word, delivers us from this wicked world (v. 4). The substitution of a fake gospel loses us this call, grace, deliverance, does so whether we are aware of the fact or not.

The deception practiced on the Galatians has been repeated to this very day. A “different” gospel is offered which is “not another.” It is even the same adulteration that is offered. Yes, the name “gospel” is retained, the “Christ” or at least “Jesus” are preached, but for pure grace in his atoning death there is substituted the law, the requirement of works as the means of salvation. The multitude applauds and, like the Galatians, is so quickly and easily deceived.

Galatians 1:7

7 The relative ὅ refers to ἕτερονεὐαγγέλιον, and the relative clause states that this “different” gospel is not another gospel in any sense. Ὅ does not refer to the whole previous statement: “which” in the sense of “your changing to another gospel” is nothing but that some are troubling you. This thought would require ἄλλοτι or οὐδὲνἄλλοἐστίν. With εἰμή, “except,” Paul qualifies the clause “which is not another.” One might understand this clause to mean that what the Galatians were changing to is totally unrelated to the true gospel and in that sense “not another.” Then the matter would be easy, indeed; then the Galatians would scarcely have been deceived. There is an exception to the broad “not another.” Paul states what the exception is. This “different gospel” does bear a relation to Christ’s true gospel. Right there is where the terrible danger lies; not another “except in the sense that (εἰμή) there are certain ones who are disturbing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ,” not another except that its advocates pretend that it is “another,” in fact, the genuine article itself.

It is not another except in the sense of a most dangerous perversion. Paul scornfully calls its advocates “certain ones.” Substantivized participles must have the article even when they are used as predicates; here, moreover, subject and predicate are identical and interchangeable (R. 768). “Who are disturbing you” is the preliminary, minor description of these perverters. They have come to the Galatians and have made this their business. The present participle says only that they have begun their disturbing work. The main statement is found in the second participle: “and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” Note that Paul does not use the participle μεταστρέφοντες, much less the aorist participle. He does not say that they are perverting Christ’s gospel or that they have already succeeded in doing so.

He says only that they “are wanting” to succeed in this nefarious work. They have only the vicious will.

When Paul writes, “to pervert (aorist, actually to pervert) the gospel of Christ,” he is not thinking of what these perverters actually teach. That is an actual and a complete perversion and not merely a willingness to pervert. Paul is thinking of the gospel of Christ which the Galatians had received from him. This gospel these perverters wanted to upset in the hearts of the Galatians so that the Galatians should no longer believe it. Yet thus far they only wanted to do this damnable thing, they had not yet succeeded. Paul is writing in order to prevent their success.

It is well to note that in “the gospel of Christ” the genitive denotes the author. It is the gospel which emanates from Christ, which he has entrusted to his apostle. This is not the objective genitive: the gospel “about” Christ. The Judaizers, too, had much to say about Christ when they converted him into another Moses. But theirs was not Christ’s own gospel which he himself had preached, which he then commissioned his apostles to preach, which also the Galatians had received from Paul. This genitive of source and authorship shows the correctness of the interpretation that Christ is the one referred to when it is said that he called the Galatians (v. 6).

Galatians 1:8

8 After thus in the most direct way stating the vital point at issue with the perversion of Christ’s gospel to which the Galatians had begun to give ear, Paul utters a solemn malediction on anyone who would dare to pervert this gospel. But even if we or an angel from heaven shall preach gospel to you contrary to what we preached to you, let him be accursed! As we have said before, also now again say I: If anyone preaches gospel to you contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed!

Ἀλλά is adversative, it takes direct issue with τινές: there are people of this kind, “but” whoever they may be, they are accursed. Note the difference in the conditional clauses: καὶἐάν vividly supposes a case; εἰ in v. 9 takes up the real case that is now occurring in Galatia. What is said of the supposed case lends greater justification and strength to what is equally said about the real case. This is augmented by making the supposed case deal with the highest persons, with even an angel, and the real case with lower persons, thus securing the argumentative weight of a conclusio a majori ad minus.

“Even if” is concessive: suppose that such a thing should occur, that we ourselves or, still worse, an angel from heaven should so preach. The more improbable, yea impossible the supposition, the more justified the verdict of damnation. Paul intends to state a rhetorical extreme (R. 1026). How could those who had preached the real gospel turn around and preach its contrary? Or how could an angel from heaven do such a thing? The fact that ἡμεῖς and the “we” in the verbs “we preached” and “we have said” cannot be literary plurals and refer to Paul alone and not to Paul and his assistants, is plain from the latter, for there occur together, “we have said,” and, “I now again say.” No writer uses “we” and “I” with reference to himself in the same breath; to assume that Paul does this here is untenable.

Paul puts “we” first because he would in no way spare himself and his own best friends and assistants if they should ever falsify the gospel; he also gains a climax by adding “or an angel from heaven.” He must add “from heaven,” for Satan is able to masquerade as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). The reading ὑμῖν (a few texts have ὑμᾶς as in v. 9) is textually well attested. If it is omitted, the proposition is more general; but if it is retained, the sentence is a more personal reference to the Galatians. The Greek idiom for the English “contrary to” is παρά, literally “beside” (R. 313); so here and again in v. 9: “contrary to what we preached to you”—“contrary to what you received (from us),” v. 9. These two relative clauses (both are object clauses) define what Paul means by “a different gospel which is not another,” namely a gospel “contrary to” the true one which Paul and his assistants preached and the Galatians received.

The verb εὐαγγελίζομαι means to proclaim good news and is generally used in the New Testament to indicate the preaching of the gospel. We use it in the missionary sense of “to evangelize.” Here it is first used with the dative and then with the accusative of the persons to whom the gospel is preached; the sense is the same. Note the tenses: two aorists in v. 8: “if … shall actually preach as gospel”—“contrary to what we actually did preach to you”; then the present in v. 9: “if anyone ever preaches as gospel.” One might use the absolute “gospelize.” In the present connection the verb is used with reference to both false and true gospelizing as the context makes plain. The correlative idea is always faith in what is proclaimed as good news; in v. 9 it is expressed by the verb λαμβάνω, “to receive.” Such faith and reception are wrought by the gospel itself. The enormity of refusing the glad tidings of salvation in unbelief is at once apparent; it brands this news as a lie.

The most damnable thing, however, is to proclaim as the true gospel something that is contrary to that gospel; yea, to induce people who have received the true gospel to cast this aside and to accept something contrary in its stead as though this contrary were the genuine, true gospel. Bad enough for his own soul for anyone to make this exchange but infinitely worse to make it one’s business to delude others into making this exchange. The divine gospel is branded as a lie, the lying gospel is offered as the truth; the double falsehood leads souls to destruction. Whoever is guilty of this crime, “let him be accursed!” even if it be one of us, Paul says, yea‚ an angel out of heaven itself.

The Hebrew cherem = something that is removed from the possession or use of men and set aside for God, either as an object upon which God’s wrath rests or as an object that is dedicated to God as a gift. Hellenic Greek used ἀνάθεμα for the former in the sense of “accursed,” ἀνάθημα for the latter. The later ecclesiastical “anathema” found in the Decrees of the Council of Trent is the continuation of “accursed.” It is not known whether anathema was used in excommunication from the synagogue. Any late ecclesiastical use of this word sheds no light on our passage. Paul is not acting as a human court nor is he calling on the Galatian churches to act as a court by pronouncing an anathema. An angel would not be subject to a human court.

The view that Paul is exercising the right of excommunication is not substantiated but answered by 1 Cor. 5:3–5. Paul had no such right, did not pretend to have it.

As the apostle and representative of Christ and the Father Paul pronounces the verdict: “Let him be anathema!” He repeats the verdict which Jesus himself uttered against the Pharisees in Matt. 23:13–39 (note v. 15 and 33). Anyone who promulgates a different and contrary gospel is eo ipso “accursed,” not because we say so, but because Christ has said so, and we only repeat his judgment. This includes the devil himself. (1 Cor. 6:3; 2 Cor. 11:14). The damnamus found in the Confessions is fully justified. In a ministerial conference a Lutheran was challenged: “You certainly would not damn a Jew?” He replied: “Christ has already done that!” R. 939 states that the imperative crowded out the classical optative of wish; the untenableness of that view is the fact that Paul is here not expressing a wish but a verdict.

Galatians 1:9

9 This is not a new verdict nor one that is pronounced by Paul alone. The Galatians have heard it from him and from his associates before: “As we have said before.” Paul is now merely repeating it: “also now again say I.” Whether this is a reference to the first missionary journey when Barnabas was Paul’s associate and these uttered an advance warning against any falsification of the gospel, or to the second visit in Galatia when Judaizers had already appeared in Syrian Antioch and then in Jerusalem, no one can say. The latter seems more probable. Of course, what was then said to the Galatians does not need to agree verbatim with the denunciation as it is now worded with the repeated anathema. Then the Galatians were told about what might occur, now Paul speaks of what has occurred: “If anyone preaches gospel to you contrary to the one you received (from us), let him be anathema!” Παρʼ ὅ has the same force in both verses; in both cases the relative is not indefinite: “contrary to what,” but refers to the εὐαγγέλιον embedded in the verb. But note the advance: “contrary to the one we preached to you” (v. 8) points to the bringing of the gospel to the Galatians; “contrary to the one you received” completes the bringing by noting the reception in true faith. This also fits the condition of reality now employed; the Galatians had in fact received the true gospel.

As certainly as what the Galatians “did receive” was the divine gospel and that alone, so certainly it was most damnable to seek to subvert that gospel and to supplant it by a sham gospel. But were the Judaizers not sincere? The devil is even more sincere in promulgating the false gospel in order to crowd out the true. Vicious sincerity never escapes the anathema.

Perhaps they were unconscious of their sin, acted ignorantly and not intelligently? The answer to this then as now is the one Jesus gave to the Pharisees in John 9:41: “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say: ‘We see!’ therefore your sin remaineth.” The truth is not that the Judaizers never knew the true gospel. It is not even only the fact that, when the true gospel came to them, they did not believe it (Mark 16:16b). The fact is that the Judaizers had the true gospel before them and determined to destroy it, and that not by open opposition and persecution but by the insidious substitution of a fake gospel, than which no more devilish means exists. They were worse than the Pharisees who claimed: “We see!” and thus refused the truth; they were like those mentioned in Matt. 23:15, who made their proselytes twofold more the children of hell than themselves; yea, even worse than these, for these operated with proselytes from paganism to Judaism while the Judaizers proselyted true believers.

Galatians 1:10

10 Two startling questions close the double denunciation: they are followed by Paul’s own decisive answer. Indeed, am I now trying to get the approval of men or of God? or am I seeking to curry favor with men? If I were yet currying favor with men I would not be a slave of Christ!

In this instance γάρ cannot mean “for” (our versions) as either stating a reason or offering an explanation. The insertion of “now,” which repeats the “now” of v. 9, restricts us to the thought of what Paul is doing with these startling verdicts. It is as plain as day that he is neither seeking the approval of men nor trying to curry favor with men. Γάρ is but the confirmatory adverb which is here used in a question in order to point to what the previous statements make decidedly plain and thus make the question more urgent and the desired answer more inevitable (Zahn).

Like a flash the questions reveal the charges the Judaizers had launched against Paul in order to discredit him and his gospel. They alleged that Paul toned down the rigorous legal requirements of the original gospel in order to gain the approval of Gentiles, to make the gospel palatable to them, to curry favor with them. In his ambition to build churches and to gain a great following he had emasculated the gospel and stripped it of essential parts. The Judaizers came to Galatia in order to restore the gospel to its true content. Paul’s gospel of liberty was a piece of conscienceless accommodation to Gentile reluctance in accepting the Jewish law. O yes, the Judaizers also preached Christ, but in the full legal setting without which the Galatians could not be saved!

Paul meets all this with sudden, smashing questions. Indeed, does anybody who is trying to please men approach them with anathemas? The present tense is conative: “Am I now trying to get the approval of men—seeking to curry favor with men?” If at any time before I have spoken softly, is this now soft language? And have we not before, when we were with you Galatians, spoken in the same uncompromising way (v. 9)?

The force of both πείθω and ἀρέσκειν lies in the personal objects. The former does not mean “persuade,” for God cannot be persuaded. It means trying to secure the approval of someone. The second verb is used only regarding men and not regarding God and thus means “to please” in the sense of “to curry favor.” The second question thus makes the first clearer; “or” is not adversative and exclusive but conjunctive. Paul puts the questions in such a way that the Galatians will have to answer no if they are still honest. Only a man whose sole aim it is to have the divine approval will write as Paul now writes even as he and his assistants have in the same way spoken face to face with the Galatians.

This refutation of the slander spread among the Galatians may well open their eyes to the character of the Judaizers and to the base means with which they work. What the Galatians have found Paul to be before, they will also find him now, a man without fear or favor, with his eye on God and on Christ alone. He is an apostle, not from men or by man, but through Christ and God alone (v. 1). The interpretation that “now” refers to Paul’s whole Christian life in contrast with his former Judaism disregards the context and the close connection with the preceding “now” (v. 9); both refer to the present moment.

Paul answers his own question with a conditional sentence that expresses present unreality (εἰ with the imperfect—the imperfect with ἄν): “If I were yet currying favor with men I would not be Christ’s slave.” This is the verdict under which Paul would then rest. Not a slave of Christ = a mere slave of men (1 Cor. 7:23). The point of δοῦλος or “slave” is not hard labor done for a master; it is absolute obedience which knows no will but that of the master. Ἔτι, “yet.” If at this late time in his apostleship Paul did not yet serve Christ as his supreme Master, then the Galatians might, indeed, turn away from him. Paul would rather alienate all the Galatian churches from himself than reduce in a single point the gospel committed unto him by Christ to please them or anybody else.

PART 1

The Apostle of Christian Liberty Received His Gospel by Revelation Alone. 1:11–2:21

In the body of this letter Paul first thoroughly silences the plea of his Judaizing opponents that, because he was not one of the Twelve who had been in the school of Jesus, his gospel was therefore unreliable since he had obtained it from men, who themselves, perhaps, understood it wrongly, or whose doctrine Paul modified to suit himself. This plea, which Paul overthrows, includes the claim that the leaders in Jerusalem taught a different doctrine, one in which the old law was still made binding. In fact, it was claimed that Paul himself occasionally observed the old legal requirements. By discrediting him the Judaizers hoped to discredit his gospel so as to substitute their own.

These false claims Paul overthrows by means of three replies, all of which are historical in substance. The first is the fact that he received his gospel directly from Christ by revelation alone and not at secondhand from the other apostles (1:11–24). The second, that the other apostles fully acknowledged Paul’s gospel (2:1–10). The third, that on one occasion Paul was obliged to correct Peter himself regarding this very point of complete liberty from the law, and that Peter accepted the correction (2:11–21). This reply, consisting of clear facts, is at once complete and convincing in every respect.

1. How Paul Obtained His Gospel, 1:11–24

Galatians 1:11

11 With perfect calmness Paul presents the detailed facts regarding the manner in which he received his gospel. Only one question is to be answered: “What are the facts?” They and they alone are decisive. Paul presents them to the Galatians whom he clearly distinguishes from the Judaistic teachers. On these latter he has pronounced his anathema, but the Galatians he addressed as his brethren throughout. Paul writes as one who is confident that the truth will prevail; the note of defeat is foreign to him.

For I inform you, brethren, in regard to the gospel preached as gospel by me, that it is not in human style (at all). For also, as far as I am concerned, I did not receive it from man and was not taught; on the contrary‚ (I received it) through Jesus Christ’s revelation.

These opening statements present the whole matter in a nutshell. No human agency of any kind was employed in transmitting the gospel to Paul, to equip him for preaching it as an apostle who was on a par with the Twelve. The means employed was direct, immediate revelation by no less a person than Jesus Christ himself, the same Jesus Christ who equipped the Twelve in the same way.

“For” at the beginning of the whole paragraph is explanatory in a broad way: “so that you may understand this whole matter aright.” “For” does not intend to prove that Paul is “Christ’s slave,” for it does much more. Of course, it elucidates all that precedes in v. 1–10, but even this is not enough. The elucidation focuses on the great point as to how Paul got his gospel; after this is clear, all will see that this is Christ’s very own gospel, and that any “different” gospel cannot come from Christ and must, therefore, be false, a human invention, a vicious substitute. Further elaboration takes care of the details and furnishes the strongest support for the proposition laid down at the start.

The address “brethren” conveys a good deal. The Galatians had been disturbed (v. 7) by the Judaizers, their certainty was not as strong as it had been before, they were in great danger, but they were still “brethren,” to whose rescue Paul comes. The Galatians are “brethren,” not so the Judaizers whom Paul repudiates utterly. These “brethren” are to listen to Paul who writes to them as their true “brother”; and as “brethren” they will be certain and even glad to do so.

“Brother” has been cheapened by many. Some unionists call anybody “brother,” would have called the Judaizers by this name. In the New Testament “brother” and “brethren” are terms that are applied to those only who believe and confess the true gospel and never to those who have become guilty of a repudiation of any part of that gospel. Such “brethren” may need help to maintain the gospel; they then get that help in fullest measure.

“I inform you, brethren,” sounds formal and impressive, and for that very reason is tinged with irony. To “brethren” one would expect a brother to say: “You know, brethren,” not, “I inform you,” unless he were telling something new. The fact “that the gospel gospelized by Paul” is not κατὰἄνθρωπον, “in human style,” was certainly not news to the Galatians; for if it were news, why had it not been told them at the start? And if Paul withheld this information until this time when he is challenged, how could he suppose that this late telling would make any impression on the Galatians? The effectiveness of Paul’s “I inform you” lies in the very fact that Paul has to tell the Galatians, as though it were a piece of entirely new information, what he had told them when he first gave them the gospel. He might have exclaimed because of their forgetfulness or have stirred them to remembrance in some other way; he chose a way that was telling, indeed.

The aorist passive participle indicates the past fact: “gospeled by me.” The entire stress rests on the last phrase: κατὰἄνθρωπον, “according to or after man,” menschengemaess‚ normated in a human way. We are able to give only the general sense: it is not a gospel “in human style.” The phrase is broad and does not specify. The points about which Paul is here concerned follow with an explanatory “for.” These, however, do not exhaust the phrase, for it covers just about everything in the gospel. In all respects it shows its non-human, its divine nature, quality, power, effect, etc. How strange that this must again be told to the Galatians as though it were news—shame on them!

Galatians 1:12

12 The readings vary. The easier ones are οὔτε—οὔτε and οὐδέ—οὐδέ. We might adopt the latter: “neither—nor.” We then get a contrast. The trouble with this reading is the fact that to receive the gospel from man (a human being) and to be taught is not a contrast that fits “neither—nor.” For how can one receive the gospel from man except by being taught? If “nor was I taught” means that Paul was not taught even by Christ, the phrase “by Christ” should be in the text. The more one studies the statement, the more the difficult and unusual reading: οὐδε—οὔτε seems correct, the former specifying, the latter merely adding a point of the one specification: “For also (B.-D. 462, 3 on Rom. 8:7; B.-P. 949: denn auch nicht), as far as I am concerned, I (emphatic ἐγώ, subject of both verbs) did not receive it from man and was not taught.” This is the one decisive point here at issue.

If Paul had received his gospel from man he, of course, was taught by man. In this vital point his gospel would then be “according to man.” He would be on the same level with true Christians in general and with the Galatians in particular and not on a level with the Twelve.

“On the contrary (ἀλλά after negations), (I received it) through or by means of Jesus Christ’s revelation” exactly like the Twelve. We cannot supply both verbs: “I received and was taught by means of revelation,” for, to say the least, it would be peculiar to state that revelation conducts a course of instruction. Revelation reveals instanter, to be taught is a different process. This, too, indicates that οὔτε is correct, and that the two negatives describe the ordinary human reception of the gospel.

What seems to confuse some is the fact that the Twelve were taught by Jesus. But that teaching never enabled them to act as apostles. Much of it they failed to understand; after three years they deserted Jesus and fled. Jesus promised them the Spirit (John 14:26; 16:13, 14). That means revelation, exactly the same thing that Paul received. Before his call to the apostleship Paul knew many things about Jesus, not, indeed, nearly as much as the Twelve; but they as well as Paul needed direct, divine revelation. It and it alone supplied every lack. The least lack was intellectual grasp, the supreme need was power (Acts 1:8). The revelation which supplied the greater need certainly did not fail in the smaller.

“Of Jesus Christ” is the subjective genitive; he is the revealer. The fact that Christ revealed by the Spirit in no way discounts this act as being his. No one is able to say whether the revelation was one act or a succession of acts, nor is this point vital in any way. The veil was withdrawn from Paul’s soul, and by a miraculous intervention of the Christ who called him the entire gospel was put into his possession for his office as an apostle. When did this occur? We do now know. The main point is that it did occur.

We meet a peculiar reluctance to admit that Paul received the entire gospel exactly as he here says he received it. Some hold the view that Paul had after all to learn the story of Jesus from Christians who knew it and could teach him. The decisive answer to this is the fact that the revelation which gave Paul the main substance of the gospel would certainly not stop short in regard to the minor things. If Christ had in a way made Paul dependent upon men, he would have placed Paul below the apostolic plane. The fact that Christ did nothing of the kind is the very point here settled once for all.

We cannot accept the view which has the Judaizers claim only that Paul’s gospel was one κατὰἄνθρωπον, of human type, a perversion that was due to Paul who ambitiously wanted to get a great following among the Gentiles, but excepts from the Judaizers’ claims the thought that Paul got his gospel from man and allows that he obtained it from Christ. Their claim included what v. 1 intimates, that he was an apostle from men, by means of man, not from Christ and God; thus certainly also that his gospel was according, received from man or man’s teaching and not by means of Christ’s revelation. The correspondence between v. 1 and v. 11, 12 is too great to admit of any other view. The Judaizers did not need to specify the man or the men from whom Paul derived either his alleged apostleship or his alleged gospel.

It is incorrect to say that Paul was made the first man who taught Christian liberty for the church. Syrian Antioch stands out in this respect. Paul’s missionary journeys had started from there. While one must be careful when he extracts the charges against Paul from his defense, there is no reason for striking out the items that he had his gospel, not from Christ, but from men. The fact that Paul himself then further altered his gospel in order to make it still freer for the Gentiles may be admitted as an additional charge against him on the part of the Judaizers.

Galatians 1:13

13 With “for” Paul explains still further. For you have heard of my own mode of life at one time in Judaism, that beyond measure I continued persecuting the church of God and ravaging it. And I kept advancing in Judaism beyond many as old as I in my race, being more exceedingly a zealot for my ancestral traditions.

“You heard,” aorist, is sufficient to the Greek who cares to mark only the past time; our “have heard” marks the relation of the action to the present. It is an old story, long known to the Galatians. For this very reason Paul refers to it now in order to remind the Galatians how rather impossible it was for one who had been what he had been even to be converted by the agency of man, to say nothing of being made an apostle. The longer the Galatians have known what a frightful Jew Paul once was, the more effect Paul’s recalling it will have upon them in the present connection. He needs to touch only the worst points.

We note ἐμήν which is stronger than the enclitic “my,” for Paul’s conduct in life was an exception. “In Judaism” has the article, like the German in dem Judaismus‚ whereas we do without it; the term itself does not refer to the Jewish religion (our versions) except as this is the main thing in Judaism. Paul at once states the worst: “that I continued persecuting the church of God and kept ravaging it.” He was the supreme Jewish fanatic of his time. The two verbs used do not exaggerate in the least. As imperfects they describe the persecuting and the ravaging. Πορθεῖν is used with reference to devastating a city with fire and sword; it is the word found in Acts 9:21. The enormity of Paul’s criminal course is expressed by the adverbial “beyond measure” and by the formulation of the object “the church of God.” Is there a greater crime in all the world than to devastate—and that beyond all measure—God’s own church? “God’s” is the proper possessive, for the word itself denotes deity; “Christ’s” would do that to a lesser degree.

Galatians 1:14

14 In v. 13 Paul lets his former acts speak, now he adds the animus that drove him to these and to other fanatic acts. He says that he cut ahead (προκόπτω) in Judaism beyond many of his own age, left many young men as old as he was far behind. As is so often the case in the Greek, the participial clause presents the main point: being more excessively than the other young Jews of his age “a zealot for my paternal traditions.” The word used means that he literally burned with zeal that demanded action against anything that was opposed to the Jewish traditions; it recalls the name that was applied to the Jewish sect of the Zealots who preached the sacred duty of revolt against Rome.

Paul was of the same fanatical type, but his zeal was “for my ancestral traditions” (objective genitive). Πατρικός is the adjective formed from the genitive τοῦπατρός and refers to one’s father, grandfather, etc., and not, like πατρῷος or πάτριος, to national ancestry. Paul’s father was a strict Pharisee and had trained his son to be even stricter. The adjective makes the impression that this Pharisaism was a trait of long standing in the family. Its proudest and most militant member was Saul.

By “my ancestral traditions” Paul refers to the traditions of the Pharisees, that whole hedge of 613 human commandments which the rabbis had built around the law, and which the Pharisees made it the business of their party to maintain at all costs. Here we should recall all the virulent clashes of Jesus with the Pharisees, for instance, the climax in Matt. 23:13, etc. Paul’s violence against the Christians was so excessive because the church meant the death of Pharisaism. A converted Jew and Pharisee might live in the old Jewish way and freely choose to observe parts of the Mosaic law; but he would certainly give up the traditions of the elders as being mere useless and dangerous “commandments of men.” These very traditions were the apple of Paul’s eye; for them he wished to tear the church of God to pieces.

What Paul conveys is the idea that he was more than a defender of the Mosaic law, more than a Pharisee who saw the glory of Judaism in that law. He saw the crown of Judaism in the traditions. The church had to be crushed so that these traditions, built to support the Mosaic law, might be maintained. The point in all this is not that Paul could not be converted as many other Pharisees were converted. Although they believed, some of these still thought that parts of the Mosaic law were binding (Acts 15:5), but not, of course, the rabbinical traditions.

Paul was utterly extreme. On the one hand, he raged for the traditions and went far beyond the Mosaic law; on the other hand, he now stood for complete liberty even from the Mosaic law and was the very apostle of this liberty. Once the supreme protagonist of the traditions, now the very apostle of Christian liberty! Let the Galatians visualize the gulf that lay between these extremes. How was it possible that such a fanatic traditionalist should now be the apostle of perfect Christian liberty? If he was converted at all he should have been a Judaizer like those referred to in Acts 15:5. But we already have the full answer: “Jesus Christ’s revelation,” v. 12.

Galatians 1:15

15 This concise answer is now amplified. But when is pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by means of his grace, to reveal his Son in me in order that I may preach the good news of him among the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those (who were) apostles before me but I went off into Arabia and again I returned to Damascus.

This is the full account of the revelation which converted the zealot for the rabbinical traditions into the apostle of Christ and of gospel liberty. God did this by an act of revelation, did it completely without the aid of any man, without in any way employing any man as a means in his hand.

It was due to God’s pleasure, his εὐδοκία, which is here expressed by the verb εὐδόκησεν. God “had the good pleasure.” The word conveys the idea that God was moved only by what is in himself and not by any merit or worthiness in Paul. It also contains the thought of grace and kindness so that all arbitrariness and determinism are excluded. The “good pleasure” of God is the free will whose content is something good (C.-K. 354). This term is used in connection with the bestowal of salvation, cf., Eph. 1:5. It is one of the lovely terms applied to God in the Scriptures. What God did in his good pleasure is stated by the infinitive: “to reveal his Son in me.” Distinct from this act are two others which are not connected with the infinitive but made descriptions of the subject: “God who separated and called” (note the article which makes the participles attributive).

“Who separated me from my mother’s womb” means more than that God ushered Paul into this life as he does every child that is safely born. Not only does “it pleased God” precede, but a second participle, “called,” follows. We are reminded of Jer. 1:5 and may think of Luke 1:15. The intentions of God’s good pleasure are not conceived at the time of their execution but long before, so long in advance that he shapes and directs all things toward the good end he has in view. How the divine and the human factors are combined in attaining the good outcome is beyond mortal insight. Speculations are generally unsatisfactory.

The point which we should note is the full stress Paul lays on the divine agency which made him the apostle that he was. No one would have believed that the babe born away off in heathen Tarsus, the child of the strictest Pharisees, would come to be the apostle who fought this Pharisaism so mightily.

The Hebrew pharush‚ Aramaic pherisha’‚ “Pharisee,” is the Greek ἀφωρισμένος, one separated. Because Paul here uses the aorist participle of this verb, the supposition is advanced that Paul means that God in his good pleasure made him “a separated one,” i.e., a pharush or Pharisee in a higher (Christian) sense. Even in Rom. 1:1, where we do have the perfect participle, this idea is too superficial to be entertained. It is more so here because of its modifier: “who separated me from my mother’s womb.”

“Called me by means of his grace” takes us to Damascus. The purpose God had already at the time of his birth came to its fulfillment in the call of grace. While all that intervened between the birth and the call seemed so contradictory to God’s good pleasure regarding Paul, it in reality served the divine purpose. What a triumph of grace! What an effect upon the Jews themselves! The Pharisaic career of Paul, once it crashed before grace, made pure grace stand out in its supreme effectiveness in Paul’s own experience.

When Paul writes, “called me by means of his grace,” all the wonders of grace rise before our minds. Yes, this is grace with its connotation of utter guilt in the recipient who ought to be damned, with its implication of absolutely unmerited favor. In the epistles “to call” always denotes the successful call (see v. 6). Here, as in v. 6, Paul has in mind the call that made him a Christian. It is true enough that the same grace called him to be an apostle, and even that both calls were united in one grand act; yet here Paul distinguishes and lets the infinitive say how he was made an apostle.

Galatians 1:16

16 The main statement, which is vital for Paul’s object, is that God pleased “to reveal his Son in me.” What is meant is at once shown by the addition of the purpose of this revelation: “in order that I may preach him as good news among the Gentiles.” This revelation was to make Paul the apostle to the Gentiles. The infinitive is an aorist, it denotes a complete and an effective revelation. Paul does not say, “to reveal Jesus Christ,” but “his Son,” Jesus Christ in his deity, in all that his deity means for the contents of gospel preaching. Subtract the deity, and all that remains is hollow sound.

The claim is made that Paul never calls Jesus “God’s Son.” Here we have one of the numerous places where he does so. The fact that “his Son” makes Christ equal with the Father, makes Christ the second person of the Trinity, we have seen in v. 1 and 3, where this equality is beyond question. “In me” is stronger than the mere dative “to me.” R. 587 and W. P. translates “in my case”—a strange idea: “to reveal in my case.” “In me” is even more than “in my experience.” This revelation was not intended for the senses of Paul but was vastly more. It filled his very heart, soul, and spirit so as to abide with him forever.

In v. 12 Jesus Christ is the revelator, here the revelator is God. This fact may be stated either way. God ever reveals his Son, the Son ever reveals God. Whatever this revelation did for Paul’s personal faith as a believer—here it is regarded as making him the apostle to the Gentiles. This revelation made Paul the equal of the Twelve as we have already brought out. One hesitates to say whether it included more than took place on the road to Damascus. Its absolute sufficiency for Paul’s apostleship is beyond question. Paul was made an apostle to the Gentiles from the start. The strange fact that years passed before he actually worked among the Gentiles does not change God’s appointment. Like Moses, Paul had to await God’s own time.

Paul did not confer with flesh and blood. This verb is regularly used in this sense (M.-M. 546): to consult with someone in order to obtain advice, to get someone’s judgment so as to arrive at a decision. “Flesh and blood” is often thought to refer to Paul himself, i. e., to his own natural inclinations, with the idea that he did not let these speak in the matter. It is claimed that the analogy of Scripture supports this view. Yet in Eph. 6:12 “flesh and blood” denotes earthly opponents, and in general σὰρξκαὶαἷμα, basar wedam‚ derives its meaning from the context. Here Paul has in mind fallible men in general; he uses the highly descriptive abstract expression in place of a concrete term. “Flesh and blood” is in contrast to “God who separated me,” etc. Paul in no way referred God’s revelation and appointment to the apostleship among the Gentiles to earthly judges before accepting it.

We might think that Paul’s emphatic “immediately” refers back to his bloodthirsty ravaging of the church and thus stresses the suddenness of the change in him: one moment tearing the church to pieces, the next going forth with the commission to gospelize even the heathen. But “immediately” is to be construed with two peculiar negative statements. These read like refutations of lying reports; as though Paul had learned from the Galatian delegation that the Judaizers claimed that he did at first listen to others and seek their guidance and then afterward broke away and adopted the wrong course of discarding all the Jewish legal requirements. That was a cunning way of winning the Galatians away from Paul’s present teaching, his opponents pretending that theirs was the original doctrine that was held by Paul himself when he at first listened to others. Paul never consulted any man. To have done so would have discredited God himself, the all-sufficiency of God’s own revelation.

Galatians 1:17

17 “Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those (who were) apostles before me” singles out the Twelve as the ones who were worthy of being consulted more than any others. The higher the Twelve stood, the more one must remember that they, too, were only “flesh and blood” as compared with God. “Immediately” is to be construed also with this clause. Paul did not hurry to Jerusalem to get anything, whether information and instruction or corroboration and approval, from any of the Twelve. Paul’s action was not a reflection on the Twelve as though he cared nothing about a judgment of theirs. Quite the contrary. He acknowledges them as “the apostles” exactly as God had made him such a one. He also acknowledges the one point in which they outranked him: they were the apostles “before me.” God had appointed Paul as the last apostle.

It would have been wrong for Paul to have consulted the Twelve or any number of them whom he might have found in Jerusalem. It will not do to say that they would undoubtedly have approved. They would have rebuked Paul for trying to consult them regarding God’s own revelation. Not one of them would have ventured a word where God himself had spoken. Were they higher than God? By his revelation God had not only made Paul an apostle but had equipped him in every respect exactly as he had equipped them, the Twelve, on Pentecost.

Over against the double negation and in order the more to down the false reports the Judaizers were spreading Paul states the facts regarding what he did do in the early days: “on the contrary (ἀλλά after negatives), I went off into Arabia and again I returned to Damascus.” We at once see that Paul is writing to people who know where he was called and received God’s revelation. Whether they also knew about his trip to Arabia must remain an open question; they did know that he eventually left Damascus never to return there. The point of importance is that there was no apostle in Damascus either at the time of Paul’s conversion or when he returned; and in Arabia there certainly was no one with whom it was possible to confer.

But for this mention of Arabia we should not know that Paul had ever been there. Luke says nothing about it although we have no difficulty in fitting Paul’s visit to Arabia into Acts 9:20–27. How long Paul remained in Arabia, how long a second time in Damascus, no one knows. Why did he choose Arabia, and what did he do there? Our curiosity is keen, various guesses are ventured, but no one knows more than this brief statement contains.

Galatians 1:18

18 Now we learn when Paul first came to Jerusalem, what his purpose was in coming, and whom he found there. Thereupon, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas and remained with him for fifteen days. But another of the apostles I did not see save James, the brother of the Lord.

We regard “thereupon,” ἔπειτα, as meaning after the return from Arabia, and “after three years” as being in contrast with “immediately” (v. 16), hence three years after Paul’s conversion and not three years after his return to Damascus from Arabia. The latter would hang in the air, since the length of time between Paul’s call and his return from Arabia is not mentioned. Nor is any reason apparent why the return from Arabia and three years from that indefinite date are of importance. But the fact that Paul waited three years after his conversion before going to Jerusalem is exact and to the point; also that during these three years he had taken a long journey, but not to Jerusalem; also that he returned to the place of his call, namely Damascus. So three years went by since Paul was called.

And since so long a time had elapsed, any idea of consulting the apostles about his revelation was rather late. Paul now tells the Galatians why he went to Jerusalem: “to become acquainted with Cephas.” Why only Cephas? Paul could scarcely expect to find all of the Twelve in Jerusalem. We must conjecture that he had learned from traveling Christians that Cephas was making a stay in Jerusalem and hastened to make the acquaintance of this leader among the Twelve.

Here Paul writes “Cephas,” the old Aramaic name of Peter; in 2:7, 8, where Jewish opponents are not so prominently in mind, “Peter” is used. Paul remained πρὸςαὐτόν, in reciprocal contact with Cephas, only fifteen days, a trifle over two weeks. This is the extent of Paul’s first contact with any apostle. Ἱστορέω = “to visit” for the purpose of learning to know, to become acquainted with, B.-P. 596, not “to inquire of,” to get information from.

Galatians 1:19

19 During these brief days Paul did not even see another of the apostles. They were evidently absent from Jerusalem and in other cities. When he adds: “save James, the brother of the Lord,” we should at once see that, having just denied seeing a single other apostle, his meaning cannot be that he after all saw another apostle, namely this James, but that Paul feels that he must name the one other person of special importance whom he saw although without really getting acquainted with him. This was not one of the Twelve as Paul makes plain, but one whom he must name since the Judaizers might claim him in support of their teaching. There is not a conflict with Acts 9:27, where Luke says that Barnabas brought Paul “to the apostles” (plural); for Luke calls Barnabas, too, an apostle (Acts 14:14) and could well consider James an apostle in this wider sense of the term.

At this time the church at Jerusalem was no longer under the direct management of the Twelve but had its own elders, chief among whom was James. We know him as a man of great importance; Acts 15 is enough to establish this fact. He is called “the brother of the Lord” in order to distinguish him from James, the brother of John, and probably from James, the son of Alphæus. He came to faith after the resurrection of Jesus. We have shown in connection with Acts 1:14 that the “brothers of Jesus” were not sons of Mary (see that passage); whether they were stepbrothers or cousins is an open question. The writer does not accept the more recent claims which rest their contention on ἀδελφοί as if this settled the question that sons who were born to Joseph of Mary after Jesus are referred to. Acts 1:14 is an impediment in their way, and there are other obstructions that are not removed by this word.

Galatians 1:20

20 This is the whole of that visit of fifteen days three years after Paul’s call as an apostle: acquaintance with Peter, seeing James, no conference on Paul’s revelation, no passing of his call through any man’s hands, nothing to lower Paul’s apostleship in any way. Now as regards what I am writing to you, lo, before God, I am not lying!

This solemn assurance is called forth by the insinuations and falsifications of the Judaizers who used all that they had heard about Paul in order to discredit him. Some of the Galatians might ask: “Is that really all there was to that visit in Jerusalem?” Paul gives the most solemn answer as if he were before God’s own judgment seat. He is writing them the facts, the entire truth without a falsehood. Paul’s gospel had its own convincing and faith-working power. Outward proofs add nothing whatever to that; but they do remove barriers which would otherwise block acceptance of the truth such as plausible and cunningly twisted allegations about the apostle himself.

“What I am writing to you” may be regarded as a pendent nominative. Ἰδού is an interjection as the accent shows and has no object; but the formula of solemn assurance: “lo, before God,” has adverbial force and thus has the ὄτι clause as its subject, “that I am not lying.”

Galatians 1:21

21 What about the time after those fifteen days? That, too, is highly significant. Thereupon I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Acts 9:27–30 briefly tells the story of the fifteen days and how the threat of persecution drove Paul from Jerusalem. Paul touches upon only his contact with Peter and with James because the Judaistic falsifications tried to make capital of that. Brought from Jerusalem to Caesarea, Paul went to Tarsus.

What made him leave Jerusalem was really a communication from the Lord himself (Acts 22:17–21). He could go by either sea or land. If he went by land, he would go first to Syria and then to Cilicia. It is sometimes supposed that he went by sea and that he here reverses the names and writes Syria first because it adjoins Palestine and then Cilicia because it adjoins Syria. The fact is that after years spent in Tarsus, Barnabas brought him back to Antioch in Syria where they worked together. Paul may mention Syria first because he did not work in Cilicia but finally did considerable work in Antioch.

The remarkable thing is that Paul spent eight years in Tarsus, his native city. They are a blank for us. It is only a guess when one reads of missionary work done during these years in Tarsus and Cilicia. This is impossible. Luke has many silences due to his plan of Acts; but he could not have been silent regarding any work done in Cilicia, for this would have been Paul’s first great work among the Gentiles, the very work Luke records in Acts. No; Paul was inactive, in retirement.

Christ did not as yet deem him ready; like Moses, Paul had to wait. But all this belongs to a consideration of Acts; the point to be noted here is the fact that after fifteen brief days Paul for so many years went far away from any contact with the Twelve. This fact speaks volumes against the Judaistic falsifications.

Galatians 1:22

22 Moreover, I was not known by sight to the churches in Judea which are in Christ. Because of the lack of an adjective such as “Christian” we have the phrase “in Christ” added attributively. The Judean churches had never even seen Paul, and he had now been absent from them for years. This does not, of course, include Jerusalem where during those fifteen days Paul went in and out among the brethren and even disputed with the Hellenistic Jews who then tried to kill him (Acts 9:28, 29).

Galatians 1:23

23 Only they continued to hear: He who was once persecuting us is now preaching the faith which he was once ravaging; and they went on glorifying God in me.

Note the periphrastic imperfects in v. 22, 23, both stress continuation: “continuing unknown—continuing only to hear.” It is easy to see how the Judean churches again and again heard about the man they had never seen. They heard when they came to Jerusalem, or when someone from Jerusalem came to them. Many, no doubt, wondered what had become of Paul. He was certainly not forgotten.

What was said about him in all these churches? Anything derogatory? Any criticism of his gospel, of his apostleship, of his relation to the other apostles? Not a word. On the contrary, everybody got to hear this astounding news that their one-time persecutor is now preaching the very faith he at one time tried to wreck. Note the direct discourse, the sharp contrast “once—now,” and again “once” and the significant final clause.

All these churches heard not only that Paul was gospelizing but that he was gospelizing the faith he once sought to wipe out. What faith was that? The one the Twelve preached—no other. In Jerusalem, the mother church, whither the Twelve often returned, and in all the Judean churches Paul’s gospel was acknowledged as the one original faith. What do the Judaizers mean with their falsifications? Here there is another plain example of ἡπίστις used in the objective sense: “the faith” = the gospel = the doctrine, which contradicts the statement of C.-K. that this word is never used objectively.

Galatians 1:24

24 Instead of running down Paul as the Judaizers in Galatia did all these churches went on glorifying God “in connection with me,” ἐνἐμοί. All these, mark it, were Jewish churches who also had received all their news about Paul from Jerusalem itself, the very seat of the Twelve. What more can the Galatians ask?

Thus by a simple recounting of the historical facts Paul sets before the Galatians what they should never have allowed anyone to make them doubt: he had his gospel directly from God and Christ, by revelation and not at secondhand, the identical gospel of all the other apostles, of all the churches in Judea.

R A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.