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The Story of Paul's Letter to the Galatians

“From Paul and all who are here with me, to the churches in Galatia: may God's grace be with you. I can't bring myself to understand how you could so soon desert the Father who called you to share in the grace of Jesus Christ........”

It started over a plate of food, far from Galatia and years before Paul wrote his letter.

In the city of Antioch, friends enjoyed sharing a meal. This may seem like the most natural thing to do, until one remembers that only a little time before, many Antiochians had avoided each other. They came from different backgrounds and their beliefs forbade them to socialize with one another. Now that they believed in the same Lord Jesus Christ, they shared in the same grace and therefore in the same graceful living.

Antioch first heard the Good News about God's grace, when Jewish refugees shared it with their fellow Jews. The Good News broke barriers when disciples from Cyprus and North Africa shared it also to the Greeks in Antioch. Laws and idolatry that had previously separated Jews and Greeks, could no longer do so. Jew and Greek, man and woman, slave and free started to mingle in an unheard of movement as their eyes were opened to the workings of God's Spirit.

The rest of the inhabitants didn't fail to notice and so Antioch became the first city where all followers of Jesus Christ were called “Christians”. What God did in this city, which was originally named after a godless ruler, now became proof that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

The church in Jerusalem was so happy to hear about it, they sent Barnabas off to Antioch to encourage the Christians, so that even more people who believed the Good News followed the Lord Jesus. Barnabas then went over to Paul's home in the city of Tarsus to seek his help and bring him along to Antioch. Also the Apostle Peter came all the way from Jerusalem.

What better place to get to know graceful living, than around a dinner table!

* * *

A Crucial Meeting

For some visitors from Jerusalem, this was everything but good news.

Yes, they also did believe in Jesus as the Son of God, but..... Jews making themselves ritually impure by eating with people from other nations? What then about the Law of Moses? Not to mention the fear that those who opposed their faith would violently persecute them.

So they added a requirement to the Good News:

“Non-Jews have to be circumcised according to the Jewish Law,

if they want to be part of God's people!”

Suddenly, understandably, there was a tense atmosphere around the table.

Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem. This was an issue that had to be resolved for all ages to come and all places where the Good News would be preached.

And so in Jerusalem, a great meeting was held around the issue:

“Is it necessary for believers from other nations

to follow the Jewish Law?”

There was intense debate. The Pharisee Christians stood their ground: “non-Jewish Christians have to follow the law!” Then Peter said: “In the past, we Jews were not strong enough to save ourselves by means of the law. Should we expect now of others to succeed where we failed? No, God gave non-Jews who believed the Good News the same Spirit He gave us. And so both Jews and non-Jews are brought into right standing with God by the same grace, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Peter then related many stories, stories of how grace changed the world wherever the Good News was believed.

All were silent when James finally got up to speak. “God's time has come to gather a people for Him from all mankind” he said, “so let's not make it difficult for the nations. Faith is all that's necessary to receive God's grace and live in it.”

With that, the matter was settled. The meeting wrote a letter to the church in Antioch:

“Dear Antiochians, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, not to lay a greater burden on you, than just the essentials......”

When it was read in Antioch, there was great rejoicing, as tensions gave way to praise and grace overcame prejudices.

But grace got challenged.....

Friends of the apostle James had just arrived from Jerusalem in Antioch.

Standing in the doorway and looking around, they sternly frowned upon the warm gathering of believers. Their intimidating influence led to open hypocrisy:

Self-consciously, the Jewish apostles Peter and Barnabas excused themselves from where they were sitting with non-Jews and took their plates with them. By this, they gave away what they thought and feared.

But one Jew remained on the non-Jewish table: the apostle Paul. Having noticed, he also got up, but left his plate behind.

He went over to the Jewish table and called Peter by his native name: “Cephas! You're a Jew by birth, yet you no longer follow Jewish customs in order to have God's favour, because you now believe in Jesus Christ who brings us in the right relationship with our Father in heaven. So, why would you want non-Jewish Christians to follow those customs before you can fully accept them? Why are you not eating with them any longer?”

Paul then used the opportunity to make things clear:

“We who are Jews, grew up with God's Law, which told us what to do or not do. The Law proved to us that all of us are sinners. But now we know that God accepts us, not because we are working for Him as prescribed by the Law, but because we believe in Jesus Christ. When Jesus was crucified and died, I shared in His death. A dead man can't attempt to bring himself to life by working. So it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

“My life here on earth I now live in compete reliance on God's Son, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

* * *

From Champion of the Law to Servant of Grace

Some seventeen years before that incident, Paul (then called Saul) was the foremost champion of the Law.

It was only a short while since the Lord Jesus Christ had been crucified in Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders were now focusing their attention on Jesus' followers. They wanted to stamp out any belief in Jesus' resurrection.

From the day he helped kill Stephen, one of the first deacons of the Jerusalem church, the radical Pharisee Saul of Tarsus campaigned to eradicate the faith in Jesus Christ. With an authorization letter from the Jewish leaders in his hand, he had the power to apprehend and imprison Christians everywhere.

Saul was travelling the road from Jerusalem to Damascus in Syria to make sure no followers of Jesus remained in that city. In Saul's mind, he was doing God's will to uphold the Law.

But close to the city, the Lord whom he thought dead, spoke to him out of a blinding light! The Lord Jesus once told His followers: “if anyone accepts you, he accepts Me and if anyone rejects you, he rejects Me”. Now Paul heard Jesus say: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

Blinded and helpless, he was led into the city. The Lord Jesus sent one of those followers Saul was about to imprison, to pray for him. A chill went though Ananias when he realized he had to meet the man who had come – to put him in prison! But the Lord Jesus had already overcome Paul by his Grace and filled him with the Holy Spirit. His sight came back and he was baptised. Soon he went to local synagogues with the message that Jesus is indeed the Son of God! The Jewish leaders in Damascus wanted to kill him for this, but his friends helped him escape.

Paul knew that he who once persecuted God's people, was forgiven and accepted just because of the Grace of the Lord Jesus. For him, the lines were clearly drawn : God's plan existed long before he made his own, even long before his birth. God didn't accept him for what he had achieved, but for what the Messiah had done for him. Forever grateful, he started to preach that Grace.

* * *

Paul Authorized to Preach to Non-Jews

“From Damascus I didn't go to meet the church leaders in Jerusalem, because I didn't want to consult other people then.

“I would have you know that the Good News I preached is not a human invention, but indeed the Lord Jesus revealed it to me...

“I rather went to Arabia”, Paul related, “where I stayed three years before I went back to Damascus. Only after that, I went to Jerusalem.”

Saul tried to join the believers in Jersalem, but they were still afraid of him. It was the sympathetic Barnabas who found Saul and introduced him to the apostles. “I stayed for 15 days with Peter. At that time, I didn't meet a lot of other disciples.” They only heard the amazing news that the man who tried to destroy them, was now preaching the same message they believed in.

Some Greek-speaking Jews were after Saul's life, so the disciples quietly sent him away to his home town of Tarsus.

Saul then journeyed on to Syria and Cilicia where he made friends with a non-Jewish disciple, Titus.

Together they returned to Jerusalem fourteen years afterwards, at the time when the Great Meeting took place. In harmony with the decision, Titus the non-Jew wasn't expected to comply with the Jewish ritual law. So Paul had only one more question to ask from James, Peter and John: “Do you agree I'm on the right track, to preach to everybody that only faith is needed to receive God's grace?” “Yes!”, they replied. “So from now on, Peter will preach the Gospel to the Jews and you to the non-Jews.”

Then they gave Paul a firm handshake with the words: “We'll not make things difficult for you. Just remember – we have some poor Jews here, please help us look for support wherever you go!”

* * *

A Clear Message Delivered to Galatia

What happened afterwards, is told in the Book of Acts: from the time Paul arrived in the northern town of Antioch, till he and Barnabas were sent out from the church in Antioch to take the Good News to wherever the Lord would lead them.

Paul and Barnabas later parted ways and he found new companions in Silas and Timothy. They arrived in Galatia, which was then a Roman province, situated where today's country of Turkey is. The Galatians at that time prayed to several gods and built temples for them.

And then Paul fell ill.

What would the idol-worshipping Galatians make of his illness? Would they despise and reject such a stricken messenger? Would they be superstitious about it?

He nevertheless told them the Good News: God, the beginning and end of everything, gave His Son Jesus Christ, to make people of all nations heirs of his Kingdom. Long ago, God blessed Abraham and promised him that all nations would be blessed like he was blessed. Jesus Christ fulfilled that promise, when He gave his life for our lives and took it up again to become our life and freedom. Everyone who trusts completely in Him, shares in the inheritance He brought. Paul convinced them that idols are not real and that those who serve idols, become slaves of their own imaginations.

Far from despising the messenger, the Galatians reacted with joy: they not only believed Paul's message, but also accepted him with the same enthusiasm they accepted Jesus Himself. They would have provided him with everything he wanted, had he asked.

For the Galatians, the message was as clear as if Jesus was crucified right before their eyes. In Paul's weakness and the way God enabled him, they saw the cross and suffering, the resurrection and new life re-enacted.

Paul and his friends stayed on for a while, before they committed the new churches to God's grace and left for Greece.

* * *

Law-mongers Arrive

Frowning, Paul presses hard on his feather pen. He's using large characters as he writes the last paragraph of his letter to the Galatian church.

Since the time Paul departed from Galatia, he had suffered a lot on his journeys, was nearly killed, went hungry and cold, was rejected by his own people and imprisoned by the authorities. The Galatian believers meanwhile also experienced hardship: their fellow countrymen cruelly opposed them.

During a few quiet days with fellow believers, Paul got news from Galatia, news that deeply disturbed him and left him with the same pain as if he was sharing the wounds of Jesus.

Some Jewish Christians from Jerusalem had made their way to distant Galatia. For what purpose? To convince non-Jewish believers that, if they wanted to inherit God's Kingdom, they had to follow the Jewish Law. They had to be circumcised. They had to become so-called proselytes, a practise that allowed non-Jews to enter the Jewish nation by means of the door of the Law.

They were acting as if the Great Meeting in Jerusalem never took place. More than that: Reliance on the Law and fear of men had them trace Paul's footsteps to undo much of what the Spirit of the Lord had done through Paul.

They convinced the Galatians that Paul's message wasn't complete: they still had to obey the Law as a way to be accepted by God. And the Galatian Christians fell for it. Suddenly they were observing Jewish rituals, holy days, months and seasons.

In the past, they had worshipped idols and followed all the rules and rituals of their religion. Now that they turned to the one true God, they were trying to please Him also by following rules and rituals.

It became clear why the Lord Jesus once scolded the Pharisees: “you travel over land and sea to make one convert, only to make him a child of hell, worse than yourselves.”

The Galatian church seemed to Paul like a baby that just didn't want to come to a timely birth. He felt the pain. He wished nothing more than that Christ should be formed in their lives.

Paul rolled up the parchment and sent it with the swiftest runner he could find.

* * *

Blessing and Curse

The letter that was opened in Galatia, started with a short greeting, words of grace. But then it went straight to the point: I'm amazed at you.......

“...... because you are you are so soon turning your back on the Father, who called you to the grace that is in Christ.”

Shock. Let's read on......

How could those people from Jerusalem add things to the Good News that the apostles agreed not to add? How could they meddle in with God's blessed plan for the nations? How could you Galatians allow yourselves to be deluded so easily, so soon?

“Dear Galatians”, he passionately wrote, “there is no news that is worthy to be called Good News. Even if I myself or an angel from heaven should bring you another “Good News”, let that person be cursed!”

That it wasn't Paul who was pronouncing the curse, is clear from the history he told them next:

“Before there was even a Jewish nation, God called Abraham, who grew up in an idol-worshipping family, to wherever He would lead him. God spoke to him like a man to his friend and gave him this Promise: 'I will be your God and through you I will bless all nations'. He also promised: 'I will give you a land of your own'.

“That was God's covenant with Abraham, Did Abraham add anything to the covenant? No, he simply believed in God and followed where God led. Because of his faith, God accepted him. In this way, God opened the way for people from all nations to be accepted on account of their faith.

“God promised Abraham that 'a descendant' of him would inherit everything he was promised. But Abraham and Sarah thought God was taking too long to give them a child, so, out of doubt rather than faith, Abraham fathered a child, Ishmael, with the slave woman Hagar. At the right moment, the promised child was born. Ishmael couldn't inherit the promise, because the promise belonged to Abraham's wife, the free woman Sarah, and her child born out of faith, Izaac.

“The descendants of Abraham later became a big nation and they were enslaved in Egypt, but God freed them and led them to the land He'd promised Abraham long ago.

“After being freed, God gave them the Law at Mount Sinai. The heart of the Law was this:

'Listen Israel, the LORD your God is One.

You should love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and mind,

and you should love your neighbour as yourself'.

“The Law was good and had a good purpose. But the Law also brought a curse: no one could ever perfectly do it. The harder they tried, the more they knew they were sinners who couldn't please God the way He wanted. And that brought no comfort, because there is a curse on everyone who breaks the Law. The result was no freedom, but slavery.

“So the Law never took away the Promise. The Promise was God's everlasting agreement with his people. It was there long before the Law was given and it remained in force afterwards.

“What was then God's purpose with the Law? The law functioned as a teacher, or rather a caretaker. During that time, the people of Israel were taught like minors in God's house: what was promised belonged to them, but they still couldn't have it.

“Then, two thousand years after Abraham and one thousand five hundred and seventy years after Sinai, it was the right time for God to fulfill the Promise:

“When the fullness of time came,

God sent his Son,

born of a woman,

born under the Law,

to free those who were under the law,

that we might be adopted as God's sons,

and if you're a son, you're no longer a slave,

but an heir.”

“When Jesus gave Himself up in death, He took the curse of the Law upon himself and in that way removed it. The law with all it required, was nailed with Him to the cross.

“ Like a widow who is free to marry another husband, now we are free from the Law, so we can belong to Jesus Christ, free to live in God's grace. Now that the curse has been removed, all who believe in Him may now have the promised blessing: to receive the Holy Spirit. All of us who believe in Him, are children of God and in our heart God's Spirit calls out:

“Abba! Father!” '

This is the beginning of the inheritance received. This is the New Covenant, the Promise of the Ages come true!

“All people who live by faith - from whatever nation, slave or free, men or women - are now blessed children of Abraham. More than that: children of God and heirs of the everlasting Promise!”

* * *

Being a Slave While You Could be Free

Jerusalem of his time, said Paul, acted like the slave woman: While the Promise had already been fulfilled, they still chose to labour to make themselves good before God, though they could never succeed.

But our true Jerusalem is in heaven and like the free woman whose children inherited everything, she is already free!

* * *

Paul sees through the plot

The visitors from Jerusalem came and went. The Galatians were inwardly torn apart: They still trusted in Jesus Christ, but now they started trusting in ritual laws at the same time. They relied on what Jesus already fulfilled, while still following that which was only a shadow.

Inner conflict led to conflicting loyalties, which made it hard for them to choose between the Good News that had been such a joy to them and the assertiveness of the law-mongers. They didn't know whether to appreciate Paul or to rather do the will of their new mentors. Paul heard news of church people in Galatia being at each other's throats. Would they try to outdo each other, mutually destroy each other, make a mockery of the church and the Good Message?

“Don't you realize that those people who want you to observe the law, are just trying to separate you from us? And how could you so soon become disloyal to us, who brought you the Good News?”, he wrote.

The real motive of the law-mongers was fear of being persecuted.

Therefore they didn't want to let go of the old in order to have the new. They tried to achieve a man-made unity that would satisfy everybody. But that was no longer possible. What happened on the cross, forever changed the way God accepts all nations.

The Lord Jesus had warned against the “yeast”, the spreading influence, of the Pharisees. “They want to have you who believe in Jesus to be circumcised, as if Jesus, the Descendant, never came, as if the Promise was never fulfilled, as if we never were set free from our own effort as a way to be accepted by God!”

“If we are one with Jesus, circumcision doesn't matter at all. What matters to God, is faith – faith that leads to deeds of love. Therefore:

God 's will is to make us new creatures altogether!”

* * *

Grace leads to graceful living

A new nation was being born on earth: God's children in Christ.

Paul explained: A person's heart can't be changed by appeasing idols or trying to obey the Law. The way to get free from the evil world we live in, isn't pleasing people or appeasing God or being enslaved by idols, neither does it come by simply giving in to human nature.

The promised blessing is now received by all – no matter whether Jew or non-Jew - who believe in Jesus Christ.

But what then about the Law? Faith should never imply that we allow ourselves to live in sin: If we allow our human nature to do as it wishes, it means that we abuse our freedom and spend our energy on selfish things, like idolatry, jealousy, drunkenness, divisions, envy and anger. These things have no place in God's kingdom.

A believer should rather let the Spirit of God have its way: like a tree that bears fruit without even having to try, the Spirit makes us produce love, joy, and peace, patience, friendliness and goodness, trust, humility and self-control. These things that come from the Spirit living in our hearts, is the New Covenant made visible. This kind of life is proof that the Promise still holds and it's the only way to do what the Law requires.

Living like this, takes away the urge to undermine one another and replaces it with harmony and unity.

This kind of life isn't human effort, but God gets all the praise for what He does in us.

But then we should live this new life single-mindedly.....

* * *

Live the new life!

The children were probably excused when they read the next sentence:

“I wish those guys who insist on circumcision would go all the way

and castrate themselves!”

These words were no mere shock tactics.

Paul himself once persecuted people who believed that Christ died for them on the cross. He himself had suffered persecution as soon as he started to preach the cross. He knew that the easiest way out would have been compromise.

“Once you Galatians rely again on laws like that little cut of circumcision, whether as a way to become members of God's nation, or as a way to escape criticism”, he said, “you cut ourselves off from God's grace.”

Rituals don't change lives and compromise produces no real unity, because unity is the fruit of grace, undiluted grace.

As the Lord Jesus came to us with grace and truth, His Spirit gave us lives of grace and truth. So, don't compromise on the Good News of Grace. But at the same time, be gentle as you help your fellow believers live in this Grace. When your brother stumbles, be humble. Help each other without comparing yourself to others.

“Carry one another's burdens.”

And you yourself, live in obedience to God - the saying “what we sow, we reap”, just got a new meaning: when we sow seeds given by the Spirit, we will reap eternal life.

“Don't love as a way to earn good points, but love because you are new people! Love, because that is your new being! Do good to all people – starting with your fellow-believers.” This is then how Paul described the real Israel of God, a nation not known for their laws, but for their being God's new creation in Christ.

Did the Galatians heed this message? There are so many things we don't know. But we can know something about our own lives, for the letter was also written for us.

* * *

God's Heartbeat

Even more than Paul's heartbeat, we feel the heartbeat of God our Father in the letter to the Galatians:

From the beginning, God was concerned with all nations. His perspective is eternal and He set away an inheritance for all his people.

It's the Spirit who brings us together round one table, it's the Spirit who convinces us that we share from the same inheritance. Its the Spirit who leads us to accept from our hearts men and women, nations and peoples, as members of the same household of God.

Our main challenge in this new life is just to stand firm in grace - God's Grace, and to keep ourselves from being trapped by the elemental things of this world. The trap that leads us to pride, hypocrisy, spiritual slavery and social divisions.

The Holy Spirit shows the world what Jesus had done, through those who believe.

* * *

Epilogue

Paul went ahead with his mission. He also made good on his promise to collect money for the poor Jews in Jerusalem. But some years later, on a visit to Jerusalem, the Jews accused him of instigating trouble and handed him over to the Roman colonisers. They sent him off to Rome, where he preached the Good News to all who visited him where he was under house arrest. Even some of the Caesar's family became Christians. But after some time, the godless emperor Nero had him executed.

The Apostle Peter wrote his own letter addressed to churches, including the Galatians. At that time, Christ's people everywhere were persecuted, by their own family members, by the societies in which they lived and by the Roman authorities. Peter wrote a beautiful, simple message to all God's people, in which he affirmed to them that Jesus Christ is the source of all Grace. He encouraged them, in suffering, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

And he reminded them that they should try to understand Paul's letters.

An elder read the last words of Paul's letter before passing it on to the next town in the province of Galatia.

The congregation remembered how Paul, sick as he was, preached the Grace of the Lord to them, as people suffering from a worse sickness, the sickness of humans being far from God. They hung their heads as they listened to the final paragraph:

“Please don't make it difficult for me any more, because my body is already branded with the painful marks of Christ's ownership, the scars of suffering.”

This is then what Paul wrote with large letters, in his own handwriting, a message that the Holy Spirit writes to the church today, and through the church for the whole world to hear.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

be with your spirit.”

* * *