New Testament

Galatians

Galatians is Paul’s urgent defense of the gospel to churches being told that Gentile believers must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to belong fully to God’s people. Paul argues from his own calling, from the Galatians’ experience of the Spirit and from the story of Abraham that “a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (), and that all who belong to Christ are Abraham’s seed and heirs (). It is in the Bible because it guards the heart of the gospel and the freedom of everyone in Christ, Jew and Gentile alike.

Author: Paul, together with “all the brothers with me” (1:2). His authorship is not seriously disputed.
Audience: The churches of Galatia (1:2), mostly Gentile believers who had received Paul warmly (4:13–15). Scholars debate whether these were ethnic Galatians in the north of the Roman province (the North Galatian view) or the southern churches of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe founded in Acts 13–14 (the South Galatian view).
When: On the South Galatian view, perhaps around AD 48–49, before the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, which would make it one of Paul’s earliest letters; on the North Galatian view, in the mid-50s. The answer partly depends on whether the Jerusalem visit of 2:1–10 is the famine visit of Acts 11:30 or the council of Acts 15.
Where: Paul does not say where he wrote; suggestions include Syrian Antioch, Ephesus and Macedonia. The churches lay in the Roman province of Galatia in central Asia Minor, modern Turkey.
Genre: Galatians is a letter of rebuke and argument. Unlike Paul’s other letters to churches, it has no thanksgiving after the greeting; Paul moves straight to astonishment that they are deserting the gospel (1:6). It combines autobiography (chapters 1–2), argument from Scripture (chapters 3–4) and instruction for life in the Spirit (chapters 5–6), and it closes with a paragraph in Paul’s own large handwriting (6:11). Read it as a single sustained argument, in which the story of Paul’s life, the reading of Abraham and the call to walk by the Spirit all support the claim of 2:16.

Shape of the book

The Gospel Paul Received and Defended · ch 1–2Paul insists there is no other gospel, shows that he received it by revelation and that the Jerusalem pillars recognized it, and recounts confronting Peter at Antioch over eating with Gentiles.
Abraham, the Law and the Promise · ch 3–4The Galatians received the Spirit by faith, Abraham was justified by faith, Christ bore the law’s curse, and the law served as a temporary guardian until heirs came of age; Hagar and Sarah picture two covenants.
Freedom That Serves in Love · ch 5Paul warns that accepting circumcision as a requirement means seeking justification by law, then shows that freedom is fulfilled in love and in walking by the Spirit rather than the flesh.
Bearing Burdens and the New Creation · ch 6Practical care for one another, sowing and reaping, and a closing in Paul’s own hand that boasts only in the cross and in the new creation.

Themes

Justified by Faith, Not by Works of the Law. Paul’s thesis is that no one is justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ (). Readers differ on what “works of the law” means. The Reformation reading, from Luther and Calvin, takes it as doing what the law commands as a way to be right with God, so justification answers how a guilty sinner is accepted. The “New Perspective,” associated with E. P. Sanders, James Dunn and N. T. Wright, argues that the Judaism of Paul’s day was rooted in grace and covenant, and reads works of the law mainly as the marks that set Jews apart from Gentiles, such as circumcision, food laws and the Sabbath, so justification includes God declaring who belongs to His people. The text holds both concerns in view: the crisis arose over table fellowship (), and Paul answers it by saying that the law cannot give life or righteousness to anyone (, , ).
The Promise to Abraham and the Purpose of the Law. God’s promise to Abraham came before the law, and the law given 430 years later cannot cancel it (). The law was added because of transgressions until the promised seed came (), serving as a guardian to lead to Christ (). Paul insists the law is not opposed to God’s promises ().
Freedom in Christ. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (). Paul guards that freedom against two dangers: putting on again the yoke of the law as a condition of belonging (), and using freedom as an opportunity for the flesh ().
Life by the Spirit. The Galatians began by receiving the Spirit through hearing with faith (). The same Spirit cries “Abba, Father” in the hearts of God’s sons (), opposes the desires of the flesh, and produces love, joy, peace and the rest of the Spirit’s fruit ().
One People in Christ. Peter’s withdrawal from eating with Gentiles at Antioch denied “the truth of the gospel” (). In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (), because all are sons of God through faith and heirs of the same promise (, ).

Where Christ is

Galatians centers on the cross: Christ “gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age” () and “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (). He is the promised seed of Abraham and the Son sent when the fullness of time had come (), and Paul’s new life is Christ living in him ().

Abraham’s Seed. Promise and fulfillment. God promised that all nations would be blessed through Abraham, and Paul calls this the gospel announced in advance (). Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (). Paul reads the singular “seed” of the promise as pointing to one, “who is Christ” (), and then includes all who belong to Christ as Abraham’s seed (). (; ; ; ; ; )
Bearing the Curse. Fulfillment. The law pronounced a curse on everyone who does not keep all that it commands () and on anyone hung on a tree (). Paul says Christ took that curse on the cross so that Abraham’s blessing might reach the Gentiles, and he cites Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by faith” (). (; ; ; )
The Son Sent in the Fullness of Time. Fulfillment, with an echo of . God sent His Son, born of a woman and born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that they might receive adoption as sons (). Many readers hear in “born of a woman” an echo of the promised offspring of the woman. (; ; )
Two Mothers, Two Covenants. Type, which Paul himself calls figurative (). Hagar the slave and her son stand for Sinai and the present Jerusalem, while Sarah the free woman stands for the Jerusalem above. Paul quotes to show that the barren one now has many children, the children of promise. (; ; ; )
The Promised Spirit. Promise and fulfillment. Christ redeemed us so that “by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (). The prophets promised that God would put His Spirit within His people and pour Him out on all flesh, and Paul treats the Galatians’ experience of the Spirit as proof that the promise has come through faith in Christ (). (; ; ; )

Voices

Martin Luther. Galatians was his favorite letter; he called it his own epistle, comparing his devotion to it with his marriage to Katharina von Bora. His lectures on it made the letter a charter for justification by faith alone. More from Luther at CCEL ↗
Augustine. When Jerome suggested that Peter and Paul only staged their clash at Antioch () for teaching purposes, Augustine answered in letters that Paul truly rebuked Peter, since admitting a deliberate pretense in Scripture would undermine its truthfulness. More from Augustine at CCEL ↗

Reading well, key terms and common misreadings

Read it well

Start with 2:15–21. It states the thesis that the rest of the letter defends.
Notice that there is no thanksgiving after the greeting. The sharp opening (1:6–9) tells you how serious Paul thinks the situation is.
Read Acts 13–15 alongside, but hold the exact matching of Paul’s Jerusalem visits loosely, since scholars line them up in different ways.
Track the pairs Paul sets against each other: promise and law, Spirit and flesh, son and slave, freedom and yoke.
Read 4:21–31 as Paul’s own figurative reading of Genesis, which he signals as such (4:24), not as a license to allegorize any passage freely.

Key terms

Justify δικαιόω (dikaioō) — To declare or count righteous, the language of a court verdict. Readers debate how far it also includes being counted a member of God’s covenant people (2:16–17, 3:8, 3:24).
Works of the law ἔργα νόμου (erga nomou) — Doing what the law of Moses requires. The Reformation reading stresses law-keeping as a basis for acceptance; the New Perspective stresses the practices that marked Jews off from Gentiles (2:16, 3:2, 3:10).
Faith in Christ, faithfulness of Christ πίστις Χριστοῦ (pistis Christou) — The Greek phrase in 2:16 and 3:22 can mean faith directed to Christ, as in most translations, or Christ’s own faithfulness. Either way, Paul also says plainly that “we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus” (2:16).
Freedom ἐλευθερία (eleutheria) — Release from slavery, both to sin and to the law’s guardianship. It is freedom to serve one another in love (5:1, 5:13).
Flesh σάρξ (sarx) — Human existence apart from God’s Spirit. Paul uses it both for reliance on outward marks like circumcision (3:3, 6:12–13) and for the desires opposed to the Spirit (5:16–21).
Guardian παιδαγωγός (paidagōgos) — A household slave who supervised a child until he came of age. Paul uses the image for the law’s temporary role until Christ came (3:24–25).

Easy to misread

Concluding that the law is bad or that Paul rejects the Old Testament. He asks whether the law is opposed to God’s promises and answers, “Certainly not!” (3:21). The law had a guardian’s role until Christ, and its whole is fulfilled in loving your neighbor (5:14).
Taking freedom as permission to please oneself. Paul warns against using freedom “as an opportunity for the flesh” and calls the free to “serve one another in love” (5:13), and the works of the flesh still exclude from the kingdom (5:21).
Thinking the troublemakers denied Jesus. They were believers who added circumcision and the law as requirements for Gentiles. Paul says that requiring circumcision as a way of being justified makes Christ of no value (5:2–4), though he does not forbid Jewish believers their customs (1 Corinthians 9:20).
Reading 3:28 either as erasing every distinction or as merely inward. In context it means that Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male and female receive sonship and inheritance in Christ on the same terms (3:26, 3:29), with visible effects such as shared tables (2:11–14). Egalitarian readers see wider implications for roles in the church, while complementarian readers see equal standing that does not settle every role.

Further reading: David Guzik, Enduring Word · Matthew Henry on CCEL · BibleProject overview video