No other gospel: Paul defends the gospel he received

Galatians is the one letter of Paul that opens with no thanksgiving and no praise. Paul is astonished that the Galatian believers are turning so quickly to 'a different gospel' (1:6). The authorship of Paul is not seriously disputed. The destination is. The 'churches of Galatia' (1:2) could be in North Galatia, the ethnic territory around Ancyra and Pessinus, which Paul crossed on the second and third journeys (Acts 16:6; 18:23), or in South Galatia, the Roman province that included Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, where Paul and Barnabas planted churches on the first journey (Acts 13-14). J. B. Lightfoot defended the North Galatian view; Sir William Ramsay argued for the South. The date follows: a South Galatian letter could be as early as AD 48 or 49, before the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, which would make it Paul's earliest surviving letter. A North Galatian letter belongs to the mid-50s, written from Ephesus or Macedonia. This class does not need to choose.

The occasion is clear from the letter. Other teachers had arrived, whom Paul calls troublers (1:7), and persuaded Gentile believers that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to belong fully to God's people. Paul sees this as a different gospel, and he replies in three parts: autobiography (chapters 1 and 2), argument from Scripture (3 and 4) and ethical teaching (5 and 6). The first two chapters recount his history with the other apostles to prove that his gospel is not a human invention and has the agreement of the Jerusalem leaders.

The relation of Galatians 2:1-10 to Acts is debated. Many scholars identify the Jerusalem meeting with the council of Acts 15. Others identify it with the earlier famine-relief visit of Acts 11:30, which would allow Galatians to be written before the council and would explain why Paul does not cite the council's decree. Both views are held by careful scholars.

Galatians is a letter, and its form shapes its reading. Ancient letters had a standard opening, and Paul's changes to it carry meaning. He expands his title to deny that he is an apostle sent by human authority (1:1), and he replaces the usual thanksgiving with astonishment and a curse (1:6-9). Many scholars have compared the structure of the letter to ancient forensic rhetoric, in which the writer first states the facts of the case, then argues it; the comparison is useful but not certain. The letter is occasional, written to a specific crisis, and must be read as one side of a conversation. The troublers' own teaching can only be inferred from what Paul says against it.

The central interpretive issue is the meaning of 'justified' and 'works of the law' (2:16). The traditional Reformation reading takes them to describe a standing before God given by faith alone, in contrast to any attempt to earn it by obedience. Since the work of E. P. Sanders (1977), and in the writings of James Dunn and N. T. Wright, many scholars argue that 'works of the law' refers especially to the practices that marked Jews off from Gentiles, such as circumcision, food laws and sabbath, and that justification in Galatians concerns who belongs to the people of God. Many scholars now hold that both emphases are present. A second question is whether 2:16 speaks of 'faith in Jesus Christ' or of 'the faithfulness of Jesus Christ'; the Greek phrase pistis Christou can bear either sense, and commentators are divided.

The passage should be read in order: first the situation, then the history Paul gives, then the principle he draws. The autobiography is not a digression but evidence in the argument.

Chapter 1:1–5

Paul calls himself an apostle sent not by human authority but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Right at the start he states the content of the gospel: Christ gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age. The 'age' language belongs to Jewish apocalyptic thought, with its two ages, and the cross has already begun to break the hold of the present age.

Chapter 1:6–10

Paul is amazed that they are deserting God so quickly. There is only one gospel; what the troublers offer is 'a different gospel' that is not another one at all. Even an angel from heaven, or Paul himself, who preached anything else would be 'anathema', that is, accursed and handed over to God's judgment. The seriousness shows that Paul sees the question as touching the truth about Christ, not a matter of preference.

Chapter 1:11–24

Paul did not receive the gospel from any human source but through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He recalls his earlier life in Judaism, his violent persecution of the church, and the moment when God was pleased to reveal his Son in him so that he might preach him among the Gentiles. He did not consult anyone but went to Arabia, then returned to Damascus. After three years he went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas (Peter) and stayed fifteen days, seeing no other apostle except James the Lord's brother. Then he went to Syria and Cilicia, and the churches of Judea knew him only by report: the man who once persecuted them was now preaching the faith he had tried to destroy. The point of the history is that his gospel came directly from Christ and not from the Jerusalem apostles.

Chapter 2:1–10

After fourteen years, whether counted from his conversion or from the earlier visit (scholars differ), Paul went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, a Greek who was not compelled to be circumcised. Paul laid out the gospel he preached among the Gentiles privately to those of reputation. 'False brothers' had slipped in to spy out the freedom believers have in Christ Jesus and to enslave them, but Paul did not yield, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with the Gentile believers. James, Cephas and John, the recognised pillars, added nothing to his message and gave him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that Paul would go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Their only request was that Paul remember the poor, which he was eager to do.

Chapter 2:11–14

At Antioch, Cephas used to eat with Gentile believers, but when certain men came from James he drew back from the table out of fear of the circumcision party, and the other Jews, even Barnabas, joined him. Paul opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. Their conduct was out of step with the truth of the gospel, since it implied that Gentiles must live like Jews. The word 'hypocrisy' (hypokrisis) means acting a part. The incident shows that the gospel is at stake in table fellowship.

Chapter 2:15–21

Paul states the principle. We who are Jews by birth know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so that we too have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no flesh will be justified. If seeking to be justified in Christ makes Jews sinners, as the troublers imply, Christ would be a servant of sin, which cannot be. Verse 19 says that through the law Paul died to the law that he might live to God. Verse 20 is the heart: 'I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.' The life he now lives in the flesh he lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him. To go back to the law would be to nullify the grace of God, since if righteousness could come through the law, Christ died for nothing.

Galatians 1 and 2 lay the groundwork for the doctrine of justification. The letter teaches that people are put right with God not by a record of obedience but through Christ, received by faith. The great Reformation debates about justification, with Luther's lectures on Galatians among the most famous commentaries of the era, grew from this letter and from Romans. Paul's argument also requires that there is one gospel, and the apostle's authority and the fellowship of the church depend on holding to it. The Antioch incident shows that the doctrine is also practical: where Jews and Gentiles share a table, the gospel is displayed.

The passage also gives a high place to revelation and apostolic authority. Paul claims his gospel comes from Jesus Christ himself, and the Jerusalem apostles agree. The New Testament presents one gospel confirmed by many witnesses (compare 1 Corinthians 15:11). In the canon, Galatians is the earliest and sharpest statement of themes Paul treats at greater length in Romans, where he again cites Habakkuk 2:4 and Genesis 15:6 for faith. The Old Testament background is the covenant with Abraham and the promise of a blessing for the nations, which chapter 3 will develop.

The theme of life in Christ in 2:20 anticipates the later description of the Christian life as union with Christ. The believer's life is no longer lived on its own power but through the indwelling Christ, and the cross is where that union begins.

Galatians 1 and 2 are full of Christ. He is the one who gives the gospel (1:12), who gave himself for our sins (1:4), who was raised by the Father (1:1), who loved Paul and gave himself for him (2:20), and who would have died for nothing if righteousness could come through the law (2:21). The phrase 'the Son of God' in 2:20 and 1:16 unites his divine identity with his saving work. Paul does not argue from a theory about the law first; he starts from the person of Christ and his cross.

The passage also bears on the Old Testament as fulfilment. Paul's claim that Christ gave himself to rescue us from the present evil age presupposes the Old Testament hope of the age to come, and his insistence that the law cannot give life prepares for his argument in chapter 3 that the law was given to point forward to Christ. The words about Christ giving himself for others echo the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:5-6, 10-12, a passage the New Testament applies to the death of Jesus (for example 1 Peter 2:24). Galatians does not quote Isaiah here, so this is an echo.

Finally, the cross is shown to be the basis of ethical life: to be crucified with Christ is to share his death to the old age and to live by his life. Union with the crucified Lord is Paul's account of what it means to be a Christian.